Expectations & education -- Beginning -- Into the world -- To Moscow -- The siege of Moscow -- The Germans in retreat -- Conferences -- The hot war ends and the Cold War begins -- Truman Doctrine -- Birth of covert operations -- Overseas again -- Negotiations -- Chief of mission -- Trieste negotiations -- Austrian State Treaty Negotiations -- Open skies closed borders -- Diplomacy -- Khrushchev's decade 1953-64 -- Moscow 2 -- Khrushchev's first gamble: berlin poker -- Dueling exhibitions -- The Russian is coming -- U-2: the end of detente -- Picking up the pieces -- Working for the new President -- Meeting in Vienna -- 22nd Party Congress -- Up the down escalator -- Goodbye Moscow hello Washington -- Thirteen days in October -- The Limited Test Ban -- Policy -- The Johnson years -- Strand one: Vietnam -- Thompson's Vietnam (1963-1967) -- Strand two: Nonproliferation (1963-1967) -- Strand three: The road to SALT (1963-1967) -- Moscow 3 -- The Six Day War: hotline diplomacy -- Glassboro: The summit that wasn't (June 23-25) -- 1968: Year of frustrated promise -- "Retirement" so to speak.
Summary:
"The Kremlinologist chronicles major events of the Cold War through the prism of the life of one of its top diplomats, Llewellyn Thompson. His life went from the wilds of the American West to the inner sanctums of the White House and the Kremlin. As the ambassador to Moscow, he became an important advisor to presidents and a key participant in major twentieth-century events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. Yet, unlike his contemporaries McGeorge Bundy and George C. Marshall--who considered Thompson one of the most crucial actors in the Cold War and the "unsung hero" of the Cuban Missile Crisis--he has not been the subject of a major biography until now. Thompson's daughters Jenny Thompson Vukacic and Sherry Thompson set out to document their father's life as thoroughly as possible. Relying on primary sources and interviews, they received generous assistance from archivists, historians, and colleagues of their father. They also acquired documents and information from Russian archives, including the KGB archives. As family, they had unprecedented access to his FBI dossier, State Department personnel files, family archives, letters, diaries, speeches, and documents. Their original research brings new material to light including important information on the U-2, Kennan's containment policy, and Thompson's role in US covert operations machinery. The book refutes historical misinterpretations of events in the Berlin Crisis, the Austrian State Treaty, and the Cuban Missile Crisis."--Provided by publisher.
Series:
Johns Hopkins nuclear history and contemporary affairs
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.