This volume continues the ambitious project, undertaken by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, to transcribe and annotate secretly recorded White House tapes. The tapes presented here begin on the day after the Cuban Missile Crisis-and run to 7 February 1963.

This acclaimed study from the authors of "One Hell of a Gamble" brings to life head-to-head confrontations between the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Drawing on their unrivaled access to Politburo and KGB materials, Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali combine new insights into the Cuban missile crisis as well as startling narratives of the contests for Suez, Iraq, Berlin, and Southeast Asia, with vivid portraits of leaders who challenged Moscow and Washington. Khrushchev's Cold War provides a gripping history of the crisis years of the Cold War.

The judicious statesman who won victories abroad but suffered defeat at home, whose wisdom and demeanor served America well at a critical time George Bush was a throwback to a different era. A patrician figure not known for eloquence, Bush dismissed ideology as "the vision thing." Yet, as Timothy Naftali argues, no one of his generation was better prepared for the challenges facing the United States as the Cold War ended. Bush wisely encouraged the liberalization of the Soviet system and skillfully orchestrated the reunification of Germany. And following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, he united the global community to defeat Saddam Hussein. At home, Bush reasserted fiscal discipline after the excesses of the Reagan years.
It was ultimately his political awkwardness that cost Bush a second term. His toughest decisions widened fractures in the Republican Party, and with his party divided, Bush lost his bid for reelection in 1992. In a final irony, the conservatives who scorned him would return to power eight years later, under his son and namesake, with the result that the elder George Bush would see his reputation soar.

This book is a direct result of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. Drawing upon many documents declassified under this law, the authors demonstrate what US intelligence agencies learned about Nazi crimes during World War II and about the nature of Nazi intelligence agencies' role in the Holocaust. It examines how some U.S. corporations found ways to profit from Nazi Germany's expropriation of the property of German Jews. This book also reveals startling new details on the Cold War connections between the US government and Hitler's former officers. At a time when intelligence successes and failures are at the center of public discussion, U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis also provides an unprecedented inside look at how intelligence agencies function during war and peacetime.

Thrust into the presidency by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson immediately confronted the twin challenges of leading a nation in mourning while ensuring the continuity of government. As one of his first acts, Johnson ordered a secret taping system installed in the White House and began recording his telephone conversations. This three-volume boxed set continues the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs's acclaimed Presidential Recordings series, covering the time period between February 1, 1964, and May 31, 1964. During these dramatic months, LBJ launched his War on Poverty, questioned the viability of the U.S. policy in Vietnam, and deftly managed the progress of a historic civil rights bill through Congress.

This book is a direct result of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. Drawing upon many documents declassified under this law, the authors demonstrate what US intelligence agencies learned about Nazi crimes during World War II and about the nature of Nazi intelligence agencies' role in the Holocaust. It examines how some U.S. corporations found ways to profit from Nazi Germany's expropriation of the property of German Jews. This book also reveals startling new details on the Cold War connections between the US government and Hitler's former officers. At a time when intelligence successes and failures are at the center of public discussion, U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis also provides an unprecedented inside look at how intelligence agencies function during war and peacetime.

No other book offers this inside look at the strategies of the Soviet leadership. John F. Kennedy did not live to write his memoirs; Fidel Castro will not reveal what he knows; and the records of the Soviet Union have long been sealed from public view: Of the most frightening episode of the Cold War--the Cuban Missile Crisis--we have had an incomplete picture. When did Castro embrace the Soviet Union? What proposals were put before the Kremlin through Kennedy's back-channel diplomacy? How close did we come to nuclear war? These questions have now been answered for the first time. This important and controversial book draws the missing half of the story from secret Soviet archives revealed exclusively by the authors, including the files of Nikita Khrushchev and his leadership circle. Contained in these remarkable documents are the details of over forty secret meetings between Robert Kennedy and his Soviet contact, records of Castro's first solicitation of Soviet favor, and the plans, suspicions, and strategies of Khrushchev. This unique research opportunity has allowed the authors to tell the complete, fascinating, and terrifying story of the most dangerous days of the last half-century.

The most remarkable window that Americans have ever had into how their country is governed.

These volumes provide a unique glimpse into the real workings of the Kennedy White House, presenting perhaps the most reliable record of the Kennedy presidency ever published. In the summer of 1962, President John F. Kennedy installed a secret taping system in the White House. His aim was to record meetings and conversations he considered important, probably intending to use them when he wrote the memoir of his years in office, a book he never had the chance to write. The tapes are now being authoritatively transcribed, and those for the period from the installation of the tape system through October 28, 1962 (the end of the Cuban missile crisis), are presented here in their entirety.

Among the many highlights in these volumes, a fall in the stock market leads President Kennedy to consider a short-term tax break; a leak of highly classified intelligence information to the New York Times spurs Kennedy to confer with his advisers about how, for the first time, the White House might use the Central Intelligence Agency for domestic surveillance of American reporters; Kennedy tapes the tense hours as the White House dispatches the army to rescue James Meredith following Meredith's effort to enroll at the University of Mississippi; and, of course, the fascinating, secret discussions during the Cuban missile crisis.

The result is stunning, fly-on-the-wall history. Aided by the multimedia companion enclosed with this set on CD-ROM, anyone can now travel back in time and be there at the top of the most powerful government in the world in a time of crisis.

"It is hard to imagine a more instructive or exciting history than the presidential recordings of JFK's 'Great Crises.' The tense debate, the confusion, the insights, the jokes, the courage—it's all there, as it really happened. This is the true 'West Wing.'" —Evan Thomas

"The Great Crises is a treasure trove of new insights and information on three of the most promising and dangerous months in American history. These volumes will intrigue the general reader and keep historians working hard for a long time as we assess and reassess John Kennedy's presidency." —Michael Beschloss

"These volumes of presidential recordings both fascinate and illuminate. They show how John F. Kennedy reached his vital decisions, and they cast important new light on the conflicts of our times. This is history in the raw, and it is compelling." —Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

"There is nothing comparable to this multi-volume collection of presidential materials. This work is and will be an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the twentieth-century American presidency." —Robert Dallek

Lyndon B. Johnson secretly recorded 700 hours of telephone conversations as president. With these three volumes, slipcased with audio DVD, the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs begins a groundbreaking series that will ultimately include annotated transcripts of all of Johnson's White House conversations. Covering the dramatic months of November 1963 through January 1964, these volumes depict a man coming to grips with the awesome responsibilities of the presidency while simultaneously trying to lead a nation and a government in mourning. Captured on tape are Johnson's efforts to conciliate the Kennedy family while putting his own imprint on the office. Abroad, he is consumed by a coup in Vietnam, a bloody anti-American riot in Panama, a near civil war in Cyprus, and persistent leaks from within his own administration. Domestically, he pushes forward the civil rights revolution and leads a single-minded drive to reduce the size of the federal budget to gain political room for his war on poverty. Texts with audio DVD