cover image From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision: A Memoir

From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision: A Memoir

Paul Nitze. Grove/Atlantic, $25 (504pp) ISBN 978-1-55584-110-2

An adviser to George Bush on arms control, Nitze has been a Washington policymaker since the Roosevelt administration, holding high positions in the defense, navy and state departments under various presidents. This direct participant in history interrogated captured Nazi war-criminal Albert Speer, witnessed the devastation in Nagasaki shortly after the atom bomb was dropped, helped shape Europe's postwar recovery plan, took part in the Cuban missile crisis and the Vietnam imbroglio, and was a key negotiator in the SALT and INF arms-control talks. Over a third of this straightforward, somewhat bland memoir, written with freelancers Rearden and Smith, deals with arms negotiations. The sections that spotlight historic dramas are more interesting, sprinkled with frank close-ups of Dean Acheson, Truman, Eisenhower, MacArthur, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Kissinger, Gorbachev, others. (Oct.)