November 19, 2025 • 25 mins
How close did the USA come to a nuclear war with the USSR?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're tuned Evergreen Media Network.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I am Sidney Schwartz and this is our Veterans Sowys
Radio show in your roast Ralph Dathan Loco.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Hi, everybody. A quick question. Now you can't google and
you can't ask anybody what is the southeastern furthest point
in the United States? And what state is it? In?
Other in confusion? Key West, Florida? Right, yeah, Well have
(00:39):
you ever been to this Key West? Well, if you
go to Key West and you go to the tip
of Key West, you know there's big what do you
call pylons. Yeah, there's a big like a round cement
pylon and there's a plaque on it saying ninety miles
(00:59):
to Cuba. Patty, I cannot introduce you any better today
than that. Uh, Patty and I every month we discussed
what do we want to talk about that would be
of interest? Well, you know, we talk about one hundred,
two hundred, three hundred and fifty years ago whatever, but
we're going to talk about something that's sixty years ago,
(01:24):
sixty five years.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
So yeah, something right, and Patty, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
For taking the time. Yeah, I live through something you're
going to discuss and then we'll talk about it. So
go to it, my man, mister professor, I introduce everybody.
This is Patty Patty McAllister, my buddy.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I want the audience to close your eyes unless you're
driving your eyes open. Close your eye well just a moment, Okay,
we're going to have our fears run rampant. I want
you to ponder the question and how close did we
(02:03):
ever come to nuclear war with the Soviet Union? No, really,
let your fears run wild for a minute and really
imagine your worst case scenario and contemplate how close did
we ever actually get to dropping the bomb.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
In the consequences of it.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Got your worst case estimate ready, I'm sorry to tell
you this, but it was way closer than that. And
here's the really, really scary. In the best tradition of
the nineteen eighties action adventure movies, the world probably owes
(02:53):
its existence to one his heroic man. One one mid
level naval officer nowhere near the seats of power in Washington,
DC and Moscow, one guy who kept his head and
(03:14):
probably spared us all from nuclear armageddon. What the guy
didn't know at the time was that on the same
day he was keeping a submarine captain from launching a
nuclear torpedo at American shift. A Soviet surface to air
(03:37):
missile crew had killed an American pilot over the tensest
place on Earth at that moment. And if that wasn't,
if that wasn't a devil's brew for war enough, another
American pilot on an unrelated mission some seven thousand miles away,
(04:02):
accidentally flew a spyplane over the Soviet Union while the
Strategic Air Command was at deaf Con two, the last
step before launching nukes. The rest of the US military
was at deaf Con three, but the Strategic Air Command
(04:23):
they were at deaf Con two. The Soviet military was
at its highest combat readiness level. I cannot pronounce the words,
so I'm not going to try. I'm just going to
use the initials PBG. That guy was Vasili Alexandrovich art Kaipov.
(04:47):
He happened to be on the fox Front class submarine
D fifty nine at the right moment in history to
stop the captain who I'm not going to name, from
launching a T five nuclear torpedo on October twenty seventh,
(05:08):
nineteen sixty two. If the captain had launched a nuclear
torpedo that had killed American sailors, it would have almost
guaranteed a nuclear war. And yes, for those history buffs
out there, that was Black Saturday during the Cuban missile crisis.
(05:32):
Odds are good. You have walked around one of the
most important places associated with the Cuban missile crisis, one
of the front lines of the Cuban missile crisis. You
have probably walked right over the same ground that was
(05:58):
part of that event who knows how many times and
never noticed. And that's because you flew in and out
of Orlanto International Airport.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Wow so yeow wow.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Now row genius dot com reports that Orlando International Airport
processes more than fifty seven million air passengers processed more
than fifty seven million air passengers last year, and about
eighty eight percent of them are domestic travelers and twelve
percent are international. And it's a big airport too, It's
(06:39):
about eleven thousand, six hundred acres. That's the fourth largest
airport by area in the United States. And we all
know that a lot of those passengers are heading to
the fun and sun of the Central Florida tourism hub,
mainly Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando. Easy to forget now,
(07:05):
but was a time there wasn't an Orlando International Airport
or giant resorts nestled on Orlando's south side. Before then,
there was the Orlando Jet Jetport at McCoy, and it
shared space with the Air Force. Or rather, McCoy Air
(07:30):
Force Base opened some of its space for civilian operations
in nineteen sixty two, and that was because the Orlando
Municipal Airport was too small for the new generation of
passenger jets, the Boeing seven oh seven. When the Orlando
Jetport opened, it used a former missile storage hangar for
(07:55):
its terminal. Imagine that. I wonder how many of those
passengers were walking through that old nuclear missile storage facility
knowing it at all. Anyhow, Mission three oh one, Mission
(08:15):
three oh one. It was probably a quiet Sunday morning
at McCoy Air Force Base on October fourteen, nineteen sixty two,
Central Florida folks were bad at the church when Major
Richard Heisser landed his Lockheed Martin U two Dragon Lady
(08:40):
at McCoy. He was completing Mission three oh one, a
photographic surveillance flight over Cuba. It's spent about six minutes
in Cuban airspace that morning. Now, Heiser was a Florida
boy through and through. He was born in Apple Tacola
(09:00):
in nineteen twenty seven and he died in Port Saint
Joe in two thousand and eight. That morning, he'd flown
out of Edwards Air Force Base in California, or rather
the night before, so he was probably feeling happy to
be back home in Florida after a seven hour flight.
(09:21):
The film from Heisser's flight was whisked right over to
another plane that was waiting and flown from McCoy to Washington, DC.
That film was going straight to the National Photographic Interpretation Center.
The NPIIC looked over the about nine hundred and thirty
(09:43):
photos Heiser took, and by noon that Sunday, the text
spotted the R twelve. The Venus NATO called that missile
the SS four vandal. The cross checking and the consulting began.
(10:03):
By the evening of Monday, October fifteen, the CIA was
contacting all the heavy hitters at state and defense departments.
There were Soviet metium range nukes in Cuba. Now, that
didn't come as a huge shocker at the time. The
(10:25):
second largest CIA facility in the world. Well next to
Langley was JM Wave or the JM Wave, and it
was home to Task Force W By the way, if
you're trying to work out the acronym JMWAVEE, it's not
an acronym, it's a kryptonym. But we now know the
(10:50):
JM meant Cuba and the wave meant South Florida. So
JM Wave was set up at the form Richmond Naval
Air Station near Miami, which is now part of the
University of Miami Campuses by the way, and estimated three
(11:10):
to four hundred CIA operatives worked with about fifteen thousand
Cuban exiles to gather secondhand intelligence from the island nation
In nineteen sixty two, the exiles were telling the CIA
stories about friends and family members in Cuba. Seeing a
(11:31):
lot of obvious non Cubans doing something big on the
island and often at night. Didn't take a whole lot
of imagination to figure out what that might be. National
Security Advisor McGeorge mac bundy decided to tell the President
(11:53):
John F. Kennedy the next morning, October sixteen Tuesday. The
next thirteen days October sixteen to twenty eight nineteen sixty
two would become the most dangerous two weeks in world history,
and McCoy Air Force Base in Orlando now Orlando International Airport,
(12:17):
played a pivotal role from the beginning.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Just set up here, Yeah, I never knew that.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, what a perfect.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Time for break, because now everybody's gonna go thank god
they didn't do it. So we're going to take a
short break our Veterans' Voice radio. Will we come back?
Will you're the rest of the story, We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I'm doctor Tim Iinitas at Treasure Coast Dermatology. At Treasure
Coast Dermatology, we believe in the prevention and early detection
of skin cancer. We are medical doctors and we focus
on the medical aspects of dermatology. You don't need a
sales pitch for botox, collegeen or wrinkle creams. You needed
a doctor that cares about you and the health of
your skin. We feel by not trying to do too much,
(13:02):
we can do more for our patients. Paul Tolfree eight
seven seven eight seven zero dirm that's eight seven seven
eight seven zero three three seven six.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Meet Henry Bach, patient of Florida I Institute.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
After having the cataracts removed. It was a whole new
world for me. The colors were brilliant, it was painless.
It could almost like being born all over again. What
I'm coming here is like coming home. Everyone's so friendly
and nice. It's just a wonderful experience.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Are you ready to experience truly exceptional patient care?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Florida I Institute. Hey, did you hear the latest about
our Florida High Woman? No? What? There's a new High
Woman art gallery in Vero Beach. Really where eighteen seventy
two Commerce Avenu?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Wow? When's it open?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Seven days a week called nine five four five five
seven six two two six. Appointment to any time? No
kidd it just call for your appointment nine five four
five five seven six two to six and then go
to eighteen seventy two Commerce Avenue.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Wow, that's good news.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
A member of the itex trading community, Your I text
dollars are welcome.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Wake up, wake up?
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Yeah, welcome back to arbur Ourn's Worst radio show and
Ralph nanthan Iko Paddy.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
I just googled to check. Uh, do you know what
year Disney World opened in Florida?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Seventy one?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Perfect nine, nine years after dismissive crist Yeah, that's crazy really,
But I just want to make everybody aware that you
tube plane, that the two planes that we're talking about,
those were like black, sleek, very slick, huge planes that
(14:56):
I think could go like thirty forty thousand feet above,
way above almost any other plane at the time. And
there are a lot of controversies with them. We had
lost one of our planes was shot down over Russia,
a YouTube plane. And but what I was when you
were talking about that, by the way, you know, the
one thing what happens when people when a gas station
(15:18):
closes up in the in the local area, Well, before
you can build anything, you got to dig up all
the gas tanks.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Now you do.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Yeah. At the point is I'm wondering what contamination did
they or did they not eliminate when they were remodeling
and building the Orlando International Airport. You know, you were
talking about the hangar, and it'd be interesting to find
out that maybe.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Not or maybe right, I'm thinking maybe not.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I'm thinking the love canal maybe not.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, sometimes the thing Yeah that's out.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah, that's out of my wheelhouse.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yeah, well, let's get back into your wheelhouse.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Well, the day before Heiser arrived at McCoy, a fellow
named Major Rudolph Rudy Anderson had landed there, and the
two of them would switch back and forth flying out
of Orlanto over Cuba for the next couple of weeks.
(16:18):
They'd be joined by other reconnaissance plane pilots. The U
two's were not the only reconplants taking photos of Cuba
at the time. In addition to flying out of McCoy,
there were also a couple of utubs placed over at
the Orlanto Air Force Base which is now the Baldwin
(16:39):
Park area. And as some listeners already know, Anderson wouldn't
survive the Cuban Missile Crisis. He flew out of McCoy
and was shot down over Cuba on Black Saturday, October
twenty seventh, nineteen sixty two. He'd be the only fatality
(17:03):
in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and he was the first
airman to receive the Air Force Cross, albeit posthumously. The
two men were in the forty eightieth Strategic Reconnaissance Wing,
which was based in Lachlan Air Force Base in Texas.
But then after Heisser's first flight, something strange happened. The
(17:28):
Strategic Air Command started to withdraw planes out of McCoy.
They were taking the B fifty twos out, and folks
around Orlando started noticing troop transport planes landing at McCoy,
along with a couple of U two's that people were seeing.
(17:49):
And then a military tent city started springing up there.
But the Colonial Plaza. Anyone who's lived in Orlando knows
all about Colonel Plaza. The Colonial Plaza had just gotten
a major makeover and was reopening as an enclosed, air
conditioned mall with a Jordan marsh and it was. It
(18:11):
was the largest indoor mall in Florida at the time.
So that was really the talk on everybody's lips except
for this guy named Charlie What's Work. He was a
reporter over at the Orlando Sentinel, and he got wind
that not only were people seeing a military bill up
(18:35):
happening at McCoy, but those rare U two's were flying
in and out an awful lot. So he called sources
at the base. They were giving him nothing, but he
reported what he could and he was probably breaking the
story of the century without even knowing it. McCoy would
(18:58):
eventually get about five thousand Army and some Marine Corps troops.
Most of them were from the Army's first Armored and
eighty second Airborne Divisions, and they weren't alone. Floridians were
noticing what would grow to be at least and there
(19:22):
are some questions about the actual numbers, and I suspect
I know why, but Floridians were noticing that at least
about forty thousand Army and Marine Corps troops were moving
into the state, and most were spread between Homestead, McDill
(19:44):
and McCoy Air Force bases, along with some at Naval
Station Key West. They've become part of Task Force one
twenty two, the Joint Service Contingency Force set up an
invasion of Cuba if needed, and Task Force one twenty
(20:06):
two was officially established on October twenty second. But Wadsworth
and others noticed that the three fifty fourth Tactical Air
Wing had deployed four squadrons to McCoy, So there were
about seventy to one hundred fighter jets coming in, mostly
(20:26):
the F one hundred Super Savers and a lot of
fighter jets. A lot of fighter jets was a really
unusual site at a strategic Air Command base there were all.
There were also the RF one oh one Voodoo low
altitude reconnaissance jets showing up at McCoy. At McDill Air
(20:48):
Force Base in nearby Tampa. There was also a swell
of the F one hundreds as the twenty seventh Tactical
Fighter Wing temporarily relocated from New Mexico to join the
twelfth and fifteenth Tactical Wings already there, and according to
historian Edward T. Russell, the Tactical Air Command presence in
(21:12):
Florida had increased from about one hundred and forty fighters
to five hundred and eleven, along with seventy two reconnaissance
aircraft and forty tankers. In the inventory of possibilities about
why the military was moving so many troops, fighter jets,
and U two's into McCoy and all over the state,
(21:35):
there was really only one answer that made any sense.
There was a coming war with or in Cuba, so
something that big was really hard to hide. Even in
(21:55):
the analog early nineteen sixties, the word was seeping out
and reporters were poking around Washington, d c. And Florida.
So on October twenty second, President John F. Kennedy came
onto Americans TVs to tell them there were Soviet missiles
(22:16):
in Cuba and the nation was taking action. The next day,
the Organization of American States unanimously supported a naval blockade
of Cuba, which they called a quarantine because use of
the word blockade was essentially admitting to an act of war.
(22:37):
So THEAS unanimously supported a naval quarantine of Cuba to
prevent more Soviet nukes from reaching the island. And in
that television address, John F. Kennedy named several locations under threat.
He said the metium range nuclear missiles in Cuba could
(22:59):
reach from Some Bay, Canada, to Lema, Peru, to all
of Central America and the Caribbean. And he gave only
two specific threatened sites in the United States, Washington, d C.
And Cape Canaveral that indicated Florida was indeed the front
(23:20):
line of a possible coming war.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And you know on this radio show there are three people,
one of whom won one third of the of the
cast here today actually lived through the Cuban missile crisis,
and that is Ralph.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, I remember it.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
We're probably coming up on a break when we come
back and kind of tell us a little bit about
what you remember.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Yeah, I think more than a couple of seconds. So
with I was born in nineteen forty five, nineteen sixty two.
I'm seventeen and a half going on eighteen in January,
and I remember when we're eighteen or seventeen, until we're
about early twenties, we know everything. We are the smartest
(24:14):
people on earth. But yet I think we're very perceptive.
We're more receptive to hearing things and kind of catapulting
it into what could it really be? So and that's
what's the young You know, the people of that age
now today are much smarter than we were then, and
they can see what's going on today. So let's take
(24:35):
the break. What I'd like to do is give you
all the respect. You're doing one hell of a show.
I mean, really, you're building it up to an absolutely
fantastic pressenda, and then let's talk about it if we
had time, and I'd love to share it with you.
And by the way, everybody, this is not scripted. Patty
(24:55):
mentioned it to me, but we'll be back. This is
our Veterans Voice Radio on the Big TA
You're tuned Evergreen Media Network.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I am Sidney Schwartz and this is our Veterans Sowys
Radio show in your roast Ralph Dathan Loco.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Hi, everybody. A quick question. Now you can't google and
you can't ask anybody what is the southeastern furthest point
in the United States? And what state is it? In?
Other in confusion? Key West, Florida? Right, yeah, Well have
(00:39):
you ever been to this Key West? Well, if you
go to Key West and you go to the tip
of Key West, you know there's big what do you
call pylons. Yeah, there's a big like a round cement
pylon and there's a plaque on it saying ninety miles
(00:59):
to Cuba. Patty, I cannot introduce you any better today
than that. Uh, Patty and I every month we discussed
what do we want to talk about that would be
of interest? Well, you know, we talk about one hundred,
two hundred, three hundred and fifty years ago whatever, but
we're going to talk about something that's sixty years ago,
(01:24):
sixty five years.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
So yeah, something right, and Patty, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
For taking the time. Yeah, I live through something you're
going to discuss and then we'll talk about it. So
go to it, my man, mister professor, I introduce everybody.
This is Patty Patty McAllister, my buddy.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I want the audience to close your eyes unless you're
driving your eyes open. Close your eye well just a moment, Okay,
we're going to have our fears run rampant. I want
you to ponder the question and how close did we
(02:03):
ever come to nuclear war with the Soviet Union? No, really,
let your fears run wild for a minute and really
imagine your worst case scenario and contemplate how close did
we ever actually get to dropping the bomb.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
In the consequences of it.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Got your worst case estimate ready, I'm sorry to tell
you this, but it was way closer than that. And
here's the really, really scary. In the best tradition of
the nineteen eighties action adventure movies, the world probably owes
(02:53):
its existence to one his heroic man. One one mid
level naval officer nowhere near the seats of power in Washington,
DC and Moscow, one guy who kept his head and
(03:14):
probably spared us all from nuclear armageddon. What the guy
didn't know at the time was that on the same
day he was keeping a submarine captain from launching a
nuclear torpedo at American shift. A Soviet surface to air
(03:37):
missile crew had killed an American pilot over the tensest
place on Earth at that moment. And if that wasn't,
if that wasn't a devil's brew for war enough, another
American pilot on an unrelated mission some seven thousand miles away,
(04:02):
accidentally flew a spyplane over the Soviet Union while the
Strategic Air Command was at deaf Con two, the last
step before launching nukes. The rest of the US military
was at deaf Con three, but the Strategic Air Command
(04:23):
they were at deaf Con two. The Soviet military was
at its highest combat readiness level. I cannot pronounce the words,
so I'm not going to try. I'm just going to
use the initials PBG. That guy was Vasili Alexandrovich art Kaipov.
(04:47):
He happened to be on the fox Front class submarine
D fifty nine at the right moment in history to
stop the captain who I'm not going to name, from
launching a T five nuclear torpedo on October twenty seventh,
(05:08):
nineteen sixty two. If the captain had launched a nuclear
torpedo that had killed American sailors, it would have almost
guaranteed a nuclear war. And yes, for those history buffs
out there, that was Black Saturday during the Cuban missile crisis.
(05:32):
Odds are good. You have walked around one of the
most important places associated with the Cuban missile crisis, one
of the front lines of the Cuban missile crisis. You
have probably walked right over the same ground that was
(05:58):
part of that event who knows how many times and
never noticed. And that's because you flew in and out
of Orlanto International Airport.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Wow so yeow wow.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Now row genius dot com reports that Orlando International Airport
processes more than fifty seven million air passengers processed more
than fifty seven million air passengers last year, and about
eighty eight percent of them are domestic travelers and twelve
percent are international. And it's a big airport too, It's
(06:39):
about eleven thousand, six hundred acres. That's the fourth largest
airport by area in the United States. And we all
know that a lot of those passengers are heading to
the fun and sun of the Central Florida tourism hub,
mainly Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando. Easy to forget now,
(07:05):
but was a time there wasn't an Orlando International Airport
or giant resorts nestled on Orlando's south side. Before then,
there was the Orlando Jet Jetport at McCoy, and it
shared space with the Air Force. Or rather, McCoy Air
(07:30):
Force Base opened some of its space for civilian operations
in nineteen sixty two, and that was because the Orlando
Municipal Airport was too small for the new generation of
passenger jets, the Boeing seven oh seven. When the Orlando
Jetport opened, it used a former missile storage hangar for
(07:55):
its terminal. Imagine that. I wonder how many of those
passengers were walking through that old nuclear missile storage facility
knowing it at all. Anyhow, Mission three oh one, Mission
(08:15):
three oh one. It was probably a quiet Sunday morning
at McCoy Air Force Base on October fourteen, nineteen sixty two,
Central Florida folks were bad at the church when Major
Richard Heisser landed his Lockheed Martin U two Dragon Lady
(08:40):
at McCoy. He was completing Mission three oh one, a
photographic surveillance flight over Cuba. It's spent about six minutes
in Cuban airspace that morning. Now, Heiser was a Florida
boy through and through. He was born in Apple Tacola
(09:00):
in nineteen twenty seven and he died in Port Saint
Joe in two thousand and eight. That morning, he'd flown
out of Edwards Air Force Base in California, or rather
the night before, so he was probably feeling happy to
be back home in Florida after a seven hour flight.
(09:21):
The film from Heisser's flight was whisked right over to
another plane that was waiting and flown from McCoy to Washington, DC.
That film was going straight to the National Photographic Interpretation Center.
The NPIIC looked over the about nine hundred and thirty
(09:43):
photos Heiser took, and by noon that Sunday, the text
spotted the R twelve. The Venus NATO called that missile
the SS four vandal. The cross checking and the consulting began.
(10:03):
By the evening of Monday, October fifteen, the CIA was
contacting all the heavy hitters at state and defense departments.
There were Soviet metium range nukes in Cuba. Now, that
didn't come as a huge shocker at the time. The
(10:25):
second largest CIA facility in the world. Well next to
Langley was JM Wave or the JM Wave, and it
was home to Task Force W By the way, if
you're trying to work out the acronym JMWAVEE, it's not
an acronym, it's a kryptonym. But we now know the
(10:50):
JM meant Cuba and the wave meant South Florida. So
JM Wave was set up at the form Richmond Naval
Air Station near Miami, which is now part of the
University of Miami Campuses by the way, and estimated three
(11:10):
to four hundred CIA operatives worked with about fifteen thousand
Cuban exiles to gather secondhand intelligence from the island nation
In nineteen sixty two, the exiles were telling the CIA
stories about friends and family members in Cuba. Seeing a
(11:31):
lot of obvious non Cubans doing something big on the
island and often at night. Didn't take a whole lot
of imagination to figure out what that might be. National
Security Advisor McGeorge mac bundy decided to tell the President
(11:53):
John F. Kennedy the next morning, October sixteen Tuesday. The
next thirteen days October sixteen to twenty eight nineteen sixty
two would become the most dangerous two weeks in world history,
and McCoy Air Force Base in Orlando now Orlando International Airport,
(12:17):
played a pivotal role from the beginning.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Just set up here, Yeah, I never knew that.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, what a perfect.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Time for break, because now everybody's gonna go thank god
they didn't do it. So we're going to take a
short break our Veterans' Voice radio. Will we come back?
Will you're the rest of the story, We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I'm doctor Tim Iinitas at Treasure Coast Dermatology. At Treasure
Coast Dermatology, we believe in the prevention and early detection
of skin cancer. We are medical doctors and we focus
on the medical aspects of dermatology. You don't need a
sales pitch for botox, collegeen or wrinkle creams. You needed
a doctor that cares about you and the health of
your skin. We feel by not trying to do too much,
(13:02):
we can do more for our patients. Paul Tolfree eight
seven seven eight seven zero dirm that's eight seven seven
eight seven zero three three seven six.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Meet Henry Bach, patient of Florida I Institute.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
After having the cataracts removed. It was a whole new
world for me. The colors were brilliant, it was painless.
It could almost like being born all over again. What
I'm coming here is like coming home. Everyone's so friendly
and nice. It's just a wonderful experience.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Are you ready to experience truly exceptional patient care?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Florida I Institute. Hey, did you hear the latest about
our Florida High Woman? No? What? There's a new High
Woman art gallery in Vero Beach. Really where eighteen seventy
two Commerce Avenu?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Wow? When's it open?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Seven days a week called nine five four five five
seven six two two six. Appointment to any time? No
kidd it just call for your appointment nine five four
five five seven six two to six and then go
to eighteen seventy two Commerce Avenue.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Wow, that's good news.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
A member of the itex trading community, Your I text
dollars are welcome.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Wake up, wake up?
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Yeah, welcome back to arbur Ourn's Worst radio show and
Ralph nanthan Iko Paddy.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
I just googled to check. Uh, do you know what
year Disney World opened in Florida?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Seventy one?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Perfect nine, nine years after dismissive crist Yeah, that's crazy really,
But I just want to make everybody aware that you
tube plane, that the two planes that we're talking about,
those were like black, sleek, very slick, huge planes that
(14:56):
I think could go like thirty forty thousand feet above,
way above almost any other plane at the time. And
there are a lot of controversies with them. We had
lost one of our planes was shot down over Russia,
a YouTube plane. And but what I was when you
were talking about that, by the way, you know, the
one thing what happens when people when a gas station
(15:18):
closes up in the in the local area, Well, before
you can build anything, you got to dig up all
the gas tanks.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Now you do.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Yeah. At the point is I'm wondering what contamination did
they or did they not eliminate when they were remodeling
and building the Orlando International Airport. You know, you were
talking about the hangar, and it'd be interesting to find
out that maybe.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Not or maybe right, I'm thinking maybe not.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I'm thinking the love canal maybe not.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, sometimes the thing Yeah that's out.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah, that's out of my wheelhouse.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yeah, well, let's get back into your wheelhouse.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Well, the day before Heiser arrived at McCoy, a fellow
named Major Rudolph Rudy Anderson had landed there, and the
two of them would switch back and forth flying out
of Orlanto over Cuba for the next couple of weeks.
(16:18):
They'd be joined by other reconnaissance plane pilots. The U
two's were not the only reconplants taking photos of Cuba
at the time. In addition to flying out of McCoy,
there were also a couple of utubs placed over at
the Orlanto Air Force Base which is now the Baldwin
(16:39):
Park area. And as some listeners already know, Anderson wouldn't
survive the Cuban Missile Crisis. He flew out of McCoy
and was shot down over Cuba on Black Saturday, October
twenty seventh, nineteen sixty two. He'd be the only fatality
(17:03):
in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and he was the first
airman to receive the Air Force Cross, albeit posthumously. The
two men were in the forty eightieth Strategic Reconnaissance Wing,
which was based in Lachlan Air Force Base in Texas.
But then after Heisser's first flight, something strange happened. The
(17:28):
Strategic Air Command started to withdraw planes out of McCoy.
They were taking the B fifty twos out, and folks
around Orlando started noticing troop transport planes landing at McCoy,
along with a couple of U two's that people were seeing.
(17:49):
And then a military tent city started springing up there.
But the Colonial Plaza. Anyone who's lived in Orlando knows
all about Colonel Plaza. The Colonial Plaza had just gotten
a major makeover and was reopening as an enclosed, air
conditioned mall with a Jordan marsh and it was. It
(18:11):
was the largest indoor mall in Florida at the time.
So that was really the talk on everybody's lips except
for this guy named Charlie What's Work. He was a
reporter over at the Orlando Sentinel, and he got wind
that not only were people seeing a military bill up
(18:35):
happening at McCoy, but those rare U two's were flying
in and out an awful lot. So he called sources
at the base. They were giving him nothing, but he
reported what he could and he was probably breaking the
story of the century without even knowing it. McCoy would
(18:58):
eventually get about five thousand Army and some Marine Corps troops.
Most of them were from the Army's first Armored and
eighty second Airborne Divisions, and they weren't alone. Floridians were
noticing what would grow to be at least and there
(19:22):
are some questions about the actual numbers, and I suspect
I know why, but Floridians were noticing that at least
about forty thousand Army and Marine Corps troops were moving
into the state, and most were spread between Homestead, McDill
(19:44):
and McCoy Air Force bases, along with some at Naval
Station Key West. They've become part of Task Force one
twenty two, the Joint Service Contingency Force set up an
invasion of Cuba if needed, and Task Force one twenty
(20:06):
two was officially established on October twenty second. But Wadsworth
and others noticed that the three fifty fourth Tactical Air
Wing had deployed four squadrons to McCoy, So there were
about seventy to one hundred fighter jets coming in, mostly
(20:26):
the F one hundred Super Savers and a lot of
fighter jets. A lot of fighter jets was a really
unusual site at a strategic Air Command base there were all.
There were also the RF one oh one Voodoo low
altitude reconnaissance jets showing up at McCoy. At McDill Air
(20:48):
Force Base in nearby Tampa. There was also a swell
of the F one hundreds as the twenty seventh Tactical
Fighter Wing temporarily relocated from New Mexico to join the
twelfth and fifteenth Tactical Wings already there, and according to
historian Edward T. Russell, the Tactical Air Command presence in
(21:12):
Florida had increased from about one hundred and forty fighters
to five hundred and eleven, along with seventy two reconnaissance
aircraft and forty tankers. In the inventory of possibilities about
why the military was moving so many troops, fighter jets,
and U two's into McCoy and all over the state,
(21:35):
there was really only one answer that made any sense.
There was a coming war with or in Cuba, so
something that big was really hard to hide. Even in
(21:55):
the analog early nineteen sixties, the word was seeping out
and reporters were poking around Washington, d c. And Florida.
So on October twenty second, President John F. Kennedy came
onto Americans TVs to tell them there were Soviet missiles
(22:16):
in Cuba and the nation was taking action. The next day,
the Organization of American States unanimously supported a naval blockade
of Cuba, which they called a quarantine because use of
the word blockade was essentially admitting to an act of war.
(22:37):
So THEAS unanimously supported a naval quarantine of Cuba to
prevent more Soviet nukes from reaching the island. And in
that television address, John F. Kennedy named several locations under threat.
He said the metium range nuclear missiles in Cuba could
(22:59):
reach from Some Bay, Canada, to Lema, Peru, to all
of Central America and the Caribbean. And he gave only
two specific threatened sites in the United States, Washington, d C.
And Cape Canaveral that indicated Florida was indeed the front
(23:20):
line of a possible coming war.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And you know on this radio show there are three people,
one of whom won one third of the of the
cast here today actually lived through the Cuban missile crisis,
and that is Ralph.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, I remember it.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
We're probably coming up on a break when we come
back and kind of tell us a little bit about
what you remember.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Yeah, I think more than a couple of seconds. So
with I was born in nineteen forty five, nineteen sixty two.
I'm seventeen and a half going on eighteen in January,
and I remember when we're eighteen or seventeen, until we're
about early twenties, we know everything. We are the smartest
(24:14):
people on earth. But yet I think we're very perceptive.
We're more receptive to hearing things and kind of catapulting
it into what could it really be? So and that's
what's the young You know, the people of that age
now today are much smarter than we were then, and
they can see what's going on today. So let's take
(24:35):
the break. What I'd like to do is give you
all the respect. You're doing one hell of a show.
I mean, really, you're building it up to an absolutely
fantastic pressenda, and then let's talk about it if we
had time, and I'd love to share it with you.
And by the way, everybody, this is not scripted. Patty
(24:55):
mentioned it to me, but we'll be back. This is
our Veterans Voice Radio on the Big TA
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