The author discusses the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, focusing on U.S. foreign policy and arguing that historical scholarship has failed to recognize a failure of U.S. military intelligence. Topics include the National Intelligence Estimates (NIES) intelligence reports that did not predict nuclear buildup in Cuba, structural fragmentation in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC). The CIA director John McCone, the CIA analyst Sherman Kent, the U.S. President John Kennedy, and the Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev are mentioned.
