From a Wall Street Journal review by Marc Weingarten of the book by Allen Pietrobon titled “Norman Cousins: Peacemaker in the Atomic Age”:

In these fractious times, consider the conciliator. During the Cold War, a respected, well-connected political outsider could drop into the middle of a fraught conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and clear the air with a dose of ingratiation and judicious nudging. Though it might seem unlikely today, an American magazine editor, Norman Cousins, was among the most influential of these citizen-diplomats.