Above and Beyond: John F. Kennedy and America’s Most Dangerous Cold War Spy Mission

From the authors of The Finest Hours comes the riveting, deeply human story of President John F. Kennedy and two U-2 pilots, Rudy Anderson and Chuck Maultsby, who risked their lives to save America during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During an infamous 13-day stretch in October 1962, America faced the prospect of imminent nuclear war with the Soviet Union. According to Sherman and Tougias, two  things saved humanity: Kennedy’s strategic wisdom and the U-2 aerial spy program.

On October 27, 1962, Kennedy, strained from back pain, sleeplessness and days of impossible tension, was briefed about a missing spy plane. Its pilot, Chuck Maultsby, was on a surveillance mission over the North Pole, but had become disoriented and steered his plane into Soviet airspace. If detected, its presence there could be considered an act of war. As the president and his advisers wrestled with this information, more bad news came: another U-2 had gone missing, this one belonging to Rudy Anderson, whose mission was to photograph missile sites over Cuba. For Kennedy, any wrong move could turn the Cold War nuclear. Above and Beyond is a deeply researched, gripping account of the lives of these three men, war heroes all, who were brought together during a day that could have changed history.