The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis with Sir Max Hastings

[@mikkoveijalainen7430]

Always a pleasure to hear Max Hastings.

[@HalfLifeExpert1]

I'm a Cuban Missile Crisis geek, and I look forward to Hasting's new book. Thank you for doing this interview!

[@ColdWarConversations]

Thanks for listening. We have some other Cuban themed episodes here. coldwarconversations.com/tag/cuba/

[@lw3646]

Looking forward to reading this.

[@parkerrose3590]

I'm obsessed with the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was 11 years old when it happened.

[@leeweisbecker2213]

it's a myth that local soviet commanders could make unilateral decisions to use nukes

[@antonpotgieter2710]

I have listened to a number of episodes on this channel of late, and they have all been excellent - your talk with Brian Morra in particular. But this one I couldn't even make to the end. Max Hastings simplifying things down to 'they were nutters', bringing up anecdotes/myths morphs this interview into little more than rhetoric and rambling - the lesson is 'be afraid.' And Khruschev's motivation was 'to put a hedgehog down Uncle Sam's pants'? I stopped listening at that point. I don't suppose the deployment of Jupiter missiles in Turkey gets a mention?

[@carlosvasquez9890]

Man, I know you have to keep the channel going...but...advertisement every 5 minutes is making the thing unwatchable.

[@timoakes450]

Sir Max - RULES OK

[@leoamery]

ABYSS is a poor book, a sign of Hastings's declining powers. This podcast reflects this decline. Hastings is unaware of the contrast between the (often correct) disdain for America's leadership and the not quite idolatrous admiration for John Kennedy. This admiration is grossly overdone. Start with Hastings's denunciation of Maxwell Taylor. Who nominated Taylor to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs? Why Kennedy did. Nor did he can Taylor after the Crisis ended. What impressed Kennedy about Taylor? Taylor's war record helped, but far greater was Taylor's 1959 book, THE UNCERTAIN TRUMPET, which savaged Eisenhower's defense policy. The nominal author of PROFILES IN COURAGE looked at the true author of THE UNCERTAIN TRUMPET, liked what he saw, and recalled Taylor from retirement. Not satisfied with his wretched performance during the Crisis, Taylor persuaded Lyndon Johnson to send Taylor to South Vietnam as the American ambassador, where he continued to perform badly. This, not the stories of feckless Cuban slave laborers installing the missiles, is what ABYSS needed. Time for Hastings to put down his pen, before Hastings does more damage to his stellar reputation.

[@grayflaneur4854]

Hastings at the beginning brings up Putin and throws the current Ukraine matter solely at his feet. Ignoring the West's provocations between 2014 and 2022 in Ukraine and their earlier actions with NATO's expansion just ends any interest in this episode. Biden, etal have a lot to answer for. If Hastings can miss the obvious in current events, I dont see his input in the events of 1962 being worthwhile.