One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War (Vintage, 1) - Softcover

"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

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.