Excerpt from K Blows Top by Peter Carlson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

By sheer coincidence, the golfer was Senator J. William Fulbright, who had invited Khrushchev to tea with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the next day.

The premier was not as impressed by America’s traffic jams as Ike had hoped, nor was he thrilled by the sight of grown men whacking a little white ball around a manicured meadow. But he loved the helicopter. If this was the modern statesman’s latest status symbol, Khrushchev wanted one. In fact, he wanted more than one.

When he got home, the premier placed an order for three helicopters, specifying that he wanted them to be just like Ike’s.

Excerpted from K Blows Top, by Peter Carlson, available now from PublicAffairs (www.publicaffairsbooks.com), a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2009.