As a US reconnaissance aircraft on October 14, 1962 Soviet discovered missile bases in Cuba, the countdown to the third began world war. How close mankind was then to a nuclear catastrophe escaped is only now clear. A Soviet U-boat commander reports how a US destroyer turned his boat around cut a hair. He had a nuclear torpedo on board, which was not known in the Pentagon. "That would lead to nuclear war can lead, and it was sheer luck that it didn't come to that," said then-US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara Interview. For the first time, footage of submarines is the "Foxtrot" class seen in the film.