Fallout: Epilogue

“Vanity, vainglory, dissatisfaction with my work,” he told the court, “and love of an easy life led me to the criminal path.”

“Vanity, vainglory, dissatisfaction with my work,” he told the court, “and love of an easy life led me to the criminal path.”

The judge found Penkovsky guilty of treason and sentenced him to be shot.

On May 16, 1963, the Soviet newspaper Pravda noted: “The sentence has been executed.”

In total, Penkovsky had passed nearly ten thousand pages of secrets on Soviet strengths and weaknesses to his American and British contacts. A CIA summary would call this “the most productive classic clandestine operation ever conducted by CIA and MI6 against the Soviet target.”

As part of what the press dubbed the “Bodies for Butter” program, East German dictator Walter Ulbricht accepted bribes of food from Western governments in exchange for the release of political prisoners.

After his exchange for Rudolf Abel—dramatized in Steven Spielberg’s 2015 film Bridge of Spies—Francis Gary Powers was taken directly to a CIA safe house in rural Maryland and grilled for days on end.

Ignorant of the facts, articles blamed him for being shot down, for “allowing” himself to be captured by not using his poison pin. The CIA eventually cleared Powers of any suspicion of disloyalty—but did not explain to the public that pilots were never ordered to kill themselves, or even to carry the hollow coin with the poison needle.

“Intelligence work is not a series of rip-roaring adventures, a string of tricks or an entertaining trip abroad,” Abel cautioned. “It is, above all, arduous, painstaking work that calls for an intense effort, perseverance, stamina, fortitude, will power, serious knowledge and great mastery.”

“Intelligence work is not a series of rip-roaring adventures, a string of tricks or an entertaining trip abroad,” Abel cautioned. “It is, above all, arduous, painstaking work that calls for an intense effort, perseverance, stamina, fortitude, will power, serious knowledge and great mastery.”

“Intelligence work is not a series of rip-roaring adventures, a string of tricks or an entertaining trip abroad,” Abel cautioned. “It is, above all, arduous, painstaking work that calls for an intense effort, perseverance, stamina, fortitude, will power, serious knowledge and great mastery.”

Lona Cohen, who’d helped the Soviets steal atomic secrets during World War II and was Rudolf Abel’s first contact in New York, disappeared behind the iron curtain for several years before reinventing herself as a quirky Canadian named Helen Kroger.

Castro remained controversial and defiant to the very end, dying in Havana in 2016, at the age of ninety.

Angry about the unfair treatment he and his fellow submariners faced upon their return to port, Vasili Arkhipov spoke little of his mission to Cuba in subsequent years.

He died at age seventy-two of kidney cancer, a disease that afflicted many of the sailors who survived the K-19 disaster.

The world-famous cosmonaut was too busy traveling the world, greeting cheering crowds and dining with dignitaries.

At a formal breakfast in London’s Buckingham Palace, Gagarin stared down at a table setting more perplexing than any cockpit.

He repeated America’s commitment to defend West Berlin and all it stood for. “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin,” Kennedy said to a roaring ovation.

To deal with each other more effectively in the future, Kennedy and Khrushchev established a “hotline”—a direct phone line from Moscow to Washington.

His confidence high, his back feeling better than it had since the tree-planting fiasco over two years before, he traveled to Texas for political events in a state that would be vital to his hopes for reelection.

Khrushchev made rash decisions, he charged. He didn’t listen to advice.

“Hasty, erratic, and inclined to intrigues.”

“Hasty, erratic, and inclined to intrigues.”

“Coarse and rude.”

“Infected with conceit.”
“You love ovations.”

This is when I joined the story, as a cynical teenager obsessed with nuclear apocalypse movies—everything from the darkly funny War Games to the relentless nightmare of The Day After, still the most widely watched TV movie of all time.

This is when I joined the story, as a cynical teenager obsessed with nuclear apocalypse movies—everything from the darkly funny War Games to the relentless nightmare of The Day After, still the most widely watched TV movie of all time.

I was disgusted with supposedly intelligent leaders who talked casually about “mutually assured destruction”—MAD. The idea was that both the United States and the Soviet Union could destroy each other many, many times over—so don’t worry! Neither side would be crazy enough to make the first move!

Finally, with hindsight, how close did the world really come to World War III in October 1962? How close did humans come to wiping our species off the planet?

After the Cold War, former U.S. and Soviet officials began meeting to share their recollections of the crisis, their fears, even their secrets.