`The Crisis Years’ examines JFK’s most difficult times

THE CRISIS YEARS: Kennedy and Khrushchev 1960-1963, by Michael R. Beschloss, HarperCollins, 816 pages, $29.95.

One of the most important benchmarks in the relatively short, yet complex, history of American-Soviet relations, is, of course, the Cuban Missile Crisis.

More than 30 years ago, President John F. Kennedy and Chairman Nikita S. Khrushchev brought the world closer to nuclear annihilation than ever before. This, ironically, from two leaders genuinely devoted to peace.

In “The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev,” Michael R. Beschloss has written the most complete and readable history of the crisis, which serves as the book’s centerpiece. Leading up to October 1962 is Kennedy’s election at age 43 — younger than one of the chairman’s own sons — and their failed Vienna summit, when the Soviet leader tested the president’s mettle with his infamous badgering.

The two pushed themselves closer to the brink during the Berlin Crisis, the first time that American and Soviet tanks faced each other. Throughout their Cold War battles, Kennedy and Khrushchev maintained a fruitful private correspondence, some of which remains closed to the public eye even today. Interestingly, the contents of these letters usually were more tame than the public exchanges between the two leaders.

Even for those familiar with the JFK-NSK crises, Beschloss’ mammoth work is worth the time it will take to tackle it. The more than 700 pages of text read like a spy novel, and the author’s penchant for detail propels the reader back three decades. Beschloss devotes considerable space to the book’s unforgettable cast of characters, taking off on fascinating biographical tangents that help explain the underlying elements surrounding the main act. Unlike many histories, the footnotes in “The Crisis Years” are well worth reading, containing nuggets of information that complete the history.

Beschloss provides the reader with more than enough surprises to keep the book moving. Among the work’s revelations are that Kennedy proposed a joint U.S.-Soviet moon shot (Khrushchev declined), and that JFK, while publicly denouncing the Berlin Wall, privately decided it was the best way out of an extremely volatile situation.

Some of the old, familiar scenes also are here, but some are presented with a new twist. American U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson is perhaps best remembered from that era confronting the Soviet envoy, who denied his country was installing offensive missiles in Cuba: “Don’t wait for the translation! Yes or No?!” Even the president, who disliked Stevenson, saying, “I never knew Adlai had it in him,” was not aware that Ambassador Zorin at that time was losing his marbles, rendering him virtually defenseless.

Beschloss, an able historian, lets no fact slip by, and is not shy at providing his own analyses of the Kennedy-Khrushchev battles. Not surprisingly, the book ends with the aftermath of JFK’s assassination, and the chairman’s overthrow a year later. American-Soviet relations in 1963 were still reeling from a decade of conflict, but appeared more promising with the Limited Test Ban. By a year after Dallas, however, the Cold War was back on a fast track — Lyndon Johnson and Leonid Brezhnev took the hard road, increasing the arms race and raising the stakes in Vietnam.

By then, the “Spirit of Moscow” described so vividly in “The Crisis Years,” was long gone.

John Ripley is a reporter on the news desk.