DEFCON-2

Norman Polmar

Description

The closest we've ever come to the end of the world

"DEFCON-2 is the best single volume on the Cuban Missile Crisis published and is an important contribution to the history of the Cold War. Beyond the military and political facts of the crisis, Polmar and Gresham sketch the personalities that created and coped with the crisis. They also show us how close we came to the edge without becoming sensationalistic."—Larry Bond, bestselling author of Dangerous Ground

Spy-satellite and aerial-reconnaissance photos reveal that one of the United States's bitterest enemies may be acquiring weapons of mass destruction and the means to use them against the American homeland. Administration officials refuse to accept intelligence professionals' interpretation of these images and order an end to spy missions over the offending nation. More than a month later, after vicious infighting, the president orders the spy missions to resume. The new photos reveal an array of ballistic missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads and striking deep within U.S. territory. It appears that the missiles will be fully operational within one week.
This is not a plot setup for a suspense novel; it is the true story of the most terrifying moment in the 45-year Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union: the Cuban Missile Crisis. DEFCON-2 tells this tale as it has never been told before—from both sides, with the help of hundreds of recently declassified U.S. and Soviet documents, as well as interviews with numerous former spies, military figures, and government officials who speak out here for the first time.

Sujets

• 20th Century
• Histoire
• Cold War
• History of the United States
• Nuclear warfare
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Nuclear War
• United States
• History
• Guerre froide
• Tom Clancy
• 1962

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781620459614
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

DEFCON-2
Selected books on the Cold War by Norman Polmar
Aircraft Carriers: A History of Carrier Aviation and Its Influence on World Events
Atomic Submarines
Chronology of the Cold War at Sea, 1945-1991, with Eric Wertheim, Andrew Bahjat, and Bruce Watson
Cold War Submarines: U.S. and Soviet Submarine Design and Construction with Kenneth J. Moore
Guide to the Soviet Navy
Merchants of Treason with Thomas B. Allen
The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet
Soviet Naval Power
Spy Book: The Random House Encyclopedia of Espionage with Thomas B. Allen
Spyplane: U-2 History Declassified
Strategic Air Command with Tim Laur
Strategic Weapons: An Introduction
Selected books on the military by John D. Gresham
Submarine with Tom Clancy
Fighter Wing with Tom Clancy
Special Forces with Tom Clancy
Seapower with Ian Westwell
DEFCON-2
Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War during the Cuban Missile Crisis
Norman Polmar John D. Gresham
Foreword by Tom Clancy

John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Copyright 2006 by Norman Polmar and John D. Gresham. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data :
Polmar, Norman.
Defcon-2 : Standing on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis / Norman Polmar, John D. Gresham; foreword by Tom Clancy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 359) and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-471-67022-3 (paper)
1. Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. I. Gresham, John. II. Title.
E841.P65 2006
973.922-dc22
2005013196
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Dedicated to the Memory of Paul H. Nitze (1907-2004)
In a career spanning nine presidencies, Paul Nitze has made enormous contributions to the freedom and security of his country. Paul Nitze exemplifies the powers of mind, commitment, and character needed to fulfill America s world responsibilities. He was present at the creation of the strategy that has kept us at peace for forty years. His deep understanding of the issues of war and peace, his discharge of high public assignments, and his advice to those in authority have been invaluable to our national well-being. He remains the most rigorous, demanding, and independent of analysts and the wisest of counselors.
Medal of Freedom Citation
Awarded by President Ronald Reagan
November 7, 1985
CONTENTS
Foreword by Tom Clancy
Preface
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Technical Notes

1 Most Dangerous Moments
2 Imbalance of Terror
3 The Cuban Decision: Coming to America
4 Cuba: The American View
5 Operation Anadyr
6 Surveillance and Discovery
7 ExComm
8 Consensus and Notification
9 Taking Action
10 Crisis beneath the Waves
11 The View from the Kremlin
12 Until Hell Freezes Over!
13 Back Channels and Telegrams
14 OPLAN 316: Invasion!
15 From SIOP to Dr. Strangelove
16 The Deal: The Turkish Card
17 Withdrawal
18 Legacy: The Anadyr Effect

Appendix A The Membership of ExComm
Appendix B U-2 Missions Flown during Operation Anadyr
Appendix C U.S. Naval Forces in the Caribbean
Appendix D Soviet Missile Characteristics

Notes
Bibliography
Photo Credits
Index
FOREWORD by Tom Clancy
Like most Americans who came of age in the second half of the twentieth century, my life and times were defined by the undeclared conflict known as the Cold War. Lasting some forty-five years, that confrontation held deadly consequences for mankind if it had ever gone hot. For most of those years, sanity and reason ruled the actions of both the United States and the Soviet Union. Direct confrontation was considered unthinkable due to the ever-growing nuclear arsenals of the two nations.
During that period, there were conflicts supported by the superpowers-Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, and Afghanistan, among others. But the United States and the Soviet Union were careful to avoid a direct confrontation.
The most dangerous exception came in 1962, with the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was in Loyola High School in Towson, Maryland, and I remember as if it were yesterday the uncertainty and terror of that time. The reason was obvious: the specter of nuclear war hung over the nation. We talked about it in school and after classes with friends. Our mothers bought extra food at the stores, and dads brought home extra flashlights, portable radios, and lots of batteries. And there was talk, if things really got bad, of the family taking a road trip to get farther away from Baltimore.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the only time that the United States and the Soviet Union came close to using nuclear weapons against each other. While the actual balance of nuclear terror was unknown to most of the citizens of the two countries, the implications were clear-both countries could be destroyed, with millions of dead and many of the survivors mutilated.
We had good reason to be concerned. For most of the four decades since the crisis, the popular notion has been that the world was saved by sane, intelligent, and rational leaders, in direct communication, seeking an amicable solution. However, the massive declassification efforts of both sides since the end of the Cold War, the publication of several memoirs, and the candid recollections of many participants-who will now tell their stories-reveal that on several occasions in the fall of 1962 those leaders came very close to stumbling into nuclear Armageddon.
The origins of the Cuban crisis were in fact the final act of a march to confrontation that began in January 1961 with the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. For Kennedy, the missile crisis was the unexpected result of an eighteen-month struggle to destroy the socialist regime of Fidel Castro, who had taken power from the despotic Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Castro soon became a major irritation to American government and business, as he nationalized U.S. holdings and threatened to export socialist revolution to South America. Such actions were unacceptable to the Kennedy administration. After the humiliating failure to overthrow Castro with the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, the president entrusted his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to lead the effort to covertly overthrow Castro. But Castro proved to be a wily and tough opponent.
Nikita Khrushchev came to the Cuban Missile Crisis by another path, trying to resolve a number of Soviet problems in a single, bold stroke. Those included preserving the Castro regime in the face of American efforts to overthrow it, while at the same time trying to redress the Soviet inferiority in strategic nuclear weapons that could strike the American homeland. These seemingly divergent goals were to be accomplished by Operation Anadyr: the massive deployment of missiles and troops to Cuba in the summer and fall of 1962. There was just one problem: Khrushchev had lied about the Anadyr deployment to Kennedy, having assured the U.S. government that no offensive weapons were being sent to Cuba.
The relationship between Kennedy and Khrushchev had never been good. The vast differences in their ages, backgrounds, life experiences, and worldviews made a genuine rapprochement impossible, and this was exacerbated by the times they lived in. The pair met only once, a stormy 1961 summit meeting held in Vienna. So bad was the outcome that Kennedy remarked afterward, It s going to be a cold winter. He was correct. The year that followed was filled with tension over Berlin and the growing nuclear arms race between the superpowers.
The stage was thus set for the players to act their parts, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. The intermediate steps, Kennedy s challenging speech, moving U.S. military forces to the DEFCON-3 level of readiness, and the commander-in-chief of the Strategic Air Command moving U.S. nuclear bombers and land-based missiles to DEFCON-2-the highest state of readiness short of war-all seemed to lead to a nuclear finale.
Nuclear weapons on both sides were cocked and ready. The leaders in Washington and Moscow were often confused, tired, and frustrated. Poor intelligence and unbelievable delays in communications compounded the problems