At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War

 

At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War by Michael Beschloss and Strobe Talbott

This was the fourth book I’ve read by Michael Beschloss.  Unlike the first three that I thought were brilliant or borderline brilliant, I wasn’t as enthralled with this one.  Whether or not it was because he wrote with a co-author or some other reason, I just didn’t feel this one had enough feeling. Instead, this one was all facts.  I felt as though I was reading a host of Washington Post articles over a four-year period of the Bush administration that dealt with Mikhail Gorbachev and the splintering of the Communist party.

There were several other major characters in this account, yet nothing was present that gave us any insight to who they were as actual people.  We never learned the backgrounds, feelings, and motivations of such figures as James Baker, Eduard Shevardnadze, Brent Scowcroft, and Alexander Bessmertnykh.  I mainly bring this up because this was a big strength with Michael Beschloss’s other books.  In those accounts, we felt we had some good insights to the key players.  We don’t get this here, and it’s sadly needed.

This book is essentially a summary of all the ins and outs of the Cold War with Russia during the (first) George Bush administration. The narrative begins shortly after Bush is elected in the Fall of 1988, and the conclusion happens around mid-1992 when Bush would eventually lose his re-election bid to Bill Clinton.  There’s a lot to say in those four years about this subject.  I just wish that the authors could have made it more interesting.

Much of this book consists of the two co-authors simply rambling from Point A to Point B to Point C etc.  There are a lot of details, events, deals, innuendos, squabbling, and mistrust that takes place, but it comes across as an assembly line made-to-order account instead of something captivatingly interesting. If you’re someone who isn’t overly excited and interested when you watch the news during the stories about foreign affairs, well, this book certainly won’t help you in that area.  If, however, you’re a global news junkie and can remember all of the different names (many Eastern European), places, summits, and nuclear weapon jargon, you may warm up to this thing slightly more than I did.

In should be noted that this book is not exclusively about the details of everything pertaining only to the United States and Russia during this particular time.  This is the Cold War we’re talking about, so a huge chunk of foreign affairs is included in this book because most of it, somehow, eventually affects how the two powers react, and need to plan for the future.  There’s a lot of East Germany, Lithuania, and even Iraq here.  While one may recall that Russia was not a major player in the Gulf War, in a sense they were because they were previously allies with Iraq, and since they’re now trying to “bridge gaps” with the U.S., it sure would make a lot of sense if Russia sided with the U.S. where Saddam Hussein and his lunatics were concerned.   Of course, that’s easier said than done in a massive political bubble.

In fact, most of this book centers around that very idea – a massive political bubble.  Bush and Gorbachev have to play this political game as master chess players. Neither side wants to lose anything, and each of them have their pulse on what the future will probably bring.  So when Gorbachev plays hardball with Lithuania, Bush really can’t do the right thing and defend the Baltic nation by criticizing the Soviet Union, because he’s wisely aware that he can’t afford the ire of Gorbachev during this time.  He’s right, of course, but in the world of politics, it doesn’t take long for the Democrats (as well as hard-right Republicans) to lash out and complain that the leader of the free world is acting awfully weak and complacent.

Throughout the narrative, Bush definitely comes across as the one with the obvious upper hand.  He’s also portrayed very favorably by the authors.  He comes across as cool and calm and always knows how to outwit his enemy to gain the most without humiliating his adversary.  Gorbachev, however, comes across as the complete opposite.  Of course, in all fairness, no matter how good of a ball player you are, if you’re on a losing team that’s getting worse, nothing you do can salvage your reputation, let alone your country.  So Gorbachev puts up a brave front, but never really manages to convince anyone that he can do any good. Almost no one in the U.S.S.R. stands behind him during these tumultuous years. Again, though, when you’ve suffered under a misguided ideology for over 70 years, whoever is currently at the helm will have to take the brunt of the criticism when the ship finally starts to sink.

There are some parts of this book that are better than others.  The best chapters are when things actually happen; whether it’s the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, or the failed 1991 Russian coup, these events make very interesting reading.  Unfortunately, when things aren’t “happening”, and all we read about are meetings, correspondence, summit plans, and press bickering, it can really bog one down and one loses interest rather quickly.

In fact, I was initially somewhat excited since the paperback edition I read featured an additional chapter.  Yet this extra chapter was basically a continuation of the day-to-day dreadfully dull accounts of everything that had happened in the year between the original pressing of the book and the revision.  The only real difference in this extra chapter is we read the names Clinton and Yeltsin instead of Bush and Gorbachev.  This addition was incredibly unnecessary and didn’t add anything at all of substance to the main account.

Overall, this was a fairly good account of the comings and goings of the time and subject, but I would recommend Beschloss’s “other” U.S. vs. U.S.S.R book that focused on Kennedy and Khrushchev much more highly than this one.  The accounts here are worth telling, but it’s sadly just too dry in too many places.