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The Crisis Years: Kennedy And Khrushchev, 1960-1963

Michael Beschloss
Reviewed by By Gaddis Smith
Fall 1991
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Michael Beschloss
HarperCollins
1991
816 pp.
$29.95

The Cold War might have ended three decades ago-not through mutual understanding but in World War III. This massively detailed account explores the ways in which John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, despite a plenitude of folly and misperception, managed to prevent war and to acquire an appreciation of each other and their common responsibilities. The book is deeply researched and dramatically written.

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