The end of the Cold War was the most momentous event of our time. This book reveals the secret messages and private transactions between George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev that went on behind the scenes, including Bush's pledge not to press Gorbachev for Baltic independence, how the Soviet Union joined the Gulf War coalition and Bush's private warnings to the Russian president that he was about to be overthrown. From early in 1989, the authors were granted unprecedented access to classified US and Soviet documents, cables, telephone transcripts and diplomatic records. With novelistic detail they show Bush and Gorbachev behind closed doors as they fence with domestic foes and suspicious allies. They demonstrate how the greatest world leaders came to believe that their most dangerous opponents were no longer each other but forces within their own countries. As Beschloss and Talbott argue, their excessive reliance on each other contributed to Gorbachev's fall from power in December 1991 and Bush's own collapse less than a year later.