The Cold War is over, the Soviet Empire gone, and some of the secrets of the time are no longer secrets.
Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes, translated and edited by Jerrold L. Schecter (HC, 1990, $3) **SOLD**
After his fall from power, Khrushchev was kept outside Moscow under virtual house arrest. Khrushchev's son recalls in his own memoirs, how his father "fumed over his relegation to oblivion, and how he taped his side of the story so that it would be available if ever anyone was willing, and permitted, to listen." The tapes were smuggled out of Russia to be translated and published in the West. Revealed here is how important the Rosenbergs were to the Soviet atomic bomb project, and that Castro, in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis, pushed Russia to launch a nuclear attack on the United States.
Scorpion Down- Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion, by Ed Offley (HC, 2007, $3)
Hot torpedo, hydraulic problem or Soviet attack... 47 years later the debate goes on.
The Cold War: A Military History, by David Miller (HC, 1998, 476 pages, $3.50)
Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair, by Michael R. Beschloss (HC, 1986, $3)
In 1960, two weeks before a vital summit meeting between Eisenhower and Khrushchev, Gary Powers "flew a U-2 spy plane deep into Soviet airspace and was shot down. Amazingly... Powers and his incriminating equipment survived and were captured." Why did this happen? How did it happen? A historian at the Smithsonian investigated and wrote this book.
Operation Solo:The FBI's Man in the Kremlin, by John Barron (HC, 1996, $3)
Morris Childs was the second-ranking man of the US Communist Party. Many, many times he traveled to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. He was trusted by Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Mao, and Castro. Needless to say they did not know that he was an agent of the FBI! Sometimes the adage is true- truth is stranger than fiction!
"The Target Is Destroyed": What Really Happened to Flight 007 and What America Knew About It, by Seymour M. Hersh (HC, 1986, $2.50)
In 1983 a Korean civilian jet, caring 269 passengers and crew, was supposed to fly from Anchorage to Seoul. It was off course almost from the start, but by the time it reached what they thought was Japan, the plane was actually flying over Russian airspace, and headed directly toward two Russian air bases. How did the Koreans get so lost, and why did the Russians shoot down an obviously civilian airplane? This is the report of a Pulitzer winning journalist. Note this book was written only three years after the event. Did more information come out since?
******I have left the best for last:
Mutiny: The Inside Story of the True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October- From the Soviet Naval Hero Who Was There, by David Hagberg (HC, 2008, $3.25)
In 1975 most of this ship's crew mutinied, locked all the officers below deck, and proceeded "to send a message to the Soviet people that the Communist government was corrupt, and major changes were needed. That message never reached a single person". The Soviets were trying to destroy the ship when the ship's captain finally got back control of his ship. The Soviets managed to cover up the incident, with the exception of a student US Navel officer's obscure report. Several years later the report was read by an insurance agent. That insurance agent no longer has to sell insurance.
Look for these books on the non-fiction table.
