Assignment Russia

Becoming a Foreign Correspondent in the Crucible of the Cold War

By: Marvin Kalb

Narrated by: Marvin Kalb

Length: 13 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

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.

What a voice!

What timing to find this book right now, while Russia wages war on the Ukraine. I want to sit down with the author, Mr. Marvin Kalb, and find out what he has to say. As the title infers, Mr. Kalb became a foreign correspondent during the cold war. Hired in 1957 by the legendary Edward R. Murrow (if you don't know who he is, google his name plus "takes down Joseph McCarthy") because of his Russian expertise, Kalb was focused on becoming a Russian correspondent and this book, the second of his memoirs, takes us through his pursuit of this goal. Not only does he give us a look into early TV news reporting, he is there for many significant events, he travels to several East Asian countries, he spends time in Russia, he's a witness to Pasternak's death, he interviews USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev during the 1960 U-2 spy plane incident, and so much more.

If you like history and memoirs, you'll enjoy this. You'll especially enjoy hearing Mr. Kalb narrate this book himself. What a voice! And he's in his 90s!

Because of this book, I also listened to "Enemy of the People," also by Marvin Kalb. Although it was a bit dated, given that it was a warming about Donald Trump, it was still a good listen with a lot of great wisdom in it. Unfortunately, it wasn't narrated by Mr. Kalb.