This book tells the story of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the
struggle that President Kennedy and his advisers (including the
author, who was head of intelligence at the State Department) went
through to try to understand why the Soviet Union had put nuclear
missiles in Cuba, the alternative policies they debated to deal
with the presence of the missiles, the aftermath of the crisis, and
the lessons learned about defense and foreign policy in an age
dominated by intercontinental missiles tipped with nuclear warheads
capable of obliterating the northern hemisphere. The purpose of the
book is to focus the world's attention on the fact that something
must be done-and soon-if we are to avoid Armageddon. The world has
never been as close to nuclear war as it was in November 1962. In
this book, Roger Hilsman, head of intelligence at the U.S. State
Department at that time, details the struggles that President
Kennedy and his advisers went through to understand why the Soviet
Union had deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba, describes the debate
over alternative policy choices to force the removal of the
missiles, and determines how and why each particular course of
action was eventually chosen. He relates how the U.S. government
dealt with the public and with its allies, and traces the
step-by-step negotiations between the Soviets and the United
States. In his discussion, Hilsman reveals how Khrushchev chose a
back-channel, deniable way of communicating with President Kennedy
by sending messages to the head of the KGB in Washington, who
passed them to Hilsman, who then took them to the president. This
book shows how President Kennedy and his brother Robert used this
information to bring about the withdrawal of the missiles without
war. This book analyzes the motives behind the massive Soviet
deployment of nuclear missiles to Cuba, which were capable of
destroying every major city in the United States except Seattle,
backed up by anti-aircraft and ground forces to defend those
missiles. One ship could carry 20-to-30 freight-train loads of war
materiel and over 100 shiploads were sent-a total of between 2,000
and 3,000 train loads. Hilsman tells the story of how American
intelligence found out-just in time-and, in a post-mortem,
addresses the question of U.S. success and/or failure. He concludes
with an assessment of the significance of the only nuclear crisis
in the world's history, pointing out the lessons for humankind
about war in a nuclear age. Hilsman's book is one of only two
accounts of the Cuban missile crisis written by one of the
principals, and has added significance in light of the turbid state
and uncertain future of nuclear weapons throughout the world.
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