I nominate Nikita Krushchev to be the most important figure in the cold war, literally playing 3d chess with a bloodthirsty imperialistic regime and preventing nuclear war.
Commenting on Kennedy’s government giving the OK to launch the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba:
“ If you did this as the first step towards the unleashing of war, well then, it is evident that nothing else is left to us but to accept this challenge of yours. If, however, you have not lost your self-control and sensibly conceive what this might lead to, then, Mr. President, we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter that knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot, and what that would mean is not for me to explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly of what terrible forces our countries dispose.”
-the man himself
Afaik the Cold War was really a war between air force generals who wanted to kill every human being on the planet and slightly less monstrous Americans who thought that inciting a nuclear war would be a bad thing.
It’s kind of wild how the US Air Force is heavily evangelical.
Totally bonkers. A literal doomsday cult full of solipsistic fascist and they've got nukes.