The Abyss: Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962

The background chapters on all three of the nations primarily involved provide a context and grounding to understand what comes next.The author gives a thorough account by drawing from the massive amount of analysis that has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis, putting it into an engaging narrative. I would have said enjoyable read, but that doesn't really fit with the subject matter.

Just what I wanted

I'll admit right out that I've only ever read one other book on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Michael Dobb's "One Minute to Midnight." While this book does cover much of the same ground already covered in that book, there's definitely a stronger focus on the political and social, as opposed to the military, aspects of the crisis. There's also a BIG difference in tone between the two books.To be blunt, Sir Hastings is definitely a strong proponent of what I call the "Everybody Sucks" school of history. It's not that he believes that everyone involved in handling the crisis sucked equally, or for the same reason, it's just that he genuinely feels they all deserve to be taken down a peg or two. In all fairness, he doesn't despise EVERYONE here, and he even praises a few key players who genuinely deserve it, but there's definitely a sense he's stomping on a pair of rose-tinted glasses for 450 pages and having a lot of fun doing so. As much as grumble about historians failing to be even-handed and unbiased, I actually really enjoyed his relentlessly acerbic approach here, if only because most of the history I read is so dry!Unfortunately, the editing and fact-checking could use some work. The first hundred pages are spent setting up the events leading up to the crisis and the backgrounds of all the key players, all of which should be familiar to anyone who's already read about these events. The number of pages spent describing Castro's childhood, revolutionary activities, and rise to power could have been reduced. Some of the errors are a bit odd, such as describing a diesel submarine as "turbine powered," giving the U-2 a wingspan of only 80 feet, and the repeated use of the redundant phrase "SAM missile."While it's not a masterpiece, and parts of it definitely feel familiar there's still a lot to recommend about "The Abyss." Even after 60 years, there are still plenty of "minor" aspects of the crisis worth reexamining in detail, and there are still many valuable lessons to be learned from the events of October 1962. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the events of the last year and a half, it seems like history is repeating itself once again...

Great service, book as described!!

The Cuban Missile Crisis (hence:CMC) was the most dangerous perios in the history of the Cold War. The world face total annihilation. Those 13 days which were the culmination of the crisis would decide whether the humankind would be destroyed by the nuclear weapons each of the superpowers had. All the crisis concerned Cuba, an island 160 kilometers far from the United States.This is not a very original book, since the details of the crisis have been published in ten of thousands of books and articles so far. But what is new here is that the author tells the story of the crisis from the point of view of many such as the national leaders, Soviet Union officers and soldiers, American pilots, Cuban farmers, and, in addtition, add the British dimension and involvement in the crisis. Quite at the very beginning of the book, there us a map,annotated by President Kennedy, showing the President's markings of the various locations of the missile sites in Cuba.But what the Americans never realized until some 30 years later was the fact that there were so many nuclears heads which were sent to Cuba, destined to be mounted on the missiles and dispatched to the USA, should this conflict start. They never knew that there were 43000 Soviets troops deployed on the island.Another imporatant point is the very good and in-depth analysis of the crisis, as reflected by the various sources used here, showing how Ths Soviet Union premier,the Cuban leader, Kennedy and their respective staff thought and made decisions.Mr Hastings gives us a very broad description of the Ex-Comm tapes- those then secret recordings made at the White House, which were a kind of brain-storming sessions where each side had its say. There were hawks from the military, amomg them the infamous general Curtis LeMay, who demanded to immediately start bombing the missile sites, and there were the doves who urged restraint, ulimately resulting in imposing a blockake to Cuba.The book starts with a prologue on Operation Zapata- the failed attempt to topple Castro by the United States. Then the author describes in brief the Cuban Revolution which brought Castro to power.What is amazing jhere is the almost total ignorance of the intelligence community of the USA to detect the missiles, had it not been the suspicions of one man, John McCone, who was then the head of the CIA and his assistants.The Soviet Union used the ploy of Maskirovka- meaning :the deception trick to convince the world and the USA that those ships which carried with them the lethal arsenal were peaceful ships. Not even the sailors and the other personnel knew why they were sailing to Cuba, in the so-called "Operation Anadyr", named so after a river in Siberia. The USA did not know that the Soviet General Issa Plyev, who was in charge of the whole operation had, at many time points, the absolute authority to start the war-an authority which was cancelled by Khrushkev himself, after coming to an agreement with Kennedy about dismantling the American missiles in Turkey and Italy in exchange of terminating the crisis. This move soured deeply the relations between the Soviet Union and Cuba, because Castro regarded this move a total capitulation of the USSR.This book comes as a warning for those who do not take seriously the nuclear weapons which are deployed and found in so many places in the world. Suffice it to notice what is happening these days in the war between Ukraine and Russia,Even in 2022, as the author puts it, "the means to destroy the world still exixt".This highly readable and engrossing history is more than highly recommended.

Hastings is a masterful historian and writer who here provides one of the very best histories of the Cuban Missile Crisis I’ve ever read. It is far more universal in its approach than most western and almost all American examinations of the events that brought the world close to nuclear war. Hastings highlights Kennedy’s intelligence and thoughtfulness throughout the crisis (noting specifically his determination to listen to advice and to patiently and bravely avoid the strong urgings of the many hawks to go to battle, a scenario we now know would have led to disaster). Yet Hastings also points out that the installation of missiles in Cuba in no way altered the strategic balance (and that the US reaction to the missiles was not shared by most of the world, including US Allie’s). Hastings’ approach is balanced and extremely well researched. Finally, even though his book is long and full of small details, it is very readable. I truly enjoyed this book and learned a great deal from it (and I have read many histories of the Cold War in general and this event in particular).

Great synopsis of how we came to the edge of destruction and survived. Enjoyed the character development and on the ground interviews of common folks from all countries