One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro at the Brink of Nuclear War

peter harbison: If I’d known it was in Chinese I’d never have bought it…

Australia on Sep 12, 2023

Peter: Chance - this book demonstrates the role of chance on our existence. But for luck, and possibly the tragic mind (in Kaplans words) we were only minutes from catastrophe. This book is awesome.

Australia on Jun 29, 2023

José Macaya: Describe bien lo caótico de la situación, la descoordinación grave, la falta de información, las peligrosas iniciativas de personas de segundo nivel, el desorden reinante, etc. Queda muy claro que estuvimos en varias oportunidades a punto de que una decisión desatase un conflicto fatal.

El libro es tan interesante como excesivo. Bien documentado, pero no todo lo relatado es importante. Es más un relato con pretensión de atrapar al lector, que un escrito para informar del episodio. Escrito más para vivir la crisis como una serie de Netflix, que para explicarla y ayudar a comprenderla de forma sucinta.

Si eres un estudioso del tema, este libro es para ti. Si sólo quieres enterarte de lo que pasó, te va a impacientar su extensión.

Spain on May 22, 2023

Maria: This book is interesting and well written. For my taste there is too much repeated detail on the characteristics of the nuclear warheads. However it brought to light a lot of what was happening at the time, while I was still a child and only vaguely aware of those critical moments in world affairs. I liked the information on the main protagonists and their individual personalities.

Canada on Nov 06, 2015

John Hopper: This is a systematic account of the Cuban missile crisis from the American, Soviet and Cuban points of view. It is hard for those of us born after this time (the 50th anniversary of which is almost upon us) to understand how close the world came to nuclear destruction, especially on so called Black Saturday, 27 October 1962. Leading figures seriously wondered whether they would live to see another dawn. What emerges clearly, despite their faults and weaknesses, is the essential humanity and statesmanship of both Jack Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchov. Both had seen warfare at first hand and were ultimately determined that they would not destroy future generations by allowing nuclear weapons to be used first by their respective countries and thereby condemn the rest of the world as well as their opponents. Kennedy was held back by the belligerence of many of the top military echelon, especially Curtis LeMay and Thomas Power, who openly advocated as a matter of general policy a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union; while Khrushchov was held back by the adventurism and rashness of Castro, who saw no reason why nuclear holocaust should not be risked if it meant destruction of...

United Kingdom on Oct 15, 2012

Richard of Connecticut: This book reads like a novel. It is more exciting than any novel can be because it is based on truth and a story so frightening that it compels you to read it through to the last page, and so you must. Every page has detailed information, much of which is new, and the plots and subplots reel you in for the ride of a book reader's lifetime. I promise you that you won't put this one down.

The story of this book is familiar to all that are alive. In the fall of 1962, the leadership of the Soviet Union with the complicity of Fidel Castro decided to secretly install offensive nuclear weapons on the island of Cuba. They were successful until U-2 over flights of Cuba in October produced detailed photographic evidence of the Soviet plan.

The details of the story have been in conflict for almost 50 years as different authors have molded the story to fit their opinions. If you read Harvard historians, John Kennedy (JFK) comes out very much the hero. Other authors have different slants. It is my contention that Michael Dobbs in One Minute to Midnight has come the closest to the historical truth that we are going to see for many years.

The MECHANICS of the...

United States on Dec 04, 2010

I. Martinez-Ybor: In the long list of books chronicling events of the Cold War, Mr. Dobbs' "One Minute to Midnight" stands out as a brilliant depiction of a dangerous moment when all fears threatened to come true, and as a thorough analysis of the operational and political realities converging from all sides in late October 1962.

Now that significant documentation (though not all) is available from Soviet, Cuban, and American sources, the narrative takes us through the events of those unforgettable days from the Soviet, Cuban and American perspectives. It is splendidly organized so that chronologically one is kept abreast of what is occurring simultaneously in Moscow, Havana, Washington and all other pertinent locations. The viewpoints are not only those of the mighty players, but illustrates the many strands in play at the time: the dispersal of American jets that could have caused a nuclear accident in Indiana, the vicissitudes of a CIA-organized Cuban guerrilla operation against a nickel mine in Cuba, the difficulties of the Soviet military in deploying missiles in Cuban terrain and in temperatures the likes of which they had never experienced before, the mandates under which they...

United States on Feb 08, 2009