The Kennedy Tapes Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis

October 1962: the United States and the Soviet Union stood eyeball to eyeball, each brandishing enough nuclear weapons to obliterate civilization in the Northern Hemisphere. It was one of the most dangerous moments in world history. Day by day, for two weeks, the inner circle of President Kennedy's National Security Council debated what to do, twice coming to the brink of attacking Soviet military units in Cuba -- units equipped for nuclear retaliation. And through it all, unbeknownst to any of the participants except the President himself, tape was rolling, capturing for posterity the deliberations that might have ended the world as we know it. Now available in this new concise edition, The Kennedy Tapes retains its gripping sense of history in the making. Book jacket.

Ernest R. May is Charles Warren Professor of American History and director of the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University Philip D. Zelikow is director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs and White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia