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I owe Russia $1200

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Laugh-filled travelogue through the making of "The Road To Hong Kong" and USO tours to Alaska, Korea - and Russia. If you like to laugh you'll love this book. If you like backstage stories you'll love this book. If you like Bob Hope and his Christmas USO tours, you'll LOVE this book.

This recollection of many of Bob Hope's jaunts around the world to entertain American troops in the fifties and early sixties is a whirlwind of jokes. There are so many that it is at times difficult to separate the jokes from the seriousness. For of course, there is a very serious side to what he and his fellow travelers were doing. This was the height of the cold war and American troops were stationed in many places around the world. Some of those places were very inhospitable, both in terms of weather and hostility.

In Europe, his plane was buzzed by Soviet fighters, and they were informed that they would be fired upon if they strayed outside the flight corridor. In Korea, his helicopter followed the roads to the front lines, for if they were shot down, the only place they could land was the road. All areas on the sides of the roads were heavily mined. In Alaska and Greenland, there was bitter cold and perpetual darkness, severe frostbite could happen in a matter of seconds. Hope jokes a great deal about how scared he was, and some of that was genuine. However, he was fundamentally a brave man, as he literally was risking his life in traveling to such places to entertain the troops.

From the book, you also get a taste of what the times were like. Some of the jokes ridicule Cuban President Fidel Castro and the Soviet Union. It was a time of great paranoia on both sides of the Iron Curtain and Hope at many times could literally reach out and touch it. Bob Hope was a great man, brave and very patriotic. Many entertainment personalities accompanied him on his trips, and they are also to be commended for their actions. In this book, you learn a great deal about their journeys, how they always put the troops ahead of themselves, doing shows in all conditions. With his recent passing, we may never see the likes of him again.