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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:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 1951
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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Product Description
In October 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union appeared to be sliding inexorably toward a nuclear conflict over the placement of missiles in Cuba. Veteran Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs has pored over previously untapped American, Soviet, and Cuban sources to produce the most authoritative book yet on the Cuban missile crisis. In his hour-by-hour chronicle of those near-fatal days, Dobbs reveals some startling new incidents that illustrate how close we came to Armageddon.
Here, for the first time, are gripping accounts of Khrushchev’s plan to destroy the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo; the accidental overflight of the Soviet Union by an American spy plane; the movement of Soviet nuclear warheads around Cuba during the tensest days of the crisis; the activities of CIA agents inside Cuba; and the crash landing of an American F-106 jet with a live nuclear weapon on board.
Dobbs takes us inside the White House and the Kremlin as Kennedy and Khrushchev—rational, intelligent men separated by an ocean of ideological suspicion—agonize over the possibility of war. He shows how these two leaders recognized the terrifying realities of the nuclear age while Castro—never swayed by conventional political considerations—demonstrated the messianic ambition of a man selected by history for a unique mission. As the story unfolds, Dobbs brings us onto the decks of American ships patrolling Cuba; inside sweltering Soviet submarines and missile units as they ready their warheads; and onto the streets of Miami, where anti-Castro exiles plot the dictator’s overthrow.
Based on exhaustive new research and told in breathtaking prose, here is a riveting account of history’s most dangerous hours, full of lessons for our time.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
Defcon 1 June 3, 2008
45 out of 45 found this review helpful
Author Michael Dobbs admits in his riveting new book on the Cuban Missile Crisis, One Minute to Midnight, that there are certain to be further revelations about this dark period in world history when more archival documents are declassified. However, the release of additional government and military paperwork - no matter how Top Secret - is unlikely to change the achievement of Mr. Dobbs' book in telling the definitive story of the October 1962 crisis.
Many people might ask what is left to tell after the dozens of books, movies and television documentaries that have already been released concerning one of the defining events of the Cold War. The answer is plenty. Dobbs, a reporter for the Washington Post who covered the collapse of Communism for that newspaper, has assembled a breathtaking narrative of the missile crisis covering all of the bases - small and large.
Among the new revelations from One Minute to Midnight:
The Soviets had detailed plans to nuke the Guantanamo Bay naval base and had deployed FKR cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads to a firing position within 15 miles of the base on the night of October 26-27, 1962. When speaking to a U.S. emissary early in the crisis, Khrushchev had threatened to destroy Guantanamo, but the U.S. dismissed the threat as bluster. The U.S. was, in fact, unaware of the actual danger to the base during the crisis.
A comprehensive narrative with new details of U-2 pilot Charles Maultsby's accidental overflight of Soviet airspace during the height of the crisis. Dobbs used Maultsby's memoirs, charts found at the National Archives and JFK Library and interviews to reconstruct the harrowing flight. The route map of the flight is revealed for the first time in the book.
The story of the Soviet ship Alexandrovsk and its weather-beaten trip across the Atlantic carrying 68 nuclear warheads. Incredibly, the ship delivered its deadly cargo to Cuba undetected by the U.S.
I also enjoyed the small, but telling details about civil defense that are contained in One Minute to Midnight. Details such as the following: Assembled journalists broke into guffaws when the subject of civil defense was raised at a Robert McNamara press conference during the crisis; pink identification cards were provided to JFK's top advisers that identified them for admittance to the Mount Weather government relocation site (aka The Special Facility); the fact that the President's naval aide, Captain Tazewell Shepard, was charged with filling the gap of what to do with the dependents of senior staff in civil defense contingency planning (family members were told by Tazewell that in the event of the necessity for relocation, they were to assemble inside a fenced-off reservoir in Northwest Washington without any personal belongings); Civil Defense head Steuart L. Pittman cautioned the President that evacuating the city of Miami would cause "a hell of a mess." There is also a surreal description in the book of JFK quizzing his military aide about "the Football" (the ever-present briefcase containing nuclear strike codes). Some of the President's questions were prompted by procedural details contained in the then recent novel about a military coup against a fictional chief executive entitled Seven Days in May.
The 40+ pages of research notes and citations at the back of One Minute to Midnight testify to the historical integrity of the tome and the amount of effort Michael Dobbs put into it. Many portions of the book read like a thriller and it is ideed hard to put down. Given the fact that we know the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the intensity of the "read" that Mr. Dobbs has provided is a remarkable accomplishment and one that should not be passed up.
Compelling, scary history June 9, 2008
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
For those of us old enough to remember the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis -- October, 1962 -- (I was a high school freshman at the time) Michael Dobbs's "One Minute to Midnight" stirs up memories of how it was to live in the knowledge that very possibly the next day, the next hour, the next minute might bring nuclear annihilation.
Based upon a vast quantity of primary sources material -- much of it previously classified -- including interviews with Soviet and Cuban personnel and even previously unstudied aerial photographs of the Soviet missile sites in Cuba -- Dobbs has constructed a rivetting day-by-day (and in places almost minute-by-minute) account of a world on the brink of nuclear war. Along the way, the author dispells some old myths (such as those surrounding the "eyeball-to-eyeball" confrontation of Soviet-controlled ships with the US Navy blockading forces) and reveals some startling new truths (unknown to American Intelligence at the time, the Soviets had deployed nuclear-armed cruise missiles against the American base at Guantanamo Bay).
Dobbs avoids overly mythologizing JFK's performance during the crisis (there was a good deal more uncertainty and policy shifting than was evident in White House accounts after the events), but neither does he seek to be a muck-raker denigrating JFK's leadership. In the end, the author praised both Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev for keeping their eyes on the goal, despite much hot-headed advice from many around them, of avoiding catastrophic war.
What emerges perhaps more than anything is a sense of the chaos and confusion that prevailed and so often threatened to heat the water pot beyond boiling, not because of anyone's conscious intent, but because ignorance of the full circumstances seemed to require it. We forget how primitive the state of communications and information technology was in 1961 as compared with today, and American and Soviet (and Cuban) leaders were often operating with vastly incomplete and even erroneous information.
"One Minute to Midnight" makes for compelling reading about one of the most dramatic, frightening series of global events to have occurred in the last several decades. Dobbs has done a first-rate job of laying out the complex details in an enthralling narrative.
One Minute to Midnight a story of Cold War miscalculations June 20, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
The new book, "One Minute to Midnight" by Michael Dobbs is a masterfully written account of the Cuban missile Crisis in October 1962. The book is written from the perspective of those who lived through the most dangerous Cold War encounter between the two nuclear super powers, Russia and the United States. It probes the power plays of the introduction of nuclear missiles in Cuba by Nikita Khrushchev and President Kennedy's response that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
Being a veteran who served with the Navy photo reconnaissance squadron VFP-62 during that period, I had particular interest in reading the new material uncovered by Mr. Dobb's investigative reporting. VFP-62 photo Crusaders flew the low-level photo missions over Cuba, gathering the intelligence needed to help President Kennedy forge a plan of action that avoided nuclear catastrophe. The discovery of nuclear capable cruise missiles, by VFP-62 photos, revealed new information on how they were to be used against Guantanamo Naval Base and invading U.S. forces. The use of tactical nuclear weapons was not considered by the Pentagon in the initial planning of the intended invasion of Cuba.
The book is spell binding with the fast moving anticipation of a Tom Clancy novel, although in this case, events are real. Mr. Dobbs gets into the minds of the decision makers and probes the many ways the crisis could have ended in a total nuclear annihilation for Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the United States. The accounting of the wayward U2 that strayed over the Soviet Union during the height of the crisis, the crash of a F-106 with a nuclear bomb on board, the shoot down of a U2 over Cuba, the lack of full control over the nuclear weapons, in Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the United States, is a chilling reminder of how close we came to a nuclear disaster. Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, came to believe that only "luck" had prevented nuclear war over Cuba.
After 46 years, many today believe that they know all that is necessary about the Cuban missile crisis. Through television documentaries such as, "Man, Moment, Machine", or "DEFCON 2" by the History and Discovery Channels, or the movie "Thirteen Days", the public is led to a superficial coverage of the most dangerous time in our nation's history. Only a book such as this, written by a skilled writer, can provide that sense of conflict between the military and the civilian control over the use of nuclear weapons. The book provides the most chilling account of the indifference of the Generals and Fidel Castro to the eminent deaths and destruction of millions of lives. This is a must read that is relevant today as it was in 1962.
 "thriller" June 10, 2008
9 out of 45 found this review helpful
I am 1/3rd of the way through this book. I have no comments about the factual subject matter, only the style with which the book is written. The author attempts to tell the story of the cuban missle crisis in a "thriller-style fashion," making much of it read as a novel (the author is a well-known novelist). As a result, there is something vaguely artificial about the story line. It does not seem to read as history but as a very, very second-rate Clancy novel. I was alarmed when the author set us up for the very tense and dramatic moment when Kennedy first addressed the nation about the crisis. Instead of giving us the speech itself the author (obviously not wanting to "bore" the reader with facts) glosses over the entire speech! He also creates too many artificial "cliffhangers." History does not unfold in cliffhangers. As a result, there is something occasionally juvenile about this book. It does not appear to be a history book written for adults. (NEXT: The Cuban Missle Crisis Reality Show!)
We came so close... July 5, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Like most Americans (or maybe not...), I knew that the Cuban Missile Crisis was a dangerous time in the history of our planet. But until I read One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War by Michael Dobbs, I don't think I fully understood how close we came to a full nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. And the common wisdom of Kennedy being the "winner" of this confrontation doesn't capture the reality of how much luck, timing, and conviction played in the event.
Contents:
Americans; Russians; Cubans; "Eyeball to Eyeball"; "Till Hell Freezes Over"; Intel; Nukes; Strike First; Hunt for the Grozny; Shootdown, "Some Sonofabitch"; "Run Like Hell"; Cat and Mouse; "Crate and Return"; Afterword; Acknowledgments and a Note on Sources; Notes; Index
Conventional wisdom paints the Cuban Missile Crisis as a time where Kennedy stood firm over the placement of Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. He went "eye to eye" with Khrushchev, and Khrushchev blinked. But Dobbs has exhaustively researched the event and paints a far different picture. Khrushchev introduced both medium-range and tactical nukes into Cuba in order to show Russian superiority and to protect a fellow communist country from a potential US invasion. This made Castro look invincible to himself and his people, and he welcomed the power they represented. When US intel discovered the missiles, the international tension started to rise as Kennedy declared this unacceptable and demanded the removal of the weapons. They also implemented a naval blockade of Cuba to prevent any more aid from showing up on the island. With each passing day (and often each passing hour), the risk that one side or the other would launch an attack continued to grow. Finally, through some backchannel negotiations and implicit promises, Khrushchev gave the order to crate up the missiles and send them back to Russia. But at so many points, the outcome could have been so much different...
Castro was certain that a US invasion was imminent, and wanted Khrushchev to order a pre-emptive strike on the US. The US kept up with overflights of the island to gather intel, and these overflights were seen as pre-invasion forays into Cuban airspace. Soviet SAM sites shot down one spy plane over Cuba, and US military officials were demanding retaliation. In fact, during the entire crisis, most US military officials were pushing for an invasion as well as launching a strike on Russian territory. A US spy plane got lost on a polar flight, overflew Soviet territory, and nearly touched off an exchange right there. While Khrushchev had started the confrontation, he recognized that no one could win in an all-out exchange. And the first missile fired would make it impossible to turn back. Kennedy recognized this also, and was doing all he could to hold off the hawks and give Khrushchev a way to back down while saving face. In the end, Kennedy got the missiles removed, and Khrushchev got an assurance that Cuba would not be invaded, while also getting US nuclear missiles removed from Turkey. But up to that point, there were literally dozens of points when a single person could have pushed a button and started an exchange that would have killed tens of millions of people.
Dobbs does an excellent job in both his research of the event, as well as the storytelling aspect. I felt the rising tension and understood how both sides were operating with incomplete information while trying to protect themselves. It's a literal miracle that the button wasn't pushed somewhere along the way. Students of history and warfare really need to read this book to understand that a nuclear war isn't a winnable proposition, and everything needs to be done to prevent things from getting that close to the edge again.
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