K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist Kindle Edition

In the mid-to-later part of the 20th century there are numerous rich events that shaped history.A thousand of then involved diplomatic events that had a major impact on world stability. Hundreds of those were interesting enough that some enterprising writer might endeavor to write a book with soup-to-nuts detail with an eye toward not academics, but the casual reader. This is one.

Peter Carlson jumped into it, and for a baby boomer, this is a must read. I am a bit of a later baby boomer for whom the "duck and cover" had been long since abandoned when I was a kid, but as luck would have it, I became huge history buff of the era.

For fans of history, and of excellent writing, this is a stone-cold winner. The story was told in a light-hearted manner, in a mood that unfortunately few people experienced in real time. In those days, the world could end at any minute. Now we don''t have to pay much attention to the skies, as it takes you to a period when terrible things were less likely to happen. The world was much more stable, as there seemed to be only two entities capable of doing major damage, and each knew that they had mankind in their purview.

I also appreciated the epilogue, which was respectful of all but sufficiently brief.

During the height of the cold war Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev spent two madcap weeks exploring 1959 America--kissing babies, hobnobbing with Hollywood stars, touring factories, and setting off riotous media stampedes in an Iowa cornfield and a San Francisco Quality Foods supermarket. Fortunately, Peter Carlson chronicles the whole ridiculous but revealing episode in K Blows Top, a window into the world as it was not so long ago. Khrushchev was alternately charismatic, infuriating, hot-headed, warm-hearted, wily and artless, and Americans were mesmerized in spite of themselves, fascinated, frightened and charmed.

While this is one of the funniest books I've read for a while, Carlson doesn't neglect the serious side of the story. Whatever goodwill was generated by Khrushchev's visit was lost when the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane in a mission that President Eisenhower only reluctantly approved. Both sides were angered and went into face-saving mode, ruining a multi-leader summit hosted by France's wryly frustrated Charles De Gaulle and leading to Khrushchev's UN shoe banging tantrum and the Cuban missile crisis. As Carlson presents him, Khrushchev is a temperamental conundrum who nevertheless brought real reform to the Soviet government after the bloody excesses of Stalin, as Khrushchev's own bloodless ousting by Leonid Brezhnev ironically proves.

When I was a 14 yr old kid in the Bronx, I was MUCH more interested in Baseball than in Politics (LOL .. the more things change, the more they remain the same for me!!) BUT.....when Krushchev visited the US, I could not hear or see enough about his visit -- and of course, what kid would not delight in seeing an ADULT bang his shoe on his desk -- way to go, K!

For the past 49 years, I really didn't think much about his visit, with the exception of the shoe thing, of course, but when I heard of this book, my interest prompted me to check it out of the library and read it, and......

I could not put this book down.

Nikita Krushchev, back then, with his rotund jovial face, body to match, and very bald pate, reminded me of those Herblock Cartoons of Mr Atom Bomb -- check out the facial expressions when you G--gle the Herblock cartoons -- and you will know what I mean. And yes, K was the walking, talking embodiment of that scarey possibility, those many years ago.

Carlson's book, so carefully crafted, so painfully researched, so chronologically and anecdotally precise, tells the reader a world about this man, who so many here in the US thought to be inferior, unlearned, pedantic...Well, not so.

Krushchev was brilliant -- the ruler of his country, visiting here on US soil -- a master of a quick retort, a man who could growl and set the whole world on edge with his temper and threats, but who, despite his of-times cold and calculated demeanor, showed another side -- he was also the man who loved to visit with Ike's children and grandchildren, the man who loved Disneyland (unrequited love at that), and the master of a fine spur-of-the-moment joke. He held his own against Ike, Nixon and Lodge and anyone else who tried to one-up him.

And although the world heaved a huge sigh of releif when his plane going back to Russia cleared those tree tops, his visit, his presence, not only broke through alot of that "ice" covering the Cold War, but he left an indelible impression on us -- witness the voracity with which this book is being read today.

I recommend this book for budding historians, for budded historians, and anyone who wants to remember everything else that happened above and beyond the "shoe incident", when Krushchev visited the US way back then.

A fascinating period piece describing the year when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev came out from behind the Iron Curtain to tour America. Written in a fast-paced style with a lot of little-known details thrown in. If your remember that peculiar moment in the Cold War, or are interested in knowing more about what went down, I can recommend this highly. On the other hand, for those who have no idea what the world was like at the dawn of the 1960's, you may find it hard to understand what all the fuss was about. But you might enjoy the read anyway.

So fun. This historical account of Khrushchev's visit to the US in the late 1950s puts a humorous spin on the Cold War. Not that the threat of nuclear holocaust wasn't serious, but having grown up in those times, and now looking back at the political posturing, the protocol, the elbowing and bombast recorded in the newspapers of the time, I found it delightful. Comments by gossip columnists, diplomats, and movie stars highlight the tour through the United States by this scary man who once was the stuff of the nightmares of serious children. Puts things in perspective and gives me hope that maybe in 50 years, we'll look back on the Era of Terror and find a little bit to smile at.