Berlin 1961 - Frederick Kempe

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
War-and more perilous. It was in that hot summer that the Berlin Wall
was constructed, which would divide the world for another twenty-eight
years. Then two months later, and for the first time in history,
American and Soviet fighting men and tanks stood arrayed against each
other, only yards apart. One mistake, one nervous soldier, one
overzealous commander-and the tripwire would be sprung for a war that
could go nuclear in a heartbeat.

On one side was a young, untested U.S. president still reeling from
the Bay of Pigs disaster and a humiliating summit meeting that left him
grasping for ways to respond. It would add up to be one of the worst
first-year foreign policy performances of any modern president. On the
other side, a Soviet premier hemmed in by the Chinese, East Germans,
and hardliners in his own government. With an all-important Party
Congress approaching, he knew Berlin meant the difference not only for
the Kremlin's hold on its empire-but for his own hold on the Kremlin.

Neither man really understood the other, both tried cynically to
manipulate events. And so, week by week, they crept closer to the
brink.

Based on a wealth of new documents and interviews, filled with
fresh-sometimes startling-insights, written with immediacy and drama,
Berlin 1961 is an extraordinary look at key events of the
twentieth century, with powerful applications to these early years of
the twenty-first.

Includes photographs