Book Description
What the Kremlin wanted during the Cold War—and what it was willing to do to get it.
Nikita Khrushchev was a leader who risked war to get peace during the most dangerous years of the twentieth century. In Khrushchev's Cold War, Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, authors of the Cuban missile crisis classic "One Hell of a Gamble," bring to life head-to-head confrontations between Khrushchev and Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Drawing from their unrivaled access to Politburo and Soviet intelligence materials, they reveal for the first time three moments when Khrushchev's inner circle restrained him from plunging the superpowers into war. Combining new insights into the Cuban crisis, startling narratives on the hot spots of Suez, Iraq, Berlin, and Southeast Asia, and vivid portraits of leaders in the developing world who challenged Moscow and Washington—Castro, Lumumba, Nasser, and Mao—Khrushchev's Cold War provides one of the most gripping and authoritative studies of the crisis years of the Cold War. 16 pages of illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
More a book on foreign policy.......2007-06-29
Khrushchev was a fascinating character. He is one of the few Soviet leaders, which had humanity and warmth. If there is one issue that Khrushchev stands out for it is desalinization. I found it disappointing the book did not cover this part of him better. I would also have liked a more extensive section on the Soviet people and economy and how it affected his leadership.
However it is a terrific study of USSR's foreign policy during his era. While reading the book, It was surprising just how aggressive he was in his foreign policy. I had read it before but I thought that several cold war warriors (historians and politicians) were overdoing it. But it was interesting to read that they had not. His pressure tactics brought the world several times close to a major conflict and was the author of the closest call to a nuclear war that we ever had.
I look forward to Aleksandr Fursenko next book.
Nikita, the Wizard of Red Square.......2007-05-01
A solid history of the always probing, somewhat erratic, but ultimately war-adverse reign of Khrushchev during the 1950s and 60s. Those wanting to acquire direct insights into the thinking and motives of the leadership of the Kremlin during some of its most important Cold War confrontations with the U.S.--Suez, Berlin, Laos, and Cuba--should buy and read this book.
It is a wonder that a hot war was avoided when you are confronted by the authors, Fursenko and Naftali, with the gamesmanship, often played during this period in a vacum of real knowledge, on both sides of the Iron Curtin. It is a further wonder that the bankrupt political and economic system that was the USSR lasted as long as it did.
Khruschev - A most Amazing Mixture of Mercuriality and Idiosyncrasy Brought Vividly to Life.......2007-03-08
If - and that is a big if (the book is fully 600 pages long - it helps to fall ill when you read it - I did!) - you have the time and want to invest it for obtaining a first class overview over the great power play during the decade between 1955 and 1965 - the Khruschev era - this definitely is the book to read! Its authors not only provide a refreshingly new perspective to the (more or less well-) known events of, i.a., the first Israeli-Egyptian war, the (Soviet) occupation of Hungary and the Cuban missile crisis, they fully succeed in transforming this period of history into a most plausible and very exciting "story", in fact, into something of a "thriller" (in the best sense of the word). It is the story of a great power desperate to come up to its claim to possess or at least to be accorded equal status with the other - even greater - super-power, the United States or, more generally, the "West". In order to achieve that one goal, almost anything would do, even extreme brinkmanship that several times brought the world close to thermonuclear war. Khrushev is shown as a man to have carried within himself the dominating characteristics of the Soviet Union itself, viz., an enormous inferiority complex, trying to combine it with catching any opportunity that would present itself to bring pressure to bear on the other side, even using or better: threatening the use of force, wherever it seemed this might bring political advantage. Fortunately for the world, this mercurial leader who disposed of the means to blow up the world (or at least: great parts of it) was restrained enough (be it on his own reason, be it by his more risk-averse colleagues within the Presidium) not to actually let the world go "over the brink" but to withdraw each time at the last moment. It is the humiliation of these retreats as well as the sense of responsibility displayed by him in making them which, if anything, ultimately cost him his job and earns him the status of a statesman (rather than merely that of a cunning politician).
Against this background, only two - very minor - criticisms:
First, there is a really unwarranted "blank space" in the book as regards the European Economic Community (today`s "European Union") whose very creation was decisively triggered by some of the events described in it (Suez; Hungary), by making the European states mercilessly feel their own palsy vis-à-vis the super-powers. It is ironic - and should clearly have been mentioned in the book - to see how the very institution for whose creation Khruschev bore no minor responsibility - would become one of the cornerstones of the West's economic superiority and thus a decisive factor for the eventual downfall of the Soviet Empire.
Second, even though this would admittedly go slightly beyond the clear scope of the book (Khruschev's Cold War, restricting its topic to his role as politician), it might have been interesting for the reader to be permitted at least a brief peep behind the veil of this astounding politician's official role into his private life, if only to underpin/corroborate some of the conclusions regarding this most Mercurial character!
This leaves only one thing to be hoped for: at least I, for my part, am dying to read PART II: "The Breshnev Years", by the same authors, should it ever come out!
History in the Raw.......2007-03-07
Aleksandr Fursenko & Timothy Naftali's KHRUSHCHEV'S COLD WAR is an account of the major incidents of the Cold War from 1955-1964 told primarily from the Soviet (and specifically Khrushchev's) perspective. What distinguishes this book is that instead of relying on interviews and memoirs and third-party reporting, the authors have accessed contemporaneous notes and minutes taken at the meetings of the Politburo (Presidium), that handful of men who actually made the decisions guiding Soviet policy during this time. In other words, they get their data straight from the horse's mouth, untainted with revision and wishful thinking.
This makes for startling reading. For those of us used to seeing history in broad terms as a somewhat logical result of competing forces (political, military, moral, economic and cultural), this book provides a bucket of icy water in the face. The drivers of policy were all too often not reasonable responses to existing circumstances but irrational, thoughtless, ill-considered and unrealistic reactions based on hubris, petulance and plain stupidity. Khrushchev was clueless (perhaps we already suspected this). But so too was the entire Politburo (less predictable). And so too were the Western leaders--de Gaulle and Eden in particular; Adenauer also; Ike and JFK come through a little better, although far from unscathed.
This last is especially troubling. In authoritarian regimes thugs and idiots rise naturally to the top, but in developed Western democracies the system should inculcate a certain rationality in leadership, something mandated by the need to respond to the will of the electorate.
Which of course brings us to today. The Suez debacle and Iraq have obvious parallels. The incredible operational incompetence of the Soviets in building the missile sites before getting the weapons to Cuba (thus allowing the blockade) makes one think of the removal of troops from Afghanistan for the Iraq war, right when we had the Taliban cornered. The poor quality of intelligence brings to mind our own failures (WMD in Iraq, apart from others). And the consistent inability of Khrushchev to judge the consequences of his policies, as well as the failure of the remaining Soviet leadership to check or challenge him, brings to mind the current administration and the entire post-War Iraq strategy.
In this book, the blunders were Soviet (or English of French). Today, they are ours.
An outstanding achievement.......2007-02-21
The book is very detailed and examines the critical 1955 to 1963 period of the Cold War largely from the viewpoint of the Soviets. The authors had access to documents not before released, including minutes of the Presidium meetings. The authors portray the Soviet leadership in a new light with most members of the Politburo seeking to avoid any conflict with the United States and unwilling to follow Khrushchev on his more dangerous adventures in Cuba and Egypt. It is evident that neither the Soviets nor the communist block were unified in seeking world domination. Rather, the communist leaders were largely constrained by the same political concerns as American leaders. There is also very interesting information towards the end regarding the CIA's role in bringing the Baath party to power in Iraq.
Customer Reviews:
Bulgarian Tomatoes.......2001-04-19
A biography on Khrushchev...and Bulgarian Tomatoes, how do they relate? This biography contains numerous details which one probably does not really care to know, but is loaded with information on the guy himself and how he rose to power. I would reccommend this for IB history classes, which helps to understand the cold war. The end section, which contains documents is rather interesting and simple to follow. There is one document on Khrushchev's views on Bulgarian tomatoes, which is rather interesting. However, the British spellings can be annoying for American readers, but should not hinder anyone's desire to purchase this. It is deffinently great material to be used in a seminar.
Book Description
One of the giants of American journalism now re-creates an unforgettable time–in which the whole world feared extinction. High Noon in the Cold War captures the Cuban Missile Crisis in a new light, from inside the hearts and minds of the famous men who provoked and, in the nick of time, resolved the confrontation.
Using his personal memories of covering the conflict, and gathering evidence from recent records and new scholarship and testimony, Max Frankel corrects widely held misconceptions about the game of “nuclear chicken” played by John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in October 1962, when Soviet missiles were secretly planted in Cuba and aimed at the United States.
High Noon in the Cold War portrays an embattled young American presidentnot jaunty and callow as widely believed, but increasingly calm and statesmanlikeand a Russian ruler who was not only a “wily old peasant” but an insecure belligerent desperate to achieve credibility. Here, too, are forgotten heroes like John McCone, the conservative Republican CIA head whose intuition made him a crucial figure in White House debates.
In detailing the disastrous miscalculations of the two superpowers (the U.S. thought the Soviets would never deploy missiles to Cuba; the Soviets thought the U.S. would have to acquiesce) and how Kennedy and Khrushchev beat back hotheads in their own councils, this fascinating book re-creates the whole story of the scariest encounter of the Cold War, as told by a master reporter.
Download Description
One of the giants of American journalism now re-creates an unforgettable time—in which the whole world feared extinction. High Noon in the Cold War captures the Cuban Missile Crisis in a new light, from inside the hearts and minds of the famous men who provoked and, in the nick of time, resolved the confrontation.
Using his personal memories of covering the conflict, and gathering evidence from recent records and new scholarship and testimony, Max Frankel corrects widely held misconceptions about the game of “nuclear chicken” played by John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in October 1962, when Soviet missiles were secretly planted in Cuba and aimed at the United States.
High Noon in the Cold War portrays an embattled young American presidentnot jaunty and callow as widely believed, but increasingly calm and statesmanlike and a Russian ruler who was not only a “wily old peasant” but an insecure belligerent desperate to achieve credibility. Here, too, are forgotten heroes like John McCone, the conservative Republican CIA head whose intuition made him a crucial figure in White House debates.
In detailing the disastrous miscalculations of the two superpowers (the U.S. thought the Soviets would never deploy missiles to Cuba; the Soviets thought the U.S. would have to acquiesce) and how Kennedy and Khrushchev beat back hotheads in their own councils, this fascinating book re-creates the whole story of the scariest encounter of the Cold War, as told by a master reporter.
Customer Reviews:
This book is very well done........2007-03-12
I really enjoyed this book. It is an easy read and the author has done a great job in his research. I thought the perspective he presented about what it was about the 2 leaders personally that allowed this situation to occur was very interesting. I also enjoyed the lack of bias. The situation was presented as neutral as possible I believe.
very informative.......2006-02-23
This book is very informative on the Cuban Missile Crisis. The author gives great prespective on the mindsets of the leaders of both Soviet Russia and America. I recommend this book.
Highly recommended!.......2005-12-21
Most Americans know the Hollywood mythology of the Cuban missile crisis. Our collective assessment of the significance of this national security crisis, the participants and the process, has been largely shaped by emotion, fantasy and politics. Max Frankel in his remarkable new book, High Noon in the Cold War, has changed all that.
Frankel shares the real story of this critical series of events like an old friend sitting with us in front of a flickering fire on a crisp fall evening. Gracefully he enlightens and fascinates with well-crafted portraits of John F. Kennedy, his close advisors, those in the periphery at the Pentagon and in the Congress, and their counterparts in Moscow and Havana. High Noon presents the story without the bluster and self-confidence of history written by the winners, and instead allows us into the hearts and minds of the key decision-makers and their world that autumn of 1962.
John F. Kennedy, privately pain-wracked and publicly politically assaulted for his youth and a lack of seriousness in 1962, played this game of global chess, in part by doing what one might believe any president would do. He consulted with a variety of advisors, trusted and some less trusted, and he attempted to more deeply understand what Khrushchev's first surprising call of "Check!" required of America. Frankel does a wonderful job of putting the reader inside the pressure cooker of the Executive Committee as well as insightfully portraying the extensive series of possible moves weighed minute by minute by John Kennedy himself.
The deliberation and debate in both Washington and Moscow, after false starts and misunderstood and mixed messages resulted in the American declaration of a Cuban blockade-lite, described as a quarantine, implemented with a sensitivity that seemed at times an affront to Navy tradition. The eventual resolution surprisingly satisfied America, satisfied the Soviets, and only Fidel Castro felt betrayed at the immediate outcome. The Soviet nuclear-capable SS-4 Medium Range Ballistic Missiles were removed from Cuba, as were the Soviet strategic IL-28 bombers. Khrushchev allowed Castro to retain the defensive antiaircraft batteries provided he not use them against American U-2 high altitude surveillance planes, left a 3,000 man Soviet combat brigade on the island, and Castro was promised that he would never have to pay for any future Soviet defensive weaponry. In return, Khrushchev received a direct and very public pledge that the United States would never invade Cuba, and a secret pledge that the United Stated would dismantle the obsolete but symbolic Jupiter medium range ballistic missile from Turkey within five months time. Later in 1962, Castro accepted $53 million in American medical supplies and baby food in return for his release of 1,113 survivors of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Frankel portrays the facts of the resolution of the Cuban Missile crisis cogently, but it is in his exploration of the dramatic and frenetic internal debate over the meaning of the signals on both sides, and even the logistics of information flow, that make the book difficult to put down.
The Kennedy administration had secretly recorded many meetings, including those of the ExCom, and the revealed data now available sheds new light on the events as they occurred. Frankel is a reporter, a former executive editor of the New York Times, and won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of President Nixon's 1972 visit to China. As he writes about the events and decisions that precipitated and then resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis over forty years after the fact, with newly available information, and some fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, Frankel can be both brutally and breathtakingly honest.
Some might say that the most brutal as well as breathtaking conclusion drawn by Max Frankel is that Khrushchev and Kennedy never came as near the point of no return, a nuclear Armageddon over the Soviet missiles in Cuban as has been oft declared and glorified with a kind of delicious horror in America and around the world. Instead, the story is more about the way both national leaders were plagued with over-aggressive and at times illogical advisors, and internally confronted by an array of opportunistic political critics. The truth is revealed in the ways both leaders personally intended to act, and did act, to avoid escalation - even as events indeed escalated, and misunderstandings appeared to mushroom like the fearful images that colored the entire affair. This correction to the historical record is welcome indeed. Yet, this is not the sole accomplishment of High Noon. Our understanding of key important players and events is not only enhanced by Frankel's attention and perspicacity, but readers gain a whole new perspective on the crisis and its resolution. Just as certain "paradigm blindness" afflicted key members of the national security bureaucracy in the United States, and the Soviet Union, and Havana for that matter, historians and other observers have also been afflicted with a kind of paradigm blindness. We have seen Kennedy and Khrushchev as responding to a purely military threat and weighing fair options posed by advisors who were only serving their President. Yet, Frankel exposes two men who were attempting to resolve not only the facts of the threat, but the paradigm flaws driving their own advisors. Khrushchev, the "wily old peasant" and Kennedy the wunderkind occupying a fresh new White House faced down fear as they faced down their own animated and noisy advisors, and their internal critics.
We have long been aware of the impact and perspectives on the crisis of men like Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the crusty Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. Frankel reveals the real depth of animosity for the White House during this high-pressure predicament. Likewise, the perspectives of senior Communist Party leadership of Nikita Khrushchev's wild ideas are richly illustrated. What comes through most clearly is that in different ways, the inexperienced and urbane Kennedy and unsophisticated political survivor Khrushchev both overcame the animal reactivity stoked by much of their staff. While the world waited in fear and helplessness, this unlikely pair of leaders learned a great deal about each other, and themselves, in October 1962. In response to what both sides later recognized as alarmingly dangerous communications pitfalls, Kennedy and Khrushchev implemented a hotline teletype connection between Washington and Moscow in 1963, with an eye to avoiding the nuclear brink. High noon had come and gone without a shootout, and we would not pass this way again.
A review of High Noon in the Cold War would not be complete without a mention of the outstanding work Frankel does in portraying one lesser known hero on the American side. CIA Director John McCone, a traditional conservative brought over into the Kennedy Administration for political reasons after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, is a man that modern political observers often seek in Washington today and do not find. McCone is distinguished in modern studies of CIA history as the only Director of Central Intelligence who gave primacy to accurate intelligence estimating, instead of to either covert action or managerial aspects of the CIA. An outsider to the intelligence community, in the months leading up to the Cuban Missile crisis McCone took issue with his own CIA's assessment that the Soviet Union was preparing for nothing much in Cuba, despite of the deployment of a ring of SAM anti-aircraft batteries being installed in August 1962. McCone instead advised Kennedy that this activity logically related to something else either planned or ongoing that warranted immediate and serious American attention. The world, and certainly the mythology of a new Camelot in America, would have placed the white-haired 60-year-old Republican in the Kennedy administration as the odd man out - and he was. But his dead on reasoning and independent streak (later seen in his resignation from the Johnson administration in 1965 because of Johnson's disregard for the bleak CIA assessment of the possibility of U.S. success in Vietnam in favor of more rosy Pentagon assessments) were a precious balm to a President who needed reason instead of reactionaries.
While John F. Kennedy may also fit the bill, McCone brings to mind the characteristic contributions of a group of Americans most recently illuminated by former Navy Secretary James Webb in his new book Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (Broadway, 2004). The intrinsic stubbornness and fierce individualism of McCone was a key factor in the resolution of the Cuban Missile crisis, and that Kennedy gave credence to McCone's advice over the majority opinion attests to his own qualities of Scots-Irish independence in the face of overwhelming pressure.
While the Cuban Missile crisis holds a unique position in American history, Frankel's fresh visitation of the men and the process of October 1962 is also of critical importance today. High Noon provides not only a wise enhancement of our national memory but a prudent guide for the present. John F. Kennedy listened to the heated and often confused chatter and outdated paradigms of his national security team, and then sought time alone or with key advisors, away from the microphones, to assess the reasonability of the recommendations - as well as the soundness and logic inherent in the information that came to him under the guise of national intelligence. When determining his course of action, a course that could have led to all-out war and the death of thousands of servicemen and civilians here and in the Soviet Union, Kennedy contacted each of the living former American Presidents for advice and comment. His pre-decision conversation with Dwight D. Eisenhower is particularly poignant and simultaneously amusing. Furthermore, while he informed a group of twenty key congressional leaders after his decision to respond to the Soviet missile deployment with a Cuban quarantine had been made, they were pleased to have been informed if not consulted about a decision that was still very much unknown to the American public or the rest of the world.
Almost a full generation after the end of the Cold War, America finds itself engaged in multiple overseas military deployments, wars of liberation, and wars against terrorism. While nuclear annihilation seems far from imminent, warnings of the danger of weapons of mass destruction used against innocent civilians in America and elsewhere flow consistently from Washington and from other monitors of global security. Congressmen and women, politics-watchers around the country and living ex-Presidents can only imagine the role of deliberation and ascendance of reason over bureaucratic or political agendas that Max Frankel so elegantly and engagingly portrays in High Noon in the Cold War.
Posted on Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Karen Kwiatkowski, (...)
SHOULD BE READ BY ALL PEOPLE WHO ASSUME THEY KNOW IT ALL -.......2004-12-29
NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT, THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK.
IT'S TAKES A SUBJECT, THE FACTS ABOUT WHICH HAVE BEEN BEATEN TO DEATH IN ALL MEDIA FORMS, AND FOR ONCE, ALLOWS YOU TO COME AWAY WITH A CLEAR, FACTUAL, THOROUGH, UNCOMPLICATED, UNBIASED UNDERSTANDING OF EXACTLY WHAT TOOK PLACE. IT'S LIKE CUTTING THROUGH BUTTER WITH A HOT KNIFE. IF THIS SUBJECT INTERESTS YOU, IT'S A MUST READ.
Average customer rating:
- The reforms of the Khrushchev years.
- SOFT-CORE SELL OF A STALINIST HENCHMAN
- A One-Sided Look at Khrushchev
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Khrushchev: The Years in Power (Norton Library)
Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0393008797 |
Customer Reviews:
The reforms of the Khrushchev years........2007-02-07
Khrushchev may have been a crude peasant who ran Russia during part of the Cold War. He was also a reform politician who instituted serious political and economic reform in the Soviet Union. In the process, he brushed aside all the old Stalinists, including Beria. Medvedev makes it plan that even though Khrushchev made many mistakes, overall his rule benefited the people of the Soviet Union. If one of the old guard Stalinists or Beria himself were to rule, the human tragedy would have been immense.
This is a political biography of Khrushchev's rule in power. The book is divided into easy to read short chapters of various political and economic reforms during the Khrushchev's years in power. A nice consise read.
SOFT-CORE SELL OF A STALINIST HENCHMAN.......2006-10-22
At one time in the seemingly distant pass the name Roy Medvedev was associated very closely with the left-wing elements of the opposition movements into the former Soviet Union at the time of Khrushchev's leadership. One would hardly know from reading this biography that the two were, at least formally, political opponents. Mr. Medvedev has produce a biography that beyond acting as a moving travelogue of Mr. Khrushchev's and activities as leader of the former Soviet Union is little more than a soft-core sell of an old Stalinist henchman. It may be due to the fact that it was published in 1978 when the Soviet Union was in the early process of going to hell in a hand basket and so the Khrushchev period appeared to be a Golden Age of Stalinism-without Stalin. Nevertheless if one is looking for a more profound analysis of the immediate post-Stalin period one will have to look elsewhere.
Mr. Medvedev cannot be faulted for the general factual presentation. He dutifully, if superficially goes through Mr. Khrushchev's rise to the top layer of the Stalin entourage, the struggle for power after Stalin's death in 1953, the monumental revelations of the crimes of Stalin at 20th and later the 22nd Russian Communist Party Congresses, the various domestic crises particularly the continuing problems in agriculture that years later would contribute to the downfall of the Soviet Union, the international disputes within the world Communist movement and the at times very heated struggle with the West during various episodes of the Cold War and his eventual downfall from power in 1964. The reviewer grew up in American at the time of the rise and fall of the Khrushchev regime and it was interesting to be reminded of those events, their importance in the history of that period and a refreshing of my reaction to the events at the time. For those who have forgotten or do not know of the key events such as the attempts at nuclear disarmament, the crisis in Berlin and the Cuban Missile Crisis this book provide a competent review of those events.
The stumbling block to any further credit to Mr. Medvedev's book is his rather fawning over Mr. Khrushchev's achievements in the post-Stalin period. Yes, Mr. Khrushchev performed an important if not fully adequate service to the international communist movement by his revelation of Stalin's crimes. But any leftist critic of Stalinism has the right to ask- Mr. Khrushchev what were you doing at the time of all these acknowledged crimes as a henchman of Stalin? It is not enough to argue that there was little one could do. The history and fate of the Left Opposition in the Russian Communists Party and of other oppositionists in the wastes of Russian testify to other routes for those who considered themselves Bolsheviks. No it will not do. Mr. Khrushchev, Mr. Medvedev and I shared one thing in common. At one time we all stood for the defense of the Soviet Union against attack by world imperialism and internal counterrevolution. Beyond that we part ways. I note that all through this paean to the intrepid Mr. Khrushchev there is very little sense that in the Khrushchev era despite some obvious thawing of the internal political environment these is no sense that workers and farmers councils could have been more e appropriate that just playing musical chairs with the top levels of the Soviet bureaucracy. The gap between that Leninist understanding of the road to socialism and Mr. Khrushchev' s top-down operation certainly did its part to weaken the Soviet Union and cause its ultimate collapse.
A One-Sided Look at Khrushchev.......2004-05-13
A more appropriate title for this book would have been "Khrushchev: The Economic and Agricultural Decisions". I bought this book hoping to get insight into Nikita Khrushchev's years in power. Unfortunately, the book focuses too much on Khrushchev's agricultural decisions.
Little mention is made of Khrushchev's foreign policy. His visit to America is briefly mentioned. The deteriorating relationship between the Soviet Union and China is only discussed at a slightly greater length. Perhaps the best chapters are the ones that show Khrsuhchev's rise to power. From the position he held prior to Stalin's death, he seemed to be an unlikely leader. However, he quickly gained control and popularity attaining the leadership status. Much of the support Khrushchev gained was due the agricultural success he initiated under Stalin and his condemnation of Stalin's brutal leadership after Stalin's death. While Khrushchev did many positive things for the Soviet Union, the economic and specifically agricultural failures he experienced as a leader haunt his reputation.
I would only suggest this book if you are interested it the economic and agricultural policy of the Soviet Union during this period. Aside from these points, the book has little else to offer.
Book Description
This is the third and last volume of the only complete and fully reliable English-language version of the memoirs of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
In the first two volumes, published by Pennsylvania State University Press in 2005 and 2006, respectively, Khrushchev tells the story of his rise to power and his part in the fight against Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. He also discusses agriculture, the housing problem, and other issues of domestic policy, as well as defense and disarmament. This volume is devoted to international affairs. Khrushchev describes his dealings with foreign statesmen and his state visits to Britain, the United States, France, Scandinavia, India, Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, and Indonesia.
In the first part, Khrushchev talks about relations between the Soviet Union and the Western powers. Of particular interest is his perspective on the Berlin, U-2, and Cuban missile crises. The second part focuses on the Communist world--above all, the deterioration of relations with China and the tensions in Eastern Europe, including relations with Tito's Yugoslavia, Gomulka's Poland, and the 1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary. In the third part, Khrushchev discusses the search for allies in the Third World.
The Appendixes contain biographies, a bibliography and a chronology, and also the reminiscences of Khrushchev's chief bodyguard about the visit to the United Nations in 1960 at which the famous "shoe-banging" incident occurred--or, perhaps, did not occur.
Customer Reviews:
A World Tour.......2007-08-14
Be warned: with two companion volumes, these memoirs are a major undertaking for the average person. However, this book is essential reading for those with a keen interest in 1950s-60s world political history.
The editors have done a very nice job here with thorough chapter notes, chronological listings of Mr. Khrushchev's comings and goings, and excellent references to further readings.
Nikita Khrushchev was not a brilliant writer of prose (actually the book was dictated), but this is his straightforward account of his own foreign policy thoughts as a major world leader at a very critical time.
The Unadorned Truth.......2007-07-14
Never one to mince words or gloss over difficulties, Nikita Khrushchev tells everything he remembers of international events during his time in power. His take on conflicts with the Western powers gives a refreshingly different approach from all the Western propaganda that filled our airwaves and newspapers at that time. From Gary Powers to the Cuban Missile Crisis, he calls all these events as he saw them.
This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in the history of that time, from 1953 through 1964.
Book Description
Shortlisted for the National Books Critics Circle Award: "The book is a gift, as fascinating as it is important."—Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs
The definitive biography of the mercurial Soviet leader who succeeded and denounced Stalin. Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most complex and important political figures of the twentieth century. Ruler of the Soviet Union during the first decade after Stalin's death, Khrushchev left a contradictory stamp on his country and on the world. His life and career mirror the Soviet experience: revolution, civil war, famine, collectivization, industrialization, terror, world war, cold war, Stalinism, post-Stalinism. Complicit in terrible Stalinist crimes, Khrushchev nevertheless retained his humanity: his daring attempt to reform communism prepared the ground for its eventual collapse; and his awkward efforts to ease the cold war triggered its most dangerous crises.
This is the first comprehensive biography of Khrushchev and the first of any Soviet leader to reflect the full range of sources that have become available since the USSR collapsed. Combining a page-turning historical narrative with penetrating political and psychological analysis, this book brims with the life and excitement of a man whose story personified his era.
Customer Reviews:
REVIEW OF WILLIAM TAUBMAN'S KHRUSCHEV BY JOHN CHUCKMAN.......2007-02-27
It's about time we had a decent biography of Nikita Khruschev.
Khruschev is a more important historical figure than seems generally appreciated today. He was something of a refreshing presence on the dreary world scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s. I remember his American tour, and you couldn't help but find a kind of pleasant and infectious quality in some of his observations and activities. I believe he sincerely wanted to slow or halt the Cold War the same way he diminished the horrors of Stalinism, an historic achievement.
Taubman doesn't capture the more idealistic sense of Khruschev, which I believe was genuine, because I was a young man through his time and took an interest in events.
Taubman's Khruschev is a bright (Khruschev had considerable analytical ability and a remarkable memory) peasant risen to the top, an extremely crude man, always regretful about his lack of formal education, who never ceases to behave as something of a Father Karamazov. I have no doubt there is truth here, but it provides an incomplete picture.
Was Khruschev any cruder than what we now know of the private life of John Kennedy, who had prostitutes swimming in the White House pool while Jackie was away, or of the public Lyndon Johnson, who used to conduct interviews and bark orders while relieving himself? I ask this because Taubman repeats the word crude or offers anecdotes about crude behavior many, many times.
Even as a young man I thought many of Khruschev's crudities were not so great as they were treated by America's press. The banging of his shoe at the U.N. is a favorite example. Crude? Yes. But significant beyond style? I think not much.
I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in biography, the period, world affairs, or Soviet history, but I do have reservations about it, and it should be read with some caution.
Taubman weaves into the text too great a sense of the correctness of America's position and policies of the time, giving a sense of Khruschev largely representing an irritating and sometimes dangerous opponent to them. America often behaved in provocative and dangerous ways through the Cold War. Taubman mentions some matters, as Eisenhower's saying that if the Soviets over-flew the United States the way the United States regularly invaded Soviet airspace there would be war, but the week-to-week reality of this is not stressed enough here to appreciate the intensity of the Soviet point of view. There were many such matters, including American submarines actually colliding with Soviet boats.
Taubman gives a lot of attention to Khruschev's well-known habit of rattling his rockets in speeches, but we are not given enough background for why he might do this. The Pentagon actually had plans in the mid-1950s for an atomic pre-emptive attack on the Soviets. Generals like Curtis LeMay, the man who bombed Japan to the point of gratuitous horror, openly advocated nuclear hostilities. And, of course, America had used the atomic bomb, twice.
Taubman's treatment of matters like the Cuban Missile Crisis suffers from this. The U.S. had a huge, generously-finaced terrorist operation going against Cuba at the time, including along more than one track, and that is an important part of the background that Taubman treats with what I believe is neglect. Taubman's words on the ghastly Bay of Pigs does reveal hints of American jingo attitudes. They are not offered loudly, but they are there, and I think they should not be if we want to understand what motivated Khruschev.
One of the great missing chapters in the book is any detail around the Kennedy assassination. The assassination is there but not treated adequately. It was, after all, an epic event which had great consequences on both the Soviets and America. Of course, to treat the assassination adequately involves going into issues that remain murky and controversial.
Despite my reservations, the book is an interesting and worthwhile read, however, I certainly do not agree with the New York Times review which said "Succeeds in every sense...unlikely to be surpassed any time soon...."
Good, not great...Slow for first half.......2006-12-20
This biography is the kind that I like. It's about an intermediate figure and uses that individual's life to frame up the times (ref: my review of Paul Preston's Franco biography).
Taubman does an excellent job of research and a good job at having a view about Krushchev's character and motives. However, the book is just not executed that well. The early years are presented fairly slowly and don't seem as tightly focused given that Taubman does have a thesis about Krushchev the man. This may just be that there are gaps in what he could learn about earlier years. The second half when Krushchev is in charge picks up a great deal. Some of this is just that the stakes are higher plus he has better sources since there are/were people alive to interview. However, even here there is some sloppiness in presentation.
The book is an excellent confirmation that much of what occurs in history is because of the idiosyncracies of individuals. Anyone who has worked in a large corporation would be familiar with unusual decision-making processes based on the personalities of people. That reality is presented clearly here even including how Eisenhower and Kennedy are presented in their dealings with Krushchev. On the one hand, it's almost amazing that war was avoided, But on the other hand, all of these individuals understood the amount of death that would have occurred and worked hard to avoid it. It speaks well that all understood that losing face was just fine compared to killing millions of people. However, it is repeatedly presented that Krushchev was certain that nuclear weapons could not and would not be used so the irony is that it made it easier to threaten with resulting in the view that he was kind of a mad man. It's similar to two bullies ready to fight as long as someone is restraining both of them. The good news is that Krushchev was not fundamentally evil like a Hitler who probably would have used the weapons.
But, this leads to the most interesting question about Krushchev. Taubman clearly speaks to the contradiction of Krushchev participating in Stalin's purges but then subsequently denouncing these crimes. While not overtly stating it, Taubman presents Krushchev as a true believer in communism who is willing to kill to achieve it for the "greater good." I think the book should have more clearly discussed the probability that Krushchev also accepted that killing was necessary for his own personal power. And, if so, could everything have not just been the pursuit of personal advancement/power with communism as a convenient support for that? Did any of these communist leaders (Lenin, Stalin, Mao) actually believe what they were saying? Taubman does not address this.
The other gap I think the book has is that it doesn't really speak much about Brezhnev. Given that Brezhnev maintains power till death, was there a contrast in his approach that would have shed light on Krushchev. My guess is that there probably is and I think it also might have helped answer the question of whether Krushchev ever believed in communism or was just out for himself.
As it is, it is easy to say that Krushchev was not evil in the way that Stalin was. Once he was in charge, it became possible to be retired from the government rather than always branded a traitor and executed. Even to the point, that Krushchev could be forced to retire.
So, this is a worthy read but expect to work a bit to get through it.
Wonderful (and scary) history of an era and a man.......2006-06-01
In the last 60's, Krushchev wrote "Khrushchev Remembers", a self-serving memoir. It was interesting to read depsite its heavy slant, but the book didn't provide the reader with a sense of the man, and it was clearly censored by Soviet authorities. William Taubman has written a fine biography that gives us a clear and astonishing picture of Krushchev along with a snapshot of the Stalin-era purges and a superb picture of the Cold War. He uses interviews with Krushchev's former associates and with his son Sergei to great effect. He also uses archives that became available only after the Soviet Union fell apart. As a result of his research and clear writing, we feel like we know the man who darn near blew us all up during the Cuban missle crisis. (Or at least that was the feeling I had in 1962, watching in a college dorm as it all unfolded on TV.)
It's scary to see Krushchev as Taubman displays him. We knew he was a boor when he took off his shoe and pounded his desk at the UN in 1960, but it was fascinating to read about his highly charged, highly politicized encounters with Soviet artists and writers in the early 60s. Taubman shows us the man's temperament, which makes one wonder at how the Cold War failed to cause a nuclear war. It also makes one marvel at the distortion in national policies that come about when one person has such enormous power and is so undisciplined.
Although the character flaws Taubman illuminates are serious and frightening in retrospect, Taubman also shows how important Krushchev was in ending the Stalinist era. In 1953, a politician in the USSR who fell from power would have been shot; in 1964 Krushchev was simply booted out, given a pension and made to shut up.
It's hard to imagine anyone having better access to Khrushchev's contemporaries, and Taubman puts an astonishing story together for us in a beautuifully understated way.
A Surprisingly Human Portrait.......2006-05-08
My mom -- white bread, Communist-fearing, life-long Democrat -- has always had a soft spot for Nikita Khruschev. "I just don't think he was that bad. He couldn't have been that bad if he cried after President Kennedy died." This book vindicates my mom. He really *did* cry after Kennedy died -- although it's not clear how much that was due to grief and how much that was due to the realization he'd have to work with a US president with some actual political experience and ties in LBJ. (No word on how my mom knew about the crying thing....KGB files have now been closed).
But even if Nikita Sergeyevitch, right hand man to Stalin, participant(however distasteful) in the Ukraine purges, cold war bully to Kennedy's (and to some degree Eisenhower's) naivete, and shoe banger extraordinaire wasn't Mr. Sentimentality, this book divulges a lot about him we can be grateful for. And in looking at the darker side of this major player of the 20th century, Taubman excels at helping us understand him from all angles: his son Sergei, Khruschev's own papers, the historical record here and in Russia, and indeed the correspondence between Khruschev and Kennedy, which began during the Cuban Missile Crisis and did not end until the fall of 1963 (both undoubtedly expected it to continue).
The last is indeed the most poignant, perhaps just for the American reader, perhaps for all of us, since it does signify the attempts of two great but flawed leaders to struggle with the immense burden on their shoulders and try to come to some kind of understanding for the sake of their nations. In doing so, they seem just about to build a friendship.
I found the book a bit too long, and would like the prose to have gone at a more clipping pace. Better editing may have helped. But I will read it again someday and I'm glad to have it on my shelf. I don't see how it could become outdated or lose its importance.
Very disappointing - not much meat.......2006-02-13
First off, I read the British printing not the U.S. - but I assume it's the same text.
The entire book left me feeling like I was not getting much. It's an immense book and the writing is tight so it is covering a lot of ground.
But... I kept finding myself asking, what was going on here. Why did this event happen. Why did Khrushchev do this and not do that.
The most egregious example is when he was removed from power - there is nothing about how it happened. The book jumps from he is absolute ruler to two days after he has lost all power. Who did it? How did they pull it off? What did Khrushchev do if anything to try and retain his power? You won't find out here.
And then there is the central question that makes Khrushchev such a fascinating person - how did he survive under Stalin, helping in many of the purges, yet when he took over, virtually eliminate state sanctioned murder. On this subject the book talks a little, but so very little.
The banal and boring parts of his life are here. The interesting parts are not.
Book Description
Analyzing the crucial period of the Cuban Revolution from 1959 to 1961, Samuel Farber challenges dominant scholarly and popular views of the revolution's sources, shape, and historical trajectory. Unlike many observers, who treat Cuba's revolutionary leaders as having merely reacted to U.S. policies or domestic socioeconomic conditions, Farber shows that revolutionary leaders, while acting under serious constraints, were nevertheless autonomous agents pursuing their own independent ideological visions, although not necessarily according to a master plan.
Exploring how historical conflicts between U.S. and Cuban interests colored the reactions of both nations' leaders after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista, Farber argues that the structure of Cuba's economy and politics in the first half of the twentieth century made the island ripe for radical social and economic change, and the ascendant Soviet Union was on hand to provide early assistance. Taking advantage of recently declassified U.S. and Soviet documents as well as biographical and narrative literature from Cuba, Farber focuses on three key years to explain how the Cuban rebellion rapidly evolved from a multiclass, antidictatorial movement into a full-fledged social revolution.
Book Description
This volume collects new essays which re-evaluate aspects of Khrushchev's career. The volume includes essays by a range of contributors, including American scholars, Russian scholars, and Russian politicians and bureaucrats. Topics include: Khrushchev's rise to power, domestic policy, foreign policy and military policy, and two essays comparing Khrushchev and Gorbachev.
Customer Reviews:
Highly Readable.......2003-07-30
This highly readable and pithy account includes all the basic fact about the life of Nikita Khrushchev while at the same time giving us personable detail that brings him alive. It's short on political history and almost reads like a novel. You'll find yourself admiring this Soviet leader even though he was party to some of history's great crimes.
Average customer rating:
- First Rate Historical Thriller
- Blow too hard on embers and you get cinders in your eyes, not flames
- A Powerful Slow-Burner
- slow start but a sprint at the end
- not worth reading
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Old Flames
John Lawton
Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
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Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
| Thrillers
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ASIN: 0871138646 |
Book Description
Old Flames is a riveting spy novel sparked by historical events, with a twisting, turning plot that The Sunday Times (London) declares "a strange, thoughtful, quiet, intelligent spellbinder of a book, penetrating the very heart of betrayal." It is April 1956 at the height of the Cold War: Khrushchev and Bulganin, leaders of the Soviet Union, are in Britain on an official visit. Chief Inspector Troy of Scotland Yard, son of a distinguished Russian emigre, is assigned to be Khrushchev's bodyguard and to spy on him. Soon after, a Royal Navy diver is found dead and mutilated beyond recognition in Portsmouth Harbor. What was he doing under the hull of Khrushchev's ship, and who sent him there? Is the corpse that of Arnold Cockerell, a furniture salesman with a mysterious source of income and a bizarre fetish for scuba gear, or did Cockerell fake his own death to escape an unknown nemesis? To find the answers, Inspector Troy must venture into the heart of the M16. He encounters the trifling bureaucrats of Scotland Yard, fellow officers who may be sleeping with the enemy, and seductive identical twins. Meanwhile cold-blooded killings have started to follow him wherever he goes. Is it possible that the executioner is a fellow policeman-or, worse still, an old friend? In a world where secret codes lead to hidden Swiss bank accounts and an entire nation struggles to makes sense of itself in the wake of war, can anyone be trusted? Brilliantly evoking the atmosphere of the Cold War and London in the 1950s, Old Flames is a thrilling adventure of intrigue and suspense.
Customer Reviews:
First Rate Historical Thriller.......2007-02-14
I like books that have a sense of time and place. "Old Flames" has both in plenty. The book takes place at a time when the world was still fascinated by happenings in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev visits the UK and a supposed undercover operation sets murder in motion. Inspector Troy spends a night out on a pub crawl with the Soviet Leader, while a former "flame" reappears - Larissa Tosca. Troy navigates the demands of family and politics in a novel steeped in atmosphere. The cold war is just beginning; the British Empire is in its wanning last days, and the Soviet Union is a power to be reckoned with. Troy is a character utterly unimpressed by position and power, and he solves crimes no matter who may get "dirtied" along the way. Troy is also fairly a-moral and completely a-political, which makes him the perfect character to be in the midst of a political thriller.
I like John Lawton quite a lot. The Inspector Troy series is hard to follow (heck, Troy himself changes jobs many times in the course of the series). The books extend from WW II to the early 1960', but the novels were not published in order. To make matters worse, his books are published under different titles in the UK and the US. Arrrrgh. Nonetheless, Troy is a unique and enjoyable character - well worth the effort of sorting the books and publication dates out. The novels are all set in London, ranging from t he 1940's to the 1960's. There is a significant amount of historical material - and quite a bit of historical license as well. These are, after all , novels. I highly recommend this book, and all of the other Inspector Troy books.
Blow too hard on embers and you get cinders in your eyes, not flames.......2006-11-27
This would have been a great book had Lawton removed about 100 pages and stuck to the main story more. Having said that, the story itself is a good one and says alot about England in the middle 1950s, dealing with the loss of Empire and the destruction to their infrastructure in WWII.
Frederick Troy, who we met during WWII in "Black Out" is now an inspector and head of the 'Murder Squad' at Scotland Yard. His brother Roy, is a Labour MP, and shadow Foreign Minister. When a need for a russian speaker to 'assist' Special Branch in listening in on Kruschev during a 1956 visit, comes about, Troy is convinced to help out. Here is where a lot of the story could have been cut.
When the Russians claim that they were under surveillance by a frogman, his body doesn't turn up for five months. When Troy is asked by his 'widow' to prove the body isn't that of her husband, a series of events begin to enfold that will lead Troy to revelations he wished he never had to uncover. To say more would give away the best part of the story, which is well developed and presented in a believable manner.
Lawton, also has the distracting habit of putting ideas into the mouths of this characters that would be prescient if the book was written in 1956, but since it was written in 1995, the only ones who would be amazed are the other characters in the book (so why do it?). Lastly I find Lawton's treatment of heterosexual sex, and especially his ideas as to how woman look at sex to be a cross between Nabokov and a twelve year old. When reading some of his scenes, I have come to wonder if the man has ever had sex with a woman, or to that matter anyone other than himself. Just MHO.
A Powerful Slow-Burner.......2004-01-22
I came late to this book. I'd read the one that came first (Black Out) and the one that comes after (White Death). This is the best of the three. But if you're reading it for the thrills you're wasting your time. Reading Lawton for thrills or worse for the 'whodunnit' is like reading Kurt Vonnegut and complaining that his sci-fi is nothing like Star Wars. Who dun it isn't even on the map. These books are the most sophisticated literary historicals to come out of England in 25 years. His dialogue fizzles, his metaphors meander, his characters bring history roaring to life. Old Flames takes as its plot the events of 1956 - when Britain invaded Egypt - a low tide in the Special Relationship between Britain and Uncle Sam. This is 2004. What, in letters 8 miles high, could be more topical?
slow start but a sprint at the end.......2004-01-22
i read a few espionage novels each year, in amidst many mystery/police procedural novels. this is the best in the past few years. i liked a recently read alan furst novel, but i'd have to say this one was more satisfying. furst is good. lawton is very good. i didn't know the history, so the author's liberty with it didn't bother me. but i enjoyed the history and the author explains at the end that while he takes some liberties, he's not distorted events.
more cerebral than deighton; akin to le carre.
not worth reading.......2003-08-02
I heard a wonderful radio interview with the author and couldn't wait to read Old Flames. Unfortunately it was trite & predictable. I kept thinking it would get better but with only 55 pages to go I stopped reading it because I realized I didn't care who did it or anything else.
Customer Reviews:
The Charismatics.......2005-08-31
This book rescued me from the recent Taubman biography of Khruschev. Not that I didn't thoroughly enjoy Taubman...up until the point that Kennedy was assassinated. Somehow, without Kennedy to reflect off of, or react off of, or bark at, or explode at, Khruschev became rather dull.
This book, winding as it does completely around the relationship between the leaders of the two superpowers, their mistrusts of each other, their odd affection for each other, their correspondence, and their dangerous, global risk-taking flare-ups, proves far more interesting. Beschloss creates characters full of life and vigor, sympathetic and sometimes frightening, as when Khruschev threatens war over Berlin, or when we learn the details of the narcotics the President required to manage his back pain.
The book also manages to set the stage for years and years of politics to come, in space policy, in cold war strategy, and in the Vietnam war.
As engrossing as any Clancy novel!.......2004-07-31
Michael R. Beschloss' 1991 book, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khruschev 1960-1963, is a literary rarity: a history book about a complex and critical period in the 20th Century that is so well-written that it reads like a novel.
Beschloss describes the dramatic events of the period that began shortly before the Presidential election of 1960 and ended with the dreadful events of November 22, 1963, focusing on the interplay between President John F. Kennedy and Chairman Nikita S. Khruschev. These two men from vastly different worlds -- one the son of a self-made millionaire from Boston, the other the son of Russian peasants who had been semiliterate until his thirties -- held the fate of the world in their hands.
The Crisis Years discusses in great detail the most dramatic events of the Cold War, including JFK's first meeting with the Soviet leader in Vienna, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the building of the Berlin Wall (including a photo capturing the only time American tanks and Soviet tanks faced off), the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that marked the first thaw in the frosty relations between the superpowers.
This book is sadly out of print, but it's definitely a must-read for readers who want to know more about this critical period in world history.
Useful.......2002-01-28
Interesting to note that Castro came to the UN after the Cuban revolution in the hope of normalising relations with the US but was rebuffed. There then followed the Bay of Pigs. If cooler heads had prevailed and approachement made at that point, we may have been living in a totally different world today. A banal observation, admitedly. Certainly, US intransigence led to a more absolutist and repressive Castro.
Kennedy indeed felt that Khrushchev had outclassed him when it came to discussing political ideology on first meeting, but Kennedy did focus on the crux of the whole matter. The nation that could provide best materially for it's people would be the winner of the cold war. Krushchev ended up in a hut in the country somewhere, an 'expendable hero' as Harry Palmer once joked to an old Bolschevic in the film 'Funeral In Berlin'.
Complex period in history made "readable"..........2001-04-27
Michael Beschloss has done what every history writer should aspire to...make complex history telling "readable". Even though this book is very long, it flows very smoothly without missing any of the details of that "Crisis" era. I love books on the Cuban Missile Crisis and have found very few that would be characterized above the "textbook" level, but this one surely meets that tough standard. This book should be included in every "Crisis" historians library.
Comprehensive Study of the Kennedy-Khrushchev Relationship.......2001-04-13
This is a massive (700 page), comprehensive, if not especially analytic, study of the United States' relationship with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, told from the perspectives of the superpowers' leaders, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. At the beginning of his administration, Kennedy may have had sincere desire to improve relations with the Soviets, but his famous inaugural address was interpreted by many as a committed cold warrior's call to arms, and, as Beschloss's title implies, a series of foreign policy crises followed. Often in minute detail, Beschloss discusses the disastrous invasion of Cuba by opponents of Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the Cuban missile crisis. For those who enjoy narrative history liberally sprinkled with portraits of colorful personalities, this is a fascinating book.
There is little in this book which is new, but much of it bears repeating, especially for readers too young to remember the early 1960s. However odious Castro's dictatorship was to become, the attempt to topple it in the spring of 1961 was destined to fail. According to Beschloss, one of Kennedy's advisers warned him that "he could not recall a single case in history when refugees returned and successfully overthrew a revolutionary regime." The Berlin crisis that summer did not escalate into a nuclear confrontation because, as Kennedy observed: "A wall is a hell of a lot better than a war." And Beschloss writes about the missile crisis that the 39 hours' warning of the naval quarantine that Kennedy gave Khrushchev "demonstrated the President's wisdom in starting his response not with an irreversible air strike but with milder pressures that gave Khrushchev time to ponder his move."
Some of Beschloss's observations about the leaders border on gossip. He lends credence to reports that Khrushchev could be a buffoon who occasionally drank too much and that Kennedy's enthusiastic womanizing continued while he was president. But personal traits and predilections often could not be separated from matters of substance. For instance, the author reports that Kennedy was regularly treated by a medical practitioner with "vitamin shots" which "also contained amphetamines, steroids, hormones, and animal organ cells." Beschloss proceeds to explain the importance of this revelation: "Even in small doses, amphetamines cause side effects such as nervousness, garrulousness, impaired judgment, overconfidence, and, when the drug wears off, depression." Beschloss implies that Kennedy may have been under the influence of amphetamines at his summit meeting with Khrushchev in the spring of 1961, when the Soviet leader, by Kennedy's own admission, "just beat hell out of me." Beschloss concludes that Kennedy "should have been vastly more careful in pursuing his medical experimentation than he had been as a Senator. The stakes now were not one political career but literally the fate of the world."
This book is not without its limitations. As I implied above, it is much stronger on narrative than analysis, and some passages give the impression that Beschloss was more interested in the personalities of Kennedy and Khrushchev than in the substance of the policies they devised and pursued. Beschloss's discussion of Kennedy's approach to the growing conflict in Vietnam is brief and generally superficial. The book's organization is quirky: The role of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the development of Kennedy's national-security policy is barely mentioned until page 400. And the index is not entirely reliable. (For instance, the index's listing for Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, inexplicably omits reference to Beschloss's description of a critical briefing Lemnitzer gave to the President in September 1961 in which the "bottom line" was that "the United States enjoyed vast nuclear superiority.")
While I was preparing this review, I discovered that this book, which was published in 1991, is already out of print, and that surprised me a bit. Some aspects of it clearly have been superceded by more recent scholarship, such as Lawrence Freedman's Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam, which I reviewed here shortly after it was published last November, but I believe that Beschloss's book continues to be of value. The magnificent 19th-century English historian Thomas Carlyle once wrote: "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." Few eras provide more validation for Carlyle's perspective than the crisis years of 1961 and 1962, dominated as they were by the intensely personal diplomacy of Kennedy and Khrushchev. Beschloss's coverage of that aspect of U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations during this period is superb.
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