One Minute to Midnight

Zusatztext 51816491 Informationen zum Autor Michael Dobbs Klappentext 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 Guantánamo; 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. Leseprobe Americans Tuesday, October 16, 1962, 11:50 a.m. The Central Intelligence Agency's chief photo interpreter hovered over the president's shoulder. Arthur Lundahl held a pointer in his hand, ready to reveal a secret that would bring the world to the edge of nuclear war. The secret was buried in three black-and-white photographs pasted to briefing boards hidden in a large black case. The photographs had been shot from directly overhead, evidently from a considerable distance, with the aid of a very powerful zoom lens. On superficial inspection, the grainy images of fields, forests, and winding country roads seemed innocuous, almost bucolic. One of the fields contained tubelike objects, others oval-shaped white dots neatly lined up next to one another. John F. Kennedy would later remark that the site could be mistaken for a football field. After examining the photographs earlier that morning, his brother Bobby had been unable to make out anything more than the clearing of a field for a farm or the basement of a house. To help the president understand the significance of the photos, Lundahl had labeled them with arrows pointing to the dots and blotches, along with captions reading ERECTOR LAUNCHER EQUIPMENT, MISSILE TRAILERS, and TENT AREAS. He was about to display the briefing boards when there was a commotion outside the door. A four-year-old girl burst into one of the most heavily guarded rooms in the White House. The heads of the fourteen most powerful men in the United States swiveled to the doorway as Caroline Kennedy ran toward her father, babbling excitedly: Daddy, daddy, they won't let my friend in. The somber-looking men in dark suits were used to such intrusions. Their frowns dissolved into smiles as the president got up from his leather-upholstered seat and led his daughter back toward the door of the Cabinet Room. Caroline, have you been eating candy? No reply. The president smiled. Answer me. Yes, no, or maybe. Father and daughter disappeared for a few seconds, his arm draped around her shoulders. When Kennedy returned, his expression had again become grave. He took his place at the center of the long table beneath the presidential seal, his back to the Rose Garden. He was flanked on either side by his secretary of state and secretary of defense. Facing him across the table were his brother, his vice president, and his national security adviser. Behind them stood a small bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln, flanked by some model sailing ships. Above the fireplace to the right was the celebrated Gilbert Stuart portrait of a powdered and bewigged George Washington. The thirty-fifth president of the United States called the meeting to order. Kennedy seemed preternaturally calm to the other men in the room as he listened to the evidence of Kremlin duplicity. In secrecy, while insisting they would never contemplate such a thing, the Soviet leaders had installed surface-to-surface nuclear missiles on Cuba, less than a hundred miles from American shores. According to the CIA, the m...

"Extraordinary. . . . As gripping as any fiction. Dobbs is an impeccable researcher and reporter."
—*The Christian Science Monitor

• "A book with sobering new information about the world's only superpower nuclear confrontation—as well as contemporary relevance . . . Filled with insights that will change the views of experts and help inform a new generation."
  —Richard Holbrooke, *The New York Times Book Review
• "Riveting and highly informative, One Minute to Midnight portrays the intense human drama of mankind on the brink of an unthinkable war."
  —*The Philadelphia Inquirer
• "Gripping. . . . A significant contribution to our understanding of that perilous autumn."
  —*Bloomberg News
• "[Dobbs] succeeds brilliantly, marshaling diverse sources to relate an intensely human story of Americans, Russians and Cubans caught up in what the late historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. termed 'the most dangerous moment in human history' . . . [Filled] with memorable characters in extraordinary circumstances and exotic settings . . . One Minute to Midnight evokes novelists like Alan Furst, John le Carré or Graham Greene."
  —James G. Hershberg, *The Washington Post Book World
• "Dobbs writes it up like a thriller."
  —*The New York Post
• "With new info and angles, this hair-raising analysis traces the trail of mishaps and miscalculations that nearly ended life on earth."
  —*American History Magazine
• "One Minute to Midnight is nothing less than a tour de force, a dramatic, nail-biting page-turner that is also an important work of scholarship. Michael Dobbs combines the skills of an experienced investigative journalist, a talented writer and an intelligent historical analyst. His research is stunning. No other history of the Cuban missile crisis matches this achievement."
  —Martin Sherwin, coauthor of *American Prometheus
• "At a time of danger for a nation it is important for political leaders first to think, then to think more and try avoid shooting. This book gives a day by day perspective on how two world leaders, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, showed their ability to manage a crisis. Thanks to them, humanity survived and we are able to read this book."
  —Sergei Khrushchev

"Is there anything new left to be said about the 1962 missile crisis? As it turns out, there is. This book puts forward the first reports I've seen of Soviet-Cuban plans to wipe out the Guantanamo Naval Base. That an American U-2 strayed over the Soviet Union during the crisis has been known all along, but Dobbs gives us the first full account of what happened. There were so many inadvertent steps and so many miscalculations involved in the crisis that we were lucky to come through it with the world in one piece."
—Wayne Smith, Director of the Cuban Program, Center for International Policy

"Did we need another book on the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962?  Anyone reading One Minute to Midnight will quickly realize that we did need another—and that this is it. This is unquestionably the most complete and accurate account of the crisis that we have, and will no doubt long remain so. Michael Dobbs has managed to combine the careful and thorough research of a scholar into the ability of an able journalist to bring his findings to life in a dramatic story that illuminates the historical events it examines with lively characterization of the people who made up the cast of the drama. It is first rate great history and a great read!"
—Ambassador Raymond Garthoff, former intelligence analyst and author of *Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis

• "Dobbs’s hour-to-hour chronology of those tormenting days when the world stood on the verge of nuclear holocaust is riveting. To enhance his knowledge of these events and installations, he studied the photographs taken during the crisis; Dobbs is the first historian to use these important images."
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