Maximum Danger: Kennedy, the Missiles, and the Crisis of American Confidence

In the early 1960s, as a youthful President Kennedy entered the White House, Americans braced for a period of "maximum danger" from the Soviet Union. This nearly universal alarm sprang from rising Soviet missile strength, Communist challenges around the world, and the shoe-thumping bluster of Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Yet popular fears also fed on exaggerated estimates of Russian military prowess, global ambitions, and readiness to risk or even begin a nuclear war. The Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the gravest collision of the cold war, occurred as these alarms were sounding loudest, generating pressures for bolder action to blunt Soviet advances. Historians and other observers persist in explaining President Kennedy's handling of the missile crisis in merely personal terms, as revealing either unique valor and resourcefulness or reckless machismo. In Maximum Danger, Robert Weisbrot moves beyond these now common interpretations to argue that JFK in fact explored no new policy frontiers but rather faithfully reflected a remarkable cold war consensus. Buffeted by partisan sniping, public opinion, and the force of inherited policies, the president pursued a variety of options while trying to minimize confrontation with the Soviets to a degree consistent with his political survival. By exploring the boundaries that national attitudes can impose on even the most popular leader, Maximum Danger bids to recover the historical figure of John F. Kennedy from the veils of myth.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Rethinking the Cuban Missile Crisis 3 Part 2 Cold War Alarms and the 1960 Campaign 12 Part 3 The New Frontier Under Siege 40 Part 4 "We Just Had to Get Them Out of There": Why Missiles in Cuba Triggered a Crisis 76 Part 5 The Decision to Blockade 111 Part 6 Kennedy's Hidden Concession-to Public Opinion 149 Part 7 Epilogue: the Missile Crisis in Historical Perspective 196 Part 8 Selected Chronology 215 Part 9 Notes 219 Part 10 Index 259

About the Author :
Robert Weisbrot teaches American history at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. His writings on society and politics in the 1960s include Freedom Bound, an acclaimed history of the civil rights movement.

Review :
A thoughtful and persuasive analysis...Robert Weisbrot succeeds! An engaging narrative...a deft summary of the debates. Incisive...Maximum Danger redefines the problems confronting Kennedy at this most dangerous moment in human history.