Defcon-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis

For thirteen days in October 1962, the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. The two global superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, brought their nuclear arsenals of missile-armed submarines, long-range strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles to an unprecedented condition of war readiness. In the U.S., the armed forces' hair-trigger alert level was called "Defense Condition 2," or "DEFCON-2." The world held its breath as all eyes turned to the small island nation of Cuba, just 90 miles from Florida. DEFCON-2 tells the story of the "Cuban Missile Crisis." It began in the fall of 1962. Frustrated and threatened by American missiles based in Europe, and seeking both a military and political foothold in the Western Hemisphere, Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev decided to establish SS-4 medium-range and SS-5 intermediate-range nuclear-armed ballistic missile bases in Fidel Castro's Cuba. The clandestine operation was called "Anadyr." It did not remain secret for long. On October 14, an American U-2 spy plane flew a routine high-altitude reconnaissance mission over the Communist island. Intelligence analysts who later examined the photographs from the mission detected the construction of the missile bases. They raised the alarm, and within hours the crisis was on. Before it ended two weeks later, the U.S. and USSR came closer to waging nuclear war on each other than at any other time during the Cold War. The eventual peaceful resolution of the crisis was inarguably U.S. President John F. Kennedy's finest hour, a time in which he and his closest political and military advisors "really earned their paychecks." There have been many other books about the Cuban Missile Crisis, but none have been as thoroughly researched, detailed and readable as "DEFCON-2." One of the advantages that historians and authors have today is that they can draw on literally thousands of documents that the former USSR has released from the KGB's most secret vaults. These documents reveal the Soviet side of past global events that, for Western researchers, had previously been shrouded in mystery and subject to conjecture. The U.S., albeit at a slow pace and with considerable resistance in some cases, also continues to declassify formerly secret documents. DEFCON-2 authors Norman Polmar and John D. Gresham took full advantage of such sources to construct the most comprehensive history yet of the Kennedy-Khrushchev game of "brinksmanship" that could have ended civilization as we know it. One of the facts that the authors reveal is that we were MUCH closer to nuclear war than previously thought. With several useful appendices, 40 pages of chapter footnotes and an extensive bibliography, DEFCON-2 can serve as a stand-alone single-volume reference or as an excellent starting point for further research. I highly recommend it for students of the Cold War, for anyone who sweated through the crisis or for anyone who wants to learn a lesson from hist

As a second-grader during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I remember President Kennedy's address on TV, the black-and-white photos of the missiles sites, the talk of the quarantine line. Reading DEFCON-2 brought back a rush of memories. Perhaps one of the most enlightening aspects of the book was the background on Nikita Khruyshev. The bogeyman of my childhood has been redeemed; his was perhaps the coolest, wisest head during a nightmare.

During the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis I was living in Boston. One day I was flying somewhere and while taxing out to the runway I noticed several B-47 jet bombers, their wings bent down with fuel, and armed guards with dogs walking around them. I realized that this was pretty serious. From time to time since then more information has come out about what was really happening. And in very recent times de-classification of materials from the time and open discussion with some the people involved make it clear that this was a much more serious incidend that we thought at the time. For instance there were some 40,000 Russian soldiers on the island that we didn't know about. These soldiers were armed with short range nuclear missiles. They had the authority to use them if the U.S. invaded. A few nukes set off in the midst of an invasion fleet would have made a real mess. Some of the intelligence reports of the time were real good. Some of them were otherwise. Admidst the bluster and the threatening, cooler heads prevailed and nuclear was was avoided. Never again would the two superpowers come so close. Maybe the truth of this flight was enough to make the leaders of both powers back down. This is the most complete, the most detailed report of what happened. It is a scary book.

The authors of this fine book have provided us with an insightful and comprehensive look at how the world was nearly subjected to the catastrophic events of a global thermonuclear war. Rather than simply providing us with a simple chronology or details of the individual events making up the crisis, Normal Polmar & John Gresham have combined to provide us with a solid explanatory volume of how this crisis nearly devolved into something akin to the end of the world as it was then known. Providing details based on interviews from participants in the crisis and on recently declassified documents, Polmar & Gresham provide us with details not before seen, but critical in understanding the crisis. The book does not simply explain the crisis from either the American or the Soviet side, but instead looks at it from three different viewpoints - the Americans, the Soviets, and the Cubans (primarily Fidel Castro). This makes for an enlightening & very useful study of this critical period in Cold War history. I especially enjoyed the final chapter of the book - the lessons learned from Operation Anadyr (the Soviet code name for the installation of nuclear weapons in Cuba). I thought that the ananlysis presented in this chapter tied all of the previously written history together into a nice package. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a solid explanation of the Missile Crisis and just how close we really did come to global destruction.

I was in the third grade when the events recounted in DEFCON-2 happened. So, I remember the air raid drills of ducking under my desk, and of the sirens, and television announcements, and the many shelter signs that appeared on buildings. Norman Polmar and John Gresham have done a tremendous service in presenting this account of the events that happened behind closed doors, and on the field. This is a benchmark work that pulls you in and places you in the meeting rooms, the cockpits, on the decks, and on the ground. It is a frightening story because they reveal just how close we actually came to nuclear war. The courage displayed by the political leaders on both sides for NOT going to war is thoroughly presented. This is a must read book for anyone who is interested in knowning how governments make decisions in moments of extreme crisis.