Operation Anadyr: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis

An insider's account of the crisis as seen by opposing sides

Gribkov attended the conference transcribed in Cuba on the Brink, edited by James G. Blight , because he had organized the logistics of shipping 50,000 Soviet soldiers and their nuclear weapons to Cuba in 1962. That same year, Smith was an aide to the Pentagon's top officer, Maxwell Taylor. Here, each veteran of the missile crisis presents his personal recollections of the event--Gribkov's narration being more personal than Smith's, who, by contrast, seems detached. The difference arises because Gribkov was sweating on the ground in Cuba, pushing forward the secret missile deployment, while Smith was an intelligence traffic cop, trying to make sense of all the frantic activity. Smith also tends not to dramatize Kennedy's Cold War policies, making them seem almost routine--except for his interesting passages about the military's vehement opposition to JFK's no-invasion pledge. The military demanded an invasion forthwith, which many think would have started World War III. But would it have? Gribkov startlingly reveals that at the moment the Russian presence was discovered, Moscow withdrew authority to use atomic weapons if an invasion occurred. Such a significant fact punches this specialty book's meal ticket; however, collections ought first to have Michael Beschloss' Crisis Years (1992) or Dino A. Brugioni's Eyeball to Eyeball (1991). Gilbert Taylor

Thirty years ago the United States and the Soviet Union stood at the brink of nuclear war over Cuba. Since that time a great deal has been written about the crisis, almost all from our side. Gribkov, who oversaw the shipment of the Soviet weaponry across thousands of miles of ocean, recounts in detail how the Russians were able to move 40,000 Soviet troops and countless tons of nuclear missiles and equipment to Cuba, all without detection from American military surveillance. Smith, an assistant to Maxwell Taylor, attended many of the crisis meetings Kennedy held during those tense days in October 1962. Gribkov argues that the Soviet Union feared an American invasion of Cuba and installed the weapons as a deterrence. Smith relates how Kennedy and his advisers saw Khrushchev's Cuban gambit as a strategic counterpart to the boiling situation in Berlin. The authors, especially Gribkov, provide a unique perspective from which to view our nation's most fearsome crisis. Recommended for general collections. See also James Blight and others' Cuba on the Brink , LJ 11/1/93.--Ed.
- Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
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