Cuban missile crisis, 60 years on: new papers reveal how close the world came to nuclear disaster

A Soviet R12 medium range ballistic missile deployed during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Newly translated accounts show how a Russian B-59 submarine commander came close to launching a nuclear torpedo. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The commander of a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine panicked and came close to launching a nuclear torpedo during the Cuban missile crisis 60 years ago, after being blinded and disoriented by aggressive US tactics, according to newly translated documents.

Many nuclear historians agree that 27 October 1962, known as “Black Saturday”, was the closest the world came to nuclear catastrophe, as US forces enforced a blockade of Cuba to stop deliveries of Soviet missiles. On the same day a U-2 spy plane was shot down over the island, and another went missing over Siberia when the pilot lost his way.