Eight years on from the most destructive conflict in human history, the Cold War enters its deadliest phase as the United States and Soviet Union clash in a bloody proxy war on the Korean Peninsula. As Churchill yearns for peace with the Kremlin and President Eisenhower cautions the West not to drop its guard, Stalin conducts vicious campaigns against imaginary internal enemies. Looking back at a perilous juncture, Roger Hermiston traces the political strife and the terrifying arms race between East and West.