Krushchev's Cuba secret

ASTONISHING REVELATIONS about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis will be made by Fidel Castro in Cold War, the pounds 7m documentary series at the heart of BBC 2's autumn schedule.

In the first interview with Castro for British television, he talks of how Russian missiles in Cuba included short-range nuclear weapons, which were armed and ready for use against any invading American army, which could have sparked full-scale nuclear war

The Cuban leader also reveals that his Soviet counterpart Nikita Krushchev failed to tell him that he had done a deal with US President John Kennedy which brought the crisis to an end. Instead, Castro learned of it from the radio.

Cold War is made by Jeremy Isaacs, who was responsible for the Seventies ITV series World at War. Cold War draws on 8,500 archive films, many of them retrieved from Soviet archives, and involves 500 interviews in 31 countries.

It reveals the inside workings of key moments in history, for instance that it took 38 separate requests from Kim Il Sung to Stalin before Stalin gave the go-ahead to invade South Korea in June 1950.

Other highlights include six new Alan Bennett Talking Heads monologues, a gritty new police series, The Cops, by Tony Garnett, a surreal comedy sketch show, Big Train, and Naked, where 120 people strip.