The Cuban Missile Crisis

Today in history - October 22nd, 1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis begins.

Above & Beyond: John F. Kennedy and America's Most Dangerous Cold War Spy Mission by Casey Sherman & Michael J. Tougias - From the authors of the bestselling The Finest Hours comes the riveting, deeply human story of President John F. Kennedy and two U-2 pilots, Rudy Anderson and Chuck Maultsby, who risked their lives to save America during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the ominous two weeks of the Cold War's terrifying peak, two things saved humanity: the strategic wisdom of John F. Kennedy and the U-2 aerial spy program. On October 27, 1962, Kennedy, strained from back pain, sleeplessness, and days of impossible tension, was briefed about a missing spy plane. Its pilot, Chuck Maultsby, was on a surveillance mission over the North Pole, but had become disoriented and steered his plane into Soviet airspace. If detected, its presence there could be considered an act of war. As the president and his advisers wrestled with this information, more bad news came: another U-2 had gone missing, this one belonging to Rudy Anderson. His mission: to photograph missile sites over Cuba. For the president, any wrong move could turn the Cold War nuclear. Above and Beyond is the intimate, gripping account of the lives of these three war heroes, brought together on a day that changed history

Cold Fire: Kennedy's Northern Front by John Boyko - Forget all you think you know about the Kennedy years. With narrative flair and sparkling storytelling, acclaimed historian John Boyko explores the crucial period when America and its allies were fighting the Cold War's most treacherous battles, Canadians were trading sovereignty for security, and everyone feared a nuclear holocaust.
At the centre of this story are three leaders. President John F. Kennedy pledged to pay any price to advance his vision for America's defence and needed Canada to step smartly in line. Fighting him at every turn was Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker, an unapologetic nationalist trying to bolster Canada's autonomy. Liberal leader Lester Pearson, the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat, sought a middle ground.
     Boyko employs meticulous research and newly released documents to present shocking revelations. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Canadian warships guarded America's Atlantic coast and Canada suffered a silent coup d'état. Canada was involved in Kennedy's sliding America into Vietnam. Kennedy knew the nuclear missiles he was forcing on Canada would be decoys, there only to draw Soviet nuclear fire. Kennedy's pollster and political adviser travelled to Ottawa under a fake passport to help defeat the Canadian government. And, perhaps most startlingly, if not for Diefenbaker, Kennedy may have survived the bullets in Dallas.

The Cuban Missile Crisis: To the Brink of War by Paul J. Byrne - Provides detailed information on the events that took place during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Includes source notes and timeline.  Books in the Snapshots in History series combine facts, photos and additional graphics in a smaller format (6 x 10) that will appeal to students who are interested in war. Double page spreads are clean and well-organized, utilizing a simple framing line. 

DEFCON-2: Standing On the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis by Norman Polmar & John D. Gresham - Spy-satellite and aerial-reconnaissance photos reveal that one of the United States's bitterest enemies may be acquiring weapons of mass destruction and the means to use them against the American homeland. Administration officials refuse to accept intelligence professionals' interpretation of these images and order an end to spy missions over the offending nation. More than a month later, after vicious infighting, the president orders the spy missions to resume. The new photos reveal an array of ballistic missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads and striking deep within U.S. territory. It appears that the missiles will be fully operational within one week.
This is not a plot setup for a suspense novel; it is the true story of the most terrifying moment in the 45-year Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union: the Cuban Missile Crisis. DEFCON-2 tells this tale as it has never been told before--from both sides, with the help of hundreds of recently declassified U.S. and Soviet documents, as well as interviews with numerous former spies, military figures, and government officials who speak out here for the first time.

Great Negotiations: Agreements That Changed the Modern World by Fredrik Stanton - Words as much as weapons have shaped the course of history. Whether to avert, resolve, assist, or secure the outcome of a conflict, diplomacy in the modern age has had great triumphs and bitter failures, from the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which narrowly spared humanity from a nuclear Armageddon, to the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, which created problems that still confront us today. Drawing on primary sources, transcripts, and interviews, "Great Negotiations: Agreements that Changed the Modern World "tells the stories of eight key episodes in modern diplomacy. From Benjamin Franklin securing crucial French support for the American revolution to Reagan and Gorbachev laying the groundwork to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons, Fredrik Stanton explains what each party brought to the negotiating table, the stakes, the obstacles to success, and how they were overcome.

High Noon in the Cold War: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis by Max Frankel - High Noon in the Cold War captures the Cuban Missile Crisis in a new light, from inside the hearts and minds of the famous men who provoked and, in the nick of time, resolved the confrontation." "Using his personal memories of covering the conflict, and gathering evidence from recent records and new scholarship and testimony, Max Frankel corrects widely held misconceptions about the game of "nuclear chicken" played by John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in October 1962, when Soviet missiles were secretly planted in Cuba and aimed at the United States." "High Noon in the Cold War portrays an embattled young American president - not jaunty and callow as widely believed, but increasingly calm and statesmanlike - and a Russian ruler who was not only a "wily old peasant" but an insecure belligerent desperate to achieve credibility. Here, too, are forgotten heroes like John McCone, the conservative Republican CIA head whose intuition made him a crucial figure in White House debates." "In detailing the disastrous miscalculations of the two superpowers (the United States thought the Soviets would never deploy missiles to Cuba; the Soviets thought the United States would have to acquiesce) and how Kennedy and Khrushchev beat back hotheads in their own councils, this book chronicles the whole story of the scariest encounter of the Cold War.

October Fury by Peter A. Huchthausen - It was the most spectacular display of brinkmanship in the Cold War era. In October 1962, President Kennedy risked inciting a nuclear war to prevent the Soviet Union from establishing missile bases in Cuba. The risk, however, was far greater than Kennedy realized.
October Fury uncovers startling new information about the Cuban missile crisis and the potentially calamitous confrontation between U.S. Navy destroyers and Soviet submarines in the Atlantic. Peter Huchthausen, who served as a junior ensign aboard one of the destroyers, reveals that a single shot fired by any U.S. warship could have led to an immediate nuclear response from the Soviet submarines.
This riveting account re-creates those desperate days of confrontation from both the American and Russian points of view and discloses detailed information about Soviet operational plans and the secret orders given to submarine commanders. It provides an engrossing, behind-the-scenes look at the technical and tactical functions of two great navies along with stunning portraits of the officers and sailors on both sides who were determined to do their duty even in the most extreme circumstances.
As absorbing and detailed as a Tom Clancy novel, this real-life suspense thriller is destined to become a classic of naval literature.

One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khruchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War by Michael Dobbs - In October 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were sliding inexorably toward a nuclear conflict over the placement of missiles in Cuba. Veteran journalist Michael Dobbs has used 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, he takes us onto the decks of American ships patrolling Cuba; inside sweltering Soviet submarines and missile units as they ready their warheads; and 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.

Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Secret Struggle With the Superpowers After the Missile Crisis by James G. Blight & Philip Brenner - In October 1962 school children huddled under their desks and diplomats feverishly negotiated as the world sat on the brink of nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dangerous moment in modern history and resulted in a changed worldview for the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba. In tracing the developments of the missile crisis and beyond, Sad and Luminous Days presents and interprets a heretofore unavailable (and largely unknown) secret speech that Castro delivered to the Cuban leadership in 1968. In it, Castro reflects on the crisis and reveals the distrust and bitterness that characterized Cuban-Soviet relations in 1968. Blight and Brenner frame the annotated speech with an examination of the missile crisis itself, and an analysis of Cuban-Soviet relations between 1962-1968, ending with an epilogue that highlights the lessons the missile crisis offers us in the current search for security and a stable world order. Sad and Luminous Days sheds new light on Cuban-Soviet relations and should be required reading not only for Cold-War scholars and historians, but also for anyone intrigued by the drama of the thirteen momentous days in October 1962.

The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis by Sheldon M. Stern - The Cuban missile crisis was the most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War and the most perilous moment in American history. In this dramatic narrative written especially for students and general readers, Sheldon M. Stern, longtime historian at the John F. Kennedy Library, enables the reader to follow the often harrowing twists and turns of the crisis.
Based on the author's authoritative transcriptions of the secretly recorded ExComm meetings, the book conveys the emotional ambiance of the meetings by capturing striking moments of tension and anger as well as occasional humorous intervals. Unlike today's readers, the participants did not have the luxury of knowing how this potentially catastrophic showdown would turn out, and their uncertainty often gives their discussions the nerve-racking quality of a fictional thriller. As President Kennedy told his advisers, "What we are doing is throwing down a card on the table in a game which we don't know the ending of."
Stern documents that JFK and his administration bore a substantial share of the responsibility for the crisis. Covert operations in Cuba, including efforts to kill Fidel Castro, had convinced Nikita Khrushchev that only the deployment of nuclear weapons could protect Cuba from imminent attack. However, President Kennedy, a seasoned Cold Warrior in public, was deeply suspicious of military solutions to political problems and appalled by the prospect of nuclear war. He consistently steered policy makers away from an apocalyptic nuclear conflict, measuring each move and countermove with an eye to averting what he called, with stark eloquence, "the final failure."