Entering New Worlds: The Memoirs of a Private Man in Public Life

Kampelman tells the story of his Bronx boyhood, his pacifism and his years on Hubert Humphrey's staff; but the main attraction here is his experience in the past decade in negotiating with the Soviets. His success as ambassador and head of the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and as head of the delegation to the Geneva negotiations on nuclear and space arms paralleled his rise as a human-rights advocate, especially on behalf of Jews in the Soviet Union. The CSCE, a stage-setter for the detente that followed, gave the author, by his own reckoning, ``special insight into the vulnerability of totalitarianism in the face of the modern communications revolution,'' a vulnerability he capitalized on at the Geneva talks. His account of how the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) and Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) reductions were obtained without having to give up the ``Star Wars'' program makes for particularly instructive reading. Ambassador Kampelman retired from government service in 1989. (Nov.)