One Minute to Midnight

Thoroughly researched and with the pacing of a thriller,One Minute to Midnightis the definitive account of history's most dangerous hours. 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. Here, for the first time, we learn of Khrushchev's plan to destroy the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo; the activities of CIA agents inside Cuba; and the crash landing of an American F-106 jet with a live nuclear weapon on board. In this hour-by-hour chronicle of those tense days, veteranWashington Postreporter Michael Dobbs has produced the most authoritative book yet on the Cuban missile crisis. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Michael Dobbs was born in Belfast, Ireland, and educated at the University of York, with fellowships at Princeton and Harvard. He is a reporter for The Washington Post, where he spent much of his career as a foreign correspondent covering the collapse of communism. His Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire was a runner-up for the 1997 PEN award for nonfiction. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.