When Angels Wept: A What-If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis

This alternate-history novel asks what might have happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis had escalated into nuclear war. Drawing on research made available after the Soviet Union's collapse, it examines a world in which the Cold War's most perilous moment follows another path.

Cuban Missile Crisisnuclear warCold Waralternate historypolitical decision-making

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Work Information

The book builds, from historical detail, a world in which the Cuban Missile Crisis opens the worst possible door.

When Angels Wept imagines the Cuban Missile Crisis failing to reach a peaceful resolution and instead moving toward a U.S.-Soviet military clash. Using strategic weapons, tactical weapons, and political miscalculation from the real crisis as its foundation, the novel reveals how thin the boundary was on which the world stood.

Review Summaries

Readers value the historian's accumulation of detail and the persuasive chain of military and political escalation. The story is heavy, but those familiar with Cold War history can feel its tension strongly.

Book Information

Publisher: Potomac Books Inc
Published: 2010-06-02
Pages: 307 pages
Language: 英語
Size: 16.28 x 2.82 x 23.44 cm
ISBN-13: 9781597975179
ISBN-10: 1597975176
Price: 8256 JPY
Category: 洋書/History/Americas/Caribbean & West Indies/Cuba

In 1961 at the Bay of Pigs, CIA-trained and -organized Cuban exiles aiming to overthrow Fidel Castro were soundly defeated. Most were taken prisoner by Cuban armed forces. Fearing another U.S. invasion of its new ally, the Soviet Union sneaked into Cuba strategic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads and Soviet troops armed with tactical nuclear weapons. However, a U-2 spy plane flight would soon find the Soviet missile sites, thus sparking the famous missile crisis. For thirteen terrifying days, the world watched nervously as the two superpowers moved toward escalation, holding the worlds fate in their hands. Finally, Nikita Khrushchev blinked. He agreed to withdraw the weapons from Cuba in return for John F. Kennedys pledge not to invade the island. But what if it had not turned out this way? What if the U-2 flight had been delayed? If the confrontation had set off a nuclear war, what would have happened to the United States and Soviet Union in 1962? What kind of account would a historian have written in a world scarred by nuclear war? Eric G. Swedin draws on research made available after the Soviet Unions collapse to examine what could have happened. Top U.S. military officers all urged stronger action against Cuba than the naval blockade, including a bombing campaign and even a full-scale invasion. Unknown to the Americans, meanwhile, the Soviet Union had tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba and were prepared to use them. The 1962 crisis had many possible outcomes. Positing an alternate history helps us better appreciate the dangers of that tense time. Such counterfactual speculation shows what the Cuban missile crisis could have wrought and how it was truly one of the most important moments of the twentieth century.

Eric G. Swedin is an associate professor of information systems technologies at Weber State University and the author of four books, including Computers: The Lift Story of a Technology. He lives near Ogden, Utah.

Reviews

An unusually interesting twist on history.

First of all, Eric Swedin is a friend of mine; we've known each other as writers for several years. But speculative or alternative history is not a genre you'll find much of on my bookshelf, so I opened this book not knowing what to expect. The first few chapters of the book recount Cold War history that most well-read people will be familiar with, with occasional forays into earlier times to set the stage. Then, Eric starts sneaking in hints of what's to come, and soon you're immersed in a world in which the Cuban missile crisis went altogether wrong. Still, the history he creates is informed by facts and details that demonstrate the "reality" of his what-might-have-been. All very interesting. But here's what interested me most. Eric writes the book as though he were a professor of history at an Australian University, so the tone is very straightforward. Yet he manages to build tension and drama and page-turning curiosity despite the deliberate, dispassionate prose. A difficult job for a writer, and Eric manages it masterfully. The result is an interesting and unexpectedly exciting book that's well worth reading.
great book

It's really good. It makes you think about close this world came to nuclear fire. He does a good job of explaining the missile gap and the bomber gap.
My opinion

It meet my expectatives, more than that. It gave a thorough explanation of real facts and link it with what would have happened if the crisis have not been averted
A Good First Novel

This was better than I expected and I read a lot of Harry Turtledove and Peter G. Tsouras, as alternate history is one of my favorite genres. I actually found the back story interesting, although I have read both One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War (Vintage) and DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis . In particular, I thought the author did an excellent job of projecting how Khrushchev would likely have tied together the Cuban situation with Berlin. The author also does an admirable job of integrating the character vignettes with his overall narrative. I rate books by how hard they are to put down, and I read this one in two days. If you like Resurrection Day, which I did, you will like this book. J.Lenaburg
Interesting What-if

This is a very interesting novel. This first part follows the real-life events of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. The second half of the novel is the author's opinion on how the hypothetical war could have been executed. More experienced authors might have been allowed to expand by fleshing out the characters and introducing them to the first part. It looks like the author relied on historical events to tell the first part and then kept the same format in telling the second. Don't get me wrong - it is still an entertaining novel and especially points out how hawklike the US military was to prosecute this war. Very chilling as this reviewer lived it as an 8 yr old boy.