Could democratic transformations in the USSR, which started in 1985, have begun much earlier? It turns out they could. At the end of the 50s, despite the tough confrontation in the ruling team, Khrushchev, having debunked the cult of Stalin, set a course for easing international tensions and serious reforms within the country. The years 1961 and 1962 turned out to be fatal for these plans, when excessive suspicion in Khrushchev’s relations with US President Eisenhower led to the disruption of the emerging détente and to a new round of the Cold War, and then to the resignation of Khrushchev himself. A book by the prominent Soviet diplomat Oleg Grinevsky is about this and much more related to the behind-the-scenes aspects of the foreign and domestic policy of the USSR.