ISBN10: 0891418377, ISBN13: 9780891418375, [publisher: Presidio Press, New York] Softcover Paperback. 20th century Introduction by former President George H. W. BushWritten by an author who rose from military officer to administration insider, this is a vivid, unvarnished view of Americas fight against Communism, from the end of WWII to the closing of the Strategic Air Command, a work as full of human interest as history, rich characters as bloody conflict.At the Abyss is an insiders dramatic account of the dark decades of the Cold War, from its beginnings in the 1950s through to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It tells how calm and steady hands on both sides of the Atlantic walked back from the edge of nuclear warfare, revealing how perilously close the US and Soviet Union came to nuclear war, time and time again.Among the unforgettable figures who devised weaponry, dictated policy, or deviously spied and subverted: Whittaker Chambers the translator whose book, Witness, started the hunt for bigger game: Communists in the US government; Lavrenti Beria the head of the Soviet nuclear weapons program who apparently killed Joseph Stalin; Col. Ed Hall the leader of Americas advanced missile system, whose own brother was a Soviet spy; Adm. James Stockwell the prisoner of war and eventual vice presidential candidate who kept his terrible secret from the Vietnamese for eight long years; Nancy Reagan the `Queen of Hearts, who was both loving wife and ...
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