In reading "One Minute to Midnight", one gets the sense that, in a way, we are living those thirteen days in 1962 all over again, but in an extended fashion. This definitive book about the Cuban missile crisis is riveting from cover to cover as the author, Michael Dobbs, charts a timeline of horror and heart-stopping drama. What one side didn't know about the other must seem truly remarkable now, given the uncovering of new evidence presented here. We came closer to the abyss than we thought and if it hadn't been for a series of mishaps, good and bad luck, and final sound judgment, would I be writing this today?

It's hard to pick a "best moment" in this book, but the idea that President Kennedy could broadcast an address heard around the world and not talk with Chairman Khrushchev in "real time", has to be one of the intensely personal outcomes of the crisis. The triangulation here is evident...Castro, a rising politician in the western hemisphere, had hooked his star to the Soviet Union...and with it came all the pitfalls of that association. As Dobbs indicates, the missile crisis was the height of the Soviet-Cuban alliance. But the private and personal memoirs of those days really make this book stand out. From the U-2 pilot who wandered into Soviet airspace at the height of the tensions because of "celestial navigation", to the Soviet submarine commander, who had run out of time, luck and just about everything else...these are the stories that "One Minute to Midnight" captures with eloquence and sincerity.

The military aspect is central, of course, and there is much made of the Kennedy inner circle at the White House. We also know more of what must have gone through Khrushchev's mind and how he handled the fanatical Castro. But if the American public was on a high state of alert the Cubans were remarkably calm. Yet the missile crisis could have exploded in a thousand different ways at almost any given point during late October...militarily or politically. As it turned out JFK was dead a year later and Khrushchev was gone a year after that. Castro became the survivior.

"One Minute to Midnight" is a further explanation of the Cuban missile crisis and it is good that Dobbs closes with a sober comparison of JFK to George Bush, the former knowing of the consequences of war, personally. This book, which I highly recommend, is timely not only as a terrific study of October, 1962, but how the lessons of history seem not to be learned by those destined to repeat its failures.

As a Cuban exile I was training for a job in Key West when the October Missile Crisis exploded. I was twenty, my wife nineteen and our baby three months old.
The narrow over-the-water highway connecting the mainland to Key West was closed to civilian trafic. Hundreds of missile launchers were transported from Homestead, Fl. to Key West along with tanks, troops and war materiel.In a matter of hours all stores ran out of stock, just like during a Cat.5 hurricane warning.
"One Minute to Midnight" is so accurate and well researched that reading it was like re-living the nightmare of those days.
We were horrified about what would happen in the event of a Castro missile attack, and the only time we felt safe was when we heard the American F-14 fighter jets flying overhead day and night.
This book is a perfect example of accurate and well written contemporary history. I highly recommend it.
It is stored in our library under the section "Memories of Exile"
Signed: Andrew J. Rodriguez, author of "Adios, Havana," a memoir.

The new details uncovered by Mr. Dobbs makes this a "must purchase" for anyone genuinely interested in this historical episode.

However, I must admit that, from an entertainment perspective, the first half of this book dragged a bit while the second half was much more riveting.

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

Excellent reading, not only for those of us who lived through the Cuban Missile crisis;but It is a must for those too young to remember as well as any student of history .

The book reads like a novel. It is a thrilling and chilling story of what really went on during those 13 days or so in October of 1962. Mr. Dobbs did some amazing research and uncovered many things that heretofore were unknown.

After reading this, you will have a new appreciation for John Kennedy. If he were not president then; we might not be here now

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

Excellent reading, not only for those of us who lived through the Cuban Missile crisis;but It is a must for those too young to remember as well as any student of history .

The book reads like a novel. It is a thrilling and chilling story of what really went on during those 13 days or so in October of 1962. Mr. Dobbs did some amazing research and uncovered many things that heretofore were unknown.

After reading this, you will have a new appreciation for John Kennedy. If he were not president then; we might not be here now

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.

I thought the book was exstremly well written.I was particularly interested because my husband Chuck Maultsby was the U2 pilot that accidently overflew Russia during the Cuban Missile Crisis.I furnished information and a photograph of him to the author!

I can't add much to the praise heaped upon this book by other reviewers. Needless to say that it makes many of the other histories look like the "Cliff" notes versions. I had the privilege to serve on one of the ships involved in the blockade, two years after the event. Many of the "old salts" on board enlightened me on the events. Michael Dodd's book reads like a contemporary thriller. The world truly hung in the balance, and Dodd's paints a fast-moving, yet poignant picture of the events and the two men (Kennedy and Khrushchev) who ultimately chose the path of reason and sanity.

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.

Who knew history could be so exciting??? Mr. Dobbs presents a well-researched look at the Cuban Missile Crisis. He and his team of researchers managed to dig up new facts and never-before-seen pictures of the event that only add the suspense. The gunsight pictures from the fighters over Cuba were particular riveting. The fighters flew at 500-1000ft over many of the Soviet installations so pictures are very detailed.

Some of the facts that are revealed are surprising. I won't share them here but will say that they only highlight how close the world came to a nuclear war.

This is effectively a Tom Clancy novel -- ABOUT A REAL LIFE EVENT. Well done, Mr. Dobbs. Brilliant work. I couldn't put the book down.

This book provides an outstanding, in-depth account of the Cuban missile crisis, one that confirms some of the mythology we believe about it and repudiates other aspects of the mythology. One that provides a great deal of detail that has never seen the light of day before -- the result of the author's diligent efforts to interview the remaining players, large & small, to read now unclassified materials from the US, Soviet Union & Cuba. Perhaps the most important contribution of the book is to show how the crisis has been misused by subsequent generations, and political leaders, in their own explanations of policy. Secondarily, the book shows that we were closer, rather than farther (at least in my reading) to a nuclear conflagration, than legend suggests. And finally, the book shows the real chaos that is present in these kinds of situations, frankly all kinds of fateful decisionmaking situations. I highly recommend this book.

"One Minute to Midnight" casts a chilling shadow of the near war that involved real WMDs. Unlike any other historian's account- the book reads in a action packed and startling pace that will leave you on the edge of your seat. A reminder of how fragile and impulsive we humans can be.

With just hours to go before crucial deadlines pass, Kennedy and Khrushchev stare down the most lethal holocaust scenario known to mankind. Many facts are told here for the first time- by a veteran reporter with a knack for details and good story-telling. A first rate history book...


Tahir Rahman, author of "We Came in Peace for all Mankind"

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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.