What are the best books on the Kennedy administrations management of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
You will not find a decent book upon the subject because most of the detail is still shrowded in propaganda and debate. Unfortunately, the USA has a God complex about John F Kennedy, although he was simply a man and a very flawed one at that (drug addiction to pain killers, serial betrayer of his marital fidelity pledge, etc), so all books written by Americans tend to mislead by not wanting to be seen to criticise him. I remember being taught that ‘the World stood still’ during the Cuban Missile Crisis, yet, when I asked my mother about it, she dismissed it as some American cold war issue that few people in Britain even talked about. She was about 30 at the time of the ‘crisis’, so I trust her memory. Instead of looking at Kennedy and the whole of his administration, you might try researching John Foster Dulles, who invented ‘brinkmanship’ diplomacy during the crisis. Hope this helps.
