One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

by: Michael Dobbs

Published by: Knopf

Reviewed by Sara Porter

I’ve known about the Cuban Missile Crisis that took place in the fall of 1962 since I was young. My mom grew up in Florida then and she recalls the newsbreaks, the bomb drills, and the rumors of if or when the Soviets or the Americans would fire the nuclear bombs. That was as close as I wanted to be to the fear of one side destroying the other. After reading Michael Dobbs’ book, One Minute to Midnight, I am even closer and just as mystified.

Dobbs takes the reader through the days when the American government learned that the Soviet government placed nuclear weapons in Cuba. For 13 days, the two superpowers were at a continuous standstill of ideology, debate, and approaching armies from both sides.

Dobbs does a commendable job of giving human faces to this time period. The Kennedy brothers are revealed in their differences with John’s cool headedness and Bobby’s buried rage and frequent uses of the “f-word.” Nikita Khrushchev is written as a plain-spoken, blunt but temperamental man who is just as reluctant to let the bomb drop as are his American counterparts. It’s nice to see a book about the Cold War era portray the Americans and the Soviets leaders as real people–intelligent, crafty, and just as willing to fight each other as they were to avoid using the bomb that would kill millions. In fact the only slightly villainous character in this book is Fidel Castro, who is charismatic, fanatical and so willing to die for his beliefs that he expects his people to follow suit.

The other thing that the book does is show the level of tension that is paramount throughout that time. It was a story where if the wrong thing was said at a meeting, or a pilot steered just a few miles off course, the results would have been catastrophic. There is quite a bit of jumping from one setting to another and sometimes it’s hard to tell who all the players are, but even though we know the end, it’s a suspenseful story. It was like a chess game, which could have ended for losses on both sides.

Armchair Interviews says: An interesting look back to that time almost 50 years ago that left such a strong imprint on so many of us.