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| One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Dobbs
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $28.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 4274
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6 x 1.7
ISBN: 1400043581
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.922
EAN: 9781400043583
ASIN: 1400043581
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON June 23, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dangerous moment during the Cold War, when humanity was in danger of annihilation.The main players of this showdown were two: Khrushchev and Kennedy.Their game was taking place on the tiny island of Castro's Cuba.
The truth is that even after so many years, no one really understands or knows why Krushchev has decided to send the missiles to Cuba.This was the most absurd and illogical decisions ever taken by a leader in contemporary history.What is known is the fact that the Russian leader of a master of the brinkmanship policy.
In terms of micro- history,I believe that this crisis is the most studied and most scrutinized one -when discussing various episodes of the Cold War.Researchers have studies the political,military and other aspects of the crisis and have so far provided us with many facts and miscellaneous points of view.
So, why should any reader bother to read a new book on this very-much dissected-so-far subject?
The answer is simple: Mr.Dobbs has written a most fascinating and intriguing book and what makes it unique is that this is a minute-to-minute account of the crisis- a thing that was never tried before.Therefore, this is not only history at its best but also a very good chronicle. He has incorporated new material and has unearthed new facts which were unknown so far.
Some of them relate to the Soviets' intentions to take out the Guantanamo base by nuclear missiles.He is also describing some incidents which could have easily ignited the Third World War, such as the Charles Maultsby incident involving the straying of a U-2 over the USSR.The various machinations of the Cuban community fellows in Miami -in order to topple their ex-leader-are also presented here.
Dobbs has also taken care to talk to some Russians who were minor players during the crisis and is giving us -for the first time- some insight of what they were doing or feeling.It is clear that most of the Russian soldiers sent to Cuba were going through hell because of the conditions on their subs or ships and even after their arrival to an exotic butalso an unpleasant lizard and snake-ridden island.
He also describes how the nuclear strike codes of the American were kept and what was supposed to happen once the President has taken the decision to activate those codes.
We also get some glimpses regarding the intelligence material supplied by 'IRONBARK'-the code of pehaps the most important spy who has been working for the American Intelligence community:Oleg Penkovsky.Mr. Dobbs should have elaborated on this aspect, since I have maintained for a very long time that the Cold War was maily about a war of wits.
For those who know very little about the crisis, this book will help them not only get started, but will also take them on a dangerous ride which is typical of thriller writers.For the specialists in this field, this book has to offer serious research- including many pages of documentation as well.
And finally, as the author writes,some more books will be written on this hazardous times ,when the process of still-classified documents will-hopefully- be sped up.
In short: this book is brilliant!It should be especially read by those who are in a hurry to take irresponsible decisions anywhere.
Read it and be scared all over again August 28, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was in college during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Between classes we sat in the Student Union Building watching CBS News on TV, waiting for a break in the tension - or the flash of a nuclear bomb. At one point the lights went out and one of my friends yelled and dove under a sofa for cover. (Someone had bumped the light switch.) The missile crisis was a defining moment in the Cold War. After the lessons of the crisis, the US and Russia (and China) managed to avoid getting nearly that close to nuclear war, despite Vietnam and the collapse of the USSR.
"One Minute to Midnight" brings it all back and adds new information that is very frightening, even with 46 years' distance. The book is well written and seems to have been very thoroughly researched. Dobbs resists the temptation to pad his story to make a longer book or to dramatize the situation to heighten the tension. The story is dramatic and tense enough as it is. His straightforward and coherent writing makes it clear how amazing it was that we didn't all get vaporized at the end of October 1962.
The scariest thing to read is that Fidel Castro was urging the Russians to launch a nuclear attack on the US and that he explicitly preferred dignity and his dogmatic "end of days" vision of a victory for socialism over a retreat. I used to think that the possession of nuclear weapons was likely to make leaders much more cautious about going to war. So much for that idea! Castro's advice to the Russians shows that having nuclear weapons won't make a crackpot ruler sane. So by extension, the prospect of Iran having the bomb in the future - or even Pakistan, which does have it - is a lot more frightening after you read Dobbs' book than it might have been before.
The book makes the case that John Kennedy's experience in World War II helped him resist the demands of his generals - most notably Curtis Lemay - to start shooting. The Pentagon thought there were 6,000 to 8,000 Russian advisors in Cuba, but there were 40,000. And they were armed with tactical nuclear weapons. Imagine what a disaster we would have had if we'd dropped a couple of divisions onto the beaches east of Havana. Anyone who's been in the military soon learns to question intelligence and to be skeptical of reflexive assumptions about the enemy. John Kennedy had already been burned by bad intelligence during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, so he was doubly skeptical. Dobbs shows us how lucky we were that JFK was neither naive nor trigger happy.
All of this and far more unfolds brilliantly in One Minute to Midnight. The story is intrinsically intriguing and riveting. The book is well structured and well written, and Dobbs has given us enough new information to make shake our heads in wonder and dismay.
A few years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert Kennedy wrote "Thirteen Days" to describe the meetings of the US civilian and military leaders. While it had Bobby's own spin, the sweaty palms we all had in October 1962 have made me keep Kennedy's book on a special shelf. It's one of the books that have shaped my understanding of the world. Michael Dobbs' "Now One Minute to Midnight" is going to join it.
Well-researched history in page-turner packaging October 20, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Dobbs book succeeds in three important ways: First, it uncovers many previously unknown facts about the Cuban missile crisis. Some of these facts should change the way we view the crisis and the lessons we draw from it. Second, the book shows how chaotic the event were, how little the actors knew, and how the crisis took on a life of its own. This is quite sobering and not a little scary. Third, Dobbs tells the well-researched story as a journalist would, skipping between Washington DC, Havana, and Moscow, and half-a-dozen other places. This makes the book a very exciting and enjoyable page-turner. Two thumbs up!
"Some Sonfabitch Doesn't Get The Word October 30, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is an excellent piece of historical writing, well-documented and well-illustrated with pertinent maps and photographs. The author relies upon recently accessable material from Soviet and American archives, as well as interviews with personnel in America and Russia. Until Cuban archives are open, this work will be the last word on the topic. Most popular accounts seem to have been based on the "Excomm Tapes"; but these are replete with inaccuracies amd can be misleading. To be useful, they must be backed up with documentray sources. Without them, they can only be used to show the attitudes of the speakers. Alone they are not reliable for historical fact. Much of the earliest writing on the topic is from the "Canonical School of the Kennedys"; this analysis is well-balanced and gives JFK his fair due.
The title of this review is a quote from JFK that is somewhat similar to what Clausewitz described more eligently as "Operational Friction"; how in any compex military operation things start going awry. In the age of nuclear weapons it is even more dangerous. The chance for an accidental nuclear release were so numerous ("People you wouldn't trust with a loaded 22 rifle were flying around in single-seat aircraft with control over their nuclear weapons" as one speaker says) The "Afterwood" chapter is excellent with insights and is very useful to use as a classroom reading assignment.
 Excellent Recounting of Events; Some Flaws in the Analysis July 20, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Mr. Dobbs' detailed and enthralling account of the Cuban missile crisis is excellent--except for his postmortem in the final chapter where he glosses over the Kennedy Administration's numerous foreign policy blunders that led to the crisis (e.g., Bay of Pigs invasion, JFK's abysmal performance at the 1961 Vienna summit with Khrushchev, Operation Mongoose, etc.) and lauds Kennedy for his "restraint and sense of history." And he can't resist taking a gratuitous shot at the Bush Administration, stating that we are all very fortunate that George W. wasn't president in 1962. The irony of that observation is completely lost on Mr. Dobbs. Bush invades Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction and finds none; Kennedy's inexperience in foreign affairs and Camelot's irrational obsession with a toothless Black Knight (aka Castro) were the catalyst for the installation of WMDs in our own backyard which, in turn, precipitated a crisis that almost led to Armageddon. The best you can say about JFK's handling of the Cuban missile crisis is that he cleaned up his own mess. And if the United States had not possessed such a large technological and strategic advantage in nuclear weaponry--something that Messrs. Truman and Eisenhower deserve credit for--then, as Mr. Dobbs' book makes clear, there is a very good chance that Khrushchev would not have backed down and Kennedy's "restraint and sense of history" would not have counted for much. In the final analysis, JFK made some wise decisions in his handling of the crisis for which he deserves credit, but he was also very, very lucky, and history will not allow him to escape responsibility for those decisions by his administration that led to the crisis in the first place.
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