One Minute to Midnight, Michael Dobbs
One Minute to Midnight, Michael Dobbs
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One Minute to Midnight
Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

Author: Michael Dobbs

Narrator: Bob Walter

Unabridged: 16 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/03/2008

Synopsis

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.

About The Author

Now a US citizen, Michael Dobbs was born and educated in Britain, with fellowships at Princeton and Harvard. He spent much of his career as a reporter for The Washington Post, where he covered the collapse of communism. His previous books include One Minute to Midnight, Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman—from World War to Cold War, and Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire, a finalist for the 1997 PEN award for nonfiction.Bob Walter is a founding member of the Company Theater who, for the last 20 years, has been a leading creator of audiobooks. In addition to producing and directing some of the finest readers in the business, he is now a reader himself for such leading publishers as Penguin Random House.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Andrew on January 16, 2024

This is the third account of the Cuban Missile Crisis I’ve read; following versions published in JFK & RFK biographies I’ve ploughed through in the past year or so. It’s very, very detailed and provides a view of events from both the Cuban and Russian camps, as well as from the team managing the cri......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on August 26, 2021

Michael Dobbs’ One Minute to Midnight provides a compelling reconstruction of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Dobbs dramatizes the Cold War’s biggest showdown from perspectives both familiar and fresh, seeking new interpretations of this much-mythologized event. Thus we see the vicissitudes of high politi......more

Goodreads review by Joe on August 26, 2021

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 may be one of the most analyzed events of the Cold War and hence one more book on the topic could be considered redundant – One Minute to Midnight proves this is not so. Using a multitude of sources and written from a variety of perspectives, this book reads at times......more

Goodreads review by Michael on January 28, 2016

3.75/5 One of the books that prove history (when written in such an engaging way) is at least as good as fiction! Extensively researched, debunks many of the myths associated with the crisis and doesn't attempt to create more sensation than the actual events. I may be wrong but I also got the feeling......more

Goodreads review by Jason on December 25, 2014

John F. Kennedy was a man of peace. Whatever else anyone says or tells you, he believed firmly in a world free of war and destruction. Nowhere is this more self-evident than in the crucible of his greatest moment as President of the United States: the Cuban Missile Crisis and the thirteen days the U......more

Quotes

"[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

"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

“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

"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

"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

“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.”
--Dino Brugioni, author of Eyeball to Eyeball

"Dobbs is a master . . . densely packed, fast-paced, suspenseful."
--Publishers Weekly

"A vivid account of just how close to the brink the world truly came . . . A welcome introduction to that perilous time."
--Kirkus

"Dobbs presents new and often startling information that again confirms that the 'thirteen days in October' brought the world to the edge of an unprecedented cataclysm."--Booklist

"First-rate . . . Even those who think they know everything about this event will learn new stories and gain further insight into the thinking of the major participants."
--Library Journal

"Extraordinary . . . As gripping as any fiction. Dobbs is an impeccable researcher and reporter."
--Carlo Wolff, The Christian Science Monitor

"Dobbs writes it up like a thriller."
--Billy Heller, New York Post

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