IT looked as if it was all going America’s way; Gorbachev, Reagan, Berlin and the Cold War warming up. Superficially, We Were Winning. Doing Business with the Commies.

Little did “they” realise what was actually happening to make the edifice rock. It wasn’t the USA in charge. Had anyone heard of Hungary? Just who was Lech Walesa? The government helped, in some cases, to bring itself down. Meyer tracks the unfolding Iron Curtain, meeting the movers and shakers hidden for years behind propaganda shields.

Bumping into the powerbrokers in both East and West, he unobtrusively works his way into their confidence.