Absolutely fantastic. HIGHLY recommend to everyone. As of the writing of this review, the full documentary discussed in this book is available on YouTube, and in my opinion is a must-watch companion to this book. ( )

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My favorite kind of book: nonfiction that reads like a novel. Highly recommended if you want to understand how the Berlin Wall affected people on both sides of it. ( )

> How much did NBC pay the diggers? The real answer is $12,000, which paid for five tons of steel for the rail in the tunnel, a VW van, electric cables and bulbs, pumps to suck out water, compressors and pipes to bring fresh air in, pulleys, ropes and motors for the cart, and lastly, several months’ worth of tea, coffee and sandwiches.

> a State Department spokesman said that the NBC film is ‘not in the national interest’, that it’s ‘risky, irresponsible, undesirable and contrary to the best interests of the United States’.

> five days later, Khrushchev caved in, agreeing to dismantle every single one of his missiles in Cuba. It was a victory for Kennedy, the man who’d done so little when the Berlin Wall was built. The ‘boy in short pants’ had learnt from that experience, shown he could stand up to Khrushchev. ( )

Great history book about the Berlin Wall. Lot's of good info. I served in the U. S. Army in Berlin. The morning I arrived the body of the last person to die attempting an escape was still growing cold. I was still in Berlin a year later when the wall finally came down. It was incredibly exciting watching East Germans step through newly opened holes to the West. They would stare, wide eyed, at the wealth of the West and then at night find their way back through the wall to the East. It was winter and they went home to their apartments and put coal in their stoves. I suspect they had long discussions about what they saw and how far behind they had fallen. ( )