One Minute to Midnight - Michael Dobbs

In October 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet
Union came to the brink of nuclear conflict over the placement of Soviet missiles
in Cuba. In this hour-by-hour chronicle of those tense days, veteran Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs reveals just how close we came to Armageddon.

Here, for the
first time, are gripping accounts of Khrushchev's plan to destroy the U.S. naval
base at Guantnamo; the handling of Soviet nuclear warheads on Cuba; and the extraordinary
story of a U-2 spy plane that got lost over Russia at the peak of the crisis.

Written
like a thriller, One Minute to Midnight is an exhaustively researched account of
what Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called "the most dangerous moment in human history,"
and the definitive book on the Cuban missile crisis.