The Day Britain Was 15 Minutes From Triggering Armageddon ; Told for the First Time, the Full Story of How Britain's Nuclear Came Within an Ace of Attacking Moscow

Summary

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THE Cold War was at its icy height. Mini-skirts and Beatlemania were still a year away, but on London's streets the autumn of 1962 was marked by thousands of militant Ban the Bomb supporters marching behind the bristling banners of the newly formed Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Yet unbeknown to them, as darkness fell over the capital on Friday, October 26, the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was waiting for a call from the American President which could have led to Armageddon. When the hotline call eventually came, the ten- minute conversation between the two men was cordial. From the tone of the two leaders' voices, there was little to suggest that the world was on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe.

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The Day Britain Was 15 Minutes From Triggering Armageddon ; Told for the First Time, the Full Story of How Britain's Nuclear Came Within an Ace of Attacking Moscow

'I will talk to you again before we do anything of a drastic nature,' promised the 45-year-old John F.

Kennedy courteously, before bidding goodnight.

'Well, thank you,' responded Macmillan over the crackly line in the rich, plummy tones of an English aristocrat. 'I will be here, so you can get me at any time today, tomorrow or Sunday.' Almost 46 years ago, a nerve-wracking stand-off was under way between the world's two superpowers, America and Russia. The U.S. had discovered that Soviet nuclear missile bases were being built in Cuba, run by the Communist Fidel Castro, just 100 miles from the U.S. coastline o...

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