About this item

A thrilling Cold War narrative of superpower showdowns, media suppression, and two escape tunnels beneath the Berlin Wall In the summer of 1962, the year after the rise of the Berlin Wall, a group of young West Germans risked prison, Stasi torture, and even death to liberate friends, lovers, and strangers in East Berlin by digging tunnels under the Wall. Then two U.S. television networks heard about the secret projects and raced to be first to document them from the inside. NBC and CBS funded two separate tunnels in return for the right to film the escapes, planning spectacular prime-time specials. President John F. Kennedy, however, was wary of anything that might spark a confrontation with the Soviets, having said, "A wall is better than a war," and even confessing to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, "We don't care about East Berlin." JFK approved unprecedented maneuvers to quash both documentaries, testing the limits of a free press in an era of escalating nuclear tensions.As Greg Mitchell's riveting narrative unfolds, we meet extraordinary characters: the legendary cyclist who became East Germany's top target for arrest; the Stasi informer who betrays the "CBS tunnel"; the American student who aided the escapes; an engineer who would later help build the tunnel under the English channel; the young East Berliner who fled with her baby, then married one of the tunnelers. Capturing the chilling reach of the Stasi secret police, U.S. networks prepared to "pay for play" yet willing to cave to official pressure, a White House eager to suppress historic coverage, and the subversive power of ordinary people in dire circumstances, The Tunnels is breaking history, a propulsive read whose themes still reverberate.



About the Author

Greg Mitchell

Greg Mitchell is the author of dozen non-fiction books. His latest, with an October 2016 pub date, is "THE TUNNELS: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill" (Crown) . His other books include: "Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas" (a New York Times Notable Book) ; "The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor and the Birth of Media Politics" (winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize) ; "So Wrong for So Long," on Iraq and the media; and two books with Robert Jay Lifton, "Hiroshima in America" and "Who Owns Death? "Mitchell won numerous national awards as the editor of Editor & Publisher from 2001 to 2009. He began his magazine career as Senior Editor of the legendary Crawdaddy for most of the 1970s and helped create the first major article about Bruce Springsteen (and later was presented with a gold record for "Born to Run") . He co-produced the recent film, "Following the Ninth," about the cultural and political impact of Beethoven's Ninth symphony around the world in recent years, and has served as adviser to other acclaimed documentaries. His articles have appeared in dozens of national magazines and leading newspapers such as The New York Times and Washington Post. He lives in the New York City area.



Read Next Recommendation

Report incorrect product information.