One Minute to Midnight (Vintage Publishing)

Thoroughly researched and with the pacing of a thriller, One Minute to Midnight is 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, veteran "Washington Post "reporter Michael Dobbs has produced the most authoritative book yet on the Cuban missile crisis.