Assignment Russia
Becoming a Foreign Correspondent in the Crucible of the Cold War
by Marvin Kalb
Narrated by Marvin Kalb
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date 21 Oct 2021 | Archive Date 10 Apr 2022
Talking about this book? Use #AssignmentRussia #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
A personal journey through some of the darkest moments of the cold war and the early days of television news.
Marvin Kalb, the award-winning journalist who has written extensively about the world he reported on during his long career, now turns his eye on the young man who became that journalist. Chosen by legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow to become one of what came to be known as the Murrow Boys, Kalb in this newest volume of his memoirs takes listeners back to his first days as a journalist, and what also were the first days of broadcast news.
Kalb captures the excitement of being present at the creation of a whole new way of bringing news immediately to the public. And what news. Cold War tensions were high between Eisenhower’s America and Khrushchev’s Soviet Union. Kalb is at the center, occupying a unique spot as a student of Russia tasked with explaining Moscow to Washington and the American public. He joins a cast of legendary figures along the way, from Murrow himself to Eric Severeid, Howard K. Smith, Richard Hottelet, Charles Kuralt, and Daniel Schorr among many others. He finds himself assigned as Moscow correspondent of CBS News just as the U2 incident - the downing of a US spy plane over Russian territory - is unfolding.
As listeners of his first volume, The Year I Was Peter the Great, will recall, being the right person, in the right place, at the right time found Kalb face to face with Khrushchev. Assignment Russia sees Kalb once again an eyewitness to history - and a writer and analyst who has helped shape the first draft of that history.
Kalb witnessed and interpreted many of the defining events of the Cold War. In Assignment Russia, he ultimately finds himself assigned as Moscow correspondent for CBS News just as the U-2 incident - the downing of a US spy plane over Russian territory - is unfolding. Kalb brings alive once again the tension that surrounded that event, and the reportorial skills deployed to illuminate it.
©2021 Brookings Institution Press (P)2021 Post Hypnotic Press Inc.
Advance Praise
"I grew up listening to and watching many of the correspondents described in this book. It was a treat to read about their careers as well as Mr. Kalb’s early days. I didn’t want it to end—which is for me always a good recommendation. (AMAZON.COM)
An interesting reminiscence of a fraught time with great thumbnails of people I remember listening to. Also a good primer on succeeding in a competitive bureaucracy: know your stuff and pick good mentors. Loved the stories of battling the Russian system. But one story remains incomplete: what ever happened to the footage of Pasternak’s funeral? Any chance that the “pigeons” were in fact KGB “hawks”? (AMAZON.COM)"
Available Editions
| EDITION | Audiobook |
| ISBN | 9781772562118 |
| PRICE | US$24.95 (USD) |
| DURATION | 13 Hours, 1 Minutes |
Links
Featured Reviews
Abby S, Reviewer
What a wonderfully fascinating book. It’s incredibly relevant to the things going on in the world right now and I felt like I got such a good insight into the person Malvin Kalb was when he was younger. I also really enjoyed the narrator and felt they did a wonderful job. This has definitely got me interested in learning more about the Cold War and Russia as well as the author himself.
Readers who liked this book also liked:
Corinne Delporte, illustrated by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, translated by Carine Laforest
Children's Fiction
