Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis examines for the first time the role and performance of all three intelligence communities centrally involved in this seminal event: American, Soviet and Cuban. The ways in which organizational and personality variables affect the political exploitation of intelligence is assessed followed by an analysis of the psychology of intelligence assessment, showing how common cognitive and motivational pathologies can explain crucial errors of inference and attribution made by all three intelligence communities. In closing, the lessons of the volume as a whole are reflected upon for the theory and practice of intelligence assessment, and for our understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis.