Andropov discusses his rise to leadership in the Soviet Union, his roles in the KGB and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, his campaign against dissidents and detente, his impact on the Polish crisis, and his future plans.

I have been working on this book since leaving Russia in April of 1972. It was my wish to write this book in English, and there were what seemed to me to be serious reasons for doing so. In recent years there has appeared a wealth of literature, in Russian, about Russia. As a rule, this literature has been published outside the USSR by authors who still live in the Soviet Union or who have only recently left it. A fair amount of important literature is being translated into English, but I believe it will be read main ly by specialists in Russian studies, or by those who have a great interest in the subject already. The majority of Russian authors write, of course, for the Russian reader or for an imagined Western public. It is my feeling that Russian authors have serious difficulties in understanding the men tality of Westerners, and that there still exists a gap between the visions of Russians and non-Russians. I have made my humble attempt to bridge ~his gap and I will be happy if I am even partly successful. The Russian world is indeed fascinating. Many people who visit Russia for a few days or weeks find it a country full of historical charm, fantastic architecture and infinite mystery. For many inside the country, especial ly for those in conflict with the Soviet authorities.

A riveting, real-life thriller about 1983--the year tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union nearly brought the world to the point of nuclear Armageddon The year 1983 was an extremely dangerous one--more dangerous than 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the United States, President Reagan vastly increased defense spending, described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," and launched the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative to shield the country from incoming missiles. Seeing all this, Yuri Andropov, the paranoid Soviet leader, became convinced that the US really meant to attack the Soviet Union and he put the KGB on high alert, looking for signs of an imminent nuclear attack. When a Soviet plane shot down a Korean civilian jet, Reagan described it as "a crime against humanity." And Moscow grew increasingly concerned about America's language and behavior. Would they attack? The temperature rose fast. In November the West launched a wargame exercise, codenamed "Abel Archer," that looked to the Soviets like the real thing. With Andropov's finger inching ever closer to the nuclear button, the world was truly on the brink. This is an extraordinary and largely unknown Cold War story of spies and double agents, of missiles being readied, intelligence failures, misunderstandings, and the panic of world leaders. With access to hundreds of astonishing new documents, Taylor Downing tells for the first time the gripping but true story of how near the world came to nuclear war in 1983.

"A hugely absorbing first novel from a writer with a fluid, vivid style and a rare knack for balancing the pleasure of entertainment with the deeper gratification of insight. More, please.” —Maggie Shipstead, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) "A story about Russia, the United States, friendship, identity, defection, and deception that is smart, startling, and worth reading regardless of when you were born.” —Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine "Holt's beguiling debut… in which there is no difference between personal and political betrayal, vividly conjures the anxieties of the Cold War without ever lapsing into nostalgia." —The New Yorker Sarah Zuckerman and Jennifer Jones are best friends in an upscale part of Washington, D.C., in the politically charged 1980s. Sarah is the shy, wary product of an unhappy home: her father abandoned the family to return to his native England; her agoraphobic mother is obsessed with fears of nuclear war. Jenny is an all-American girl who has seemingly perfect parents. With Cold War rhetoric reaching a fever pitch in 1982, the ten-year-old girls write letters to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov asking for peace. But only Jenny's letter receives a response, and Sarah is left behind when her friend accepts the Kremlin's invitation to visit the USSR and becomes an international media sensation. The girls' icy relationship still hasn't thawed when Jenny and her parents die tragically in a plane crash in 1985. Ten years later, Sarah is about to graduate from college when she receives a mysterious letter from Moscow suggesting that Jenny's death might have been a hoax. She sets off to the former Soviet Union in search of the truth, but the more she delves into her personal Cold War history, the harder it is to separate facts from propaganda. You Are One of Them is a taut, moving debut about the ways in which we define ourselves against others and the secrets we keep from those who are closest to us. In her insightful forensic of a mourned friendship, Holt illuminates the long lasting sting of abandonment and the measures we take to bring back those we have lost.

By turns radical, uncertain, ambitious, and autocratic, Mikhail Gorbachev in his bid to reform the Soviet Union has shaped the contemporary world. In 1985, he set out to modernize the Soviet state and revive his Communist Party. Instead, by the end of 1991, the USSR had fragmented and the Party was banned. Institutions which had survived for 70 years, notwithstanding Stalin's murderous purges and the Nazi war machine, proved unable to survive his well-meant reforms.

A ten-year-old from Maine describes her trip to Russia at the invitation of Yuri Andropov after writing him a letter expressing her fears about a nuclear war.

In The Inconvenient Journalist, Dusko Doder, writing with his spouse and journalistic partner Louise Branson, describes how one February night crystalized the values and personal risks that shaped his life. The frigid Moscow night in question was in 1984, and Washington Post correspondent Doder reported signs that Soviet leader Yuri Andropov had died. The CIA at first dismissed the reporting, saying that "Doder must be smoking pot." When Soviet authorities confirmed Andropov's death, journalists and intelligence officials questioned how a lone reporter could scoop the multibillion-dollar US spy agency. The stage was set for Cold War-style revenge against the star journalist, and that long night at the teletype machine in Moscow became a pivotal moment in Doder's life. After emigrating to the United States from Yugoslavia in 1956, Doder committed himself to the journalist's mission. He knew that reporting the truth could come at a price, something driven home by his years of covering Soviet dissidents and watching his Washington Post colleagues break the Watergate story. Still, he was not prepared for a cloaked act of reprisal from the CIA. Taking aim at Doder, the CIA insinuated a story into Time magazine suggesting that he had been coopted by the KGB. Doder's professional world collapsed and his personal life was shaken as he fought Time in court. In The Inconvenient Journalist, Doder reflects on this attempt to destroy his reputation, his dedication to reporting the truth, and the vital but precarious role of the free press today. The Inconvenient Journalist is a powerful human story and a must-read for all concerned about freedom of the press and truthful reporting.