One Minute To Midnight

Description

In October 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear conflict over the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba. In this hour-by-hour chronicle of those tense days, veteran Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs reveals just 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 handling of Soviet nuclear warheads on Cuba; and the extraordinary story of a U-2 spy plane that got lost over Russia at the peak of the crisis.Written like a thriller, One Minute to Midnight is an exhaustively researched account of what Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called "the most dangerous moment in human history," and the definitive book on the Cuban missile crisis.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Description

Michael Dobbs recreates the 'most dangerous moment in human history' and brings the Cuban missile crisis to a new generation...October 27, 1962 was known as Black Saturday in the Kennedy White House. With the Cuban missile crisis at its height, this was a day of nail-biting developments, when the hands of the metaphorical Doomsday Clock reached one minute to midnight and the world grew closer than ever before (or since) to nuclear apocalypse. On Black Saturday, the opposing Cold War leaders, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, mobilized their forces to fight a nuclear war on land, sea and air. The watching world held its breath in terror. In Bobby Kennedy's words, 'There was a feeling that the noose was tightening on all of us, on Americans, on mankind, and that the bridges to escape were crumbling.'Michael Dobbs tells both the human and the political story of Black Saturday, taking the reader not just into the White House and the Kremlin but along the entire Cold War battlefront with the men who were preparing to fight. We see inside U-2s and nuclear submarines; the armies gathering in Florida and Cuba; American warships and Cuban anti-aircraft batteries; the CIA, the NSA and the KGB; Cold War radio stations and listening posts; the feverish conspiracies of Cuban exiles; Castro's headquarters; Khrushchev's dacha; the underground bunker being prepared for Kennedy; the streets of Washington, Moscow and Havana.Using a wealth of untapped archival material, Michael Dobbs brings a fresh perspective to this crucial moment in twentieth-century history, which witnessed one of the greatest mobilizations of men and equipment since the Second World War. His thrilling narrative features a cast of characters - including Soviet veterans never before interviewed by a western writer - that ranges from the ordinary to the larger than life, all with unique stories to tell.

Subjects

Other Editions

• One Minute to MidnightElectronic resourceKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group2008-01-01
• One Minute To MidnightEBookRandom House Publishing Group2008
• One minute to midnightAlfred A. Knopf2008-01-01
• One minute to midnightThorndike Press2008-01-01