Kennedy, Castro. Khrushchev and nuclear missiles. It’s October 1962 and the world is on the brink of nuclear war over Cuba. The funny thing is that no one knows. The world churned on as Nobel prizes were announced and the junior league set their annual luncheon date (watercress sandwiches again) .

Meanwhile, beneath this surface of calm and normal, the world teetered on a razor’s edge. Throughout the week the nation’s top leaders met in secret to discuss how to handle the biggest crisis of the postwar world. The Soviets were installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. They knew. We knew. But the Ruskies did not know we knew. It was the best kept secret since the bomb was invented. Better even.

The gap between what was happening and what the world knew was huge. Perhaps a gap this large has never happened since. And today, in a world where information is free to ricochet around the world in an instant, it is hard to believe such a secret could be kept.

This week on the Raspberry podcast, October 1962, where what you did not know could kill us all.

September 5 through September 11, 1952. A week we call Peak - If this Ain’t Peak, you don’t know Peak.

This was the Great Times people want to go back to…The Good Old Days, if this is not the great time, then there is no great time.

The late summer of 1952 saw the US at the peak of its powers, the undisputed kings of the post-war world. The economy was roaring, we were fighting a huge war in Korea to stop the Communists but it barely registered with the American public.

At the same time there was a US presidential election - General Dwight Eisenhower against Adlai Stevenson that dominated the news.

Meanwhile popular culture was shifting under their feet. The era of Hemingway was coming to its apex with his Pulitzer Prize this year with "Old Man and the Sea", while this week Kurt Vonnegut’s first book, "Player Piano", debuted, signalling a shift in the tone of American literature.

The Bush political dynasty got its start, a Donald Trump mentor becomes big news… This was the Peak year of the Good ‘ole USA…

Join us at the Raspberry Podcast.

The 70s were crazy. And they still aren’t over.

We are in this episode looking at August 29 - September 4, 1973. This week was the culture war kickoff. The Vietnam War was still raging despite the US combat troops all leaving in March 1973.

The biggest war was now being fought in Washington DC - Watergate. On one side was good old Tricky Dick “I am not a crook” Nixon who was holding out from Judge Sirica’s slap down to cough up the White House tapes. Dick said no way.

His vice president, Spiro Agnew, announced he would never resign because of the accusations he was taking bribes - cash in paper bags - but he did finally quit that October, the first big victim of the culture war. In August he was still taking bribe…it’s a good bet..

American culture was splitting apart, never to come together again. Not yet. The pro-Vietnam War supporters versus the anti-war counter-culture, about to be enshrined in mass media by the amazing artists of the era, from movies to arts to books and then politics.

The battle over Watergate was front and center….a bellwether for the decades to come.