One Hell of a Gamble

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The Cold War now seems like a dim memory, but it was only 35 years ago, in October 1962, that the two superpowers came to the brink of nuclear war over the Caribbean island of Cuba. The diplomacy in the years immediately preceding and during this crisis is the fodder for this evenhanded, thorough study. Using a slew of recently declassified documents from Russian archives, Fursenko, the history chair at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Naftali, who teaches history at Yale, emphasize the ignorance and uncertainty that haunted all three countries during Castro's rise to power. After showing how the Cuban leader (pushed by U.S. and Soviet pressure, his brother and his own anti-imperialist urges) embraced Moscow, the authors then examine how the dominos fell: increasing Soviet-Cuban cooperation led to American military efforts (the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion), which led to Khrushchev's missile shipments to the Cubans, which, in turn provoked the U.S. to impose a "military quarantine," thus beginning the terrifying days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Most importantly, the authors detail the evolving relationship between Castro and the Soviets, as well as the 40 secret meetings between Robert Kennedy and Soviet leaders that eventually allowed Kennedy and Krushchev to stand down. If the writing is a little academic, the authors do illuminate and confirm past suppositions about the build-up to this nuclear confrontationand how disaster was avoided.

Library Journal

Those of a certain age well remember the fateful days in the fall of 1962 when the world stood on the brink of nuclear catastrophe. Since that time, scholars have struggled to discern how the United States and the Soviet Union could have come so close to disaster. Graham Allison's Essence of Decision (1971) set the standard for these queries, but his work has now been vastly improved upon by the investigations of Fursenko (history, Russian Academy of Sciences) and Naftali (history, Yale). Taking advantage of the opening of heretofore closed Soviet archives, the authors have produced a breathtaking view of the inner workings of the Soviet Politburo and its efforts to come to grips with a potentially disastrous international incident. Seldom have scholars plumbed the depths of Soviet-American relations as deeply or as effectively. The resulting tale proves once again that truth can indeed be stranger than fiction. This important work belongs in all libraries. Highly recommended. Edward Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

Kirkus Reviews

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 U.S. side is fairly well known, but historians Fursenko (Russian Academy of Sciences) and Naftali (Yale) 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 U.S. was. But the triumph of the Cuban revolution, a contempt for Kennedy (thought to be weak), 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 (though not installed) 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.