Khrushchev's Cold War

A book by Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali. Tells the story of the cold war during Khrushchev's reign, mostly from the Soviet point of view, as revealed by Soviet archives. Expertly told, and paced; it moves, at times, almost like a thriller. And it teaches some lessons. First, the blunders on all sides -- the lack of information, the misunderstandings, the paranoia, the prejudice, the dumb decisions -- are just staggering. And second, many top people in the US government and military (Nixon, for instance) were more warlike than anyone on the Soviet side. Khrushchev was insecure and belligerent, and he loved extending Soviet influence (often haplessly) into the third world. But he wanted peace. The American fear -- which I remember so well from those years -- that the Soviets might launch a nuclear attack on us from bombers flying over the North Pole, or that they'd attack western Europe with their land forces, turns out to be absolutely groundless. Nothing of the sort was ever discussed in the Kremlin. And they didn't even have the bombers.