Publisher Description
A former Wall Street Journal editor and the current president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, Frederick Kempe draws on recently released documents and personal interviews to re-create the powder keg that was 1961 Berlin. In Cold War Berlin, the United States and the Soviet Union stand nose to nose, with the possibility of nuclear war just one misstep away.
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“This is a gripping piece of cold war history written as a series of date-place stamped ‘news bulletins’, with interspersed (mostly tragic) personal stories. Kempe is critical of Kennedy’s handling of the building of the Berlin wall, and is clearly more in agreement with the military hawks of the era. However, this perspective doesn’t come across as an agenda (until perhaps the very end) and I never got the impression that he was building a straw man. I would have liked a bit more details of the Berlin blockade (1948-1949) and the Berlin uprising of 1953, but this book is already pretty long, and the salient issues pertaining to the events of 1961 are covered. The take home message for political observers at all levels: Nothing is as it seems.”
—
Garnett (4 out of 5 stars)
