Award-winning historian MICHAEL BESCHLOSS (BEHSH-loss). He's just co-authored a new book, "At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War." (Little, Brown & Co.). BESCHLOSS and co-author Strobe Talbot were in contact with officials and communiques. in both American and Soviet governments, and with officials in NATO and the Warsaw Pact from about 1989 on. They meant to write about relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and ended up with a confidant's access to the end of the cold war. They show the close tie between George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, and how the two were so closely attuned to each other that "it eventually caused both men to lose touch with their domestic constituencies." (This interview continues in the second half of the
Copyright 1993 Fresh Air