How Khrushchev Underestimated Kennedy

One evening in October 1962, Nikita Khrushchev attended a performance of Boris Godunov starring the American opera star Jerome Hines. Khrushchev led a standing ovation and congratulated Hines backstage. This might not sound like much, but it was in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course by Marvin Kalb BookBaby, 532 pp.

The idea of normal, even friendly contact between Americans and the Russian premier during the single...