Britain | Found in translation

A BBC monitoring station that listened in on the world is being sold

The end of the Cuban missile crisis was first heard in a country house in Berkshire

Picture shows - Staff in the office at work in BBC Monitoring, Caversham Park.
Image: BBC

The denouement was undramatic. The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 might have begun with public declarations from President John F. Kennedy and the threat of nuclear annihilation for all, but its conclusion was much more muted. The West first realised that the end was not nigh after all when, in a charming country house in Berkshire in south-east England, a translator working for the BBC tuned in to Radio Moscow and listened as Nikita Khrushchev’s climbdown began.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Found in translation”

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