Endgame; The Inside Story of Salt II

New York: Harper & Row, 1982. Third printing [stated]. Trade paperback. Good. [8], 335, [3] pages. Appendix: The SALT II Agreement. Index. Foreword to the paperback edition. Some ink underlining and highlighting noted. Stamp of an institution on verso, with ink notation. Nelson Strobridge "Strobe" Talbott III (born April 25, 1946) is an American foreign policy analyst associated with Yale University and the Brookings Institution, a former journalist associated with Time magazine and diplomat who served as the Deputy Secretary of State from 1994 to 2001. Through the 1980s he was Time magazine's principal correspondent on Soviet-American relations, and his work for the magazine was cited in the three Overseas Press Club Awards. Talbott also wrote several books on disarmament. Following Bill Clinton's election to national office, Talbott was invited into government where he served as Ambassador-at-Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State on the New Independent States. After leaving government, he was for a period Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization before joining the Brookings Institution. Derived from a Kirkus review: Talbott, Time magazine's diplomatic correspondent, does a good job here of explaining the intricacies of SALT II while rehearsing the bureaucratic maneuvering that produced it--with an emphasis on the final phase of the negotiations that began with the Carter Administration (hence ""Endgame""). Talbott documents the give-and-take between the two sides, as well as within the different departments and bureaus of the U.S. government--between SALT II negotiator Warnke and Secretary of State Vance, who were willing to give ground for the sake of an agreement, and Secretary of Defense Brown, who tried to stand firm; and between Brown and the Joint Chiefs, who wanted to take ground from the Soviets. Instead of extending the discussion of SALT II to include its effects on other present or future nuclear powers, or on the military form conflicts are likely to take as a result of SALT, Talbott is content to remain within familiar borders. A helpful focused work seeking to advance public debate.