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The Turn is the gripping narrative
history of the most important international development
of our time -- the passage of the United States and the
Soviet Union from the Cold War to a hopeful new era. The
dramatic change in relations between two former great enemies
took place so rapidly and in such unexpected ways that even
today it remains difficult to grasp. Now, in a brilliant
and authoritative account of this momentous turning point,
Don Oberdorfer makes the reader a privileged behind-the-scenes
spectator as U.S. and Soviet leaders took the measure of
each other and slowly set about their historic task.
From a snowy Washington weekend in 1983
when Ronald Regan made a first tentative move toward reconciliation
to the Bush-Gorbachev meeting in June 1990, events unfold
step by step in fresh detail, with all the drama, tension,
and uncertainty of the period. This is diplomatic history
with a vital difference: extraordinary intimacy made possible
by comprehensive interviews with major figures on both sides
and exclusive material from a host of other sources. Oberdorfer
had unprecedented access to leading Soviet officials, including
Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, chief of staff of the Soviet
armed forces and adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev, and Eduard
Shevardnadze, the forceful and uncompromising former Foreign
Minister.
For the first time, the reader can sit in
on Kremlin and White House meetings and summit conferences,
seeing at close range the major figures who made the turn,
among them:
- Ronald Regan, whose deep antipathy to
nuclear weapons made him willing, at Reykjavik, to bargain
away the US nuclear arsenal
- Mikhail Gorbachev, whose feisty, unorthodox
bargaining style is fully disclosed for the first time
- George Bush, practicing personal diplomacy
with Gorbachev on a sunny terrace at Camp David
- Yuri Andropov, gravely ill, making decisions
from his sickbed that would affect the course of history
Replete with revealing portraits of historical
personalities, as riveting as a spy thriller, The Turn
is an enthralling record of global history in the making.
Don Oberdorfer has covered U.S.-Soviet
relations for The Washington Post since 1976. His
previous book, Tet!, a history of the crucial battle of
the Vietnam War, was a National Book Award finalist. He
lives with his wife in Washington, D.C.
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