Above & beyond : John F. Kennedy and America's most dangerous Cold War spy mission
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"In 1963, President Kennedy gave the commencement address at the American University in Washington, DC. The Cuban Missile Crisis had forced him to reexamine the Cold War and his onetime foe Nikita Khrushchev. Those tense thirteen days in October 1962 had brought both leaders closer together as the world itself drew perilously close to nuclear war. JFK had pushed for direct contact with his Soviet counterpart and had a special hotline installed between the White House and the Kremlin and a second hotline in the basement of his home so that the leaders could discuss future issues themselves without the dangers of misinterpretation. The world seemed a warmer and brighter place than it had been that previous October, during the darkest and coldest days of the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union were now working toward a treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons testing, an outcome inconceivable just months before. It was indeed the dawn of a new era, something the president had promised during his inauguration in 1961. Now, two years later, he was about to give what Nikita Khrushchev called 'the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt'" --,Provided by publisher.