American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 35.2 John F Kennedy

Episode Date: February 13, 2022

Using all the silver spoons, Jack has become president. But now what? Will he use his powers of mediocracy for good? Find out!

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, John F. Kennedy, part two. Hello, and welcome to American President's Totalus Rankium. I am Jamie. And I'm Rob Ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Biden. And this is episode 35.2. It's the second part of JFK. Ah, brilliant. I can't wait to find out what happens. Anything could happen, Jamie. Anything. I'm hoping nice long retirement. I think so. That anything. I'm hoping nice long retirement. I think so, yeah.

That's what I'm guessing. Yeah, but before we start, before we finally get JFK done, birthday shout-out to one of our listeners, listener Chris. Oh, Jamie's just got something. There we go. Penny! Penny! play that on the penny whistle do you do it to your class i can't play on the penny whistle none of that sounded anything like the notes i just did the rhythm with my mouth it sounded beautiful to me jamie well of course yeah yeah but any music you play always does apart from that old keyboard i threw that away yeah i know i'm still very sad about that anyway right we're getting very

distracted happy birthday chris um what about listeners and uh yes your your partner jessica got in contact with us to let us know it was his birthday and they're both huge fans of the show and uh yeah so this is a birthday shout out. A little bit belated. A little bit. It was his birthday like a week ago or so. When this comes out. I think it was his birthday three days ago of time of recording. Okay. That's good.

Well, I hope you had a good birthday, Chris. And I hope you got lots of amazing things. And here's our birthday present to you. That's right. Yes. It's an introduction to JFK. Part two. And this doesn't happen every week.

No. No. We didn't do them in the first episode, remember? No, that's true. Yeah. An old guitar resting against a wall with cobwebs. You know, one cobweb leading from the head to the body. Nice. Very dusty.

Then you just hear these footsteps walking on a wooden floor. Nice. And a hand, like an an aged hand grabs the guitar neck and picks it up okay oh that's that's quite nice yeah and pan keep panning with oh we're back with panning jeremy it's so exciting keep panning along uh with that hand with the guitar and it moves quite swiftly it pans in like a circular motion uh around the room following this guitar and the guitar then gets put down again and lent against the wall an opposite wall and then where the guitar used to be is a guitar case which is then

placed against the wall and you're thinking oh someone's just about to put their guitar away and then it comes out a bit you can only see the back of this guy's head and body as he's fiddling around with the guitar case. You can't see anything. He opens the guitar case, and then he walks towards the window in the corner of the room, and it's only then you realise that there's no guitar in that guitar case, Jamie. No.

But a gun. Why would there be a gun in a JFK episode? I don't know. I don't know. Not any wars? Yeah. And then whoever this guy is peering out of the window really seriously suddenly turns around, does two finger guns at the camera, winks and says, JFK part two.

I like the way they went from artistic sapien to goonies at the end. That's quite nice. Yeah. So there you go. That's our introduction to JFK. But we're not, as you could probably guess, that's going to happen towards the end of this episode. But we're not there yet.

We're not there. No. At the end of the last episode, he became president, didn't he? Probably. Yes, it was a tight race, far tighter than he expected it to be against Nixon, because who liked Nixon? Turned out quite a lot of people. But was a tight race, far tighter than he expected it to be against Nixon, because who liked Nixon?

Turned out quite a lot of people. But he wins the presidency, and the election had really taken its toll. Remember, his health is really causing him problems. Did he have back problems? Oh, he had all sorts, remember. It's like, seriously, in and out of hospital. They couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with him. He was on lots of steroids throughout his life, various other things.

That's not going to help. Oh, no, no. The treatment was as bad as the cure, according to some historians. Yeah, he's in a very bad way. So for a while, he thought he was going to have to just take a break. The election's done him in, and he's going to have to take a break. But obviously, when you've just been elected to be president, it's not really a time to take a break. And soon, when you've just been elected to be president, it's not really a time to take a break.

And soon there were lots of people pressuring him for favours. Let me have this job. And have you thought about maybe putting me into this department? That seems to always happen, doesn't it? Every president. Oh, yeah, yeah. The leeches crawling out. Yeah, it happens every single time.

Sucking on the president. Not that kind of favours, Jamie. Kennedy himself said, Jesus Christ, this one wants that, that one this. I don't know what I'm going to do about it. Just be the grown-up and say no. Cheery words. Cheery words from the president-elect here.

His father, Joe Senior, remember, over-dominating Joe, replied that he didn't need to take the job. They're still counting the votes, technically. You could just concede defeat. I mean, obviously that wasn't a real option, because Kennedy had

obviously won, but it did sort of snap Kennedy out of it. It's like, well, now I've got to do it, haven't I? Obviously. It's like when you've got a kid, it's like, oh, I don't want this chocolate bar. We'll put the chocolate bar, then you won't get a chocolate bar. Well, I hold my breath go on then we'll see who wins because i'm still breathing yeah things like that yeah yeah anyway uh there was one favor he couldn't

ignore however and that was one from his father his father's favor was make your younger brother bobby the attorney general yeah yeah that was a wince there on your face. Yeah, it was. Yes, don't worry, the nepotism is writ large already. A lot of people in Washington are not happy about this. Bobby Kennedy, the kid, is now in charge of the legal system of the United States. By the way... Sounds a little bit like nepotism.

Yeah, he has no experience in this field whatsoever I guess it's like most politicians become ahead of something they have no experience in it generally they're just there because it's their new job yeah but you'd like to think that at least a lawyer would be in charge of the legal system well

if not a judge or someone but no no the vice president Johnson was hopeful kennedy would not be led around by that and i quote little fart that was johnson's nickname for bobby uh remember eisenhower had a similar nickname for bobby that i told you about in the last episode which was that little yeah but bobby not not particularlyliked in the circles in Washington. It's weird, actually, because the Kennedys are sort of held up as very favourable, but... With the public.

With the public. Oh, OK. There's a lot of people who've worked very hard to get to positions where they are in Washington. And the Kennedy boys have just been ushered in by their daddy wafting all the money around. Anyway, it soon became very clear that Bobby was going to become Kennedy's right-hand man. If you wanted to talk to Kennedy, you've got to get Bobby on side first.

Now, unlike Eisenhower, Kennedy didn't rely on his cabinet heads too much. He preferred to use a small number of advisers in the White House. His cabinet selection was designed to keep all wings of the party happy. Once he put this cabinet together, he starts working on his inauguration speech. Hey. Yeah. Now, his presidency was going to be the dawn of a new era for America, the next generation.

Oh, they always say that. But, I mean, kind of got a point here. They've just had some very old, tired men for a while, and here's young Kennedy. Yeah. Voice of the future. He was born this century, don't you know? That's a very good point.

Yeah. So, I mean, there you go. That's exciting, isn't it? So this speech had to be good. It had to, like, be one of those speeches that go down in history good, if he's really going to impress people. Starts off with, all right. I suppose I'll do it.

Well, actually, no, he did it. He did. He made a really good speech. He talked about the challenges the country faced, the threat from Russia, the problem with civil rights. But at the same time, he kept it positive, urging patience. I'll quote here, all of this will not be accomplished in the first 100 days,

nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor will it be finished in the life of this administration, nor perhaps in the lifetime of this planet. This job will never be done. Sorry, sorry, I misspoke there. Not the lifetime of the planet, nor perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. Oh, I was going to say. It's slightly different. We might not get it done before the sun expands and burns the atmosphere away from the planet five billion years but let us begin so my fellow americans ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country i believe you said it in that accent as well.

Yeah, I was going to say. I like that. I think he went all Churchill-y in there. I think so, yeah. He added a bit of a prav-prav-prav at the end. Prav-prav-prav-prav. Yeah. Country.

Yeah, the speech hit all the right notes. Kennedy enjoyed an approval rating of over 75% despite his very narrow victory that long before. That is unbelievable. Yeah, nowadays in American politics, the idea of a president getting 75%, yeah. If he hits 40%, he's doing well. If only a slim majority of the entire population of your country despise you,

then you're doing quite well. But no, no, 75% thought he was doing a good job before he'd actually started. Well, good speech, good speech, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, no, 75% thought he was doing a good job before he'd actually started. Well, good speech, good speech, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, probably gave himself a high five and a pat on the back, and he sets off to run the country.

What's on the agenda, he asks? Russia. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Now, a while ago since we recorded it, but if you remember the end of Eisenhower's episode, there was a U-2 plane shot down over Russia during the election.

Yeah. Yeah. And Russia were not best pleased about this. So this needed to be fixed. Soviet leader Khrushchev had no desire for a hardline anti-Russian like Nixon to be in charge. So he was actually more than happy to show the world that relations between the United States and the USSR could be eased with the likes of Kennedy in charge. That's good. So because of this, they released the pilots. Hooray. Yeah. Yeah. Kennedy received another boost in popularity.

There you go. He's brought our men home. Hooray! He's doing a good job. Yeah, this brief honeymoon in the Cold War is not going to last, as I'm sure you're aware. Yeah, yeah. Yes, a plan from the old administration reared its head almost immediately. The CIA had come up with a plan to assure the US dominance on the Western hemisphere.

Make sure those commies don't come over here. Now, Cuba, turning red, had many in the United States very nervous. Castro's now in Cuba, that's happened. And, yeah, that's not good, because if Cuba shows the rest of Latin America that they could be free of United States economic control, well, it would be more likely they would turn to the communists and gain ties with Russia. And before they knew it, the Soviets could establish a stronghold with land borders to

the United States, something that they did not want to happen. So Kennedy had campaigned saying that he was going to take this issue very seriously. So, okay, I've rescued the pilots from Russia. Single-handedly. Yeah, so what do we do here then? Well, he was advised, if we bring down Castro, the president of Cuba, then their regime will topple and a pro-US government can just be slotted into place. It's the old CIA method that's been cropping up a bit recently as we discussed in Eisenhower's episode it's as easy as this yes increasingly this becoming the preferred method for the United States to gain control of countries is this where they end up shipping like a whole beach full of

pigs over to Cuba I might be misremembering yes yes the bay of pigs yeah yeah yeah yeah it was really silly silly idea The pigs barely had any training. No. No. They can swim well. Pigs can swim. Yeah, they can but... Terrible with rifles. Yeah, exactly. Well, the plan was to train and support anti-Castro-Cuban exiles.

These, I assume, must be the pigs. Yes. Yes. They'd fled the island after the revolution. Kennedy heard of this plan and was not too happy about it. Why pigs? He liked the idea of Castro being brought down, but it did seem a little bit risky.

I mean... I mean, they can't even... They've only got trotters. I mean, what are they going to do? Well, it wasn't that. I don't think he'd been informed that the rebels were actually physical pigs by this point. Kennedy was more...

Oh, OK. Yeah, Kennedy was more worried for uh about the optics right if they are caught bringing down castro it doesn't look good does it no marching into a country toppling their regime that's the kind of thing we accuse the russians of doing maybe we shouldn't Britain. Oh yeah, exactly. But the wheels are in motion, you say. Oh right, you're already sort of halfway through the plan. Oh, okay. Okay, carry on then. Whatever was essentially Kennedy's attitude. Just keep me updated.

However, some time passed and he became more and more stressed by the idea that this was going to blow back on him. So he really stressed nothing must look like the United States were involved. It has to look like this was a domestic thing in Cuba, nothing to do with us. I mean, after all, he'd been advised that if it was obvious the United States had overthrown a government just because they didn't like it, it might cause a few uprisings in the rest of Latin America. Yeah. And don't forget, a lot of Latin America right now are being economically controlled by the United States and having their wealth ripped out of them through these massive

corporations that have been set up there. Like Panama. Yes, exactly. So it's like, well, we don't want to lose Latin America because although we haven't invaded, I mean, we economically own them. So we need to do something, but we can't be seen to be doing something. It was a tricky, tricky wire to try and navigate. But he was assured time and time again by the CIA and the military, the Joint Chiefs, this is fine. No one's going to know. We are good at this now. However, the CIA informed the Cuban rebels, don't worry, if you fail, we will go in. So the CIA was giving one message to the president and one to the actual rebels I mean that that's gonna cause problems yeah did you know at this point

they were pigs no no he still still did not know yeah you can read into this that the CIA did assume that the coup was going to fail but then Kennedy would bow under pressure from his military advisers and send in the troops anyway. So the military and the CIA were really pushing for a full-on invasion. Meanwhile, Kennedy's really starting to have doubts about this. I mean, seriously, it's going to look bad. The first thing I do is just invade a country because we don't like their leader. It's good to stabilise the entire world. Is it likely to succeed? When talking to one advisor about it, he admitted that the rebels were just an invasion force of 1,500.

And Castro had 25,000 men at his disposal. His advisor simply said, 1,500 isn't as good as 25,000. You can see how he got his advisor job. Yes. I know numbers. Yeah. Still, Dulles or Dulles?

You know what? This is another case of me writing a name and not checking the pronunciation and then forgetting to do it. D-U-L-L-E-S. Dulles. Dulles. Dulles.

Dulles. Dulles. Dulles. Dulles. Dulles. He was French. Dulles. Yeah. Dulles, the head of the CIAia he kept insisting that the plan was watertight don't worry this is absolutely fine the risk of the coup falling

apart is small the risk of the world knowing it um was zero this is absolutely fine by this point the press had got wind that something was up, however. Kennedy started being asked questions about Cuba. He said, and I quote, there will not be, under any conditions, any intervention in Cuba by the United States Armed Forces. Excuse me, do you mind explaining why there's pigs behind your dressing camo? It's just lots of press secretaries just trying to push them out of the press room.

Not this room, not this room. Anyway, after this outright lie to the American public, Kennedy then ordered the invasion. Hogwash, they said. That was the code word for getting underway. The pigs hit the water. Someone earned their bonus that year. Anyway, due to the fears of US involvement coming out, last minute Kennedy reduced the number of planes in the airstrike

that was supposed to soften up the Cuban forces beforehand. Probably a good idea because pigs are terrible with rifles i'm imagining what they're like flying so yeah um most of the targets were missed and fewer planes were attacking so of course they missed any time they hit it was the plane just careening into the ground unfortunately was just a bit bit of a mess um the c, by the way, purposely had a Cuban plane make an emergency landing in Florida and a pilot who was trained what to say declared that he had defected

and all of this was Cubans. I mean, that took a long time to get the pig to say that, but they did it. A lot of elocution lessons. Yes. So this has nothing to do with the US, said the rebel.

This is all me and my Cuban friends. However, the cover story was weak. I mean, obviously. It's just... Yeah. Most were able to see through this immediately, including Vice President Johnson, who had not been informed of any of this, by the way.

Yeah, so he wasn't happy. Anyway, meanwhile, the invasion was falling apart. As you can imagine. Of course it is. Yeah, I mean, you've got, like, genuine Cuban soldiers against just 1,500 hams.

It's more of a barbecue than a... Yeah, exactly. Oh, but this wasn't a huge problem for the military and the CIA, because this was kind of what they were expecting. Because then they went to Kennedy and said, right, well, you're going to have to send in the US troops to save this coup, otherwise it's not going to happen. And we've invested too much into it now. So come on, send the forces, young president. Now, much to their surprise, the kid president refused to budge.

Kennedy realised that this quickly was becoming a disaster. The world was going to know the United States had attempted to engineer a coup in a country with no provocation. But he refused to add fuel to the fire by ordering a full-on invasion. Good. So going into damage limitation mode, Kennedy publicly admitted, yeah, that was us, sorry. That's very unusual of a person to do. Yeah. Privately, he said, we got a big kick in the leg and we deserved it, but maybe we'll learn something from it. Spoilers, they didn't.

No. No. No, but you can't but hope, can't you? Anyway, what he'd learnt was not to trust his military advisors he'd gone in he was a bit impressed by everyone in these snazzy uniforms telling him that we can do this that and the other um yeah no maybe by definition you're going to be trigger happy if you're a military advisor right you're going to want to show off and use your stuff yeah if you're a hammer everything every problem's a nail so but not only did he learn not to trust his military advisors,

he also learned to not trust the CIA. You lied to me. You told me that this was going to work easily, and it didn't. So Dulles had to go. He would have preferred Bobby take the role, put his brother in charge of the CIA, but that was impossible now because he's the Attorney General. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, partly due to his honeymoon period, partly due to some political maneuvering, including getting Nixon and Eisenhower to publicly support him. It's like across the spectrum people went behind the President because everyone realized this looked bad for America as a

whole. We need to pull together against something that certainly wouldn't happen nowadays. Yeah, but because of this, Kennedy was able to ride the storm fairly well at home. It was largely seen as the CIA's fault. Internationally, though, the US took a hit. Yet again, the world was shown that the United States was willing to go into countries with no provocation and usurp governments. And they claimed that the Soviets were the threats.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so they took a bit of a dent Across the world Yeah In world opinion So the first number of days passed And Kennedy was disappointed With what he'd achieved

Which was not much Apart from a botched invasion I'd agree It's not Yeah It's not great The walls also seemed to be closing in J. Edgar Hoover

The FBI chief Oh yeah That J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI chief. Oh, yeah, that J. Edgar Hoover. He started occasionally, regularly, sending reports to Bobby about the evidence the FBI were collecting on Kennedy's womanising. Just to let the Kennedys know that the FBI is keeping everything safe.

Don't worry, all this information's out there, but we're keeping it nice and safe for you. We're here to protect you. Yeah. So scratch the FBI off the list of who to trust. There's a great film. I think it's on Netflix. J. Edgar starring Jack from Titanic.

It's very good. Oh, yes. No, I need to watch that. It's on my list to watch. I'm not seeing it yet. Yeah. So, I mean, this has led some people to say that J. Edgar Hoover was actually blackmailing Kennedy, but there's no actual proof of that.

But I'm sure it did play on Kennedy's mind occasionally. Well, it's designed to. You'd only do that. Exactly. Look how much information I have to protect you. One advisor at this time told the president that he needed a domestic win. These big international events are taking over the narrative. What Americans really want for their country is for it to be improving. Education, Medicare bills, perhaps even the minefield that was civil rights. Work on something like that. But despite wanting to take on these things, Congress simply wasn't

in a place where anything was going to get through. The Democrats were still very split along the southern divide, and the more conservatives were more than happy to help the Democrats remain split on these civil rights issues. Yeah, of course. So Kennedy, not wanting to appear weak, decided not to push the issues too hard. He figured he wouldn't be able to get there, and if he pushed it, he'd look weak. Now, this obviously led to frustration in the civil rights leaders and activists at the time. And we are talking about all the famous names now from the civil rights period. They're all around now. This also includes groups of people like the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Riders were a group of people who were riding interstate buses

to challenge the non-enforcement of the supreme court rulings stating that segregated buses were unconstitutional the rulings being made you can't segregate the buses anymore so these people were going around on interstate buses making sure that they could sit anywhere on the bus oh okay yeah yeah um So are you basically saying Rosa Parks was a hell's angel? No, Rosa Parks wasn't. Riding along in, say, buses on a bike. But Rosa Parks was not part of this movement, although obviously she became famous for her involvement on a bus.

You're telling me she didn't wear a leather jacket? She definitely did that. Saw and taunt the bus, flick the cigarette on the floor and say, this bus better be free. Yeah, but I mean, that obviously happened, but it's not part of this and say this bus better be free. Yeah, but I mean that obviously happened but it's not part of this movement. Alright, fair enough. Yeah, okay. Anyway, so group of people going up and down

around the country generally trying to make sure that people weren't being racist. As you can imagine this annoyed the racists. So tensions started to grow. Bobby, speaking for his brother urged the Freedom freedom riders to get off the buses and just leave the matter to the courts stop stop kicking up fuss

let's just be quiet about the civil rights stuff shall we it's just it's just messy and uh kennedy stayed out of it as much as possible case in point it's his brother talking about it not him he just won't kind of see why even though the moral thing is to do the right thing i think politically it is a bit of a messy pot which is a shame because people don't have guts well this is why no president has really bothered to do anything because politically it's tough yeah but it's the right thing to do and as we see throughout all of history if a politician has a choice between what's right and what's easy. Anyway, as much as he wanted a home win,

it was also hard for Kennedy to ignore the growing international tension because, ooh, things are getting tense. Where's the big flashpoint in the world right now? Russia? Well, it's against Russia. No, it's not Cuba. We're not there yet. Berlin. Oh, the wall thing. Oh, yes, the's against Russia. No, it's not Cuba. We're not there yet. Berlin. Oh, the wall thing.

Oh, yes, the whole wall thing. Well, there's no wall yet. No. Yeah, you'll see soon, though. Yeah, obviously, after the war, Germany had been split in two. The Russians got one half, and the Allies got the other half. Was that sort of, like, just agreed, or did Russia just go, we're going to have this?

Well I mean to be fair it was the Russians who got into Germany first. Yeah I mean they also lost ridiculous times more men than the Allies did so but yeah it was a case of as we saw in Eisenhower's episode

and FDR's episode it was just a case of, we need to make a compromise here. Okay, Russia, you can have that half and we'll have this half. But there's a trouble. Let's hope this decision doesn't come up to bite us in the arse in a few years. The problem is, of course, that the capital city

Berlin is on the eastern half of the country. So some very sensible person earned lots of brownie points when they suggested why don't we split the city in half and we'll just have a little bubble of Berlin surrounded by Russian Germany.

I can imagine a lot of just awkward faces at that point. Yeah, but unfortunately it was probably about three in the morning at this point and everyone was just really tired and wanted to go home. It's like, you know what, fine, whatever. We'll come back to it in the morning, but yeah, fine, that'll do. So, yeah. So there must have negotiated some way of getting to Berlin, though, from the West.

Oh, yes, yes. There were negotiations where you could take supplies by train and stuff. It would all be ironed out. But obviously, the Russians could very easily blockade West Berlin. Very easily. So this was a slight problem. And what was a bigger problem is that East Berlin had started to hemorrhage its citizens, fleeing to West Berlin.

West Berlin was doing all right. East Berlin less so. I wonder why. It just wasn't going well. It's almost like communism doesn't work. It's almost. Certainly the style of communism the Soviets were pushing at the time, that's for sure. So it wasn't a good look for Khrushchev. He was determined to use the United States' latest stumble to capitalise on their chances to hold all of Berlin.

And that way they wouldn't have to worry about the optics of losing their citizens. Yeah. So there was one plan. The Soviets would sign a peace treaty with East Berlin, then create an antecedent state. This new state would then be able to end the deal which gave West Berlin to the West. Yeah. So basically Russia would say, yes, Germany, you're now Germany again.

And then the new Germany would say, right, West Europe, we want our country back. And it all starts with a peace treaty between Russia and East Germany. Russia and East Germany. Yeah. You with me? But they own it already, don't they? Yeah, but this way, if they give Germany their... That's like a peace treaty between England and Coventry. Yeah, but if they give Germany their independence,

then they can try and claim the rest of their own country back. And once they've done that, Russia can economically dominate the whole thing. Oh, I see. Ah, yes. That's the thing. See, that's why I'd be a terrible advisor. You're just there going, yeah, seems all right to me.

Go for it. Yeah, so that's khrushchev's plan anyway once the united states heard of this it was decided that the two leaders of the emerging superpowers should probably meet and hammer out some problems that are going to uh be caused by this maybe make some headway towards peace everything's a bit tense at the moment so the two leaders arrived in v in June of 1961. Both of them singing the song as they went through the streets. The hills are alive. No, not that one. The Vienna song.

Oh, Vienna. You don't know that song. I'm not a fan of Radiohead, Rob. It's not Radiohead. Oh my god. Right. I'm shocked and I'm caught. Hang on. You will know this song. There's no way you won't know this song. Yeah, probably. It's by Ultravox.

Huh? Yeah, Radiohead. This means nothing to me. It sounds vaguely familiar. Well, they were singing that song. That's what they were doing. I hope you left all of that in. All of that's going to stay in. Yeah, well, I say they were both singing it. They actually arrived separately,

so they both sang their own versions as they went through the city. JFK started very well. His arrival was like the arrival of a film star. He sang the first verse. Yeah, yeah, he really kicked in on that chorus. It was really impressive. Yeah, lots of cheering, waving of flags. The young, attractive president with his young, attractive wife.

Chris Jeff turned up to much less fanfare on a rainy afternoon. Nice. Yeah, it just wasn't as good. I like to think it was at the same time as the other end of the city. Yeah, yeah. His rendition of Vienna was just being played on a hurdy-gurdy. Ooh. Yeah, it wasn't as good. rendition of Vienna was just being played on a hurdy-gurdy. Oh. Yeah.

It wasn't as good. Anyway, immediately, the youthful, tall, and smiling president came across as more confident and in control than the Soviet premier. After photos and formalities, the two men sat down with interpreters and started to talk. A couple of jokes were cracked about their age difference. Again, Kennedy looked at ease. It all seemed all very good. Then Khrushchev went on the attack.

He accused... Launched across the table. Throttled. Pommeling Kennedy. No, no, he accused the United States of threatening the economic expansion of Russia by attacking the spread of communist ideals. The USSR was going to prove that communism was a superior method of government and it would be able to bring peace and prosperity to the world. But the United States were greedily fighting against it for no reason whatsoever.

Now, Kennedy was slightly taken aback by this sudden attack because everything was jokes a couple of seconds ago and suddenly Khrushchev's going, you're attacking us, why are you attacking us? He replied, the United States would never agree that communism was inherently better than capitalism but it didn't mean that there needed to be a conflict capitalism communism side by side we don't need to fight each other i said khrushchev so you're going to stop attacking countries accepting communism then are you kenn? Kennedy just went, yeah.

Well, yeah. Well... Probably not. Yeah, you could use the same argument, that's attacking capitalism. Oh, yeah, yeah. The two sides are doing it to each other, definitely. But it was definitely Khrushchev who was coming out on top of this first exchange.

Well, he's more experienced, isn't he? Yeah, exactly. The day continued with Kennedy attempting to use his natural charm on the Soviet leader. Remember, Kennedy, mediocre in pretty much everything in his life, apart from his charm, of which he has bucket loads. Yes. But Khrushchev just kept throwing it back in his face, swinging from cracking jokes to then suddenly accusing the United States

of needlessly attacking Russians. So he was unpredictable unpredictable and Kennedy struggled. Khrushchev, he was the death of Stalin film. He's the guy that takes over after Stalin. Yes, yes, that's where we are. So I'm now picturing the actor here playing Khrushchev. Cool, right, OK, that's him. That's fantastic.

Definitely. Sorry, it just occurs to me who he is. Yeah. Anyway, after the day, an exhausted Kennedy was congratulated by an aide for keeping his cool. What did you expect me to do, retorted Kennedy? Take off one of my shoes

and hit him over the head with it, which would have been fun to watch. That would have been great. Just the translators watching were shocked. Ow. Ow. Please stop. Ow. That would have been great Just the translators watching were shocked Ow Please stop Ow Get your

Oh I'm not saying that Get your boob shoe off my boob Well Kennedy became more and more Flustered and frustrated that he could not Get through to Khrushchev who was obviously Not interested in what Kennedy had to say Describing Kennedy to an aide as, and I quote, very young, not strong enough, too intelligent and too weak.

That's a shame. Any respect? No, no, really, really, really, no. I mean, he did say intelligent, but that's very backhanded when you say too intelligent, isn't it? Well, yeah. Yeah, Kennedy complained that he was being treated like a little boy. isn't it? Well, yeah. Yeah. Kennedy complained that he was being treated like a little boy. Summit continued, and the leaders talked about the fighting in the Far East and in the Congo. They talked about China's nuclear program. But mainly, of course, they talked about Berlin.

Khrushchev told Kennedy that Russia was still reeling from World War II and the losses they took. Germany already was becoming strong again and it only made sense to sign a new peace treaty with East and West Germany and let them rise on their own. And, oh yes, they would invalidate the old post-war agreements, you're absolutely right, but surely that's proper. We can't sit on top of Germany. With it split, let them have, let them be themselves, said Khrushchev. United States should sign these peace agreements as well, said the Russian premier, because if the United States did not, the new East Germany would close off all routes to Berlin for the West. So as you said earlier, surely there must have been some way to get there. Well, yes, there was, but Khrushchev saying, if you don't do this, we blockade West Berlin.

Right. Yeah. Kennedy had had blockade West Berlin. Right. Yeah. Kennedy had had enough by this point. No. And I'll quote, we fought our way there. If we were expelled from that area, no one would have confidence in the United States commitments pledges. So don't push this, Kennedy said, because this genuinely could lead to a nuclear war. This is dangerous. Yeah. Khrushchev replied that no force in the world would stop them from signing the peace

treaty. But we will wait till December. We'd suggest that you sign because the only way to stop is war. And I'll quote it is up to the United States to decide whether there will be peace or war. Kennedy then replied then Mr. Chairman

there will be war. It will be a cold winter. So the summit went well. Yeah it did. Yeah yeah. They probably left and both went could have been worse. Could have been worse. Any summit ending with the

phrase it will be a cold winter. It's not great, is it? So is this where the Cold War phrase came from? I don't think so. I think everything was just very cold back then. Yeah. Kennedy sank into a depression after this. He'd proven himself weak enough to be pushed around

by his advisors in the Bay of Pigs, and now the Russian premier had proven resistant to his charms I mean he just wasn't being the president he thought he was going to be able to be so I guess you know you get told you're so amazing all the way up to the role then suddenly you put on the world stage and oh actually this is harder than I thought yeah as one advisor said later for the first time in life, he met a man impervious to his charms. It threw Kennedy a bit. So perhaps he wasn't cut out for this, or even worse, he thought, perhaps other people might start thinking that he wasn't cut out for this.

Things then escalate. In the next few weeks, the East German head of government talked of shutting all Western access to West Berlin, including the airport. So full on lockdown of West Berlin. No one gets in, no one gets out. Khrushchev announced publicly that the peace treaty needed to be signed and all attempts at coming to an agreement in regards of reducing nuclear tests had halted. It's like, we're not halting nuclear tests because you're not signing a peace treaty. You clearly want war. That's gearing up them. I mean, the Russians were doing well politically here.

They're the ones saying, give Germany back. Let's have a peace treaty. I mean, those things sound really good, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. Theory. But, I mean, it just, it was not acceptable to the West because they realised that this would make Russia far too powerful.

So, the Kennedy strategy seemed to be similar to his civil rights strategy, which was, wait it out, don't get too bogged down in it, let's hope this all just goes away. Blows over you a few months. Yes. But it wasn't going to work. Nixon started putting in digs whenever he could. Never in American history has a man talked so big and acted so little. Not great.

Kennedy realised that he had to do something, or at least say something. In an attempt to keep things calm, he gave a press conference, and he talked about the summit. He focused on things such as Khrushchev announcing that Russia would be outperforming the United States in terms of GDP by 1970. Try it, said Kennedy. We welcome the competition. After all, competition only makes us strong. Sounds a little bit like capitalism to me. Yeah, nice. Do you think they're all at the side just saying, go bigger, go bigger,

make bigger claims of things we can do in the future. Go on, just go wild, aim for the moon. Yeah, not quite. We're're not there yet but um yes but you can see where it starts to come from you really can uh when he was pushed to talk about the nuclear tensions between the two countries he played it down no we're going to go on an economics race which will benefit both countries it's nothing to worry about we're not going to fight each other we're just going to have a race to see who's the best. That's quite a capitalist approach, I like it. Yes, exactly. But behind the scenes, a majority of those in high government were putting pressure on the president. We need to build faster. We need to build more than the Russians. Build up everything in the military. If we have more bombs, if we have

more forces, if we have a larger military, then and only then can we make sure we can control this situation. We can't let them get ahead. However, there were some in the government advising caution. Perhaps, just perhaps, building bomb after bomb is not the answer. I mean, after all, we can only blow up the planet once. Do we really need the power to do it several times over? That's why we're going to the moon. Diplomacy

is where we will ease tensions. We need to work on diplomatic channels. So, in a move that shows perhaps that the Bay of Pigs had left a mark, Kennedy made it very clear to the Joint Chiefs yes, the military is important, but it's not everything. You guys think the solution is the military

because that's what you are. That said, let's build up the military just in case. Yeah, let's just see what happens. Yeah, so 200,000 more troops and an extra 3.25 billion in the national defence budget should do it. Did a billion even exist in the 1960s? Let's really ramp this up quite a lot. In another speech, he attempted to balance the opinions.

In another speech that he gave standing in front of a map of Germany and Berlin, he said, we will at all times be ready to talk, but we must also be ready to resist with force. Keeping both options open. Now, things were ratcheting up with a depressing inevitability. It would appear that the world was going to go to nuclear war just because two countries did not trust that the other was going to go to nuclear war just because two countries did not trust that the other one would not try and wipe them out. That must have really

annoyed everybody else. I think everyone was very annoyed, yes. Yeah. And then, just in time, there was a slight reprieve. This deadline was getting closer and closer. The US were refusing to sign a peace treaty with Germany. The Russians were demanding that the Americans did sign the peace treaty. The deadline was approaching. What was going to happen? And then suddenly, the Russians decided that a way to stop the mass exodus of people leaving East Berlin and heading to West Berlin was to put a barrier up.

Build the wall. Build the wall. Well, it was a fence to begin with, but it soon obviously became the Berlin Wall. The physical manifestation of a stupid idea. Well, perhaps. But also, at this point, it was also a pause between two sides that were about to start fighting with nukes.

So it's more of a greater good kind of thing. Now, I'd never really seen it this way. I mean, dividing a city with a wall is obviously stupid, but it's like, I can kind of see, at this point, with that deadline approaching, the two sides were starting to eye each other up. Well, actually, if we put a wall here, then maybe it will ease tensions.

After all, said Kennedy, why would Khrushchev put up a wall if he really intended to seize West Berlin? So maybe we can all just calm down a little bit. And this was enough for the president to put a halt on the slide. In Russia, it was enough for Khrushchev to say that he'd stop the emigration so therefore we don't need to have this December deadline anymore. We've slowed everything down. As Kennedy put it, it's not a nice solution,

but the war is a hell of a lot better than war. So there you go. If you've ever wondered why such a stupid idea came to pass, well, that's it. It was to stop an even more stupid idea. That is nuclear war. Yeah, so actually it may have been worth it, even though it was awful for 50 years.

At least that explains why it's there. Now, using back channels between governments, the United States and Russia started very tentatively to talk about maybe, just maybe, having Khrushchev and Kennedy meet again. Perhaps all of us dying is, I don't know, a bad idea. I would say so. We should probably do something about that. Publicly, the two governments were still being very harsh. Lots of sabre rattling still going on. But actually, in the diplomatic background,

there was a slight thaw. And that didn't stop the sides preparing for war, obviously, because you can't trust those damn commies slash capitalists. Well, yeah. Yeah. So Kennedy was still under a lot of pressure from the Warhawk faction. At one point at this time, snapped at one man, one advisor, criticizing his approach to Russia. I quote, wars are easier to talk about than fight, which is a very good point. That's true.

Yeah. Which, incidentally, is the same view he took over vietnam oh yeah well now just to be clear i'm not covering vietnam in detail in this episode there isn't time but it's starting to rear its head now so we need to start mentioning um yeah kennedy believed as did as did most at the time, that keeping South Vietnam non-communist was vitally important to stop the spread of communism. But he also saw it as a secondary issue behind things like Berlin and Cuba.

It's just, I mean, it's in Asia, it's far away. It's not the most important thing right now. We've got to make sure Berlin doesn't fall and we don't want Cuba expanding into Latin America. Well, yeah. So he wanted to support South Vietnam, but he didn't want this cuba expanding into latin america well yeah so he wanted to support south vietnam but he didn't want to go in with troops i thought that would be a bad idea in fact i'll quote him if vietnam ever converted into a white man's war we would lose in the same way that the french lost a decade earlier that sounds a teensy bit racist that's because everyone's a teensy bit racist jamie i don't know if you've noticed that. No, it's the first one I've heard of that. Oh, right, okay. One advisor told him that

if they got involved, then hundreds of thousands of US men would go into the jungles of Vietnam and never come out again. And Kennedy agreed. That sounds like a stupid idea. Let's not do that. So despite heavy pressure from the Warhawk faction, he refused to commit troops. Instead, a compromise was made. The United States would send advisors and equipment. Just don't ask how many advisors. Or what equipment?

Oh, I mean, the equipment was military equipment. Don't worry. And helicopters and bombs and guns. We're sending scissors and bandages no no it was it was very clear and oh no it was open it was open helicopters guns bombs yeah we're sending them arms that's what we're sending them and we're sending advisors to teach them how to use them but just just seriously don't ask how many advisors and don't ask how involved in the fighting these advisors are getting in fact when one reporter asked this very question, are US troops now in combat in Vietnam? Kennedy replied,

and I quote, no. So there you go. That's okay, isn't it? Yeah, answers that question. Yeah, yeah. Next. Complete lie, obviously. These advisors were just soldiers, but they were called advisors. So yeah. So fighting has sort of started in Vietnam, but not really. Not really. And Kennedy really doesn't want to get bogged down over there. It's far away. It's an easy win.

Don't worry about it. No, this is it. Everyone knew that that wouldn't be the case because look what happened to the French trying to fight in this area 10 years previously. Yeah, that's the French, not the US. Come on, USA. That's a good point. Anyway, it's about this time Joe Senior has a stroke.

Obviously, as the puppet master behind his son all his life, this had a very large effect on Kennedy. He sought comfort. And how does Kennedy know how to get comfort? The ladies. The ladies, of course. And Chris Jeff. No, not Chris Jeff, just the ladies.

Yeah, it's odd. I really found that in most places, Kennedy's attitude to women was seen almost as an achievement in most history books or articles I've read. That's really weird. Yeah, he really seems to get away with this a lot in the history books. Now, we've had presidents treat women badly before, obviously. Most of them.

But, like, sectioning a woman that you got pregnant, for example, was a particular low point. But, to be fair, they are usually, like, pulled up on it in the history books. Yeah. But Kennedy less so for some reason, and at this time, estimates are that he was having an affair with no fewer than eight different women. Eight?

Including two secretaries in the White House, a woman with ties to the Italian mob, a 19-year-old intern who was clearly only there to entertain Kennedy, because apparently she had no skills whatsoever pertaining to the job, and various actresses, possibly including Marilyn Monroe. I mean, I'm 34. I wouldn't have the energy for that.

No, no. Now, the Marilyn Monroe one's obviously the most famous of these. I was about to say, when she sang Happy Birthday, everyone was like, well, they're clearly doing it, aren't they? But apparently, if they did do it, it's almost certainly they only ever did it once um because well that's okay apparently a lot of time has been taken looking into this by various people and people have worked out like times that it could have been physically possible and there was only one night where they were both staying in the same place where it could have happened um yeah so it wasn't a full-blown affair between the two of them no but

i mean they probably did it because who didn't kennedy do it this time apparently so yeah he he basically treated uh women not very well especially his wife jackie who was getting very annoyed especially when one day she had to go down a line of people and shake their hands, and she realised that one of them was a woman her husband was sleeping with at the time. Yeah, and turned on one of the advisors and said something along the

lines of, I know I have to do this rubbish, but don't ever make me shake the hand of one of my husband's mistresses again. Kennedy just didn't give a... There you go. It's not good, is it? Yeah. See, shake the hand of one of my husband's mistresses again kennedy just didn't give her though so there you go it's not good is it yeah see the thing is you see in history books them saying things like he was to relieve his stress it was like playing tennis for him it's like well yeah maybe the physical act but the the the actual way you're talking and treating people then that's

that's the bit that just seems to be glossed over yeah just ignore the repercussions of it all for you know the women's families and his wife i mean we will get on to bill clinton and uh the way he treated monica lewinsky but i mean that was one intern this is he's going through the White House like a, you know what, I don't want to do an analogy there. Right. Anyway. But he wasn't getting any criticism for his womanising. There was still at this time a gentleman's agreement with the press. You don't talk about the personal life of the president.

So none of this was blown back on him whatsoever. But the FBI just there with a pencil and a pen. Just piling it up just piling it up piling it up they had stuff in a drawer some folders in the drawer and the filing cabinet and the filing cabinet next to that and then just room 4b um yeah but if he wasn't getting criticism for his womanizing he was starting to get criticism for his civil rights approach in july lack of well yeah exactly in july of 1962 martin Martin Luther King Jr. called out JFK, saying the president really needed to do more

speaking out against segregation. Now, Kennedy insisted that he had taken many steps to help the civil rights movement, more than any other president in history. But few were very impressed with this. King released a telegram that he had sent to the president asking him to take significant steps, and I quote, against anti-Negro terrorists in the South.

But Kennedy did little in this area. As historian Robert Dalek points out... Exterminate... No. As historian Robert Dalek points out,edy understood the civil rights movement was well justified he understood the civil rights movement was well justified um he agreed with the civil rights movement personally but he also simply didn't really see it as his fight his fight was against communism abroad his fight was the need to build up education in the country. And yeah, that meant desegregating the schools,

so it was kind of part of it, but his job was for education as a whole. The black population had to deal with the racism because it's their problem. I support their fight, but it's not really my fight. So he didn't really spend the energy that it would have taken to actually correct and righten the injustices in the system.

Meanwhile, the fight against communism, it's going well. It's going well. You'll be pleased to know. His military advisors assured Kennedy that they were so close to victory in Vietnam that they could start planning withdrawal of troops. Hooray.

Splendid. So it's going well then. Wonderful. Oh, sorry, by troops, I mean advisors. Advisors. We don't have any troops over there. But yeah, we'll be able to pull out our advisors by 65. Yeah.

68 tops. 68 tops. We'll be out of Vietnam. Easy peasy. Maybe the 70s. Don't be ridiculous. No, no, no, no. We'll be out soon. Kennedy was very pleased. This is exactly what he wanted in Vietnam, out of Vietnam, not officially there. South Vietnam stands.

Fantastic. Can't wait to call 56,000 advisers back. Yeah, the United States wanted nothing less than get drawn into a long, drawn-out war in Vietnam. That would be awful. Awful, awful. Awful, Horrendous. So good news from Vietnam obviously but tensions from Berlin were still continuing. Chris Jeff sent a message through diplomatic channels and I'll quote, if any lunatic in the United States wants war, Western Europe

will hold them back. War in this day and age means no Paris. It means no France. All in the space of an hour. It's been a long time since you can spank us like a little boy. Now we can swat your ass. That's a very good message. Think about it. It's like, if there's a war, there will be no Paris and no France. That's true.

Oh, yeah. That's quite chilling, actually. They really thought that things were going well, and suddenly they get this message from Khrushchev. Yeah. Saying, you can't spank us like a little boy. We're going to spank you. I mean, this is why.

And I don't think historians talk about this, but Khrushchev and Kennedy, you know. Yeah, yeah, maybe. I think there's something going on. Yeah. So, yeah, things aren't going too well there. To be fair though, Khrushchev did also say that Russia could keep quiet for a while

if it helped Kennedy in the upcoming midterms. Khrushchev, remember, would much prefer to have Kennedy in the United States than the likes of Nixon. It's like, who knows what would happen if Nixon's there? He's a bit of a hothead. Yeah. So Russia would be quiet for now, but seriously, we're going to sign this peace deal at some point. We've put the wall up. I know about these tensions, but no,

we want a unified Germany. We want them to be back. Kennedy had to choose between Berlin and war or sign a peace treaty and allow Berlin to become its own political force. That was the choice he's got now. Yeah. Tricky. The world is a tinderbox. An ultimatum had been set and then repeated. Neither side seems likely to back down.

People started to really fear that nuclear war over Berlin was about to start. However, the Berlin Missile Crisis never came to be, because when it did go to the very brink, it was not Europe, but Cuba where it happened. Yes, the island nation off the south of the United States. Khrushchev had become convinced that the United States were planning another invasion of Cuba, which, sort of yes and sort of no.

Not beyond the realms of possibility. Well, I mean, they were drawing up plans in the United States, but only as a just in case. The official line, and the one that Kennedy wanted to follow at the time, was this would make things too unstable, this is a bad idea. I mean, put some plans together just in case, but we really shouldn't do this. So actually, America weren't planning to invade Cuba just yet. I mean, the CIA was still putting put some plans together just in case but we really shouldn't do this so actually america weren't planning to invade cuba just yet i mean the cia was still putting together assassination plots of uh castro i mean that's that's par for course but they were getting a such a hard time getting those pigs to uh put on the fake mustache and the spy hat. It's the accent as well. Yeah, exactly. So yeah. Anyway, yeah,

the Warhawk factions really believed they should be going in, but no, it wasn't happening. However, Russia thought it was going to happen, so they decided they needed to do something about it. So they do. In October of 62, a U-2 plane flying over Cuba took photographs of a military buildup on the island nation. Experts soon came to the conclusion that this was a Soviet ballistic missile site being built, one that would be able to deliver nuclear payloads. Now, I may have made this comment in the last episode when you mentioned the YouTube plane. Is Bono piloting?

No, no. The Edge. That makes sense. Bono was shot down over Russia. Oh, what a shame! Yeah, yeah. What a shame! He was one of the pilots that got released earlier. Oh, The Edge. That makes sense. Bono was shot down over Russia. Oh, what a shame. Yeah, yeah. What a shame. He was one of the pilots that got released earlier. Oh, damn it.

Yeah, yeah. That's why they were able to go on and release their albums. Oh, bloody Joshua Tree. Anyway, yeah, it's a missile site being built. A nuclear missile site just off the coast of Florida. I mean, you could argue that caused genuine concern. Yeah, yeah, you can see why. I mean, the move would over double the amount of Russian missiles that could reach the mainland of the United States.

An obvious escalation in tensions. However, Khrushchev was convinced that Kennedy was too intelligent to start a nuclear war. They'd be able to ride out the tensions and close a perceived advantage that the United States had over Russia in terms of number of nuclear bombs that they could throw at each other. So it's a gamble, but Khrushchev thinks

this won't actually lead to war, but it will mean we're more on a steady footing than the United States, because currently the United States were able to throw more nukes into Russia than vice versa. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a hell of a gamble, but Khrushchev decides to go for it.

Now, the plan was to build the base in secret, wait until the midterms were over in America, and then have a meeting with Kennedy and say, surprise, we've got lots of nukes pointing at you. Write about this peach treaty in Berlin. You're gonna sign it. So that's the plan. However, the Americans figured out what was going on.

They spotted it. It was no longer a secret. Upon realising that the Soviets were planning to build this missile base capable of launching nuclear payloads, the president needed to do something and do something incredibly quickly. So let's play How Do You Avoid the Nuclear Holocaust? Da da da da.

Oh, can I use my flute? Yes, please. Do the theme tune. Nuclear War. Right, you've got five options. Five? Five options. Bear in mind, if you choose the wrong one, all of

Civilization as you know it will be wiped out. Oh my goodness. So no pressure. No, that's all. Okay, so number one. Airstrike the base. Bomb it to smithereens. Nope. The warheads probably aren't there yet, so you can just get rid of the base. Right. Number two.

Bomb the airbase, but also bomb lots of other things on cuba just really really bomb cuba just to hammer the point home to hammer the point home cripple the nation's ability to build bases again number three land invasion of cuba send in the troops and by troops mean pigs and they're not very good oh no no send in real troops i mean the pigs can go as well they've been training for years but actually send in your real troops. I mean, the pigs can go as well. They've been training for years, but actually send in your real troops. Well, they would be so disappointed. Yeah, exactly.

So send in the real troops and pig squad one through six. And you get the bonus of getting rid of Castro at the same time with this one. If you get to him, yeah. Number four, naval blockade. Stop the Russians from being able to bring any more equipment

to build the base. Obviously, this leaves the problem with, well, they're already almost finished. And if they've already got a nuclear warhead on there, then they'll have one. Number five, yeah, leave them to it. I mean, it's not like Russia couldn't already hit the United States. I mean, does this really change much? What's the difference being hit with 20 nuclear bombs and 40 nuclear bombs?, I mean, really, does this hugely change the dynamic of this standoff that we're finding ourselves in? Maybe doing nothing is the sensible answer here,

because that way we don't risk going to war. So, what do you do? I'd go for naval blockade, because one, two, and three basically just means, like, attack, which just means retaliatory action yeah an enable blockade is is passive yeah it's just we could just block in you that's all we're doing passive but in action but of course then you've got the problem that they will still be able to finish the base and could quite likely install nuclear missiles that were ready to

launch within a week if they have them there but I imagine the US knows whether they have or not. They suspect that they're on the island. They suspect they're not at the base yet. Then put the naval blockade on the island. Make them drive around the submarine. Yeah, exactly. This will really slow down their plans. Give the submarines wheels.

See, no one's ever thought of that before. Yes. They're probably a good reason why, but I think don't. Okay, naval blockade, number four. You will be disappointed to learn that Kennedy decides on option one. Really? With all other options being readied. So look into all the others.

Get people on all the other things, draw up plans. They just got sensible Samuel to do option five, do nothing. And also, Samuel, you've got time. Option six, create an anti-nuclear shield. And they just got sensible Samuel to do option five, do nothing. And also Samuel got time option six, create an anti-nuclear shield. It would be great. Yeah, they weren't listening to him though. They just told him he was ruining democracy.

Yeah, option one. In fact, I'll quote Kennedy here. We're certainly doing number one. We're going to take out those missiles. What I love about this quote is by the fact he actually says we're certainly doing number one, that I can imagine he was presented with this list of options in the same way that I gave it to you. He's like, yeah, let's do number one. Let's do that.

To me, that seems really risky. But I guess because if maybe if no Russian citizens are going to be killed, then. Well, it is risky are going to be killed then all right well it is risky people will be killed it is an attack on a russian military site ah well i mean we're still alive now so i assume it went relatively well or something happened over the next few days yeah over the next few days it became very clear that option one was harder said than done. The president was advised that they couldn't simply perform a single airstrike and hey, it's over. Because what about when the Russians resupply? What if they miss their target? Realistically, this means long-term surveillance and repeated attacks. How long can you keep that up before the Russians start firing back?

Yeah, true. So, after three more very long meetings over the next few hours, options had shifted. Round two of how to stop nuclear holocaust. Nuclear war. Oh, so going for another option? Oh yeah, the options changed

after a few meetings. So, here we go again. Five more options. They're a bit more detailed now. They've hammered out the details a little bit. Number one. On the 24th of October, see, they've got a date and everything, send a letter to various leaders of the world telling them about the missile site and then bomb it. So not just go and bomb it,

let everyone know what we're doing first. Then send a letter to Russia to explain why they'd done it and to warn them not to retaliate. So essentially the same as option one before, but with the tiniest little amount of diplomacy sprinkled on top. Yeah. Yeah. Option two, which was probably called the diplomatic solution,

was exactly the same as option one, but we'll let Russia know first. Maybe five minutes before. Yeah. Number three. This actually is the more diplomatic one. Tell the Russians that we are watching and we know what you're doing. Set up a blockade and then...

Oh, hang on. Did I say this is a diplomatic one? Because guess what the third part of this one is? If you don't stop, we'll nuke you in the face. Declare war. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Set up the blockade,are war. Oh. Yeah. Okay.

Set up the blockade, declare war, and start sinking Russian ships. Only if they come close to the blockade, though. That's the whole point of a blockade. You don't just go and attack. Yeah, exactly. Number four, extensive airstrikes all over Cuba. That one stayed from the first meeting.

Someone obviously clearly liked that. It was their idea. They were sticking with it. The Air Force guy. Yeah, the Air Force guy clearly really liked the idea because option number five is identical to option number four but um i don't know ask the russians if they want to talk about it first so there you go you've got tell everyone what's happening and then bomb it tell everyone what's happening including russia and then bomb it tell russia that we know what you're up to we declare war on you

and we're blockading cuba bomb cuba all over or bomb cuba all over and tell everyone about it blockade is the most passive approach the blockade option has declaring war in it now yes but it's the most passive war doesn't necessarily mean just sending troops into russia okay yeah i'm still sticking by that i okay still sticking before i'm a passive person War doesn't necessarily mean just sending troops into Russia. Okay. I'm still sticking by that. Okay, still sticking with four. I'm a passive person. Okay, still sticking with four.

As you very well know. Okay, a couple of days later, new photographs show the missiles could actually be ready to fire within the week, if not sooner. I mean, seriously, these missiles are up and they're about to be ready to fire. The Joint Chiefs start urging a full-blown invasion of Cuba. Seriously, we need to go in now with all the troops. If they get them up and running, it's the end. Kennedy was troubled. He realised the danger to the United States, but he was also very aware that if they went in guns blazing,

they would come off as the bad guys here. He privately admitted that the world already thought the United States was, and I quote, slightly demented over cuba and that most of the world would think that the missile base and i quote here didn't really change the military balance it's like well you've got just as many nukes pointing at russia so if anything this balances it up more so at this point us have got their missiles kind of are they in eastern europe or they're yeah maybe the middle east am i misremembering this there's yeah you've got some some in turkey you've got some in western europe um you've got some on submarines that are just floating around in the sea um yeah sounds dangerous yeah uh and obviously the Russians have

In submarines Naval capacity to fire nukes This will be the first land nukes That they'd be able to launch Onto the mainland United States But no one really knows how many nukes The other side has Both sides vastly overestimated

How many the other side had Well I'm actually going to say propaganda. We've got three billion nuclear warheads. But it would appear the United States were very much in the lead here. But, I mean, it didn't really make much difference because both sides had more than enough is how many nukes they had. Yeah. Yeah.

So many times you can use a nuke before no one's around to start using nukes they had yeah yeah so many times you can use a nuke before no one's around to start using nukes anymore um so anyway uh kennedy's not sure what to do here everyone's telling him to go in he's getting flashbacks to the bay of pigs he doesn't want another that again and if he gets it wrong this time it won't be an embarrassment it It will be nuclear war. So he and his brother and a few others pointed out that if they attack Cuba without warning, the United States would be performing their own Pearl Harbor. We were outraged when the Japanese did that to us. But we're now saying we're going to do that to Cuba.

It's attacking with no actual provocation. So what about this blockade idea, says Kennedy, but without the declaring war thing? Because perhaps the whole declaring war thing's a bad idea. A little bit of escalation. Yeah. Why don't we set up a blockade to prevent any more missiles arriving on the island? That's at least a start. But, obviously, what about the missiles already on the island that are going to be operational within days? So, let's tell Russia that we know about the base, that we are watching them, and if

we don't see those missiles being dismantled very soon, we will invade. Yeah? Sound sensible? Um, again, slightly. Yeah, I mean, yes. Yes, I'm not a world leader. Around this time, it just so happened that there was a scheduled meeting with the Russian foreign minister. Now, the Russian foreign minister was having this meeting to explain to the United States, don't worry, there's quite a lot of arms arriving on Cuba, but they are purely defensive. We're giving the Cubans arms and military support to defend themselves just in case any country, and I'm not accusing any country, but just in case any country invades them. Nuclear weapons aren't defensive. No, no, no, there's no nukes. Oh. No, no, we're giving them guns. We're giving them, I don't know, tanks and stuff. We're giving them arms, basic simple arms to help them defend themselves.

That's all. Kennedy didn't let on that he knew this was a lie. He had the photographs of the nukes in his drawer whilst he was talking to the Russian minister. He did say something along the lines of, this situation is possibly the most dangerous situation in all of human history. But the Russian minister didn't get the hint because when he reported back to Khrushchev, he said, yep, the Americans are in the dark. We're getting away with this.

So another day of deliberations. Round three of how to avoid nuclear holocaust. You've got two options now. Really homing in there. Number one, do nothing. Sensible Samuels finished his report. Seriously, what does this change? If we retaliate, it would damage the alliance in NATO. It could endanger Berlin. If we attack, the Russians would attack Berlin. Our allies in Europe will blame us. If we attack, the Russians would attack Berlin. Our allies in Europe will blame us. So let's not do anything.

Okay. Option number two, blockade. Blockade. Oh, stick with your blockade. Okay. As you can imagine... Literally, it is the best option because it's passive.

Yeah. You're not... Yeah. You're not doing nothing, but you're showing a bit of kind of... No. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we don't... Yeah. Well, not doing nothing, but you're showing a bit of kind of, no. Yeah, yeah. Oi, we don't, you know.

Well, as you can imagine, the chiefs of staff were not happy at all that airstrikes and invasions seemed to have been taken off the table, arguing that this made the United States seem weak. One even threatened to go public, which really annoyed Kennedy, who said afterwards, these brass hats have one thing in their favour. If we listen to them and do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong.

He was feeling the strain. I'll quote him again. No one has a right to grade a president, not even poor James Buchanan, who has not sat in this chair. To which I say, I'll be the judge of that, Kennedy. We'll be rating you soon. It was decided they were going to go public,

let the world know what was going on, and they were going to set up a blockade. Hey, I did it. Yeah, I got it right. Yeah, yeah, you got it right. Totally got it right. You stuck to your guns. From the beginning, it's almost like,

it's almost like, Rob, I knew. It's almost like it's happened in the past and you already knew. But I'm totally with you. It seems like the best option in the past and you already knew but i'm totally with you it seems like the best option every single way yeah of course and i think i tried to suggest why you know it's passive but showing a bit of a now exactly yeah i i mean stressful situation but i think i probably would have gone down the same line as kennedy um i'm glad they didn't go the big smashy smashy with a hammerwith-a-hammer route immediately,

because that could have been disastrous. Anyway, he addressed the public in a 17-minute speech. In it, he bluntly called out the Russian foreign minister for lying to his face, said that the Russians have created a nuclear strike capability in Cuba, and that the United States would not tolerate this, and therefore was blockading Cuba. In fact, let's listen to a little bit of this speech. Yeah.

Acting therefore in the defense of our own security and of the entire western hemisphere and under the authority entrusted to me by the constitution as endorsed by the resolution of the congress, I have directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately. First, to halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba, from whatever nation or port, where they're found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life, as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948. Second, I have directed the continued and increased

close surveillance of Cuba and its military buildup. The foreign ministers of the OAS, in their communique of October 6, rejected secrecy on such matters in this hemisphere. Should these offensive military preparations continue, thus increasing the threat to the hemisphere, further action will be justified. I have directed the armed forces to prepare for any eventualities. And I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians at the sites, the hazard to all concerned of continuing this threat will be recognized so yeah there you go that's a little bit of uh speech i liked the little dig at russia in there yeah about about berlin yeah so i mean that is a like a minute and a half snippet of a 17 minute speech uh he goes on after this to say that if the russians against any allies, including West Berlin, there would be consequences.

Ooh. Sorry. So, as a teacher, there will be consequences. I'm not going to say what they are, but you regret it. Yeah, use your imagination. Oh, yes. Don't make me phone your mother, Khrushchev. Now, by the next morning, there had been no response from Russia whatsoever.

So that's tense. One person in the White House said actually they'd had an amazing victory because they were still all alive. To be fair, yeah. Gives you a sense of the gallows humour that was going on at the time. We're still here, so it's clearly not bad.

Finally, at noon, word came from Khrushchev the blockade was a serious violation of international norms and could lead to catastrophic consequences he also repeated the claim that the weapon built upon cuba was defensive what are you on earth you talking about nuclear weapons there are none yeah kennedy sent a letter back stating that the Soviets started this by secretly furnishing offensive weapons to Cuba. The blockade is happening. Do nothing to escalate this. Meanwhile, a new idea had come up.

Someone suggested something. What about, right, we offer to take down our missiles in Turkey? I mean, it's good having those there, but they're not vital. Bit of a compromise now obviously we won't be able to do this first we can't be seen to be capitulating but if the Soviets dismantle in Cuba with a promise that we dismantle in Turkey

would that work right? someone go through the back channels keep this very quiet but put out some feelers the next day it was predicted that the missiles in Cuba were close to being functional as in within a day or so. It's like, yeah, this is very close. Also, there were reports of more ships

carrying more nuclear warheads approaching the blockade. Well, that's not good. Roughly two hours away from the blockade, in fact. The tension in the White House apparently was unbearable. Everyone had not slept, everyone's face looked very grey. They are two hours away from the start of nuclear war. If those

boats try and push through the blockade, they are going to have to fire upon the boats. Well, that's not good. That puts it down on the Friday. It's pub Friday as well. I know. They're not going to get out in time, they know it. They know it. As Kennedy was surrounded by his advisors and chiefs of staff

talking about what to do about these incoming vessels, a note arrived. Apparently, the ships had turned around. That's good. There was a massive sigh of relief all round. One in the room saying, we're eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fellow just blinked. Yeah, so huge relief.

There was a bit of stress when someone said, our ships know not to chase the retreating Russian ships, don't they? And everyone went, oh dear. So they very quickly sent messages out saying, don't chase them, don't chase them. But yeah, fortunately, everything was fine there. However, a letter from Khrushchev soon arrived that didn't fill them with hope. He said that Russia would not submit to the blockade

and that they had everything necessary to fight. The United States' response to the letter was to tell Russia that if they defied the blockade, they would invade Cuba. So great that those boats turned away, but we're still exactly where we were this morning. It's still on the brink. However, what the United States did

not know is that Khrushchev had actually been advised by this point we need to back down. His military were not confident they would actually win this war. I mean, a conventional war in the Caribbean, there's no way we can win. It's too far away. We can't win that war.

And a nuclear war. It's one of those why British didn't win the American. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And a nuclear war, well, everyone loses that war. So maybe we need to start backing out of this. So Khrushchev starts looking for a way out. But obviously in the White House, no one realises this.

Yeah, in the meeting that day, everyone was sat around very worried because the missiles in Cuba now appear to be functional. Ah, the red lights are going off. On the missile, from the rocks, from the planes going up, they can see the red light flashing.

Yeah, exactly. It says, ready. They'd seen one of the scientists plug it into charge. Yeah, exactly. They'd seen one of the scientists plug it into charge. Yeah. So, yeah, okay, well the blockade now is less important because there's no Russian ships near

the blockade, so it doesn't look like they're going to break it, but what do we do about this nuke? So, Joint Chief Staffs yet again say airstrikes. It's the only option. We need to go and bomb it. Huge pressure put on Kennedy at this point to order the attack. Yeah.

Kennedy decided to leave some time for the Russians to back down. After all, they've already not tested the blockade, despite Khrushchev's words. So let's give them 48 hours. Let's do nothing for 48 hours. And if nothing changes, then maybe we need to bomb it.

Yeah. So here we are now okay not two hours away from nuclear war but we're now 48 hours away from nuclear war it's better than two hours right better than two hours in the end they only actually had to wait two hours before a long rambling letter arrived from cruise chef uh the tone sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry it wasn't quite that but you know apparently they they got the impression that this hadn't been vetted. It hadn't gone through the usual redrafts. It was obviously written in a hurry.

Yeah, a very different tone. He continued to state the weapons on Cuba were not offensive and nuclear. I don't know what you're talking about. But he also said, but we don't need to argue about this. Because after all, if the United States promised not to invade Cuba, there wouldn't be any need for defensive weapons. And we'll take them away. Yeah, we'll take the defensive weapons away. Yeah, the non-nuclear defensive weapons. Yeah, we'll take those away. Yeah. So, the United States and Kennedy are thinking about this. I mean, this

sounds pretty good. In fact, this sounds better than we could have hoped for. All we need to do is say, we promise not to invade, and all this goes away. This is amazing. However, by the next day, another version of the letter was released to the public. It was almost identical, but it had been polished up a bit,

and it had one important difference. This time, it included the compromise of the United States dismantling their missiles in Turkey. Obviously, the inquiries through the back channels had reached them, and Russia had gone, yeah, that sounds good. But instead of keeping it all hush-hush, they decided, no, we're going to say you should do it and make you do it, to make us seem like we've won. Safe face, yeah. Yeah. So to stall for time, the White House issued a statement saying that several conflicting proposals have come from Russia

in the last 24 hours. We will release something soon. Inside the White House, there was a huge debate on whether to accept this. Yes, it would weaken the US. Yes, it would look like we kind of lost this. But as Kennedy put it, and I'll quote, for any rational man, the Turkey-Cuba swap looks like a very fair trade. Well, it is. Yeah, exactly. But it was decided not to agree to it. Instead, they were going to just ignore the second letter and respond to the first one.

So they publicly stated that as long as Russia started dismantling the missiles, the United States would end the blockade and give written assurances that the United States would not invade Cuba. Fair enough. Yeah. At the same time, Kennedy sent his brother through back channels to give a less formal but just a serious message to Khrushchev. And Bobby Kennedy's message was essentially this. Accept this. Seriously, accept this. Because if you don't, the president is going to have to cave to the pressure from his joint chiefs. And an airstrike is going to happen.

And that will mean nuclear war and the destruction of us all. You need to accept in 24 hours. And I'll quote at the end, this is not an ultimatum, just a statement of fact. It's like we've reached the brink here. Yeah. It's time for you to back down. However, to sweeten the deal, how about this?

Obviously, we're not going to publicly say we're going to withdraw our missiles from Turkey, because it looks like the United States are weak. But once we don't have to worry about Cuba anymore, we'll have lots of spare time. And who knows what we might do with that spare time? Maybe we'll dismantle our weapons in Turkey. Yeah. Yeah, maybe we will. Who knows? So Chris Chess's response was swift. Publicly, he agreed to the terms of the public American proposal, and privately, he agreed to the removal of the Turkish missiles.

Nice. That was huge relief, not just in Washington, but obviously across the world, because most understood this was the closest the world has ever got to nuclear war. And for now, they've pulled back from the brink. But, ooh, that was change your trousers time for a while there. It really was. It's good that he held his nerve.

Yeah. Because you can have a leader that's all bulkshy and Trumpy and like, oh, I'm the best. There are certainly many presidents we have had before this and since where I can imagine they would have made the wrong move here. And as much as us two can sit here in the benefit of hindsight, both saying, yeah, no, I would have said blockade. That seems like the sensible option. It's a lot easier to say from here, isn't it? So, yeah.

So there you go. Anyway, the world's not exploded. That's nice. The next major issue, civil rights. It's back in the news. Yeah. Clashes in Birmingham, Alabama. This is all over a desegregation of education again, which I'm not going to go into a huge amount of detail on because I've talked about it before, but just know that's still ongoing. Just know that's still ongoing. School kids protesting against the racist laws of the state started to be attacked by police dogs and hosed down by firemen. It's not a good look, is it? It's not a good look. Pictures of children being attacked by the authorities just because they were black spread across the news.

Kennedy saw this and apparently was very shocked. Apparently this kind of woke something up in him where he realised, you know what, enough's enough. Now that said, he also genuinely believed the FBI's assessment that Martin Luther King was working with the communists to embarrass the United States over their racism. So he wasn't particularly sure about Martin Luther King and the leaders of the civil rights movement, but he got to the point where he was thinking, something does need to be done here. Even if that was true, which it obviously isn't, it's still bad things happening to other human beings.

Yes, exactly. So he needs to do something, but what? The governor of Alabama was a man named Wallace. Wallace was an out-and-out, card-carrying racist. He had been elected on a platform promising segregation yesterday, segregation today, segregation forever. Why? So he wasn't going to be much of a help.

Well, maybe the CIA can see to that. Send in the pigs! Kennedy attempted to talk to Wallace, but he was met with hostility and racist remarks that really angered Kennedy. He came out of it just really annoyed. He was generally angered by the South by this point. He was just annoyed that the South have had 100 years since the Civil War

and they are still refusing to ever compromise on issues of race. So it was time, he thought, for a serious new look on civil rights laws. Good. Now, most of his advisers told him, no, come on, don't do this, be sensible. It's likely you'll fail, it will make you look weak, an election's coming up, this is not the time to do it. And also, you're going to lose support

of the Southern Democrat wing of the party, which is a substantial wing of the party. Yeah, but if they're racist they can get but it's a large part of the party the democrats would fall apart you could split the party here so don't do this yeah but yeah that's getting political rather than and again it's a difference between what's right and what's easy kennedy made up his mind if the country was going to move forward, they need to start taking this issue more seriously. So he announced with a speech, and I'll quote here, 100 years of delay

have passed since Lincoln freed the slaves, and yet their heirs are not truly free. They are not yet free from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet free from social and economic injustice. It's coming out much stronger than he's ever done before, whereas before it was just, eh. Whereas now he's really, really going for it.

He's set a signpost, which is good. Yeah. Martin Luther King, who from before this was no fan of Kennedy, thinking that the biggest danger to the black man was the centralist white man, who was coming along saying, I agree with your aims,

just I don't think you should be doing it now. Yeah, but Martin Luther King was pleased with this change in Kennedy, although still obviously very cautious. But the proposed bill was definitely the most far-reaching the country had ever seen to tackle racism. It would ensure voting rights to all citizens with a sixth grade education, meaning a lot more black people were eligible to vote. It introduced laws that eliminated discrimination in public places. It strengthened the federal government's powers to enforce desegregation in education. And it introduced laws to help protect black people from job discrimination as well. So it's starting to get into employment.

So, I mean, it's doing a whole bunch of things. Definitely the best Civil Rights Act being proposed so far. Yeah. Obviously, the Southern Democrats were outraged by the idea of black people being treated like human beings. So Kennedy was going to have to approach the Republicans. He was going to have to go across party lines here if he was going to get it through. Good. Now that is not going to be easy. And there was a very good chance it was going to fail but he pushed for it anyway. After

all, as we have started to see over the last couple of episodes, there had been a slow shift in the South and people were starting to think the South might just turn Republican for the first time ever. Now in that case the Democrats might as well stop pandering to this racist wing of their party. If they were going to lose them anyway to the Republicans, well, let's just get rid of it. We don't need this wing of the party. Now, that was the attitude of some. Now, after this, Kennedy went on a trip to Europe

to rally support for NATO, which is nice. As we've seen, Berlin was obviously on Kennedy's mind a lot as president, so he made sure that was included in the trip, and he went and delivered a speech. He talked about how America saw it as a privilege to be defending world peace, despite the fact in private he actually complained that the European countries were getting an easy ride thanks to the United States. I mean, to be fair, the United States were pouring money into Europe

to keep it afloat after World War II. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, once he was in Berlin, he delivered a speech to the citizens of West Berlin. One of his, again, one of his famous speeches here. He promised them that they would not be forgotten and he proudly declared that he was a donut. Ah. I've heard other things about that.

Yeah, what things? That he didn't, like grammatically, it wasn't actually a donut. It was just this sort of like an urban myth that sort of spawned. Yeah, yeah, it is one of the, any fans of Eddie Izzard will have heard this story because he does a whole skit on it.

That's what you get most of your research on. Yeah, exactly. But yes, it is actually more complex than that. The actual quote is, 2,000 years ago, the proudest boast was Sybil Romana's song. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is Ich bin ein Berliner. But there is debate on whether he actually said

Ich bin ein Berliner, whether it was an accent because he was just bad at German and made it sound like that. Also, ein Berliner, so in the same way a hamburger or a Frankfurter, ein Berliner was a different way of saying a jelly donut in Germany, but apparently not in Berlin. Apparently that was in different parts of Germany. Certainly at the time, no one thought it was a strange thing. Everyone took the meaning to be I am a Berliner.

No one in the crowd was looking at each other confused. But since then people have been pouring over scripts going hang on he said he was a donut. So yeah the story's not quite as funny as you'd hope it would be but yeah so if you've come across that story before this podcast he declared he's a massive donut but for this podcast he said i'm a donut nixon's a spring roll actually nixon won't be a spring roll it'd be something more greasy anyway right so a good tour of Europe which was nice he had fun he went to Ireland for a bit because obviously

Irish roots anyway back home he starts thinking about the election his push on civil rights was definitely harming him it appeared that by working with moderate Republicans he might actually get the bill through but his opinion polls were already struggling. People started to fear he was actually going to lose the next election over this.

One reporter asked if civil rights was worth the election. And Kennedy replied that a president needed to meet his responsibilities by ensuring the rights of all citizens. Oh, that's a great answer. Yeah. Now, while all this was going on, Martin Luther King gave his famous I Have a Dream speech. Ah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that happens at this point. There was a lot of nerves beforehand about whether this should go ahead

because a lot of people predicted this would turn into riots in the capital. After all, that many black people in one space is bound to be violence. Oh. Yeah. A lot of planning went into make sure that things like toilets were available all, that many black people in one space is bound to be violence. Oh. Yeah. A lot of planning went into make sure that things like toilets were available and food was available and just the basic things that people need in gatherings. Let's make sure this is organised and let's hope it goes well. And as I'm sure you're aware, it was a very successful protest.

There were no riots. I've heard it was. Someone had a dream. It went down well, that speech. In fact, the speeches were such a huge success that there was a sense of optimism afterwards that this bill actually would get passed safely. When King met Kennedy later that evening in the White House, Kennedy shook his hand and just said, I have a dream. It's starting to go quite well. Right up until a point where someone blew up a church in Birmingham killing four young children.

Yes. Four black girls. Dead. That's horrible. Yeah. As you can imagine, tensions flare up again after this and the optimism soon evaporates. Kennedy soon starts to doubt this bill is actually going to pass.

He angrily said at this time, a lot of these fellas would rather have an issue than a bill. He pointed out that a lot in the Republican Party felt that they'd lost the black vote for good, so they might as well, and I quote here, play the white game in the South. Some in the Republican Party saying, we've kind of disenfranchised the black vote,

so we might as well pander to the racist and sweep up the southern Democrats. So they're politically racist, which has now turned into real racism. That's very interesting. Now, obviously the switch of the parties is not an instant thing. It happened over time, as we've seen. But this really is the the tipping point this is really where we start to see republicans having a strong hold in the south and the democrats in the north rather than the other way around um so anyway the campaign heats

up kennedy starts touring the country in particular in order to limit the damage in the South, he plans to visit Florida and Texas. Oh dear. Yeah. His trip to Florida was unremarkable. I say that, I can't say I looked into it that much. Who knows what would happen? Maybe all sorts of crazy stuff, but I'm running out of words and he's got to get to Texas.

Then he goes to Texas. Yeah. running out of words and he's got to get to texas so then he goes to texas uh yeah there's slight worries about the hostility towards the president in dallas worries that far-right groups were to lead demonstrations or even worse one of these groups put an ad in a dallas paper accusing the kennedy brothers of being pro-communist kennedy saw this ad and showed it to jackie and said we're heading into nut country today. But Jackie, if someone wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, no one can stop it, so why worry? Well, there we go.

There we go. Just know he wasn't worried. Did he actually say that? Apparently so. My God. Yeah. It's weird. It's sort of...

A bit like Caesar? Yeah, it reminds me of Caesar saying, I don't need my bodyguards because if someone just wants to come up and stab me, what am I going to do about it? Just before he got stabbed. So, tip for you, if you're a politician, don't say,

well, if someone wants to kill me, why worry about it really loudly? Because you're tempting fate. Anyway, on November the 22nd at 12.30, Kennedy was being driven through Dallas. Yeah, he was. He was. And then suddenly a bullet ripped through his neck and then his head.

He was dead 30 minutes later. Yeah, the fact he took 30 minutes. Oh, I'm not sure if it took 30 minutes. He might have died soon. He was proclaimed dead. They gave up trying to make him live. But yeah. He's still not alive, sir. But even the

video, you can see, like, he grabs his neck, he's at the side, then it hits his head, and it's, oh, then Jackie over the back. It's very sad. This is the crazy thing. After 250 plus episodes of covering the lives of 250 plus people, we've got to a point now where we've actually seen this person die. Yes.

On TV. Yeah. Which is crazy. Yeah, less than an hour after this, a man named Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. He was a Marine veteran found nearby. He was arrested for the assassination, and then less than two days later, Oswald was shot and killed

in the basement of the police headquarters. By Ruby... Tuesday. No, no, that's a different Ruby. Jack Ruby. Jack Ruby, yes. Well done, Jack Ruby. But what happens?

This is where we get to decide who killed JFK. No, because we know who killed JFK. No, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, we get to play. Get your flute out and do the theme tune. Who killed JFK? The RBL squad. Number one The official conclusion of the original investigation Oswald acted alone in killing the president

And Jack Ruby acted alone killing Oswald Straightforward Yeah Okay Like Occam's razor kind of It's the most simple explanation It makes sense It fits all the criteria

That's the answer kind of thing Well this version simple explanation it makes sense it fits all the criteria that's the answer kind of thing well this version's never sat well with the public a majority of americans that doesn't matter what the public think it doesn't matter well let me continue facts matter a majority of americans thought at the time and since that there was more to it than this and in fact um in 1979 after a few more assassinations had happened uh and the watergate scandal had happened and there was lots of worry about um corruption and cover-ups another house select committee called the house select committee on assassinations which is a very cool sounding committee yeah what committee are you on i'm on the housing committee you uh garbage disposal what about you

turn to the guy dressed completely in black smoking a small cigarette assassinations yeah he just steps backwards into a dark room and the door closes on its own and the word assassination committee is on the door yeah it's a very cool committee anyway this committee found serious flaws in the first committee it concluded that oswald was the assassin yeah you got that right oswald clearly was the assassin but they also stated that a second gunman was almost certainly involved oh yeah based on blood spatter and stuff. And also there was a very serious chance of conspiracy. Now sealed documents from this investigation

that might shed new light on things were sealed until 2017. Wow. But then 2017 came round and Trump pushed it back to 2021. And then Biden, saying, oh there's too much Covid, we're all very busy pushed it to december

this year so who knows maybe in december we'll learn some more facts about these committees and what they found out maybe it will be pushed back again we'll see what happens you're just releasing files there's there's no effort in that it's just like press the release button yeah i know pigeons get released finally after 60 years. They just fall out their cages. These dusty pigeons. Yeah. Peel off a document from their little feet. Yeah, obviously the fact that these files have been sealed away

has led to lots of people having lots of conspiracy theories, especially about this second shooter. Now, it should be said, the second shooter theory has been hotly debated since. There have been reconstructions done, mathematical equations done, all sorts done around it, and there is still debate over it. Some people say that scientifically you can prove there was a second gunman, and some people say, no, scientifically you can prove there wasn't. It's just the blood splattered in a way you wouldn't expect it to, and we can recreate it.

Who knows? Anyway, this leads to the other options. So option one, remember, was Oswald acted alone, Jack Ruby acted alone. Number two, Kennedy was killed by two gunmen acting alone or in part of a small group of extremists, and the second gunman shot from the grassy knoll and escaped and was never caught. Number three, Oswald was actually hired by the mob. The mob had casinos in Cuba that were no longer open, and they were unhappy that Kennedy had not taken Castro down. On top of this, Kennedy as Attorney General had been talking about taking out the mob, so the mob hired a hitman. Okay. Number four, Oswald was hired by the Cubans or the mob. So the mob hired a hitman. Right. Okay. Number four, Oswald was hired by the Cubans or the Russians. I'm lumping those together. Oswald was in Mexico City a couple of

months beforehand. So who knows? Maybe he got some orders from there. Yeah. Number five, Ted Cruz's dad did it. Yes, that's it. This one is simply just one of Trump's bizarre accusations that has no basis in reality whatsoever. I unfortunately did have to go down a little bit of a rabbit hole to just see where the hell he got this from. He got it from a really dodgy tabloids newspaper report that someone had said, that man with Lee Harvey Oswald looks a little bit similar

to the passport photo of Ted Cruz's dad. That is literally it. From that, they decided, yeah, Ted Cruz's dad was involved in the assassination, so... Yeah. Well, Trump not known for his, you know, detail. Number six, aliens. Number eight, the CIA did it.

Rogue elements of the CIA, annoyed that Kennedy was not supporting them enough over Cuba and the Bay of Pigs, decided to take him out. One theory is that the driver was actually a CIA agent and turned round in the car and shot the president. So, there's that. And then finally, number nine, JFK killed himself. Ha, what? Well, the crew of Red Dwarf, with a time machine, And then finally, number nine, JFK killed himself. What?

Well, the crew of Red Dwarf with a time machine went back in time and accidentally saved him. Then they realised the world went really, really bad. And they therefore met up with JFK and convinced him the only way to brighten the course of history was for him to assassinate himself on the grassy knoll i love that episode it's such a good episode such a good episode of red dwarf because it's where the great like great comedy can do like a really serious episode like when he dies like that's really sad yeah and it's away and he it really is in a period of red dwarf when it's kind of lost its way a bit red dwarf isn't great in that period, but this one episode is amazing. If you're listening and you've never watched the JFK episode of Red Dwarf,

hunt it down and watch it. It's fantastic. Okay, so there you go. There are your options. How did he die? He got killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, and he was apparently apparently quite a stirred individual um i believe something to do with he went he sympathized the ussr yeah went a bit mad

he was army trained or something like that yeah the uh one of the reasons why um it's theorized that he managed to get away with it is because the the FBI were far too focused on far-right extremists who were making a lot of noise in Dallas about how awful the Kennedys were for being pro-communist. So the pro-communist crazy man in Dallas kind of slipped through the cracks because they just weren't looking for a pro-communist. They were looking for pro-fascists.

So, yeah. So you're just going for number one, are you? Well, yeah. He admitted to it as well. Yeah. I mean, I am willing to accept aliens because obviously. I'm also willing to accept that maybe it was a small group of them and there were two gunmen and one of them ran away afterwards and just stayed very quiet.

But I wouldn't say there's really that likely of a bigger conspiracy than that. The idea that the Cubans or the Russians did it is ludicrous. Why would they want someone else rather than Kennedy in? I mean, things almost went to the brink but Chris Jeff and Kennedy kind of got a system going it would be dangerous to disable the United States so it just makes no sense the CIA did it it's just come on that's just a plot from a spy novel don't get me wrong the CIA have done some awful stuff but they tend to do awful stuff to other countries them getting rid of

Kennedy makes very little sense. I mean, worst comes to worst, Kennedy's going to be around for five more years, and then they'll just get another president. It wouldn't be worth the risk. That's the trouble with conspiracy theorists. They think very short term. Yeah, it's just... Think more honestly. It's five years, we can cover this.

And if the CIA really wanted to concoct some kind of plan, then surely they could do something to just make sure Kennedy lost the next election. Yeah. Yeah. They could create a situation. Yeah, it just doesn't seem

likely at all. And as for the mob one, it's just the motive's not there enough. I mean, governments always talk about taking on the mob, so yeah, okay, I'm going with you. motive's not there enough. I mean, governments always talk about taking on the mob. So, yeah, OK, I'm going with you. It's all very boring. But, yeah, I think he was just a lone gunman.

Because, let's face it, we've seen these lone crazy people killing presidents before, and yet they're not all part of a massive conspiracy. Yeah, weird that. Yeah, weird that. But why? Why is there all the conspiracy well some theories is that it's because it was the arguably the first major tv event because so many people saw it with their own eyes they had to come and come up with a reason to make it make sense so that is possibly why there is this huge conspiracy thing around it so It was so big, it was unbelievable. Yeah, yeah. So surely someone is controlling this.

Yeah. Same with Diana, Princess Diana. Yes, yes, exactly. Same thing. Cool. Okay, then. Right. So he's dead.

And that is the end of our episode. But we need to judge him. So let's go. Are we going to do his post-presidency? Oh, yeah. No, he spent a while having a rest. Cool. Yeah.

Okay. Statesmanship. Statesmanship! Okay, so this is a bit complex. Kennedy's often held up as one of the best presidents. Yeah, that... Easily in the top ten. Yeah.

The post-war presidents, he is considered the best in most polls. Yeah. Yeah. The post-war presidents, he is considered the best in most polls. Yeah. Yeah. Even beating the likes of Reagan or Obama. I know they have a lot of support in certain areas, but they didn't have across the board support. Kennedy, clearly very, very popular. But was he good? Well, let's look at his domestic successes here. I mean, he does need some praise for attempting to push through that civil rights reform, which was more done than any president since Lincoln. Now, it was only right towards the end that he started to get behind it.

You really can argue he should have done more. It was only when kids started to be killed in Alabama that he realised that he had to do something. Up until then, he was happy for the status quo to continue. I'd argue to be truly great in this area, he should have led his presidency pushing this, rather than waiting for the race riots. But you've got to give him credit for finally actually doing something,

which is more than pretty much any other president has done. Yes. And that is important. Yeah. Because, you know, you are of your time as well yeah so i i think he gets points there definitely i agree he should also get some credit for introducing more funding for schools and for medicare over 65s there was some boring stuff going on in the background but is important now none of these things i've mentioned by the way including civil rights reform actually went through while he was still president because he was shot but he he put in the legwork so i think we can attribute

it to him right and then we go on to foreign affairs which really is a mixed bag i mean the good obviously is the cuban missile crisis this is a flashpoint in history arguably never paralleled and the human race got through it. So he needs credit there. It's easy to see how this could have gone wrong. And he made the right calls. We know he made the right calls because we didn't all die. Yeah. So that's pretty much the only good thing he did do.

The Bay of Pigs was bad. That was just the actions of a weak president. He didn't stand up to his advisors. They were lying through their teeth to the president. and he lied through his teeth to the public. So that's not good. We've not had time to go into it, but he escalated the United States' role in Vietnam with putting the advisers in. There are continued CIA plots to usurp other governments going on that he is approving. There is still the economic guttering of Southern America by the United States that Kennedy is happy to wave through. So, I mean, there's all of this bad stuff going on in the background.

But one major thing that I kind of cut for time, which you might be surprised by, but when it came down to it, it's like, do I really need to spend time on this right now? The space race. As much as I personally find the space race really interesting, it's not actually the most important thing that was going on. So I kind of cut it. It started under Eisenhower, but he wasn't too interested. The senator, Kennedy, opposed the idea of spending so much money being spent on space travel. And then as president, he was very sceptical on whether to continue. It's very expensive going into space.

You could spend that on the military or schools. However, once Yuri Gagarin was launched into space in 1961, the public mood changed in America. The United States had to beat the Russians to the moon. And this is another famous speech of his. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Yeah. But actually because we want to beat the Russians. Well, yeah. Yeah. That's why. Because we're worried they will develop military tech in space and they will be able to kill us so we need to be ahead of them kennedy asked what can we do that's impressive in space before the russians uh the answer was

not much uh the only thing maybe we might be able to do because we're so far behind is be the first to get to the moon if that's all we focus on because the russians are ahead everywhere else so kennedy went great okay get us to the moon then so that's why the human race got to the moon eventually is because one country wanted to just show off in front of another one yep yeah so um statesmanship, then. The negatives sort of outweigh the positives. Oh, you see, I'd argue the other way around. Although, the whole fact we're not dead. Getting us through the Cuban Missile Crisis is huge, and the biggest push in civil rights reform,

although he didn't lead it, he was dragged along, but he didn't resist, which most other presidents have. I think those are two really good things. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. There are technically more lists of not great, but actually the things he did were actually bloody massive. And still with us today.

Everyone's heard of not dying. Everyone's heard of civil rights and things being better for people in the US, although not all the time. And everyone's heard of Neil Armstrong. So, you know.

Yeah, yeah. It's a big impact. I'm going to go six or seven. I'm going to go six. I'm going to go for six. Because let's face it, he wasn't a very good senator when he was in the Senate. He wasn't very good at anything he did.

He was mediocre at pretty much all his jobs. But he pulled a couple of things out of the bag which were impressive. Yeah. So for that, six. So, total of 12. Disgrace, Giggis. Okay. To begin with, the biggest one.

The womanising. He lied, he cheated on countless women throughout his life. He said awful things about women. The way he describes them is, frankly, disgraceful. He spent his president going through the White House, picking them up and discarding them. Now, obviously, we've had presidents that are similar to this before. We let Eisenhower's problem in this area slide

because we figured it was one woman he fell in love with, but he couldn't figure out a way to divorce his wife, and it was a bit awkward, and yeah. But in retrospect, maybe he should have got a point or so for that. But this is a completely different league. He just doesn't care about these people. There is no way he did not emotionally hurt a lot of people by doing this. Did he his wife?

Yeah, yeah, his wife and the other people he just used and just dumped. So that's not good. That is quite shameful. One here that you can give points to or not, certainly one that annoyed me the entire time I was researching him, all the silver spoons sticking out of all of his offices I know we've had this before with the Roosevelt's

but at least they were competent in their own right if somewhat flawed yeah the Roosevelt's were handed things but then they did stuff with the things they were handed Kennedy was just given the world on a platter

he's in time after time he was mediocre in pretty much everything apart from his ability to woo women he had charm he had charisma but that's about it so that's not good and then finally um he he was a liar he lied to the public a lot he lied about what the united states were up to but he also lied about his health now again you can debate whether this is relevant and he deserves points for uh but should a president lie to the public about their health do the public have a right to know whether the president is fit enough to conduct his duties or not because he faked the medical reports and that is a lying to did it affect his decision making well that is the other argument i mean uh and then how far how far down do you go does every teacher

need to dispose their medical conditions before they teach their class for the children okay so you're thinking i i'd probably say no i think if it's something that could affect your decision-making, yes. Yeah. Even, for example, diabetes. I would say that should be declosed, because that can affect your mood massively. Yeah, but I mean, he was constantly taking various drugs to deal with his problems, which would have affected him.

That's really challenging. I don't know. Yeah, it's a tricky one. It's like, hmm, it's tricky. All right. I'm going to give him... I think I'm going five. I'm taking my minus five. I'll match that.

I think it's minus five as well. So minus ten for him. Not doing great so far then, unfortunately. But maybe this one. This round will even things up for him okay silver screen for a start he certainly looked the part he looked a bit like a film star at least more like a film star than any other uh president boy yeah uh and also remember throughout all of this he was a very chronically ill so you've got that added drama i don't think i've made that

clear enough in these episodes just because if i had to stop every five minutes to say oh he had to go to the hospital again at this point um it would just have become unwieldy but yeah he was very in and out hospital his entire life um anyway so born into an insanely rich family he lived a life of luxury he sailed through school, getting poor marks, but that obviously didn't matter. He travelled round Europe in the lead-up to the war, so you could cover all of the build-up of the war

from the point of view of two young boys having a jolly. That might be interesting. He waltzed into Harvard, didn't do much work, but that's not a problem. His name's Kennedy. And then back to Europe to write his thesis using his father's connections. This is where he tours Europe,

goes into all the embassies in every single country in Europe that he can get his hands on, and really annoys the people who are trying to stop a war by saying things like excuse me, I'd just like to have a word with what you're up to. And everyone got really annoyed, so that might be fun to cover. Excuse me, lots to talk to your wife.

Yes. He also did a lot to cover excuse me a lot to talk to your wife yes he also did a lot of skiing and a lot of um skiing at this time so um yeah anyway he wrote a mediocre thesis and got it published as a book using his father's connections it won an award using his father's connections and then he got a job in the military using his father's connections he went to the pacific despite his father's connections by using his grandfather's connections where he was a mediocre captain until the boat sunk and then there was a daring escape story which genuinely was quite interesting and they made a film about it. So, I mean, yeah, you can go and watch it. There is a film about it. His brother died, remember, in the Plane Full of Dynamite. And so then he becomes the boy who has to become president. His father uses all of the family wealth to make sure Kennedy

becomes a force in politics. It works. Enough money is spent and enough backroom chats happen that he becomes a mediocre senator. And then more money is spent until eventually he becomes president. And then we get this episode where we have the Bay of Pigs with the pigs. We have them singing Vienna and Vienna. We have a Cuban missile crisis. He talks about the moon. Someone has a dream. He's shot in the head. Interesting.

I mean, it's a damn good story. It is. It's strong. It's a very strong silver screen. But also, I feel like if you did this silver screen very honestly, you'd end up really not liking him. Oh, yeah, yeah. You'd either have to do what most of the public and history seems to have done, which is gloss out the really annoying parts of his character and just focus on the charm and hope that that wins through.

Or you could do something different and you could actually have the main character, a fictional best friend of his, who's just really annoyed the entire time. Maybe something like that have we been too harsh sorry make step back in the old room again he did literally stop the world being destroyed he did you could argue that is the single greatest thing any president has ever done i would also point out at this point in history jamie that you made the same choices as him i'm the greatest human being that's ever lived. Exactly. I mean, it's... I know it would have been hard at the time, and it would have been

really tricky, but... But you've got to have the fortitude like me to just stick with it. Yeah, stick with it, yeah. Stick to your convictions, yeah. And I definitely think there are other presidents that would have made the wrong decision, and I am giving him... But me and Kennedy, we're up there. I am giving him points for getting through the Cuban

Missile Crisis, but I don't know, seven. I might go up to seven. You're right. That is a biggie. It's massive. We're still alive because you could argue single-handedly because our lives are as they are because of him. You could argue.

Yeah, but I mean you could argue the same about FDR and World War II. Statesmanship. Okay. No, I'll go up a point. I'll go up a point. 14. Are you going up a point as well?

Yeah, I'm going up the same. Okay, that's 14. Right. Back to the silver screen. Right, here we are again. Okay. Yeah, I'm going high. I'm going very high.

I'm going to go higher. I don't think I'm going quite full marks. But I think I'd give him a good eight. I think a healthy eight. I think I might go nine. Really? Yeah. You've got the assassination.

You've got the Cuban Missile Crisis. I mean, you could do a whole series on that, couldn't you? You've got the build-up to World War II. So you've got all of that. Yeah, no, I'm definitely going nine. Oh, it is. Oh, it's nice. Oh, that. Yeah, no, I'm definitely going nine. Oh, it is. Oh, it's nice. Oh, wow.

Yeah, no, that's... That's the most stylised we've seen. Now, I can't remember when, but I definitely remember not giving four marks out before because I knew there was a painting coming up. Oh, look at that. This is the one. This is hands down my favourite presidential portrait.

It is such a good painting. He looks stressed. He looks like he's thinking. It's moody. It's dark. Yeah. Oh, that's good. If you've not seen it before.

It looks like he's creating a prison toilet as well. If you've not seen it before, it's Babe Brown. He's got his arms crossed and he's looking down slightly to the left. You can't see his eyes. They're either shut or he's looking his arms crossed and he's looking down slightly to the left. You can't see his eyes. They're either shut or he's looking at the floor. And he looks stressed and in pain. Pensive. Pensive.

This was painted after his death because they didn't have a portrait and they didn't have a plan for it. So they got someone to paint it afterwards. And obviously it's like the country was in mourning. So they painted this to reflect that. It's a very striking and powerful image. It looks nothing like any of the others.

There is no, this is America. I've got documents. I've got a flag. I've got Roman imagery. It is a man in a suit looking sad. And for that, I'm giving this four marks. I really like this one. Absolutely 100%.

Okay, so that is a full five points for canvas ability. Bonus! And terms? None. Didn't quite make it. He nearly did. Didn't quite make it, but he gets bonus points for someone killing him.

One per bullet. He gets two... Too soon? He gets two points for assassination. So that's nice. And for election, he won, but he only scraped through. So that is a one for election. That gives him 30 points, which is not a bad score at all.

It puts him above the likes of Adams and Jefferson. He doesn't quite beat Madison or Munro, but he beats pretty much everyone in the 1800s, apart from Lincoln and Grant. And then, obviously, Roosevelt's beaten him. And the other Roosevelt's beating him. But, yeah, no, that's not a bad score. So, you know what?

It's not. Maybe I can see why he's quite often high up there. I would argue he was not a great president. But I would argue he was a better president than he was anything else in his life. Yes. He did certain things that made him stand out. Yeah. So, if

you're going to do one thing, at least slightly above average in your life, at least it's being president. So, there you go. We've got a question. We've got a question we've got a question and this this oh this one this question right let's do it american or american do you know i i was two thirds the way through this episode i was like i'm not i don't want to i really don't want to

give it to him but actually the fact he prevented nuclear war not quite single-handedly but he had the the the hesitation i hated him by the end of the first episode yeah he's an absolute and he still is he's a yeah he was a he died making use of the bleep today um sorry but the fact yeah the fact he stopped nuclear war and he put... Did start pushing the civil rights. He did. Civil rights as well. But, I mean, he certainly wasn't leading the charge there.

It's not like JFK, the hero of civil rights. No, but he could make... He was the one making the decisions. Because you don't have to be the first one to do it, but being the one to say, actually, yeah, that's right, and then allowing it to happen is as important, I would argue. It did also start pushing for people to go into space, which is impressive, but then that was not...

But not for the right reason. I'm not as impressed by that. I never have been. Star Trek aired in his... What did it? Was that 66? No, no, it? Was that 66? No, no, it didn't.

No, it didn't. Yeah, 66, yeah. So, no, it had nothing to do with Star Trek either. But actually, no, no. I mean, the Beatles are now out. Because of it. Because, Beatles are out. But because of him, screw the Beatles,

because of him, Star Trek happened. Well, no, no, the space program started under Eisenhower. And to be fair no one landed on the moon until 69 which is three years after star trek in fact star trek had finished pretty much yeah yeah yeah no i don't think you can get credit for that um jamie yeah tell me what what does american mean to you somebody that made america better and embodies the american spirit i'm not sure quite sure what that is because it probably depends on where you're from and your own beliefs on what the american spirit is but because i don't know what it is i'm just saying those words they just come out of my mouth i have no idea let me um i i think someone if you can make your country better with the lasting

impacts that makes you an american oh you're interesting and he's interesting everyone knows jfk he's interesting he got killed but maybe that's what makes him an american to me it's the anti-nuclear war and the civil rights there's i'll give it to him just that i think i've racism we've had through multiple presidents, he's been the most un-racist. Yes, and there is an argument to be said his death sped up the civil rights movement, along with other, obviously, even more important deaths like Martin Luther King and the likes.

But, you know what, I can't believe I'm saying this after the last episode where I hated him. Fine. He can have American. But you hated Jackson. He got American as well. Oh, no, that's a very good point. That is a very good point.

He jewelled with people. Oh, yeah, no, he was an awful, awful human being. Yeah, he was an awful human being. And they got American, for goodness sake. Yeah. No, no, you're right. I awful human being. Yeah, he was an awful human being. For goodness sake. Yeah. No, no, you're right. I think we forgive him. Yeah, you know what?

JFK, well done for showing that there is nothing more successful in this world than a mediocre white man. And you have embodied that perfectly, so thank you. It is weird. It'd be interesting to, like, for our patrons, do like an episode about why he's so beloved. Yeah, no, no. We should do something like that. Yeah. That'd be fascinating.

But there you go. 30 points, American. He can't complain too much at that. I think he's done all right, he has. I think he's done surprisingly well. Better than he deserves. That's what he's done. Possibly.

Yeah. Okay, right. Well, thank you very much for listening. It's what he's done. Possibly. Yeah. Okay, right. Well, thank you very much for listening. It is good to be back. It really is. I've really missed this. So this is good. If you've not heard the update episode,

we're back, but we're not fully back up and running. There's no way I can promise a regular weekly schedule at the moment. But things are moving in the right direction. There will be semi-regular content from now on is the idea up until I can get to regular content. And thank you. Is that celebration?

Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Right. So thank you much. Thank you much very. That's what I meant to say for listening. Yep. And don't forget to follow us on Podbean, iTunes, Stitcher, Facebook, Twitter, whatever. You listen. You know what I mean. You know.

You know. You know. And until next time, which hopefully won't be too long. Goodbye. Goodbye. goodbye ah mr president good to see you again you are very chipper considering we are on the brink of nuclear war. Oh, I know. We say brink of war. We say brink of profit. I mean, success for the United States.

Anyway, you know that business like the other year with the whole Cuban thing? The Bay of Pigs? Yes, yes. We call it now the Bay of Pigs because we use... Pigs. Yes, yes, it now the Bay of Pigs because we use... Pigs. Yes, yes, because we use pigs. Well... Do you know how much expense we have spent on hiding that fact from the public?

A couple of dollars, maybe? It was a lot. Millions spent covering that fact up from the public. Really? Wow. And then someone leaked the Bay of Pigs name. Really? Wow. And then someone leaked the Bay of Pigs name.

Who knows who that could have been? So you'll forgive me if I never want to hear the word pig ever again. Anyway, this is a serious situation. The Russians are building nuclear capability off the shore of Florida. We could be in nuclear war within the week. I really hope you have a good solution for me. I do, sir. And the answer is pigs. Pigs. Yes. Mark two. These are faster, more aggressive and well-trained this time. By mark two, are you suggesting they are new pigs? No, no.

Just we spray painted the number 2 on the sides and they have a go faster stripe on their back. But they are far more efficient, sir. Check this one out. You've brought one of... Get, get, get that... Security, get this pig out of there. No, no, no, no. Leave him.

If you watch carefully, he will go into a meditative state. No, you're right. This is him preparing, sir. Okay. So when we drop the pigs... You're dropping the pigs this time. Yes, sir. When we drop the pigs, this is what they will do.

What? Sit staring into the distance with their legs crossed? Yes. This is them preparing, sir. This is them analysing the situation. Look at Leroy. Look at him. You've named him? I've named him Lering the situation. Look at Leroy. Look at him. You've named him?

I've named him Leroy, yes. Look at Leroy. Okay. He stares. Look how he stares. He is staring. And he's not just staring at you. He's solving the problem.

What problem? Because the problem is the Soviets have nuclear silos off the coast of Florida. Oh, no, he's not solving that problem, sir. He's not trained to do that. What is he trained to do, then? He is trained to infiltrate Castro's very government and infiltrate from the inside. Ha ha!

How? Well, that's what his training will do. No, please take me through the steps here. You're going to fly the pigs over Cuba. Yes. You're going to drop them. They're very bouncy. I can see the start point of the plan,

and you tell me the end point is infiltration of the Cuban government. I'm struggling to connect the dots. It's with this, sir. The fake moustache. Oh, wow. Now that is quite an impressive spy moustache, now you say. And this? Is that a newspaper with eye holes cut out?

It is indeed, sir. You know what? It's worth a shot. Okay, it's a go for Operation Flight of Pigs. Yes, yes. Let's hope this one works better. It won't.