1945: World War II ended. But a new terror was just beginning...

This book takes us more vividly than ever to the time when the world stood on the brink of destruction.

Here is the truth behind every spy thriller we read: the reasons why America and the Soviet Union found themselves trapped in a deadly impasse; how close we came to nuclear annihilation; what the world leaders, from Stalin to Mao and from Reagan to Gorbachev, were thinking; how secret agents conspired and how East German vacationers contributed to the fall of the Wall.

A story of negotiations and tricks, tyrants and power games - and of ordinary people who changed the course of history.