https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2606779-one-minute-to-mi...
For extra nightmare fuel "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg:
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25663779-the-doomsday...
The latter book literally gave me nightmares.
"The total death toll as calculated by the Joint Chiefs, from a U.S. first strike aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, would be roughly 600 million dead. A hundred Holocausts.
I remember what I thought when I held the single sheet with the graph on it. I thought, this piece of paper should not exist. It should never have existed. Not in America. Not anywhere, ever. It depicted evil beyond any human project that had ever existed. There should be nothing on Earth, nothing real, that it referred to."
https://apjjf.org/-Daniel-Ellsberg/3222/article.html
"A hundred Holocausts" - that has haunted me ever since I first read it.
The US's version was written by the white house's journalist. It is not objective and lots has been refuted from calls leaked by the soviets after the fact, and a few of the advisors too.
TruTV/Adam Ruins Everything has a take on it [0] (not saying that's the objective history but they raise some eyebrows).
Some facts we do know though:
1. JFK rode on an anti-communist wave to beat his opponent into office
2. The US moved missiles first
3. The military was following orders from the top
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5wc9V7ggVg
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EDIT: on some reflection, I think I actually just proved your point. If that was just left to the military then cooler heads may not have prevailed