GBH Openvault
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Zero Hour; Interview with Fyoder Burlatsky, 1987
Part of War and Peace in the Nuclear Age.
12/22/1987
Fedor Burlatskii (Fyodor Burlatsky) was a speechwriter for Nikita Khrushchev and an adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev. In the interview he discusses a range of issues across Soviet-American relations. He describes the reasoning behind several stages of the Cuban Missile Crisis, including putting missiles in Cuba, shooting down the U-2 plane, and the letters between Khrushchev and Kennedy. He describes the attitudes of Soviet leaders, from Stalin through Gorbachev, toward nuclear weapons and strategy. He explains the effect of installing the SS-20 missiles in Western Europe, and the eventual decision not to bulk up nuclear strength in the European theater for fear of destabilization. He describes Soviet-American relations under the current leadership of Gorbachev and Reagan. He specifically mentions the Reykjavik Summit of 1986 and explains that while everyone else saw it as a failure, he views it as a stage in the process towards disarmament. He also discusses the reasons he believes the Cold War escalated as it did after World War II.
License Clip
- Series
- War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
- Program
- Zero Hour
- Program Number
110
- Title
Interview with Fyoder Burlatsky, 1987
- Series Description
The first atomic explosion in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945, changed the world forever. This series chronicles these changes and the history of a new era. It traces the development of nuclear weapons, the evolution of nuclear strategy, and the politics of a world with the power to destroy itself.
In thirteen one-hour programs that combine historic footage and recent interviews with key American, Soviet, and European participants, the nuclear age unfolds: the origin and evolution of nuclear weapons; the people of the past who have shaped the events of the present; the ideas and issues that political leaders, scientists, and the public at large must confront, and the prospects for the future. Nuclear Age highlights the profound changes in contemporary thinking imposed by the advent of nuclear weapons. Series release date: 1/1989
- Program Description
President Reagan and Soviet Secretary Gorbachev sign the INF Agreement to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons from Europe. No one had expected the European Missile Crisis to end this way.
The story begins in 1979, when the Western Allies were worried about the Soviet Union’s buildup of SS-20 nuclear missiles aimed at Western Europe. Under pressure from the Carter Administration, NATO issued a threat, if the SS-20s were not removed, NATO would install new American missiles in Europe. The threat revived the dormant anti-nuclear movement in Western Europe, giving them an anti-American tone. In 1981, President Reagan made a proposal that the US would cancel deployment of the missiles if the Soviet Union would dismantle all the intermediate range missiles it had pointed at Europe. This was the “zero-zero” option. The Soviet Union was entering a period of change with three leaders dying in three years. In 1986 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev offered to accept the “zero-zero” option and in 1987 the INF agreement was signed.
- Duration
00:52:04
- Asset Type
Raw video
- Media Type
Video
- Subjects
- Dobrynin, Anatoly, 1919-2010
- Cold War
- Japan
- Summit meetings--Iceland--Reykjavik
- Journalists
- Gorbachev, Mikhail
- Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
- Andropov, Y. V. (Yuri Vladimirovich), 1914-1984
- Nuclear arms control
- Soviet Union
- Pershing (Missile)
- Strategic Defense Initiative
- Brezhnev, Leonid Il?ich, 1906-1982
- Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 1894-1971
- International relations
- Cuba
- Communism
- Nuclear disarmament
- Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953
- World War II
- China
- United States
- Berlin (Germany)
- Kennedy, Robert F., 1925-1968
- Reagan, Ronald
- Germany
- Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
- Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969
- Cruise missiles
- Capitalism
- Chernenko, K. U. (Konstantin Ustinovich), 1911-1985
- Antinuclear movement
- Gromyko, Andrei Andreevich, 1909-1989
- McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
- Nuclear weapons
- Locations
- Moscow, Russia
- Genres
- Documentary
- Topics
- War and Conflict
- Global Affairs
- History
- Science
- Contributors
- Burlatskii, Fedor Mikhailovich (Interviewee)
- Publication Information
- WGBH Educational Foundation
- Citation
- Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Zero Hour; Interview with Fyoder Burlatsky, 1987,” 12/22/1987, GBH Archives, accessed April 20, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_18DD1ADACC98406C9DA338F0C7F094F5.
- MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Zero Hour; Interview with Fyoder Burlatsky, 1987.” 12/22/1987. GBH Archives. Web. April 20, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_18DD1ADACC98406C9DA338F0C7F094F5>.
- APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Zero Hour; Interview with Fyoder Burlatsky, 1987. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_18DD1ADACC98406C9DA338F0C7F094F5