Speaker: Marvin Kalb, on his new memoir

In the early 1960's, the most dangerous years of the Cold War, Marvin Kalb brought the curiosity and excitement of a young American journalist to Moscow, where he kept a record of his daily CBS broadcasts on the building confrontation between Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and American President John F. Kennedy.

A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course is an unusual memoir, professional but also personal. It relies on Kalb's daily broadcasts from Moscow, travels through the communist world, including Mongolia, and reporting on the Soviet leadership, especially Nikita Khrushchev, who often referred to Kalb as "Peter the Great," a story unto itself. It focuses on the darkest moments of the Cold War, when Khrushchev confronted President John F. Kennedy at the Vienna summit in June 1961, the building of the Berlin Wall, the break-up of the Sino-Soviet alliance, and the Cuban missile crisis, which brought the world to the edge of a nuclear war.

The book, set for publication on January 15, 2025, and available for pre-order now, has been widely praised by many leading experts, scholars and journalists. TV anchor Ted Koppel described the book as "high drama, nuclear brinksmanship…the pulse-pounding stories of the 1960’s." And scholar William Taubman, who wrote the classic study of Khrushchev, said, "this wonderful memoir combines insightful recollections of Khrushchev’s harrowing clashes with Kennedy over Berlin and Cuba." 

Marvin Kalb has been a reporter, teacher and author for more than 70 years. He is the Edward R. Murrow Professor Emeritus at Harvard, where he was also the Founding Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Kalb has also been a visiting professor at Georgetown University and The George Washington University. He has covered and studied Soviet politics from Khrushchev to Putin, numerous wars from Vietnam to Ukraine, and American election campaigns from Ike to Trump.

While working for 30 years at CBS News and NBC News, first as Moscow bureau chief and then as Diplomatic Correspondent and host of Meet the Press, Kalb moderated the Kalb Report at the National Press Club, an award-winning radio and television interview program broadcast nationally on PBS. In addition to many other awards, he is the recipient of a Gold Emmy for "excellence in journalism." He has been a contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, The Boston Globe and many other publications.