History: Khrushchev On Khrushchev

Twenty years ago, Nikita Khrushchev, a nonperson living under virtual house arrest in a dacha outside Moscow, created an international sensation when the first volume of his memoirs was published by Little, Brown & Co. The Soviet authorities denounced Khrushchev Remembers as a CIA hoax. A number of Western experts suspected the KGB. In 1974, after Khrushchev's death, a second volume was published. By then the controversy had died down, but curiosity lingered about the author's motivation and method.

This month Little, Brown will publish Khrushchev on Khrushchev, by Nikita's son Sergei, 55, an engineer in Moscow. This intimate portrait shows...