"One Hell of a Gamble"; Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xi, [1], 420 pages. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Aleksandr Fursenko was one of Russia’s leading historians and was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Timothy Naftali is a Canadian-American historian who is a professor at New York University. He has written four books, two of them with Alexander Fursenko on the Cuban Missile Crisis and Nikita Khrushchev. No other book offers this inside look at the strategies of the Soviet leadership. John F. Kennedy did not live to write his memoirs; Fidel Castro will not reveal what he knows; and the records of the Soviet Union have long been sealed from public view: Of the most frightening episode of the Cold War--the Cuban Missile Crisis--we have had an incomplete picture. When did Castro embrace the Soviet Union? What proposals were put before the Kremlin through Kennedy's back-channel diplomacy? How close did we come to nuclear war? These questions have now been answered for the first time. This important and controversial book draws the missing half of the story from secret Soviet archives revealed exclusively by the authors, including the files of Nikita Khrushchev and his leadership circle. Contained in these remarkable documents are the details of over forty secret meetings between Robert Kennedy and his Soviet contact, records of Castro's first solicitation of Soviet favor, and the plans, suspicions, and strategies of Khrushchev. This unique research opportunity has allowed the authors to tell the complete, fascinating, and terrifying story of the most dangerous days of the last half-century. Derived from a Kirkus review: One of the best pieces of research to have emerged as a result of the opening of the Russian archives, a subtle, nuanced, and vivid history of the Cuban missile crisis—the East-West showdown that brought the world close to nuclear war. The story from the US side is fairly well known, but historians Fursenko and Naftali have made good use of KGB records and Khrushchev's own files to convey the sense of inferiority, uncertainty, belligerence, and, ultimately, prudence that characterized the Soviet leader's approach. In the early stages of Castro's revolution, Moscow was no more sure about the Cuban leader than the US was. But the triumph of the Cuban revolution, a contempt for Kennedy, and a certain recklessness seem to have persuaded Khrushchev to station missiles in Cuba. As an avid reader of intelligence reports, he was aware of the U-2 flights, but he and his closest advisers seem to have dismissed the likelihood that the presence of the missiles would be discovered. His initial reaction on learning that Kennedy was aware of the lurking threat was to hurry the delivery of the warheads. The first were delivered just before the blockade was imposed. This was the critical moment: Senior members of Congress were pressing for an invasion. But Kennedy had become convinced that an air strike preceding the invasion could not take out all the missiles. It would be, he said, ``one hell of a gamble.'' Khrushchev, for his part, had become aware of the extent of Soviet military inferiority. As the authors put it, he ``did not have the desire to threaten nuclear war when it might actually lead to one.'' The story traces with rich detail the maneuvering, the calculations, the human errors, and the enormous stakes involved in the most serious crisis of the last 50 years. Condition: Very good / Very good.

Keywords: Cuban Missile Crisis, Cold War, Bay of Pigs, CIA, KGB, Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Operation Mongoose, U-2 Reconnaissance, Vienna Summit

ISBN: 0393040704

[Book #81676]

Price: $50.00

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