O'Connell, Robert L. "The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust"
Divergence: 1962 CE
What if: Threatened by US destroyers, a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine sank the USS Randolph, precipitating the Two-Day War.
Summary: Narrative summary of the classified Danforth Commission report on the cause, course, and effect of the war, including the institutional American response to an attack on Washington, DC, which resulted in the obliteration of the Soviet Union and the subsequent ostracization of the United States by the global community.
Published: In What Ifs? of American History: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Might Have Been (ed. Robert Cowley), q.v.
Awards: Finalist: 2003 Sidewise Award for best short-form alternate history.