Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean - Alex von Tunzelmann

During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, the Caribbean was in crisis, while the United States and the USSR acted out the world's rising tensions in its island nations. Alex von Tunzelmann's brilliant narrative follows the US and Caribbean leaders of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic from the beginning of the Cold War to its end. The superpowers thought they could use these Caribbean leaders as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life. The United States, in its all-consuming fight against communism, stumbled into one disaster after another which helped bring the world as close to catastrophic nuclear war as it has ever been. Red Heat is an authoritative and eye-opening account of a wildly dramatic and dangerous era of international politics as the riveting story of the machinations and blunders of superpowers are laid bare.