In October 1962, on the height of the Frosty War, america and the Soviet Union appeared to be slipping inexorably toward a nuclear conflict within the placement of missiles in Cuba. Veteran Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs has pored over previously untapped American, Soviet, and Cuban sources to produce probably the most authoritative publication yet in the Cuban missile crisis. In his hour-by-hour chronicle of these near-fatal days, Dobbs unveils some startling brand-new occurrences that illustrate how about ABOUT A MINUTE to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro for the Brink of Nuclear War close we found Armageddon.

Here, for the first time, are gripping accounts of Khrushchev’s intend to damage the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo; the unintentional overflight from the Soviet Union by an American spy airplane; the motion of Soviet nuclear warheads around Cuba through the tensest times of the crisis; the activities of CIA agencies inside Cuba; and the crash landing of an American F-106 aircraft having a live nuclear weapon on board.

Dobbs uses us inside the White colored House and the Kremlin while Kennedy and Khrushchev agonize more than the chance of war. He shows how both of these leaders acknowledged the terrifying realities of the nuclear age group while Castro-never swayed by typical political considerations-demonstrated the messianic ambition of a guy selected by history for a unique objective. Dobbs brings us onto the decks of American ships patrolling Cuba; inside sweltering Soviet submarines and missile units as they prepared their warheads; and onto the roads of Miami, where anti-Castro exiles story the dictator’s overthrow.