The book raises some profound questions. Did the placing of strategic nuclear missiles on Cuba a few miles from the American mainland really alter the balance of power in the Western Hemisphere? Europe had been living with a Soviet led Armageddon on its doorstep for years and in any event, submarines equipped with nuclear missiles parked in the Atlantic would offer an even greater, less easily detectable threat than Cuba. Also, the stark contrast between the enormous destructive power of the weaponry involved and the frighteningly slow and primitive means of communication available to the Americans and the Soviets. Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School and University College, Oxford, which he left after a year.After leaving Oxford University, Max Hastings became a foreign correspondent, and reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard. Vladimir Putin’s ill-advised invasion of Ukraine last February has not produced the results that he expected. As the battlefield situation has degenerated for Russian army due to the commitment of the Ukrainian people and its armed forces, along with western assistance the Kremlin has resorted to bombastic statements from the Russian autocrat concerning the use of nuclear weapons. At this time there is no evidence by American intelligence that Moscow is preparing for that eventuality, however, we have learned the last few days that Russian commanders have discussed the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons. The conflict seems to produce new enhanced rhetoric on a daily basis, and the world finds itself facing a situation not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 amidst the Cold War. This is a new history for a new generation, putting fresh, international context on an astonishing military and political showdown. In those throes of the Cold War, hundreds of millions of people around the world were, for some days, terrified that a nuclear holocaust was imminent. Bringing together the threads of American bellicosity and Soviet brinksmanship, it becomes clear that while both sides eventually stepped away from destruction, that does not mean disaster was not terrifyingly close. A brilliant, beautifully constructed and thrilling reassessment of the most perilous moment in history” - Daily Telegraph

The critical 13-day period is described and analyzed in great detail: essentially at an hour-by-hour level. There is everything here that you might want to know about the Crisis and more. Much more. Herein lies the book’s weakness for me. If you are not a historian or academic, the detail is just too great. I learned a lot reading this book, but I might have learned as much or more if the book had been half its length. Occasionally, Hastings leaves the world leaders behind completely, to give us anecdotes from average individuals living through the Crisis, powerless observers in a high-stakes game they never joined. The sheer number of viewpoints presented adds richness and depth to the proceedings. Nearing eighty, Hastings still writes with the pungent style that suffused his earlier books. At one point, for instance, he refers to Ernest Hemingway as “the big bullshitter with the mustache.” He also makes frequent references to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, connecting the past with the present in a way that feels unforced. Rather, two things jumped out to me. First, there is an expanded scope that gives Cuba equal billing with the Soviet Union and the United States. Second, there is Hastings himself, whose writing is imbued with sharp observations, idiosyncratic tangents, and no shortage of confidence. This was the first real test of the MAD concept, and indeed it stayed the hand of the warring adversaries of the Cold War. It is worth being reminded that this happened despite a belligerent and foolhardy American military, doomed to delve disastrously into Vietnam a decade later.Chapters 4 through 14 cover the Cuban Missile Crisis proper. I'm not going to summarise these. Enough to identify a few of the main themes of Sir Max Hastings. In the great scheme of things, these are quibbles. Abyss is very good indeed. I would now keep two books of choice that, it seems to me, cover all aspects of the Cuba Crisis: Abyss for politics and context; and Dobbs' One Minute to Midnight for the technical and forensic. Hastings is a British writer, and so it’s not surprising that he affords some prominence to the UK position and the thoughts and actions of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan during the crisis. Kennedy obviously felt it important to keep Britain in the loop, though the impression this book gives is that he wasn’t expecting much in the way of useful strategic advice from that quarter. The overall effect is to show how unimportant the UK was to American thinking, despite the fact that the British expected to be wiped out as a modern society if nuclear war broke out. Such is life for junior alliance partners. JS Tennant in his review of ABYSS in The Guardian, October 16, 2022 points out that “In January this year, Russia’s deputy foreign minister threatened to deploy “military assets” to Cuba if the US continued to support Ukrainian sovereignty. As has become all too apparent in the past weeks, tactical nuclear missiles are still a threat, along with chemical weapons and supersonic missiles. It’s as if Russia’s desperate scramble to maintain influence will stop at nothing and, as Hastings points out, ‘the scope for a catastrophic miscalculation is as great now as it was in 1914 Europe or in the 1962 Caribbean.’ Abyss provides chastening lessons on how easily things can spiral out of control but also how catastrophe can be averted.”

But, of course, it wasn’t and Max Hastings enthralling book tells how the world almost ended sixty years ago. Superb… reads like a thriller as the gripping drama of the Cold War power politics plays out behind closed doors in Washington, Moscow and Havana” - Daily MailHastings looks at the Crisis from all vantages – Cuban, Soviet, American, and European – in a balanced way without any obvious personal bias. For instance, the Soviets and many Europeans thought: We all have nukes on our doorsteps. What’s so terrible about America having them too? The Crisis is viewed by many as being “more political than strategic”.

In The Abyss, Max Hastings turns his focus to one of the most terrifying events of the mid-twentieth century—the thirteen days in October 1962 when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Hastings looks at the conflict with fresh eyes, focusing on the people at the heart of the crisis—America President John F. Kennedy, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, and a host of their advisors.

First night reviews

Of course, much of the action takes place in the White House, where the so-called Executive Committee met to discuss options, all while being secretly recorded. Unlike the authoritarian regimes in Russia and Cuba, America’s decision-making has been made transparent by the voluminous transcripts that have been released. I appreciated that Hastings took this into account when forming his verdicts, noting that the imperfect logic employed in the U.S. was probably no worse – and likely far better – than that which took place in the Soviet Union. Kennedy had many, by now, well known and copiously documented faults.His willingness however, to refrain from the lethal and precipitate action pressed so hard upon him by his military advisors while he pursued a diplomatic solution, I believe, represents his ‘finest hour’. It is a strange paradox that so many of the men who performed so well during this crisis exercising cool nerves and sound judgement such as McNamara, Rusk, Bundy etc would be abandon such qualities and have their reputations destroyed and swallowed up by the quagmire of the Vietnam war just a few short years later. Obviously – as we do not yet inhabit a world of radioactive ash – the missiles of October never flew. Still, the margins were so thin, and the human element so pronounced, that it is unsurprising that this event has been the subject of numerous, sometimes excellent books. I wanted to read about the Cuban missile crisis for quite some time so the release of Max Hastings' The Abyss was perfect. Hastings does a fantastic job of telling the terrifying story of the crisis using both historical archives but also eye witness testimonies. What sets Hastings’ account apart from other historians is his integration of the views of everyday individuals in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba. Cuban peasants, Russian workers, and American college students are all quoted as to their reactions and emotional state during the crisis. The result is a perspective that is missing from other accounts and educates the reader as to the mindset of ordinary citizens who would pay the ultimate price if the crisis had gone sideways.