I have benefited greatly from the wisdom and guidance of many at the Brookings Institution, where I am a nonresident senior fellow in foreign affairs. Among them are Strobe Talbott, Martin Indyk, Bruce Jones, Michael O’Hanlon, Fiona Hill, Stephen Hess, and my dear friend Vassilis Coutifaris, always prepared to extend a helping hand.
Mike Freedman, executive producer of The Kalb Report, helped enormously, more perhaps than he realized, often by simply listening to my ramblings about Russia and then offering a nugget of advice or opinion.
A number of friends read early drafts of the manuscript and offered incredibly valuable suggestions. Among them: Andrew Glass, Garrett Mitchell, James Masland, and Walter Reich.
My gratitude to my immediate family is without measure, each member contributing handsomely in his or her own way.
As always, with all my books, my brother, Bernard, read and edited the manuscript with his usual dedication to accuracy, clarity, and style.
My daughter Deborah, a writer, blogger, and editor herself, was always there, from beginning to end, with wise counsel and guidance.
My daughter Judith, a scholar of Russian language and literature, read and edited the manuscript and then carefully transliterated Russian words or expressions into understandable English.
Deborah’s husband, David, a scientist, was a wonderful traveling companion during the tour for my previous book, Imperial Gamble, and a source of constant encouragement.
Judith’s husband, Alex, also a scholar of Russian language and literature, provided invaluable editing and, as important, came up with the title for this book.
My wife, Madeleine, an author and specialist on Russian foreign policy, has been at my side for more than sixty years, and so knowledgeable about global history that in the family she is playfully referred to as Ms. Google. With her, everything is possible. She has my eternal gratitude.
To my grandson, Aaron, and my granddaughter, Eloise, both wise beyond their years (he’s twelve, she’s nine), both loving, helpful, and inspiring, I offer my hope that they will continue to live without fear in a land that cherishes individual freedom and democratic rule.
Index
Aaron, Johnny, 276
African Americans: on City College basketball team, 18, 19–20; City College race discrimination, 14–15; Soviet interest in, 154, 177
Aiken, Conrad, 249–50
Alsop, Joseph, 49–50
Alveolar ridge, 24–25
American poets, 249–50
Amerika (monthly magazine), 194
Anti-Semitism: at City College, 14–15; in Klin, 115; in military, 40–41; of Stalin, 119–20
Armenians, 119, 134, 141, 143, 149, 161–62
Astoria Hotel (Leningrad), 248
Atheism, 190–92
Azerbaijan, 157–59. See also Baku
Azeri people, 160, 162, 165
Babi Yar, 122
Bachner, Lester, 7, 13
Bachner, Miss, 7
Baku, 157–64; Armenian in, 161–62; de-Stalinization effects in, 162; limited access in, 157–60; “Nina” printing press in, 163–64; oil industry in, 158–59; sightseeing boat trip in, 161
Baku Historical Museum, 160
Bandung Conference, 200, 242
Barrès, Maurice, 13
Basketball, 9–10, 15–24, 101–03, 148
Basmachi (Islamic opposition to Russians), 129–30, 136, 172
BBC broadcasts, 199–200, 224
Begin, Menachem, x
Beirut, Boleslav, 73
Bell, Daniel, 11
Belsky, Abraham, 22
Ben-Gurion, David, 212
Berkov, Alexander, 246
Berlin Airlift (1948), 12
Berlin crisis (1961), 277
Bigos, Adolph, 22
Black Sea, 123, 180, 182–84
Bogolyubovo, travel to, 111–13
Bohlen, Charles, 70, 74, 88, 98–100, 103–04, 123, 169–70, 222
Bolshevik Revolution, celebration of thirty-ninth anniversary of, 214–15
Boston Symphony Orchestra, 252
Bourgeois ideology, 198, 224, 260–61
Bradley University basketball team, 20, 23
Brezhnev, Leonid, xiii
Brezhnev Doctrine, 229
Britain: demonstrations over Suez Canal against, 213–14; embassy party celebrating Queen’s birthday, 90–91; JPRS funding from, 45; Suez Canal crisis and, 212, 242
Brovman, Grigory, 233–35
Budapest Radio, 206, 208
Bukhara, 146–53, 157; bazaar, 150–51; Jews in, 148–50; Kalb’s detention by militiamen, 151–53
Bukovsky, Vladimir, 61
Bulganin, Nikolai: attending British embassy party with Khrushchev, 91, 92; attending U.S. embassy party with Khrushchev, 103; countering antiparty propaganda, 98; relating story about Khrushchev and Stalin, 69; Russian opinion of, 78, 198–99; at 20th Congress, 61
Bunin, Ivan, 234
Bureaucracy in Soviet Union, 195, 197, 231; impeding Kalb’s Uvarov research, 76, 79–85, 243–47, 249–50
Byrd, Richard, 44
Campbell, Kay, 274, 276
Capitalism, 46, 58, 160, 226–28, 241–42, 260. See also Socialism’s coming triumph over capitalism
Cars: Soviet fascination with, 143–44; ZISs/ZILs (limos), 117
Caspian Sea, 157–58, 160
Catherine the Great, 117, 276
CBS Foundation Fellowship, 277
CBS News, 24, 217–21; Kalb’s role at, 277; Murrow hiring Kalb at, 274–76
Central Asia, 123–55; Bukhara, 146–53; de-Stalinization’s effect on, 140, 154, 155, 159; Samarkand, 131–46; Tashkent, 124–31, 153–55
Central Historical Archives (Leningrad), 258–59
Central Lecture Hall (Leningrad), 240
Central State Archives (Moscow), 82–83, 85
Central Telegraph Office (Moscow), 221
Chayefsky, Paddy, 28, 29
Chekhov, Anton, 36, 259
China: reaction to Khrushchev’s anti-Stalin speech, 105; Sino-Soviet alliance, 277
Churchill, Winston, 12, 242
CIA officials, 46, 88
City College of New York, 7, 9–32; basketball team (Beavers) and “grand slam,” 9–10, 15–24; Campus college newspaper, Kalb on, 10, 11, 15, 21–23; dormitory (Army Hall), 30–31; Goodman as professor at, 27–32; Kalb’s choice of major, 13, 14; Kohn as professor at, 13–14; Observation Post college newspaper, 11; political factions at, 10–11, 21; religious and racial discrimination at, 14–15, 17; speech class at, 24–25
Cohen, Stanley, 16, 18
Cold War: early years of, x, 12–14, 45; end of, x; Lippmann on, 12; Truman on, 12. See also Peaceful coexistence doctrine; Thaw of 1956
Communism: as dying ideology, 270; Kalb learning about while at Harvard’s Russian Research Center, 33–37; Kalb lecturing on while in military service, 39–40; Russians speaking about, 77–78, 180–82, 258, 270; students’ commitment to, 76, 226–28. See also Socialism’s coming triumph over capitalism; 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist (journal) publishing Lenin Testament, 90
Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. See 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Containment policy, 12, 13
Corruption, 165, 198, 260
Cronkite, Walter, 277
Cuban Missile Crisis, x, 277
Cult of personality. See Personality cult
Cultural exchange programs between East and West, 72, 252
Cyrillic script, in Central Asia, 129
Czechoslovakia: anticommunist uprisings in (1956), xii; at communist leaders’ meeting (January 1–4, 1957), 240; tourists describing to Kalb, 172–73