One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs

A gripping, hour-by-hour account of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, revealing how close the U.S. and Soviet Union came to nuclear war through untapped Soviet/Cuban archives, detailing Khrushchev's plans for Cuba, nuclear warhead handling, U-2 incidents, and the tense decision-making by Kennedy and Khrushchev, emphasizing the near-catastrophe and fortunate survival through skillful crisis management despite extreme pressures, mistakes, and near-misses like a lost nuclear-armed U-2 jet