When the Russians Blinked

When the Russians Blinked PDF Author: John Mark Young
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description

When the Russians Blinked

When the Russians Blinked PDF Author: John Mark Young
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description


When the Russians Blinked

When the Russians Blinked PDF Author: John M. Young
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781495226335
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Surprisingly very little has been written about the military response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The author, a major in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, has obtained the declassification of many formerly top secret operations plans and command diaries of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps units which, in less than a week, formed the core of a massive quarantine and planned invasion force that was larger than the Allied invasion force on D-Day. This paper traces the history of the United States' relationship with Cuba and our response to the discovery of nuclear missiles there targeted at our homeland. The naval planning for a Cuban contingency is analyzed through its actual implementation with the assistance of maps, intelligence reports, and troop deployments. The probable effect of the invasion plans on Soviet leaders and an assessment of the effects that the Crisis continues to have on US. policy toward Latin America are also discussed.

The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited

The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited PDF Author: James A. Nathan
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312097257
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited provides a comprehensive overview of the new materials recently released by the Soviet Union, United States, and Cuba. The authors have all had a major role in bringing to light either significant reevaluations of the crisis, or in some cases, truly startling challenges to the conventional wisdom surrounding much of the crisis. This important collection, edited by a long-time student of the crisis, is a coherent, original, and up-to-date work that bears on a moment when the world, for good cause, held its breath in fear that the morning might bring the apocalypse.

When Angels Wept

When Angels Wept PDF Author: Eric G. Swedin
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597975176
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
In 1961 at the Bay of Pigs, CIA-trained and -organized Cuban exiles aiming to overthrow Fidel Castro were soundly defeated. Most were taken prisoner by Cuban armed forces. Fearing another U.S. invasion of its new ally, the Soviet Union sneaked into Cuba strategic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads and Soviet troops armed with tactical nuclear weapons. However, a U-2 spy plane flight would soon find the Soviet missile sites, thus sparking the famous missile crisis. For thirteen terrifying days, the world watched nervously as the two superpowers moved toward escalation, holding the world's fate in their hands. Finally, Nikita Khrushchev blinked. He agreed to withdraw the weapons from Cuba in return for John F. Kennedy's pledge not to invade the island. But what if it had not turned out this way? What if the U-2 flight had been delayed? If the confrontation had set off a nuclear war, what would have happened to the United States and Soviet Union in 1962? What kind of account would a historian have written in a world scarred by nuclear war? Eric G. Swedin draws on research made available after the Soviet Union's collapse to examine what could have happened. Top U.S. military officers all urged stronger action against Cuba than the naval blockade, including a bombing campaign and even a full-scale invasion. Unknown to the Americans, meanwhile, the Soviet Union had tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba and were prepared to use them. The 1962 crisis had many possible outcomes. Positing an alternate history helps us better appreciate the dangers of that tense time. Such counterfactual speculation shows what the Cuban missile crisis could have wrought and how it was truly one of the most important moments of the twentieth century.

Blind over Cuba

Blind over Cuba PDF Author: David M. Barrett
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603447687
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, questions persisted about how the potential cataclysm had been allowed to develop. A subsequent congressional investigation focused on what came to be known as the “photo gap”: five weeks during which intelligence-gathering flights over Cuba had been attenuated. In Blind over Cuba, David M. Barrett and Max Holland challenge the popular perception of the Kennedy administration’s handling of the Soviet Union’s surreptitious deployment of missiles in the Western Hemisphere. Rather than epitomizing it as a masterpiece of crisis management by policy makers and the administration, Barrett and Holland make the case that the affair was, in fact, a close call stemming directly from decisions made in a climate of deep distrust between key administration officials and the intelligence community. Because of White House and State Department fears of “another U-2 incident” (the infamous 1960 Soviet downing of an American U-2 spy plane), the CIA was not permitted to send surveillance aircraft on prolonged flights over Cuban airspace for many weeks, from late August through early October. Events proved that this was precisely the time when the Soviets were secretly deploying missiles in Cuba. When Director of Central Intelligence John McCone forcefully pointed out that this decision had led to a dangerous void in intelligence collection, the president authorized one U-2 flight directly over western Cuba—thereby averting disaster, as the surveillance detected the Soviet missiles shortly before they became operational. The Kennedy administration recognized that their failure to gather intelligence was politically explosive, and their subsequent efforts to influence the perception of events form the focus for this study. Using recently declassified documents, secondary materials, and interviews with several key participants, Barrett and Holland weave a story of intra-agency conflict, suspicion, and discord that undermined intelligence-gathering, adversely affected internal postmortems conducted after the crisis peaked, and resulted in keeping Congress and the public in the dark about what really happened. Fifty years after the crisis that brought the superpowers to the brink, Blind over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis offers a new chapter in our understanding of that pivotal event, the tensions inside the US government during the cold war, and the obstacles Congress faces when conducting an investigation of the executive branch.

Nuclear Folly

Nuclear Folly PDF Author: Serhii Plokhy
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141993294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
*Shortlisted for the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History* 'An enthralling account of a pivotal moment in modern history. . . replete with startling revelations about the deception and mutual suspicion that brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of Armageddon in October 1962' Martin Chilton, Independent The definitive new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the author of Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize For more than four weeks in the autumn of 1962 the world teetered. The consequences of a misplaced step during the Cuban Missile Crisis could not have been more grave. Ash and cinder, famine and fallout; nuclear war between the two most-powerful nations on Earth. In Nuclear Folly, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy tells the riveting story of those weeks, tracing the tortuous decision-making and calculated brinkmanship of John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and of their advisors and commanders on the ground. More often than not, Plokhy argues, the Americans and Soviets simply misread each other, operating under mutual distrust, second-guesses and false information. Despite all of this, nuclear disaster was avoided thanks to one very human reason: fear. Drawing on an impressive array of primary sources, including recently declassified KGB files, Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama of those tense days. Authoritative, fast-paced and unforgettable, this is the definitive new account of the Cold War's most perilous moment.

Dark Beyond Darkness

Dark Beyond Darkness PDF Author: James G. Blight
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538102005
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
In Dark Beyond Darkness, James Blight and janet Lang, among the world’s foremost authorities on the Cuban missile crisis, synthesize the findings from their thirty-year project on the most dangerous moment in recorded history. Authoritative, accessible, and written with their usual flair and wit, DBD is the first book to take readers deeply inside the experience and calculations of Fidel Castro, who was willing to martyr Cuba if his new Russian ally would nuke the U.S. and destroy it. Blight and Lang have established that in October 1962, the world was on the brink of Armageddon, and that we escaped by luck. Their history is scary but unimpeachably accurate: we just barely escaped the cold and the dark in October 1962. Their history also comes with a warning: we are currently at risk not only of Armageddon-fast, in a war between superpowers, but Armageddon-in-Slow-Motion (the result a climate catastrophe following a regional nuclear war), and from Armageddon, Oops! (a conflict sparked by an accident, which is misinterpreted, and ends in nuclear war). Drawing on the insights of poets, musicians and novelists, as well as climate scientists and agronomists, they show the terrible risk we run by refusing to abolish nuclear weapons.

Resurrection Day

Resurrection Day PDF Author: Brendan DuBois
Publisher: Sphere
ISBN: 9780751548112
Category : Nuclear warfare
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
In the early 1970s, ten years after the Cuban missile crisis and the US and Russia targeted each other's cities with nuclear warheads, America is still struggling to recover. New York, Washington, Florida, California are completely contaminated and the rest of the country - under martial rule in all but name - are reliant on aid from Europe. In Boston, journalist Carl Landry is forcibly warned off covering a news item on a murdered ex-general and shortly afterwards he only just manages to escape a personal attack. Enraged, he is determined to find out what the authorities are covering up: a search which takes him to the wasteland of Manhattan and a cache of secrets which show that the man who created the devastation is still running the country.

The Abyss

The Abyss PDF Author: Max Hastings
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062980181
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 723

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Book Description
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. In The Abyss, Max Hastings turns his focus to one of the most terrifying events of the mid-twentieth century—the thirteen days in October 1962 when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Hastings looks at the conflict with fresh eyes, focusing on the people at the heart of the crisis—America President John F. Kennedy, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, and a host of their advisors. Combining in-depth research with Hasting’s well-honed insights, The Abyss is a human history that unfolds on a wide, colorful canvas. As the action moves back and forth from Moscow to Washington, DC, to Havana, Hastings seeks to explain, as much as to describe, the attitudes and conduct of the Soviets, Cubans, and Americans, and to recreate the tension and heightened fears of countless innocent bystanders whose lives hung in the balance. Reflecting on the outcome of these events, he reveals how the aftermath of this momentous crisis continues to reverberate today. Powerful, and riveting, filled with compelling detail and told with narrative flair, The Abyss is history at its finest.

Cordon of Steel

Cordon of Steel PDF Author: Curtis A. Utz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781410221230
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
This study is a dramatic example of how the U.S. Navy's multipurpose ships and aircraft, flexible task organization, and great mobility enabled President Kennedy to protect national interests in one of the most serious confrontations of the Cold War. Curtis A. Utz is currently a historian in the Naval Historical Center's Contemporary History Branch.