cover image One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964

One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964

A. A. Fursenko. W. W. Norton & Company, $27.5 (512pp) ISBN 978-0-393-04070-8

The Cold War now seems like a dim memory, but it was only 35 years ago, in October 1962, that the two superpowers came to the brink of nuclear war over the Caribbean island of Cuba. The diplomacy in the years immediately preceding and during this crisis is the fodder for this evenhanded, thorough study. Using a slew of recently declassified documents from Russian archives, Fursenko, the history chair at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Naftali, who teaches history at Yale, emphasize the ignorance and uncertainty that haunted all three countries during Castro's rise to power. After showing how the Cuban leader (pushed by U.S. and Soviet pressure, his brother and his own anti-imperialist urges) embraced Moscow, the authors then examine how the dominos fell: increasing Soviet-Cuban cooperation led to American military efforts (the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion), which led to Khrushchev's missile shipments to the Cubans, which, in turn provoked the U.S. to impose a ""military quarantine,"" thus beginning the terrifying days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Most importantly, the authors detail the evolving relationship between Castro and the Soviets, as well as the 40 secret meetings between Robert Kennedy and Soviet leaders that eventually allowed Kennedy and Krushchev to stand down. If the writing is a little academic, the authors do illuminate and confirm past suppositions about the build-up to this nuclear confrontation--and how disaster was avoided. (June)