This secret history of the diplomacy leading up to the war does not diverge radically from the known history and it is suspect in one respect: it quotes verbatim from hundreds of conversations and meetings at which the authors were not present with notebooks and tape recorders. But they have the policies and personalities right and they present a good deal of material from interviews and documents not previously published. Newsy, dramatic and crisply written in Hemingway style, the book makes good reading if not the last word as history.