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Title details for One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs - Available

One Minute to Midnight

Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

by Michael Dobbs
Bob Walter
Audiobook
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In October 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union appeared to be sliding inexorably toward a nuclear conflict over the placement of missiles in Cuba. Veteran Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs has pored over 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 of those near-fatal days, Dobbs reveals some startling new incidents that illustrate 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 accidental overflight of the Soviet Union by an American spy plane; the movement of Soviet nuclear warheads around Cuba during the tensest days of the crisis; the activities of CIA agents inside Cuba; and the crash landing of an American F-106 jet with a live nuclear weapon on board.
Dobbs takes us inside the White House and the Kremlin as Kennedy and Khrushchev 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. Dobbs brings us onto the decks of American ships patrolling Cuba; inside sweltering Soviet submarines and missile units as they ready their warheads; and onto the streets of Miami, where anti-Castro exiles plot the dictator’s overthrow.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 3, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415954591
      • File size: 473004 KB
      • Duration: 16:25:25

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The story of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 has been told many times, but this edition includes new research and documents that make it the most up-to-date book on the subject. Narrator Bob Walter has a steady, authoritative voice that he uses effectively to move this taut nonfiction thriller forward. To emphasize the key points in the narrative, he pauses effectively, a technique that enables us to absorb the complicated web of facts and personalities. Walter changes his voice only slightly to denote characters, appropriately allowing the text to speak for itself. At times, he seems close to crossing the line into melodrama, but, for the most part, he keeps his voice steady and his emotions in check. R.I.G. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from April 21, 2008
      Washington Post
      reporter Dobbs (Saboteurs) is a master at telling stories as they unfold and from a variety of perspectives. In this re-examination of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Dobbs combines visits to Cuba, discussions with Russian participants and fingertip command of archival and printed U.S. sources to describe a wild ride that—contrary to the myth of Kennedy’s steel-nerved crisis management—was shaped by improvisation, guesswork and blind luck. Dobbs’s protagonists act not out of malevolence, incompetence or machismo. Kennedy, Khrushchev and their advisers emerge as men desperately seeking a handle on a situation no one wanted and no one could resolve. In a densely packed, fast-paced, suspenseful narrative, Dobbs presents the crisis from its early stages through the decision to blockade Cuba and Kennedy’s ordering of DEFCON 2, the last step before an attack, to the final resolution on October 27 and 28. The work’s climax is a detailed reconstruction of the dry-mouthed, sweaty-armpits environment of those final hours before both sides backed down. From first to last, this sustains Dobbs’s case that “crisis management” is a contradiction in terms.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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