An insider's tellingly detailed and chilling recap of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Drawing on his firsthand experience as a senior staff member at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center, interviews with surviving principals, and archival sources, Brugioni offers a comprehensive overview of the confrontation that very nearly plunged the world into nuclear war. But before getting down to business on the critical two-week period that climaxed on October 28 with Moscow's agreement to withdraw offensive weapons systems, he provides valuable background on the development of America's aerial reconnaissance capabilities during the Eisenhower Administration and JFK's ongoing problems with the Castro regime. His stage set, Brugioni settles into a wide-ranging, day-by-day narrative that sheds new light on virtually every aspect of the emergency. Cases in point run from when Soviet missiles of varying ranges were actually detected on the Caribbean island through how the White House kept allies informed, why the US military was put on full alert, the extent to which naval forces blockaded (or ``quarantined,'' in the language of diplomacy) Cuban waters, the crucial go-between role played by ABC-TV's John Scali in Khrushchev's capitulation, where the USSR secreted its warheads, and the reasons Washington did not press for on-site verification by UN representatives once the worse dangers were over. Nor does Brugioni neglect the human side of the potentially deadly encounter. He conveys, for example, the disdain of elder statesman Dean Acheson for the unstructured chaos of the ad hoc advisory meetings convened, without agendas, by one or both of the Kennedy brothers. Without overdramatic comment, the author also recalls phoning his wife to ask her to head for Missouri with their children should the nation's capital be attacked on Saturday the 27th. A definite briefing on one of modern history's landmark events. (Sixteen pages of photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-679-40523-2
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1991
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
