Cuban Missile Crisis : the essential reference guide / Priscilla Roberts, editor.

"This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-267) and index.

Entries -- Primary documents -- Chronology.

On October 14, 1962, a U.S. reconnaissance flight provided the final, definitive proof that the Soviet Union was attempting to build missile bases in Cuba. The ensuing crisis was one of the defining moments of the Cold War, and likely the closest the world has ever come to all-out nuclear annihilation. Cuban Missile Crisis: The Essential Reference Guide captures the historical context, the minute-by-minute drama, and the profound repercussions of the "Missiles of October" confrontation that brought the very real threat of nuclear attack to the United States' doorstep. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the crisis, it takes full advantage of recently opened Soviet archives as well as interviews with key Russian, Cuban, and U.S. officials to explore the event as it played out in Moscow, Havana, Washington, and other locations around the world. Cuban Missile Crisis contains an introductory essay by the author and alphabetically organized reference entries contributed by leading Cold War researchers. The book also includes an exceptionally comprehensive bibliography. Together, these resources give readers everything they need to understand the escalating tensions that led to the crisis as well as the intense diplomacy that resolved it, including new information about the back-channel negotiations between Robert Kennedy and Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin.