For one week, the world stood seconds from nuclear war.
Bestselling author Jeff Shaara joins Why Wars Happened to expose the CIA failures, backchannel deals, and hidden plots that defined the Cuban Missile Crisis — the closest we’ve ever come to the end.
⏱ Timestamps
00:00 – Welcome to Why Wars Happened
00:46 – Meet Jeff Shaara (The Shadow of War)
03:32 – The Bay of Pigs: Prelude to crisis
06:55 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins
09:06 – Cold War context & public fear
12:33 – Eisenhower vs. Kennedy
15:15 – Soviet dynamics after Stalin
17:43 – The “winnable war” perspective
18:08 – Khrushchev’s balancing act
19:02 – The aftermath
20:25 – Operation Mongoose (CIA plots)
22:49 – Berlin’s role in the Cold War
28:38 – The secret treaty revealed
30:01 – Closing thoughts
#CubanMissileCrisis #ColdWar #JFK #NuclearHistory #WhyWarsHappened
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