Few realize that behind Mikhail Gorbachev’s Cold War-ending perestroika reforms stood an owlish figure who was just as important as the Soviet leader himself. Fewer still know the role Canada played in transforming Gorbachev’s advisor from a devout Stalinist to the most potent force for democracy and justice ever to walk the halls of the Kremlin. His name was Aleksandr Yakovlev. Today in an increasingly autocratic Russia he’s reviled as the man who brought down the Soviet empire–the "architect" of perestroika and the "godfather" of glasnost, who, some say, was the puppetmaster manipulating Gorbachev’s strings. Yakovlev is acknowledged to have devised the strategy that won Gorbachev the job of Soviet leader. After the Soviet collapse, Yakovlev was the only other man present as Gorbachev negotiated his transfer of power to Russian president Boris Yeltsin. In between, Yakovlev was behind every democratic measure Gorbachev instituted, leading the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Remnick to dub him "Gorbachev’s good angel." His origins were anything but democratic. As a youth, Yakovlev was a faithful Communist who idolized Stalin. By 1970 he had ascended to a position that controlled every media outlet in the Soviet Union, requiring him to plot repressive strategies against such dissidents as Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov But then a mis-step caused the Party to banish him from Moscow. A disgraced Yakovlev landed in the Cold War backwater of Ottawa working as the Soviet ambassador to Canada. His career should have been over. But Yakovlev’s diplomatic posting functioned as an education in Western democracy. He grew fascinated with elections, attended trials and became an expert in the machinations of a market economy. He also developed a close friendship with Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who helped arrange to bring Mikhail Gorbachev on his first visit to North America. It was in Canada that Gorbachev and Yakovlev struck up their friendship as they strategized for the first time the radical changes known as perestroika. Drawing on interviews with Yakovlev’s family and dozens of his friends, as well as never-before-disclosed archival research material, The Soviet Ambassador recounts Yakovlev’s tortuous evolution from Stalin’s acolyte to Stalinism’s nemesis, from faithful member of the Communist Party to liberal democrat engineering the same Party’s collapse. With profound implications for diplomacy in a conflict-driven age, Yakovlev’s story is also a remarkable testament to the power of conviction, and an inspiring account of an underdog overcoming injustice to improve the lives of his fellow citizens.

The United States and Canada are salt water neighbors on the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans. Despite the general closeness of the political, economic and social relationship, the two States have approached their offshore areas from different perspectives. Canada has long supported expansion of exclusive national control over its adjacent offshore; whereas the United States has been concerned with the balance between national authority and international navigation rights. Canada has tended to view maritime disputes with the United States as local matters; whereas the United States has tended to see the disputes with Canada in global terms. Against this background, Salt Water Neighbor's examines both the international ocean law disagreements that exist between the United States and Canada respecting maritime boundaries, fisheries and navigation rights (e.g., the Northwest Passage) and the numerous cooperative bilateral arrangements that have prevented these disputes from being significant causes of friction between the neighbors. There has not been a comprehensive book-length study of United States-Canada international ocean relations since the early 1970s. Much has changed in the last 30 years. Most importantly, the law and the nature of the disputes between the two States have changed as a result of the adoption of 200 nautical mile zones in the late 1970s.

Annotation Employing previously classified Cabinet minutes, memoranda, letters, diaries, drafts of speeches, and other documents, Simpson (political science, U. of Western Ontario) analyzes the underlying beliefs and assumptions of high-level policymakers responsible for shaping Canada's approach to NATO in the cold war years. For over 30 years, two conflicting belief systems--the "defenders" and the "critics"--Significantly influenced Canada's shifting defense policy, particularly in the areas of nuclear weapons acquisitions and Canadian troop contributions to Europe. Simpson's analysis helps explain contemporary defense decisions and Canada's fluctuating attitudes toward NATO, which have puzzled Americans and Europeans. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).