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Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth
Putnam
May 2011
On Sale: May 10, 2011
608 pages
ISBN: 0399157298
EAN: 9780399157295
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction | Historical
A fresh, controversial, brilliantly written account of one of the epic dramas of the Cold Warβand its lessons for today. In June 1961, Nikita Khrushchev called it βthe most dangerous place on earth.β He knew what he was talking about. Much has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, but the Berlin crisis of 1961 was more decisive in shaping the Cold Warβand more perilous. For the first time in history, American and Soviet fighting men and tanks stood arrayed against one another, only yards apart. One mistake, one overzealous commanderβand the trip wire would be sprung for a war that would go nuclear in a heartbeat. On one side was a young, untested U.S. president still reeling from the Bay of Pigs disaster. On the other, a Soviet premier hemmed in by the Chinese, East Germans, and hard-liners in his own government. Neither really understood the other, both tried cynically to manipulate events. And so, week by week, the dangers grew. Based on a wealth of new documents and interviews, filled with freshβsometimes startlingβinsights, written with immediacy and drama, Berlin 1961 is a masterly look at key events of the twentieth centuryβwith powerful applications to these early years of the twenty-first.
 Media BuzzCharlie Rose - May 16, 2011
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