Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

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He has won many awards for his journalism, including Journalist of The Year and What the Papers Say Reporter of the Year for his work in the South Atlantic in 1982, and Editor of the Year in 1988.

And while McNamara would later live in infamy due to his role in Vietnam he was actually one of the voices of reason in 1962. The author describes the discovery and naming of new lands and the work of the scientists gathering specimens. Then, as now, it is not nuclear weapons that are dangerous, but the people who are in charge of them.We are eyeball to eyeball,” said secretary of state Dean Rusk to Bundy, “and I think the other fellow just blinked. Longe estava eu de imaginar que a mais de cinco mil quilómetros de distância havia quem também fizesse escolhas. In the Soviet Union, the crisis was caused, driven, and finally resolved because of the actions of Nikita Khrushchev, a man who survived Stalin’s purges and worked his way up the Kremlin bureaucracy. They were also unaware that tactical nukes had been sent to Cuba and – in the high heat of an amphibious assault – could very well have been used on the beaches. A major theme that Hastings carries throughout the narrative is that the American response to Soviet actions was based more on political considerations rather than threats to American national security.

Na maioria dos registos históricos, a crise dos misseis de cuba é vista como um desafio que a união soviética lançou ao mundo ocidental que se não tivesse sido combatido na origem, talvez tivesse pervertido de modo irremediável o “equilíbrio pacífico” entre nações. What strikes the reader about the crisis was the fact that the whole missile placement was a decision taken by Khrushchev without planning in advance of what would happen. Yet in hindsight one cannot admire enough the sanity and level-headedness of John Kennedy that saved the world from nuclear war. One can only hope that our current crop of leaders will strive to avoid the worst with the same fervor of JFK and Khrushchev in October 1962.While of uneven quality, and filled with some rather extraneous information, this opening provides a solid context for the narrative.

Bestselling author Max Hastings offers a welcome re-evaluation of one of the most gripping and tense international events in modern history—the Cuban Missile Crisis—providing a people-focused narrative that explores the attitudes and conduct of Russians, Cubans, Americans, and a terrified world that followed each moment as it unfolded.With a cast of intriguing characters and drama galore, this history reads like fiction and will thrill fans of Endurance and In the Kingdom of Ice. Threaded together are close-up character portraits and big picture analysis, military collisions and accounts of the social, political forces that dictated decisions. Meanwhile, Hastings also presents a portrait of Castro that strongly belies his popular image as a romantic revolutionary.

Hastings makes it clear that Khruschev would have backed down without the latter condition, but JFK could not have known that. It is hard for many of us to imagine, 60 years on from the Cuban missile crisis, the atmosphere of a time in which many assumed all-out war between the superpowers was coming and that such a clash would necessarily be nuclear. Khrushchev engaged in unbridled adventurism, and willingly took a risk that had little or no chance of success.In foreign policy, it is quite clear that if you start something without a clear exit strategy it probably will result in disaster. His conduct represented the negation of statesmanship but was, instead, the bitter fruit of the Russian experience since 1917, and arguably even before.