I was born in 1961, so was only a small child when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. I was only passingly familiar with both the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Missile Crisis prior to reading this book and therefore learned many new and interesting facts. After reading this account, I can only say that it must have been terrifying to have lived through the Crisis, the more you knew, the more frightening it must have been. The world was literally on the door step of a large scale nuclear exchange.

Kennedy was a young, inexperienced President, fresh off the Bay of Pigs disaster and having been completely dominated by Khrushchev at their summit in Vienna. He was surrounded by an eclectic crew of advisors, from those equally as naïve and inexperienced as himself (namely his brother Bobby), egghead bureaucrats (such as Robert McNamara) and aging Cold Warriors (LeMay) who were eager for a showdown with the Soviets.

Most troubling was the “chain of command” and delegation of authority as a result of which the lowest level bureaucrat or member of the armed forces (on either side) could have triggered a sequence of events leading to ultimate launching of missiles. When a national leader such as Castro and top level U. S. military advisors can be so adamantly in favor of a nuclear exchange, it certainly causes one to reflect upon our current world situation in which unstable democracies such as Pakistan and aspiring nuclear club members such as the theocracy governing Iran and the dysfunctional regime in Pyongyang virtually hold the world hostage through their possession of nuclear material and the devices to deliver them.

This book should be required reading for anyone aspiring to leadership of a “nuclear club” member, and anyone dealing with such a member. After reading this book, and reflecting upon the impending nuclear proliferation, I must admit to a high degree of pessimism as it relates to the world’s ability to avoid a nuclear exchange. ( )

As additional information about the Cuban Missile Crisis continues to trickle out after 45 years, it becomes more and more apparent how dangerous an event it really was. This excellent history moves through the crisis day by day, giving a nice view of how things proceeded from one misunderstanding to the next. ( )

Those of us who grew up in the 80's lived with a specter of nuclear war. But that's all it was. For our parents, the defining event of the Cold War will be the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 - a time where people expected war to break out. This event has been studied ad naseum. I spent nearly a quarter in college studying it with a view to games theory - how rational actors can make irrational decisions based on incomplete information. How can anything new be said about it?

Well, it turns out that all of us doing the studying were the ones with incomplete information. Michael Dobbs spent two years traveling to Cuba and studying more information - including previously unavailable documentation and interviews from the former Soviet Bloc. The truth is far more frightening than we - or Kennedy - knew. Dobbs reveals such revelations that the Soviets were preparing to destroy Guantanemo Bay with tactical nuclear weapons. Dobbs also makes use of previously classified information to build out the story.

So how does he make use of this new information? Dobbs creates a compelling narrative. Not venturing a strong analysis into Kennedy's judgement making process (such as you normally see in Political Science classes using game theory), he does make the point that Kennedy was not as firmly decided as has been portrayed before.

In the end, this is a good solid outline of the Crisis, why it happpened, and how both sides went about their decision making process. Dobbs trick? We all know this story but he keeps it moving fast and with new revelations. This is a keeper. ( )

Narrative history of the Cuban missile crisis that focuses particularly intently on Saturday, October 27. The work reflects impressive historical research and presents new information on Soviet troop placements and the location of nuclear weapons in Cuba. More importantly for a general reader like me, the book does a particularly adept job of tracing the ways events threatened to escape the control of Kennedy and Khrushchev and propel the United States and the USSR into what would have been a devastating war. The book's new historical research reinforces the sense that the world was extraordinarily fortunate to make it through this crisis unscathed. ( )

The author spent two years researching the Cuban Missile Crisis that brings together information that had only became available since Glasnost. Ironically the Russian sources seem to have been more open than American. The author notes that the Kennedy administration was quite familiar with The Guns of August and were quite aware of how easy it would be for the possibility of one incident setting of a war far more devastating than WWI.

A number of serious incidents did occur, but fortunately calmer heads prevailed--no thanks to the likes of Dr.Strangelove.

The Russian soldiers and sailors in this affair certainly got the worst of it. Many had been exposed to fatal radiation exposure. The climate of Cuba was something for Russians to endure. This was still a time when Russian military commanders could be reprimanded by the commissars attached to their units.

Among the facts revealed after the Crisis was that tactical nuclear warheads were ready to launch at Guantanamo, only miles away;

The author writes well and I found it a fast read. ( )