K Blows Top

April 6, 2009
Although Punch
magazine famously commented on the humor of Nikita Khrushchev’s desire to visit Disneyland during his 1959 trip to America, Carlson a former writer for the Washington Post
, can still mine the tour with hilarious results, due in equal parts to Khrushchev’s outsized provocateur personality and the bizarre and thoroughly American reaction to his visit. Numerous secondary players provide comic support: then vice president Richard Nixon’s fixations on mano a mano debates with the quicksilver premier; Boston Brahmin and U.N. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Khrushchev’s tour guide, who dutifully filed daily analysis of Khrushchev’s public tantrums; popular gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, who in a noteworthy example of bad taste attacked Mrs. Khrushchev’s attire. A host of other American icons also make appearances: among them Herbert Hoover, Marilyn Monroe, Shirley MacLaine and Frank Sinatra. Although Carlson’s focuses on the comic, there are insights into Khrushchev’s personality, many provided by his son Sergei, now a respected professor at Brown University, illuminating the method in Khrushchev’s madness. All in all, in Carson’s hands the cold war is a surprisingly laughing matter.

Starred review from March 1, 2009
At a time when the Cold War was at its chilliest, an amazing thing happened: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, the energetic and unpredictable leader of America's most hated enemy, took a tour across the breadth of America in summer 1959. Followed by a gaggle of press, curious spectators, and nervous government security forces, the sometimes amiable, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes maddening Khrushchev held the limelight for ten days as he sampled American culture and cuisine while extolling the advantages of his Communist homeland. Carlson, who has spent his career at various journalistic posts, including the "Washington Post, " has crafted an exceedingly entertaining and detailed history of this momentous event. Pouring over hundreds of newspaper clippings as well as the most significant published memoirs and secondary sources, he brings a refreshing liveliness to the episode and the era. For anyone interested in this remarkable moment in the long history of U.S.-Soviet relations, Carlson's book is a treat! For most collections.Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib. Ames

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2009
A high-spirited, often hilarious account of a forgotten moment in Cold War history.

It began as something of a dare, as if the last occupant of the White House had invited Saddam Hussein to visit Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon and then debate the superiority of American over Ba'athist culture. In this instance, following the so-called Kitchen Debate in Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev set out on a road show to beat the capitalists at their own game, proving that the Soviets knew all about refrigerators, ICBMs and hot dogs. Former Washington Post reporter Carlson writes that Khrushchev's back-and-forth wanderings across the country in 1959 were quite bizarre, drawing many protests but some admiration. Among those in the former camp was Marilyn Monroe, who thought the Russian leader"was fat and ugly and had warts on his face and he growled...Who would want to be a Communist with a president like that?" Walt Disney refused him admission to Disneyland, and the American Dental Association refused to make room for him when he arrived in New York. A less volatile ruler might have brushed such things aside, but Khrushchev, goaded by Richard Nixon, was in a fighting mood, clearly wanting to impress upon the American people the fact that his finger was on the button that could launch thermonuclear doomsday. Carlson writes both vividly and sardonically of Khrushchev's tour, with its mundane and strange moments alike, among the latter a wonderful moment when the San Francisco Beats erected a sign to greet"Big Red" with the words,"Welcome to San Francisco, Noel Coward!" Fortunately, given all the opportunities to tick Khrushchev off beyond repair, Americans behaved themselves.

A fast-paced work of political history, peppered with references to Shirley MacLaine's knickers, Iowa corn, Dwight Eisenhower's frown, Nina Khrushchev's sidelong glances at Frank Sinatra and all the other makings of mutually assured destruction.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from April 15, 2009
Most North Americans remember Nikita Khrushchev, the Russian dictator, as the guy who banged his shoe on his desk at the UN in 1960. Few recall that the shoe-banging was preceded by a 1959 visit to the U.S. in which Khrushchev, or K as he was headlined in the press, toured the country and captivated the world with his comic, belligerent, threatening, childish, and just-plain-offbeat antics. This hugely entertaining book chronicles that cross-country adventure. Drawing on contemporary news reports, modern interviews, and memoirs written by some of the participants, its a story about a poorly educated but extraordinarily powerful man who became, for a brief time, a pop-culture icon. Here was a man who could quite literally bring about the annihilation of the world (or so he frequently claimed) meeting Hollywood icons, eating hot dogs, mugging for the press, arguing with President Eisenhower, making fun of Vice President Nixon, and behaving as though he was unaware of the widespread social turmoil caused by his visit. The book is consistently informative and funny, but there are episodes that are strangely surrealfor example, the showdown between the State Department and the American Dental Association over who got to use a certain hotel ballroom (the dentists won). This is a fine example of popular history at its most engaginganecdotal but informative and written with great feeling for the comedic side of current events.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)