One canвЂ™t start to understand how all this came about until one investigates the so-called Bay of Pigs invasion. Another US or Soviet leader may not have been so mentally supple, given the pressures both faced, in particularly from their military who thought they could conduct a nuclear war and win. Premier Nikita Khrushchev, although he started the ball rolling, came to realize he had to back down if he were to save the world from catastrophe.

President John Kennedy was alone among his advisors in thinking confrontation could be avoided. The US, said the military, must be prepared to go to war with the Soviet Union unless they were removed. Moscow had deployed nuclear missiles in communist Cuba within a minuteвЂ™s flying time to Florida. Of course, being students, we assumed it was the US that was in the wrong. To my knowledge, we were the fastest off the block of any organization, deserving a mention that evening on the main BBC news. Within four hours after the BBC reported the beginnings of the crisis we had organized a massive march. I was chairman of Manchester UniversityвЂ™s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It was the first and only time, say many historians and political scientists, that the world faced the likelihood of nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the USA.ДЇor my part, I find it impossible to forget. The word has been passed down the generations and probably always will be. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is well remembered, even by those not yet born when it happened.

Bay of pigs figleaf