Averting 'The Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) [Hardcover]

Sheldon Stern (Author)

Book Description

Series: Stanford Nuclear Age Series | Publication Date: July 11, 2003

The Cuban missile crisis was the most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War and the most perilous moment in human history. Sheldon M. Stern, longtime historian at the John F. Kennedy Library, here presents a comprehensive narrative account of the secret ExComm meetings, making the inside story of the missile crisis completely understandable to general readers for the first time. The author's narrative version of these discussions is entirely new; it provides readers with a running commentary on the issues and options discussed and enables them, as never before, to follow specific themes and the role of individual participants. The narrative highlights key moments of stress, doubt, decision, and resolution—and even humor— and makes the meetings comprehensible both to readers who lived through the crisis and to those too young to remember the Cold War. Stern demonstrates that JFK, a seasoned Cold Warrior who bore some of the responsibility for precipitating the crisis, consistently steered policy makers away from an apocalyptic nuclear conflict, which he called, with stark eloquence, “the final failure.”

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Anyone who lived through the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, one of the most perilous moments in contemporary history, will find Sheldon M. Stern’s Averting ‘The Final Failure’ a real page turner. In highly readable fashion it details the inside story based on Oval Office tapes of the 13 days that shook the world.”—Arnold Beichman, The Washington Times

“...Stern’s skillful analysis of these Kennedy tapes provides a welcome addition to the voluminous literature on the crisis, showing that evaluations of Kennedy’s leadership, crisis resolution, and Cold War policies are far from complete.”—Journal of American History

“Stern’s Averting the Final Failure greatly contributes to our understanding of the ExComm deliberations and JFK’s role as a crisis manager.”—Presidential Studies Quarterly

“Anyone seeking to expand their understanding of the missile crisis would do well to entertain the arguments contained in [this book]....It now stands to reason that Stern’s work must be taken into account if one is to undertake any serious investigation of decision-making on the American side. Indeed, simply as a corrective to Robert Kennedy’s own crisis memoir, Thirteen Days, Stern’s work is indispensable.”—The Journal of Conflict Studies

From the Publisher

Winner, CHOICE Oustanding Academic Title Award, 2004

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 504 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (July 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804748462
• ISBN-13: 978-0804748469
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #945,821 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Far Superior to "Thirteen Days", December 1, 2003

By 

Ruth F Quattlebaum (Charlestown, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Averting 'The Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) (Hardcover)

For nearly 20 years, I have taught an elective for high school seniors that surveys the origins and spread of nuclear power & weapons from 1895 to the present. Every year the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was a highlight, especially because we drove vans right to the JFK Library and heard its historian Sheldon M. Stern lay out stunning detail, complete with audio clips, transcripts of ExComm tapes, Adlai Stevenson's actual UN photo set, and more.

But now, Stern has put it in book form, and if ever the devil was in the details, this book is a glorious teaching opportunity to show students how details and exact evidence are indispensable -- especially in a 9/11 age where imprecise Intelligence can have huge consequences at home and abroad. Certainly Intelligence proved breathtakingly faulty before and during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and the consequences then were almost cataclysmic, as Stern's book demonstrates in chilling chapter and verse.

The Cuban missile crisis is a history teacher's dream assignment anyway, for its layers and layers of historiographical changes, as new revelations have kept trickling out, not only with the gradual release of the ExComm tapes, but also Soviet sources after the Cold War ended. Stern's volume makes this "crystal," and breaks through student glaze, by showing as well as any monograph I have ever read how once in a while an historian really can become the proverbial fly on the wall during momentous spoken history. Check out the moments when General Curtis LeMay provocatively invokes Munich, or JFK snaps uncharacteristically at Dean Rusk, or the Cabinet room almost goes nuts when the U-2 gets shot down. Even the footnotes are a treasure trove, pointing out remarkable links to Winston Churchill in 1940, Joseph McCarthy in 1954, and the Bay of Pigs & Operation Mongoose as somewhat terrorist activities in the 1960's.

For 20 years, we had assigned RFK's Thirteen Days, aware of its faults as a kind of 1968 campaign document, but grateful for a short, readable, if flawed, first-hand account ghosted by Ted Sorensen. In 2001 we added Hollywood's film Thirteen Days, grossly misleading but useful in its own ways.

Now, however, we have a source, Averting the Final Failure, that shows with a trained historian's meticulous concern for evidence, wherever it may lead, how dangerous it can be for students to rely on Thirteen Days, either the book or the movie. The fact that a disheartenly huge percentage of Americans will judge the 1962 Cuban missile crisis -- and any other historical topic for that matter -- by what either Hollywood or a self-serving participant told them about it, makes Sheldon Stern's careful study almost urgent reading, at least for high school teachers and the young citizens they nurture.

It will take time: 419 carefully crafted pages and then some. But Andover students are finding that this time translates efficiently into historical treasure, where an historian eavesdropping in a library basement can find more real-life drama in unvarnished evidence than countless Hollywoods.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History At It's Best, January 19, 2004

By 

Fred Freitas (Marshfield, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Averting 'The Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) (Hardcover)

History has two definitions: a chronological record of significant past events, and a story. Sheldon Stern's story of the Cuban Missile Crisis is history (both definitions) at its best. The scholarly, time-consuming, and meticulous research that went into this work abounds throughout its pages. The author's willingness to challenge earlier historical works on the translation of the crisis's audiotapes makes this book a must for any student of JFK, his administration, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because of the comprehensive nature of history, a reader might conclude that this is just another dry historical work. Far from it - this book reads like a Robert Ludlum novel. The reader is caught in the tension as the missiles are first discovered, held as the conflict escalates to an almost unbearable crisis, and released as the resolution unfolds. But this was no political thriller, it was real life. Mr. Stern has taught us all a great lesson of history: that real people make real decisions, that these decisions have consequences both foreseen and unforeseen, and that there could have been other choices made with different outcomes. Our world would be a much different place if JFK had listened to his advisors. I believe this book will become the classic study for the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Averting the Final Failure is a must read.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The REAL insider story of the Missiles of October..., April 16, 2004

By 

Thomas Moody - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Averting 'The Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) (Hardcover)

This is the book, I'd wager, that everyone thought they were getting when they purchased "The Kennedy Tapes" (Zelikow and May, 1997 Harvard Press). After struggling through that seminal work, the need for a narrative form of this compelling side of the Missile Crisis was palpable...fortunately, retired JFK Library historian Sheldon Stern also saw the need and completed what was clearly a passionate "life's work" with "Averting the Final Failure". Stern takes years of study and scrutinization of the White House tapes that eavesdropped on the EXCOMM (Executive Committee of the National Security Council) as they advised and debated the day-to-day issues associated with the Crisis and turned a complex story into an amazingly lucid and cogent narrative that should become THE source for White House activities during the Crisis.

Newly declassified and available, Stern has added immensly to the growing amount of literature/transcripts of these profound tapes. The difference here is that Stern is clearly the one who has spent the most time and study on these tapes and, coupled with his surprisingly apt story-telling capability, has developed an authoritative work that defines the "who? what? where? when? and how?" of the Kennedy advisor "inner-workings". Time and again, Stern destroys myths and legends as his narrative describes each meeting and the theme that each one invoked. He interprets each discussion and adds his own attempt at tone and voice inflection to give not only the content of the discussion, but the "atmosphere" as well. The result is almost as good as hearing the tapes themselves...giving the true feel for what these "Best and Brightest" advisors went through.

The story of course has been told time and again...Soviet leader Nikita Khrushev surreptitiously installs nuclear capable missiles and the associated warheads in Communist ally Cuba and this subversion is discovered with American U2 spy plane photography. The subsequent actions taken by the U.S. government are fortunately recorded on a complex White House taping system by President John Kennedy, thus providing an invaluable insight into this provocative period in the Cold War. Unfortunately, these recordings leave much to be desired in terms of quality and many have attempted to transcibe them into a useful tool for historians. The "Kennedy Tapes" book attempted to publish the full transcriptions, but this work was so disjointed that it tended to confuse more than educate. Stern, having initially supported this effort by Zelikow and May, becomes more and more dismayed with the quality of this transcribing work and decides to offer his own interpretation of the tapes and the Crisis. Having spent many years analyzing them (long before they were declassified) he provides an amazing insight and scholarship, while clearing up many "unclear" voice transcriptions.

Taking all this information and recognizing that just another publication of transcripts would not be useful, he decides on a version that describes these actions on the tapes in narrative form. He clears up the collateral chatter and keeps a thematic focus on the narrative and comes up with a wonderfully clear and concise coverage of this event. More than just an interpretation of tapes, Stern also accompanies the narrative with a surprisingly readable summary of events and, happily, a destruction of many of the afore mentioned myths that have survived throughout the years. Well known Crisis stories such as Robert Kennedy's "hawkish" anti-Communist stance, the deception and negotiations of the agreement to extract nuclear missiles from Turkey as a trade for extraction of the missiles from Cuba and the continued iintransigence of Fidel Castro and the Cuban government are denounced here by Stern...offering a new and embellished perspective on the Crisis. Kenndy's "free-wheeling" meeting style is amazingly supported by the tapes and stand in stark contrast to the popular theme presented in such movies as "The Missiles of October" and "Thirteen Days"...an example being JFK's response to the shooting down of an American U2 spy plane at the height of the Crisis on October 27th...the movie version has JFK and the EXCOMM loudly debating retaliatory responses when in reality JFK's calm and measured response was: "...this is an escalation by them isn't it?" and the meeting went on.

"Averting the Final Failure" comes 42 years following the denouement of the Missile Crisis and thouroughly ties together all loose ends associated with White House activities during those heady 13 days. This is an important and monumental addition to the vast amount of literature available on the Crisis and should be considered the first reference used by historians for the White House perspective of the Crisis...I would overwhelmingly recommend this work to anyone interested in those activities in October, 1962.