The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963 by Michael R. Beschloss

The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963 Reviews

• 
  Brad B

  A good historian or journalist needs to leave personal bias out of his/her work, but Beschloss takes every opportunity to remind the reader of his disapproval of JFK. The author uses language like "bloviate" to describe Kennedy in conversation, and cites highly questionable sources (such as People magazine, Kitty Kelley, and the conservative revisionist Victor Lasky). He quotes Dean Rusk as minimizing Robert Kennedy's role in the Cuban missile crisis but relies heavily on RFK and his book Thirteen Days throughout his account of that event. Beschloss takes every opportunity to take subtle jabs at JFK while pretending to be the removed historian. And I about fell out of my chair when Beschloss writes, near the end of the book, "We will probably never know beyond the shadow of a doubt who caused John Kennedy to be murdered and why." Spoiler alert: Oswald did it.
  
  There is a considerable amount of fascinating detail in this book, particularly the insights into Kruschev and his thinking, and it is definitely worth reading for that reason, but Beschloss should have left his opinions at home. Read Robert Dallek's An Unfinished Life and Richard Reeves' President Kennedy: Profile of Power for more journalist accounts of Kennedy's presidency.
• 
  Eric_W

  The years between 1960 and President Kennedy's death were fraught with danger. At no time in the world's history, perhaps, have we come closer to self-annihilation. It was one crisis after another ending with the Berlin standoff and Cuban Missile Crisis.
  
  Kennedy's first test was the Bay of Pigs. He learned many hard lesson: The CIA could not be relied on; The F.B.I. under Hoover had dirt on Kennedy the director would unhesitatingly use to remain in power; and the military brass often failed to substantiate their judgments with accurate information. It was a time of bully-boy politics. The United States made several attempts on Castros life (interestingly, Castro had never used the applied the word "Socialist" to his country until after the Bay of Pigs fiasco). During this short period the war in Laos and Vietnam had their beginnings, the Berlin wall was created, and atmospheric nuclear bomb testing was conducted by both countries.
  
  The fate of the world was controlled by a millionaire's son and a former metal-worker. Beschloss focuses on these two personalities using many recently released documents. One engaged in reckless extramarital affairs, the other audacious international adventures. The flashpoints were so numerous as to be virtually unbelievable. Simple events like escorting United States officials into Berlin by U.S. army personnel against the wishes of the Soviets and the boarding of Soviet-bloc vessels engaged in international trade with Cuba, spy flights over the Soviet Union, any of these events could have been used as an excuse for war.
  
  To make things worse, there was no system of instant communications such as exists now. Critical messages were relayed by Western Union bicycle messengers. One important message from Kruschev to Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis required eight hours to be translated and transmitted to Washington. That message contained information that Kruschev intended to remove the missiles from Cuba. American air strikes that surely would have begun WW III were planned for the following day. A further delay in the delivery of the message would have resulted in apocalypse.
  
  Some of the detail is simply stunning. For example, following Kennedy's decision not to bomb Cuba after Kruschev's withdrawal of the missiles, Curtis LeMay and George Anderson, two of the Joint Chiefs loudly took the President to task for not starting the war. Perhaps a stronger President would have fired them on the spot. We also learn how many of the President's private licentious liaisons had the potential to compromise his public duties. (One of the pieces of dirt that Hoover held over Kennedy's head was his knowledge that Kennedy was known to have been sleeping with a Nazi spy during WW II. That revelation would have harmed Kennedy immeasurably.
  
  Still, Kennedy's skill at crisis management as well as Kruschev's unwillingness to (not to mention his knowledge of the vast superiority of the United States missile resources) to fight a nuclear war, plus a whole lot of luck left the world intact.
  
  There were so many new documents and especially Soviet politicians still alive who are now willing to be interviewed about that era, that it took Beschloss six years to write about a two-and-a-half-year period.
• 
  Clem

  I’ve read many books about this period in history including biographies of John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, and this one was by far the best. It’s quite rare that you come across a book that is as lengthy as this one yet covering only a few years of history. It manages to captivate you and keep you interested throughout the entire volume. I was simply never bored.
  
  When one reads a biography of a leader, such as a president or chairman, it’s crucial that the author cover all of the events of the subject matter’s life, especially during their tenure in office. This can actually be a drawback since, to be blunt, many things that are deemed consequential during a leader’s term really aren’t that interesting. For me, nothing can be more boring than reading about a U.S. President’s domestic struggles and accomplishments. It’s really quite tedious reading about things such as stagflation, trade unions, and negotiations with various steel companies. The GOOD stuff, for me anyway, is what happens in the international arena. This is probably why I enjoyed this book so much. You could make a solid argument that this book was a bio of both of these men during their coinciding years in charge, but only dealing with international matters. The international matters that involved both of them, that is, which seems to be pretty much everything.
  
  Specifically, this volume is about their relationship with each other during arguably the most stressful time during the twentieth century. These were two very charismatic leaders that found their countries as allies on the winning side of the second world war, yet to say “ally” was a synonym of the word “friend” in this case was a big stretch. These two countries had polar opposite ideologies and were always looking over their shoulder to make sure the other guy never got the upper hand.
  
  This book highlights The Bay of Pigs, The Vienna Summit, Berlin, The Cuban Missile Crisis, and the various squabbling around nuclear test banning. The author paints a very vivid image of these two leaders, and I never (like some reviewers) came away with the feeling that he painted Kennedy nor Khrushchev as “failures”. These two men were incredibly committed to their respective ideology, so they naturally distrusted each other. Although the early sixties were filled with such euphemisms as “duck and cover” and “fallout shelters” in the United States, author Michael Beschloss tells us that the USSR was equally as paranoid of the U.S. Although both leaders felt their respective philosophies were superior, neither had it on their short-term radar to annihilate the other with nuclear war. Of course, neither of them knew that for sure, so vicious cat and mouse games were played, not only from 1960 – 1963, but for the entire period of The Cold War.
  
  This book has a massive supportive cast in addition to its two primary subjects. Fortunately, Beschloss knows just how to handle a complex cast without overwhelming his reader. Often when a key player is introduced (say, an Andrei Gomyko or a Dean Rusk), the author will take a brief 2- or 3-page diversion and give us a brief a history of the individual. This helps us keep score of who is who and is invaluable if you’re not familiar with these key players that were the movers and the shakers approximately 60 years ago.
  
  We also learn an awful lot about the personalities of Kennedy and Khrushchev, so we feel we know who these two really were in addition to what they did. On this note, though, a strength of the author is that he never goes off too far on tangents when we learn more about their idiosyncrasies. Example: It’s been well documented that Kennedy had a weakness for skirts and was shuffling women in the back door of the White House as early as Inauguration Day, and the author does provide brief anecdotes of such escapades, but he doesn’t fall too deep down the rabbit hole of gossip and innuendo. When such incidents are discussed, it’s mainly done to better help understand the character of the man, and how it may or may not have influenced his decisions at the negotiation table. To understand the motivations of someone, you really do need to do a deep dive into their character.
  
  The highlight of the book for me was the Cuban Missile Crisis. I would guess about 25% or more of this 800+ page book is devoted to this event. Yes, we dive deep into the meticulous details, but the author knows how to do so without burdening the reader. In fact, when the crisis “ends” in late 1962, the rest of the book seems a tad of a downer. It’s a bit like watching a movie where the climax happens, not at the end, yet only 2/3 through the film. This makes it slightly difficult to read the rest of this book with the same vigor and voracity. This isn’t a criticism of the book, it’s just how the events happen to play out during the time frame.
  
  I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t more Vietnam here. Yes, we read a bit about the failed regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, but ONLY a bit. True, Kennedy was assassinated before the bulk of the war occurred, but since the main struggle of his shortened administration was to prevent the expansion of communism, I thought there would be more. Perhaps this is because the author felt that although the subject matter important, maybe it didn’t really tie in directly with the Kennedy/Khrushchev relationship?
  
  My only really criticism was that this book was too sparse when it came to photos and illustrations. A book like this calls for a wealth of such accoutrements. There were simply too many people, places, and events that could have benefited from a hefty inclusion. In fact, the “illustration” section has maybe 5 or 6 random pictures that seemly mostly irrelevant to the subject matter. You have to wonder, “why even bother?”. A minor gripe though. One really doesn’t read a volume such as this for the pictures. Plus, when reading on an e-reader, Wikipedia is literally only a touch away.
  
  My first book by this author. It looks like he has a catalog of many books of similar structure. I’ll definitely check out more of his work.
• 
  Louis

  The era of glasnost in Mikhail Gorbachev's Soviet Union offered not only the end of Cold War tensions but the opportunity for historians to do more thorough research behind the Iron Curtain. Michael Beschloss took full advantage with this book on Soviet-American relations during the administration of John F. Kennedy; he interviewed a large number of both Russians and Americans still alive who had been involved in foreign policy toward the other nation in the early 1960s. The result is both exhaustive and fascinating. While I find some of his conclusions troubling (he seems to use the fact that Robert Kennedy was not alive to talk to him as an excuse to conclude he inflated his role in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis), he offers a full picture of the role simple mistakes and misunderstandings play in creating potential catastrophes. He also shows both Kennedy and Khruschchev as flawed but ultimately decent men who wanted to find a saner way for the two countries to resolve their differences. Reading this book also gave me a reason to believe that Kennedy would not have sent ground troops to Vietnam in 1965. Although the book probably should have been a bit shorter, overall it is an excellent read.
• 
  Bob

  A most fascinating look at superpower relations in the early 1960s, through the relationship between US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Chairman Nikita S. Khrushchev. Michael Beschloss' scholarship yields a treasure trove of information, including information from American and Soviet archives not released until just before this book's publication in 1991. This provides a new view on this period in world history when the superpowers came close to global thermonuclear war. Highly recommended book from an author I like a lot, having read two other Beschloss books (May Day and The Conquerors).
• 
  Ferris Mx

  Super insightful book into the difficult problem of heads of state feeling each other out, negotiating, bluffing, and how to communicate with each other in the public eye. Covers the Kennedy administrations errors and successes with a clear eye and discusses, but does not belabor, Kennedy's personal weaknesses that added vulnerability that might have been much worse.
• 
  Jonathan D Kopplin

  Solid book
  
  Beschloss wrote a lengthy history on the Kennedy and Khrushchev relationship. I thought he provided a balanced appraisal of both men. The narrative could've been a little tighter.
• 
  P.S. Winn

  Michael Beschloss is good at what he does. Digging into the past, the author is an authority on the Presidents and an author to grab whenever you want a look back into history.
• 
  Jack D Anderson

  One of the best books that I have read in a long time. Never thought it would end!
  
• 
  Jim Swike

  Great read on the topic. Rare book on these two leaders as they challenged each other during the early 60's. Great resource for research and / or term paper.
• 
  John Melvin

  Excellent
  
  This book is an excellent summary of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the international situations and negotiations that framed the conflict.
• 
  Karen Floyd

  A very even-handed account of the Kennedy presidency through the lens of his foreignpolicy, and in particular his relationship with Krushchev. So many fascinating details about the Berlin and Cuba crises that I didn't know. I raced through the book (600+ pages) because there was always some new difficulty in the offing that I needed to find out about. Bechloss concludes that Kennedy "provoked" the Cuban Missile Crisis, though not deliberately, but I think that's a bit of a stretch. It seems to me that it was the result of misperception and miscalculation on both sides. And while both Kennedy and Krushchev were well aware of the waste and futility of a nuclear war, they both had to contend with factions in their governments and in their countries who were itching to go to war.
  The book ended, of course, with Kennedy's assassination. I was horrified to learn that children in several Dallas schools applauded when they were told of it. And back at the White House that evening Adlai Stevenson was SMILING!
• 
  Heather

  This is a very large book but highly researched by one of the premiere historians on the subject. Michael R. Beschloss is a great historian and an amazing writer. This book is fairly easy read considering its length and the amount of detail/facts in the volume. I highly recommend it to people who are interested in the subject because this may be too long/detailed for the casual reader. There is a good bibliography as well as pictures which help to bring some of the pictures to life.
• 
  John

  Clear-headed, concise account of the face-off between Khrushchev and Kennedy, without a Kennedy-era spin.
• 
  Marcus Devin

  $15.00
• 
  Alex Sarmiento

  One if the best books on the Cold War I have ever read. Beschloss combines engaging writing with dramatically engaging and dangerous events. Highly recommended