ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the following three main points—the problematic nature of “journalistic history”; the even more serious problem of “novelistic” journalistic history; and the ominous collusion between anonymous officials and favored journalists, together engaged in surreptitiously feeding the public a version of events for which no one can be held accountable. Even experienced journalists have taken Deadly Gambits: The Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in Nuclear Arms Control to be more like history than like ordinary journalism. Strobe Talbott’s new book, Deadly Gambits, has introduced something new to the literature of nuclear arms policy-making. It has been praised by distinguished reviewers. It seemed important and authoritative enough for Walter Mondale to recommend it twice in his second television encounter with President Ronald Reagan in 1980. It is the work of an experienced and well-informed journalist, who was diplomatic correspondent for Time magazine from 1977 until recently, when he became Washington bureau chief.
