Over the years I have read this book several time and enjoyed it each time. ( )

This is an interesting book, which documents events leading up to Hope's invitation for the wife of Khrushchev to visit Disneyland. Hope wanted to do a variety show in Russia bringing a crew to film the Russian performers and have some conversational exchange by the actors themselves. Hardly any of this materialized but the book shows how busy Hope was during these couple of years filming and touring US bases. Bob Hope, it seems, originated the idea of a modern day monologue as sort of an introduction to the subsequent performers during a show. The monologue was a set of humorous one-liners specially prepared for the local audience but bridging the topics to more general informational “news” which were usually Hollywood updates. Hope here talks about his esteem for the troops who had been left at the farthest reaches of the globe and how their response made his efforts worthwhile. At the essence of Hope’s work is being a stage performer. As such he needed to gather large crowds for his shows. The book goes over some of the elaborate planning, which was required and had almost derailed his Russian trip. Hope went to any length for his audience and for that reason he became beloved by all everywhere. Be it hot wars, Cold wars, the troops knew that US had not totally forgotten them if a Hope show was coming. He took great pride in never canceling a show unless travel weather prohibited the military transports from flying. Many names appear in the book which is interesting for those with a history or Hollywood inclination. Ambassador Lodge before he became the walking zombie during the evacuation of Saigon, Anita Ekberg starting her career, Bing Crosby coming close to film royalty and a good golf partner to Hope. Some pages were skip worthy but for the most part the book was a US history lesson by an Catholic entertainer who slept very little. The title comes from a charge for developing some film footage which Hope jokingly said would be paid for by Russian government. The book does not say if the film was ever developed and delivered. B/W photos but most not seen before. ( )