Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth

"Detailed look at the '61 Berlin Crisis but with bias" according to Robert Carver. I enjoyed reading Frederick Kempe's detailed narrative about how the Berlin Crisis unfolded and the perspectives of the Kennedy Administration, Khrushchev and the Soviets, East Germany's Walter Ulbricht, & West Germany's Konrad Adenauer. Kempe provides the background for the situation JFK inherited when he came into office in January of 1961 and then how the year unfolded as Kennedy dealt with the many crises festering around the world that kept coming back to Berlin. Kempe walks us through how the players involved were propelled by misunderstanding, miscommunication, ideology, external forces and their own agendas. The . "An exciting read, but unbalanced & too hawkish." according to Hannibal. This is a wonderful read, and the only reason that I can't give it a full five stars is that Kempe consistently shows a too hawkish bias and takes too many cheap shots at Kennedy which doesn't give the reader the balanced reportage one had a right to expect in a more objective account. Having lived through these times myself, I found then and now the same as Kennedy did at the time, that the Soviets would have a free rein (up to a point) reflecting, their power position regarding East Germany and their boundaries in Berlin. However sad, that's realpolitik, and short of threatening nuclear war, there wasn't a damn thing K. "Let them come to Berlin" according to Michael C. Chisick. I was too young to appreciate events that unfolded in Berlin in 1961 but I knew they were momentous. This great book provides context to the many crises that arose here between East and West and the great tensions it generated. It does not paint a flattering portrait of the young, inexperienced, and macho-obscessed JFK. Fascinating story.

In Cold War Berlin, the United States and the Soviet Union stand nose to nose, with the possibility of nuclear war just one misstep away.. A former Wall Street Journal editor and the current president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, Frederick Kempe draws on recently released documents and personal interviews to re-create the powder keg that was 1961 Berlin