13 Days‪:‬

The world remembers the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis as a very close brush with nuclear war between the Cold War's two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.  The reality is that the crisis was the result of a culmination of actions taken by the U.S. to strengthen its military might in the world, to a degree that left the Soviets fast falling far behind.  Cuba was a pawn that was played to exact leveraged balance over the U.S.

This book provides a very brief introduction to the conflict.