Marvin Kalb published his book entitled A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course with Modern Memoirs in 2024. This Assisted Memoir took just one and one-half months from the day we started the project to the day books arrived on his doorstep. We asked Kalb to reflect on publishing his memoir, his career, and the field of journalism.
For seven decades, Marvin Kalb has been a journalist, teacher, and writer. He is the Edward R. Murrow Professor Emeritus at Harvard, where he was Founding Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. After 30 years at CBS News and NBC News, first as Moscow bureau chief and then as Diplomatic Correspondent and Moderator of Meet the Press, Kalb retired in 2023 as host of the Kalb Report, an award-winning interview program launched in 1994 by the National Press Club and broadcast by Public Television stations across the country.
A Different Russia is the 17th book that Kalb has authored or co-authored. It is also the third in a series of his memoirs, preceded in 2017 by The Year I Was Peter the Great: 1956―Khrushchev, Stalin’s Ghost, and a Young American in Russia, and in 2021 by Assignment Russia: Becoming a Foreign Correspondent in the Crucible of the Cold War. In A Different Russia, Kalb based his reporting on his daily CBS broadcasts, covering the growing confrontation between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and American President John F. Kennedy.
1. What prompted you to write a third memoir and to publish it with Modern Memoirs? What did you want to share in this book that you had not covered in other books?
Marvin Kalb: My story as a Moscow correspondent for CBS during the Cold War was not finished in the first two volumes. The first volume introduced me to Moscow as a very young attaché at the American Embassy. It was then that I met Khrushchev, and he began referring to me as “Peter the Great.” The second volume followed my career at CBS, where I was hired by Edward R. Murrow. The third and final volume opens with me in Moscow, covering such major stories as the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The book of course discusses many other stories, including what it was like to live in a communist capital during dangerous moments of the Cold War.
2. In a 2017 PBS News Hour interview, you commented on the nature of memoir writing, saying that writing about yourself is “much more difficult than writing about the world or an event.” Why is that so? How did you overcome that difficulty?
Marvin Kalb: I’ve spent most of my life writing about the world—political upheavals, wars, prominent personalities, such as Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger, Khrushchev, Golda Meir, and many others. As a journalist, I considered myself detached from the subject, whether politics or presidents. My job was to cover the story, not be part of it. When I write about myself, I am the story, and how can I possibly be objective about myself?
In this book, I was helped by the fact that much of my source material was in my broadcasts. I kept copies of most of them. By referring to a broadcast, rather than relying on my memory, I had an “objective” source. This was very helpful, and it put distance between me and my copy. The broadcast provided a source, a basis in fact. I try to be objective in this memoir, and I hope I succeed, but I don’t know. I leave that judgment to the reader.
3. When you were living and working in Moscow in the early 1960s, CBS was entering a new era in broadcast news, transitioning from radio to television, or “from Murrow to Cronkite,” as you said. From your perspective, what, if anything, did the press, as a service or product, gain or lose with that innovation?
“The rise of social media and reckless political comments have encouraged a deep distrust of what is seen as “fake news.” Disinformation spreads. Facts are challenged. News is undervalued.”
Marvin Kalb: I was new to journalism as journalism in the early 1960s swung into a new world of TV news. The old world was print and radio, staffed by such giants as Murrow and Sevareid. The new world was yet to build its own giants, reporters such as Cronkite, Rather, Brokaw, and Koppel, and I slipped into this new world as a Moscow correspondent, trying to manage 16 mm cameras and radio microphones and “live” broadcasts. At the same time, I worked for The Sunday Times of London, wrote books, and balanced the old world of print journalism with the new world of radio/TV news, and now, God help us, social media.
The new technology provided immediacy. The TV viewer had the sense, watching the film, that he or she was with you at the moment something happened or something was said. But my strong impression was that with radio, the reporter had more time to think about content before writing it down. Murrow waited 48 hours before reporting on his visit to a concentration camp. He needed the time to think about what he’d seen before saying a word. With the new technology came speed, demanding quick commentary, and that was admired, but it often discouraged more serious contemplation of the meaning, the background, of a newsworthy event.
4. The title and contents of your book invite a comparison of Khrushchev’s Russia to that of Putin’s today. You write, “Khrushchev reached out to the West, hoping on his terms for better relations and broader exchanges. He called such relations ‘peaceful coexistence.’ Putin turned his back on the West, considering the United States to be an ‘evil,’ ‘hegemonic’ enemy, constantly plotting against Russia.” In the years you were there under Khrushchev’s leadership, how was it a different Russia for American journalists, as well? In what ways did you conduct your work that would not be allowed today?
Marvin Kalb: The principal difference for a journalist between Khrushchev’s Russia and Putin’s Russia is Khrushchev did not see a Western reporter as an enemy; in fact, on many occasions he welcomed interviews, enjoyed open Q&As with reporters, didn’t lock up reporters, though he did on occasion expel one or two. Putin keeps his distance, rarely gives an interview, never welcomes an exchange with a journalist, and imprisons those he dislikes. He’s much more like Stalin, removed, distant, untouchable.
With Khrushchev, I was one of 16 American journalists based in Moscow. Our reporting provided the American people with essential information about their principal adversary. With Putin, there are occasional journalistic visits to Moscow, but few if any reporters are actually based there. The upshot is that the American people, unfortunately, know a lot less about their adversary. And this is a dangerous void in an increasingly dangerous time.
5. You open your book with a dedication “to the defense of personal truth and national credibility,” and you close with a prayer that your grandchildren “will grow up in a strong democratic America able to live side by side in peaceful competition with a Russia that is true to its best traditions.” In this age of disinformation and “fake news,” what can American journalists do to uphold the strength of the Fourth Estate in their own country?
Marvin Kalb: In my opinion, American democracy now rests on the shoulders of American journalism. Unfortunately, American journalism is gradually losing the support of the American people. The journalist joins the Congressman among the least admired professionals in the country. The rise of social media and reckless political comments have encouraged a deep distrust of what is seen as “fake news.” Disinformation spreads. Facts are challenged. News is undervalued. The next four years will determine whether the journalist has the strength and determination to fight back and recapture the high ground of credibility and trust he once enjoyed. At the moment this appears to be a distant but not unattainable goal.
Much will ultimately depend less on the journalist than on the owner of his news outlet. Owners increasingly seem more concerned about their relationship to the president than about their outlet’s coverage of the president. They seem to want to avoid offending the president. They want good relations with the Trump White House, meaning they prefer in the long run less critical coverage of the president. I’m told a fear now runs through the newsrooms of American journalism. If true, what a shame!
Liz Sonnenberg is staff genealogist for Modern Memoirs, Inc.
