Product Description
Through dramatic incidents tells for the first time the full story of the development of Cold War naval intelligence from the end of WWII to the breakup the Soviet Union in 1991, from both sides, East and West. Unlike other accounts, which focus on submarine confrontations and accidents, the authors cover all types of naval intelligence, human collection (racing with the Soviets to capture Nazi subs, successful and losing spies and defectors), signal intelligence (surface, air, satellite and navy commando teams in balaclavas launched by speed boats from subs), acoustic (passive underwater arrays and tapping phone lines), and the aerial and space reconnaissance. The authors give details of operations in all these areas, some of which were witnessed first hand.

"A new light is shed on the spy ships incidents of the 1960s and on submarine intrusions in Swedish waters. Excerpts of the Soviet Navy instructions on UFOs and accounts of Soviet naval encounters with unexplained objects are also published for the first time outside of Russia; and much more." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Interesting collection of vignettes
This is not a book about submarine espionage like "blind mans bluff" and the "silent war." That is not to say that submarine espionage is not discussed, rather, submarines are but a portion of the material covered.

I think the book was a worthy read just for the insight into the cold-war Soviet Navy's thinking and experiences that Hutchthausen rusian contacts provide. That is not all, though, the reader will be exposed to a variety of naval events like the sinking of the Novorossiysk, the gulf of tonkin incident, the Pueblo incident, the Walker spy ring, unknown submarine incursions into Swedish waters, and many others.

It also offers an unprecedented look into the Soviet's nuclear shipbuilding programs, surface and submarine alike. That portion of the book very much reminds me of Patrick Tyler's excellent "Running Critical," which covers the topic from the USN side.

To be fair, it looks to me that some of the critisism cited in other reviews may be innacurate. There is no detailed description of the K-129 retrieval in this book. The chapter that covers the incident "A submarine lost, a submarine found '68-74" is very perfunctory and anectdotal from the Soviet side, as related to Hutchthausen. I believe that reviewer may have gotten confused with another book (Red November or Red Star Rogue.) Another complaint over the authors naming Seawolf and NR-1 as possible suspects for the Swedish waters incursion in the '80s because Seawolf was based on the west coast is disingenious at the very least. It is well known that USS Parche ran its Barents sea tapping missions while based out of Mare island. The NR-1 was a natural suspect as it was the only submarine known to leave tracks on the ocean floor.

This book is filled with anecdotal revelations that, while limiting its provenance, give a tantalizing look at the other side of the iron curtain. If you are interested in naval intelligence operations in the cold war, and a look at the Soviet navy of the era, this book is fo you.

Unreliable
This book is interesting but replete with factual errors so as to make an unreliable source for the history of this period.A couple of examples: the authors locate Oak Ridge Laboratory in Georgia (p.13); it is in Tenn. The authors state that Bill Casey (Director of CIA) was "forced to resign" as a result of the defection of Edward Lee Howard ( p.252).Bill Casey died of a brain tumor while still in office.There are many more such errors.

I found the book interesting.Just wish I could trust it.

Hide and Seek is a great book!
Very informative and well written. Some of the information is redundant but there is also plenty of new information that I had not read in other books. I would highly recommend this book.

Hide(ous)
I found the book very disappointing. I was a fan of Hutchausen's earlier books (K-19, October Fury), but this one is just awful!!! The chapter on the K-129 is so bad, it's not even wrong! (paraphrasing physicist Wolfgang Pauli's comment "your theory is so bad, it's not even wrong"). It has been known for 30 years that the HMB-1 barge never went to the wreck site in the Pacific; just the Glomar Explorer and the Capture Vehicle (aka "claw") within the moonpool to grasp the wreck. The partially recovered submarine was analysed in the moonpool of the Glomar Explorer, not in the HMB-1 barge, which was back in California. Other details are total fabrications as well. There is more accurate information in the public domain on that operation than they are employing in the book. This makes one wonder about the provenance of other information in the book.

There are numerous technical details that are wrong; twice they mention the use of U-238, once to power the Ivy Bells tap pods and once as part of the Soviet torpedo nuclear warheads. Plutonium was used to power the pod, as it gives off heat which allows thermionic electrical generation. U-238 doesn't. Also, it is the more scarce U-235 that is fissionable; U-238 is not (except in extreme conditions, like a fusion explosion, where it is used to boost explosive yield). If U-238 were fissionable, all those mid-East countries wouldn't need those expensive centrifuges to separate the scarce fissile U-235 isotope from the more abundant U-238. Didn't these guys read newspapers?

The chapter on the mid-1980's Soviet incursion into Swedish waters seems to be going along fine, then suddenly the two authors pull a non-sequitor. Without producing one real shred of evidence, they suggest that the submarines involved in later excursions into Swedish waters were the NR-1 and Seawolf (SSN-575). Why? Because witnesses (unnamed) claim to have seen submarine sails that were "square shaped", and Soviet submarines don't have square shaped sails. Well, actually the Whiskey and Foxtrots have more or less square sails. And the submarine caught on the surface by the Swedes just a few weeks earlier was a Soviet Whiskey class submarine! Yes, all US nuclear submarines do have square shaped sails...with the exception of one...which is...(wait for it!) Seawolf (SSN575)!! She was built with a very distinctive two level stepped sail. And, oh yeah, Seawolf was deployed in the Pacific at that time, and suffering from recurring mechanical problems due to her age. Wait, let me check my map...nope, Sweden isn't in the Pacific. They also mention that Seawolf was converted in 1965 to permit SEALS to lock out. No, it was converted to allow saturation divers to operate, and the conversion was in the 1971-73 time period at Mare Island.

And then there is the chapter on UFOs. That's right, the Soviet Navy encounters with UFOs. Where is the Smoking Man when you need him? Another part of the same chapter describes sounds first encountered by the then new Soviet nuclear submarines in the 1960's. These are termed "Frogs of the Deep" (you can't make up stuff like this...). Probably sounds shorts from their own (loud) propulsion systems.

This book is so chock full of wrong information (which can be easily shown to be wrong from multiple sources) that it is impossible to believe virtually anything in it. All I can think of are two possible explanations: 1.) Hutchausen and his French co-author regularly drank good bottles of wine at a sidewalk bistro in Paris, got a buzz on, and sketched the book out on paper napkins. 2.) Hutchausen wrote a decent draft, but unfortunately he died last year, and Sheldon-Duplaix rewrote the book, maybe with an eye on a screen play adaptation.In either case, a very sad ending to the career of a man whose earlier Naval History books I greatly enjoyed. ... Read more

Product Description
For years, historians have dug into the archives, exploring the nuances of how the cold war was fought. But there is no substitute for the first-person testimony of the man who was there--in the pit--in the head-to-head confrontations in Moscow and Berlin and the Third World, in the decades when East and West struggled for supremacy. Kempton Jenkins was there at every turn; his memoir is a unique personal story as well as a valuable document in diplomatic history."-ErnestB. Furgueson, former Bureau Chief of the Baltimore Sun Moscow, Saigon and Washington, DC offices

"As a Foreign Service veteran, I know a good FSO when I see one. Kempton Jenkins was one of the best (as he notes, at one point I tried to hire him)."Jenks'" voyage through a varied and stimulating career takes us from Asia to Berlin to Moscow to South America and to three different agencies, State, Commerce and USIA.

Each assignment has its special challenges, which come to life under Kempton's facile pen.He highlights the issues and introduces the reader to the players, some good some bad.Yet Kempton demonstrates that our diplomacy worked; we more than coped.We shaped events.Reading his book is the closest you can become to being an FSO during an exciting and crucial period in our diplomacy."-Frank Carlucci

"Cold War Saga provides a fascinating insider's view, enriched by personal experience.Jenkins' portraits of key cold war personalities, with whom he worked-Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson, Henry Kissinger, and Soviet Ambassador Dobryin-are especially revealing.A great read!- Helen Thomas

To us veterans of the Cold War's diplomatic front lines, Kempton Jenkins tells it like it was.He names the key players, gives a keen insight into their character, and shows why some were heroes and some villains. Cold War Saga is an absorbing read. If you fought with Jenks in the political trenches it will stir fond memories. If you didn't, it will take you there, and you won't forget where you've been or what was at stake. -Jack F. Matlock, Jr., U.S. Ambassador to the USSR, 1987-1991.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Must Read
If you like history, you must read this book.If you don't like history, you must read this book.How can that be?Kempton Jenkins brings history alive in this engaging Cold War tale!You won't be disappointed.Buy it now. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (21)

Highly recommended!
The Cold War: A History to get through. In 357 pages, it covers world history as driven by the Cold War from its beginnings in the 1940's all the way up and including the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. All the usual suspects are included: Stalin, Khrushchev, Truman, Chiang Kai-shek, Eisenhower and Kennedy, just to name a few. Of course, other players are sprinkled throughout the text.

The Cold war was called "cold" because traditional fighting techniques such as bombings. Air raids and ground troops weren't used. Instead, the Cold War was waged with deceit, assassinations, selective economic pressures and third party military encounters - which is just another way of saying that you got other people to fight your battles for you.

I found the book exceedingly interesting and eye-popping, especially to the extent that the Cold War drove world history for so many decades. We're talking almost fifty years. Korea, Vietnam, the wars of Africa, the Suez Canal. Israel, the mid-East and Desert Storm, Sputnik and the race for the Moon were either directly or indirectly brought about by the Cold War. Imagine everything hat spun off from those events. It's staggering. Like millions of other people, I grew up and spent the major part of my life during the Cold War, so to some degree, the Cold War made us who we are today.

I recommend this book to anybody interested in the history of civilization

good read
Walker's book is very complete. He doesn't spend as much time on every event of the cold war, but he omits none.

Walker is also very objective. Probably because he doesn't discuss in gruesome detail the bloodbaths of the Hungarian uprising and the crushing of the Prague Spring, he also refrains from emphasizing the horrors resulting from US policy in Taiwan, Guatemala, Grenada, and many other countries in the third world (for that you need to read the not-so-objective "Killing Hope" by William Blum).

Much of the focus of the book is on the relation between the US, the Soviets, and the Western Europeans, with the main events that took place in the third world included but not analyzed as deeply. He also focusses on the mutual influences between the cold war and world economy and finance, particularly near the end of the book.

I found at times that the writing could have been less convoluted and more to the point, but the book as a whole reads well. For Cold War histories, I still prefer Walter Lafeber's book. But Walker did a good job of discussing what Lafeber only superficially touched in his book. So the two books complement each other very well.

Teachers: use this as your textbook!!!
I took an International Baccalaureate (IB) History course my senior year (along with all other IB subjects) and this was, for all intents and purposes, our textbook for the majority of the year. It was an incredible resource that helped me and my peers get an fresh look at this time period and the heavy use of political subtlety that took place. We realized why it was actually a "war" (it moved us away from the fifth grade formula of 'it was a fight between capitalism and communism that didn't use guns so that's why it was cold') and developed our skills in analyzing the author's viewpoints. If there are any teachers of gifted/accelerated history courses out there, this is your choice for great Cold War material that can be appreciated by 17/18 year olds.

Great balanced work
While there are many books on the Cold war this one has to be the best. It is the only book I have read that uses voluminous research from not only the American side but the Russian side as well. If you are looking for that fair and balanced viewpoint than this is the place to start.Walker writes very well and covers the relevant aspects of the war including détente. It focuses mostly on the power that the two exhibit and sticks with diplomatic history.There is some discussion of third world (with the exception of Cuba, Vietnam and Egypt) otherwise it really focuses on Europe.Nonetheless it deserves its five stars and is the only book I ever recommend when someone wants to read about the cold war.

A good, cheap read.
Before I describe this book, the following needs to be said: This is not a military or Soviet history of the cold war.

That being said, this book is a fine economic and diplomatic history of the Cold War, from an Anglo-American perspective. Whild that may sound like a narrowly-focused book, it really is not, as the author uses well-placed juxtpositions and anecdotes that track the shifting attitudes of NATO Countries and the Soviet Union throughout the war. Particularly interesting is the analysis of each side's economy and the US-USSR tendency to try to bluff each other out.

Reading this book requires sketchy knowledge of the military history of the war.

While there are certainly newer and better general-histories, the unique angle of this book, combined with its bargain price due to age, makes it a great and enlightening read. ... Read more

Product Description
In Reagan and Gorbachev, Jack F. Matlock, Jr., gives an eyewitness account of how the Cold War ended, with humankind declared the winner. As Reagan’s principal adviser on Soviet and European affairs, and later as the U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R., Matlock lived history: He was the point person for Reagan’s evolving policy of conciliation toward the Soviet Union. Working from his own papers, recent interviews with major figures, and archival sources both here and abroad, Matlock offers an insider’s perspective on a diplomatic campaign far more sophisticated than previously thought, led by two men of surpassing vision.
Matlock details how, from the start of his term, Reagan privately pursued improved U.S.—U.S.S.R. relations, while rebuilding America’s military and fighting will in order to confront the Soviet Union while providing bargaining chips. When Gorbachev assumed leadership, however, Reagan and his advisers found a potential partner in the enterprise of peace. At first the two leaders sparred, agreeing on little. Gradually a form of trust emerged, with Gorbachev taking politically risky steps that bore long-term benefits, like the agreement to abolish intermediate-range nuclear missiles and the agreement to abolish intermediate-range nuclear missiles and the U.S.S.R.’s significant unilateral troop reductions in 1988.

Through his recollections and unparalleled access to the best and latest sources, Matlock describes Reagan’s and Gorbachev’s initial views of each other. We learn how the two prepared for their meetings; we discover that Reagan occasionally wrote to Gorbachev in his own hand, both to personalize the correspondence and to prevent nit-picking by hard-liners in his administration. We also see how the two men were pushed closer together by the unlikeliest characters (Senator Ted Kennedy and François Mitterrand among them) and by the two leaders’ remarkable foreign ministers, George Shultz and Eduard Shevardnadze.

The end of the Cold War is a key event in modern history, one that demanded bold individuals and decisive action. Both epic and intimate, Reagan and Gorbachev will be the standard reference, a work that is critical to our understanding of the present and the past.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

GREAT DESCRIPTION OF NEGOTIATIONS, PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP
Matlock, the author, was US Ambassador to the USRR and assistant secretary of state during the period of the Reagan administration.This book is written from a US perspective, with rich detail on US positions and thinking and relatively little form the USSR perspective, as is to be expected.

The book goes into detail on Reagan's attempts to negotiate first with Chernenko, then with Andropov and finally with Gorbachev.It goes into especially lively description of the Reykjavik meeting, a low point in the relationship but that turned out to open the door to future agreement.It follows with Reagan's visit to Moscow and his address to the soviet people, followed by Gorbachev's visit to the US.

Though interesting and definitely entertaining, this book is very focused on the specific negociations and meetings between the US and the USSR, not on the general scenario or the outsinde conditions that led the parties to make their choices.It is a bit thin on specifics about the leaders of the negotiation on the USSR side, especially I think because at the time of writing much of these were still not available.I recommend it to those already familiar with the topic who would like a more in depth knowledge of the negotiations, but there are many other books for the first time reader of soviet affairs. ... Read more

Product Description

Packed with the technological details and insights into military strategy that fans of Tom Clancy relish, The Silent War is a riveting look at the darkest days of the Cold War. It reveals, in gripping detail, the espionage, innovative high technology, and heroic seafaring the United States employed against the Soviet Union in the battle for nuclear and military supremacy. John Pi?a Craven, who shared management responsibility for the submarine-borne Polaris missile system, captures the excitement and the dangers of the times as he recounts the true stories behind some of the century's most shocking headlines and reveals harrowing episodes kept hidden from the public.

Craven describes for the first time the structural problems that almost caused the destruction of the Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, and presents startling information about the race to recover a hydrogen bomb from the B-52 bomber that went down off the coast of Spain. In a report no fan of The Hunt for Red October will want to miss, he provides a fascinating, authoritative perspective on the Navy's reaction to the rogue Soviet submarine and its mission.

A major contribution to Cold War history and literature, The Silent War will appeal to military buffs and fans of nonstop adventure thrillers alike.Amazon.com Review
In October 1962, the United States government demanded that theSoviet Union remove long-range tactical missiles that it had positioned inCuba, a short flight from targets like Washington and New York. Afternearly a week's wait, during which the world braced for nuclear war, theSoviet government finally relented. It did so, in part, because itscapitalist foe had one weapon that it then did not: 10 dozensubmarine-mounted nuclear missiles that could be fired from beneath thewaves and reach targets inside the Soviet Union within a matter ofminutes.

In The Silent War, John Craven, an architect of the Polaris missileprogram, writes that the episode offered unambiguous proof of the value of"a strong silent deterrent" and of the importance of a superb submarineforce in preserving the balance of power. In this memoir, he recounts theevolution of the Polaris weapons system during the cold war. Along the way,he reveals little-known incidents of espionage and saber rattling that willgive readers pause to wonder how war was avoided for all those years. Abonus for Tom Clancy fans (who are likely to enjoy his book in anyevent) is Craven's sketchy but fascinating tale of a real hunt for a lostSoviet submarine that took place during his tenure as well as hisaccessible but nonetheless detailed account of the advanced militarytechnology he helped bring into being. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Customer Reviews (47)

Interesting Story - Unpleasant Fellow
Dr. Craven's book is an interesting memoir of the 50s and 60s Cold War, told from the perspective of an insider at the Pentagon and a genuine scientist.Unfortunately, I came to realize that much of what he says must be taken with caution, especially some of vague and irresponsible hints about the Soviet Golf submarine lost in 1968.With that caveat, "The Silent War" is still worth a read; the books unwinds a fascinating story of events through a dangerous but exciting time in American and world history, from a man who had a significant personal role in some important events.Though Dr. Craven was long gone from the Pentagon and the Navy when I did my time in those institutions, his name and exploits remained a legend.His accomplisments were many, and real.

Sadly, this book is warped by what can only be called an egocentric fascination with his life and his personal crusades.In spots, the tedium of this approach becomes overwhelming.Perhaps this is a shortcoming natural to old men looking back on spectacular success.Even discounting such an understandable trait, his occasional forays into pretentious self-examination are just too much.Of note is his labored and laborious dissertation on his family heritage, his contrived self-comparison to Admiral Rickover (recognizing another egotist?), and his constant striving to portray himself as a maverick within the silly, hide-bound organizations that he spent the most successful part of his profressional life inhabiting.

To be fair, he does recognize the accomplishments and abilities of others.At any given point, his narrative is readable and holds interest.It is the cumulative effect that gets you - well, got me, anyway.

A fascinating look at the submarine component of the Cold War
John Pina Craven played a preeminent role in the submarine component of the Cold War.Most of us had never heard of him until the publication of "Blind Man's Bluff" (highly recommended) but there seems to be a consensus that indeed Mr. Craven was a pivotal player in the development of the Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine force.To this day this force probably comprises the most essential component of the US deterrent force, so it is hard to overstate its, and Mr. Craven's, importance.

I was afraid that this book would be dry and overly technical.To the contrary, the book is highly readable, almost a page-turner, and really does give the reader insight into the problems, challenges, and politics of the development of the undersea nuclear deterrent.Mr. Craven's interactions with Admiral Hyman Rickover are particularly interesting and insightful.Admiral Rickover (one of my heroes, I confess) has diminished in stature since his death, under criticism of having been overly egotistical, inflexible, and a poor leader.(To be fair to my hero, he is also indisputably the father of the nuclear submarine, particularly the reactors themselves.)Mr. Craven seems to tend to agree with these assessments.

The most shocking part of this book's revelations is its apparent confirmation that the Soviet submarine that was partially recovered by the Glomar Explorer off of Hawaii was in fact on a "rogue mission."These allegations are made in full in the book "Red Star Rogue" which many have criticized as overly speculative and sensationalistic.Here, however, we have the Chief Scientist of the nuclear fleet giving unabashed credence to the notion that this Soviet submarine was acting outside of the authorization of proper Soviet command-and-control, on a rogue mission.The implications of this are staggering, given the fact that the Soviet submarine in question was a ballistic missile submarine carrying "Serb" nuclear-tippepd missiles capable of devastating Hawaii.What was the mission, and why did this submarine sink with all hands, apparently while surfaced?Was it in the act of firing a nuclear missile?At Hawaii?Did the mission fail due to fail-safes built into the missiles?The public no doubt will never know the answers to these questions, but one gets the impression that Mr. Craven knows.

This one is highly recommended.RJB.

John Craven's THE SILENT WAR: Lots of Unfounded Conjectures About Submarine Disasters
On page 206 of THE SILENT WAR; THE COLD WAR BATTLE BENEATH THE SEA, author John Craven states: "When ((the GOLF Class Soviet diesel submarine (K-129)) passed (longitude) 180, it should have been further north, at a latitide of 45 degrees (north), or more than 300 nautical miles away (from 40N where the wreckage was found).If that was a navigational mistake, it would have be an error of historic proportions.Thus, if the sub was nowhere in the vicinity of where the Soviets supposed it to be, there would be a high probability, if not a certainty, that the submarine was a rogue, off on its own, in grave disobedience of its orders."

This conjecture has been seized upon by others as the basis for a theory that the K-129 was a "rogue" mission that sank while trying to launch a nuclear missile at Pearl Harbor in an effort to trigger a war between the U.S. and China.

A now declassified Navy document (1) indicates that after following a dog-leg deployment track (first south, then east) from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - and not the great circle route apparently assumed by Craven - K-129 proceeded directly east along 40N and was found by the USS HALIBUT only six (not 300) nautical miles north of its planned deployment track.

Still others have altered Craven's now discredited 1968 theory that SCORPION was sunk by her own torpedo to make a Soviet torpedo the agent of disaster.Now declassified reports (2, 3) of analyses of photographic evidence of the SCORPION wreckage and acoustic detections of the disaster establish conclusively that SCORPION collapsed at a depth of 2000 feet and there were no explosive events from a torpedo or any other cause.These reports, published in 1970, have never been acknowledged by Craven who apparently still maintains an explosion sank SCORPION, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

After 39 years, it is time for John Craven to admit his mistakes in THE SILENT WAR and acknowledge his generative responsibility for the unfounded conjectures that have been published about K-129 and SCORPION.

References:

(1) Declassified Navy document: Notes by CAPT Joseph P. Kelly, USN from a meeting held at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, DC on 20 May 1968 to determine the location of the lost Soviet submarine K-129.

(2) Declassified Navy document: Naval Ordnance Laboratory Report 69-160 of 20 January 1970, USS SCORPION (SSN 589) RESULTS OF NOL DATA ANALYSIS, by Robert S. Price and Ermine A. Christian

(3) Declassified Navy document: EVALUATION OF DATA AND ARTIFACTS RELATED TO USS SCORPION (SSN 589) Prepared for Presentation to the CNO SCORPION Technical Advisory Group by the Structural Analysis Group, 29 June 1970, by Peter.M. Palermo, CAPT Harry Jackson, USN, Robert S. price, et al..

There's better stuff out there...
OK, so it's a biography, not a history book or novel.However, that's not an excuse for shameless self-congratulation.The "good stuff" in this book is due to the subject material itself, not how its presented.There are better works on this subject.And to top it all off, the numerous grammatical errors point to the less than professional nature of this book.I expected better.

Inside story
"The Silent War" adds more grist to the ever-churning mill of rumors about the Soviet submarine that sank about 1,500 miles from Maui in 1968.
John Craven, a civilian who was chief scientist for the Navy's Special Projects Office, proposes that the sub may have been a rogue and that it was preparing to launch a one-megaton missile at Oahu.
Craven infers this, in part, because photos of the wreckage seem to show that the conventional explosive that surrounds the nuclear warhead exploded, leading to the loss of the sub. Such an explosion is one kind of "fail-safe" device: If some unauthorized tampering is done, better to blow up the missile than have it armed and dispatched.
Craven says the probability that the sub was a rogue is low but he seems to take it seriously. His scenario does not explain how the rogue crew hoped to reach Oahu with a missile whose range is thought to have been 750 miles.
Craven, still bound by security regulations, says he isn't revealing any secrets. A comparison of "The Silent War" to "Blind Man's Bluff," the 1999 book about underwater spying, and to "Spy Sub," a 1997 novelized version of the hunt for the Soviet sub by one of the participants, leaves plenty of mystery.
"60 Minutes" reported the sub's number was K129, but Craven says survivors of the crew said it was something else. In "Spy Sub," Roger Dunham calls it PL-751.
Whatever it was, Hawaii was involved at least after the sinking, if not before.
The spy sub USS Halibut ("Viperfish" in Dunham's book), which Craven's group supplied the still-secret hardware for, practiced its hunting off Lahaina, Maui, in the early '70s. The Glomar Explorer, the CIA ship that tried to lift the sub off the seafloor, was much noticed in Hawaii around 1974.
Craven, as interested in policy as in ocean technology, provides a novel reinterpretation of that episode.
According to him, the Navy could have explored the sunken sub with supersecret underwater craft, and nobody would ever have known. Instead, the Nixon administration pulled the Navy off, gave undersea intelligence to the CIA (which meant that Craven had nothing to do with Glomar) and -- besides blowing $500 million on a (probably) failed mission -- nearly ruined the advance of oceanic technology.
The argument, which like most of Craven's views is neither simple nor obvious, is that the cover story for the Glomar -- that it was going to recover manganese nodules off the deep ocean floor -- was stupid.
It certainly was. By 1974, it was known that you could not make money bringing up lobsters worth $5 a pound from 1,000 feet deep, so it was absurd to think it would be worthwhile to bring up nodules worth a penny a pound from 15,000 feet.
Nevertheless, according to Craven's view, the ocean scientists of the rich countries were left "misunderstanding the limits of ocean resources," which led to "the waste of precious development resources."
Maybe so, but if the people in charge were stupid enough to fall for the CIA trick, that raises the question whether they would have done any better if they had deployed their manganese-hunting millions in some other direction.
Possibly not. After leaving the Navy, Craven became a dean at the University of Hawaii, where he became project manager for two of the most hare-brained schemes ever hatched by a state government famous for fiascos, a "floating city" off Waikiki and the embarrassing ocean thermal energy conversion project at Keahole.
Craven, whose family tradition had him down from birth for the Naval Academy, couldn't get appointed. After obtaining a doctorate at the University of Iowa, he ended up in the middle of Navy business anyway, an opportunity for which he is grateful.
The earlier part of "The Silent War" concerns the development of the Polaris nuclear war deterrent. "A nation choosing a strategy of nuclear deterrence cannot also choose a strategy that would commit the nation to a tactical nuclear war," he writes, which not everybody understood, then or now.
Via another complex argument, Craven asserts that the undersea cold war allowed the United States to let the U.S.S.R. know it knew in the 1980s that the Kremlin was losing command and control of its deterrent forces, and such an understanding brought about the dismantling of the Soviet Union.
In a short review, it is not possible to give the full weight of Craven's argument on this subject. You will have to read it yourself, which is worth doing anyhow, as "The Silent War" is also a fine mix of derring-do, good old American know-how and personal strife and achievement.
... Read more

Product Description
The cold war--the bitter standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union--lasted for over 50 years and polarized the world. The conflict had its roots in political and ideological disagreements dating back to the Russian Revolution of 1917--disagreements that intensified in the wake of World War II. Allan M. Winkler excerpts speeches by Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to demonstrate the growing abyss between the two political systems. President Harry S. Truman's announcement of the existence of a Soviet atomic bomb and his speech to Congress launching the Truman Doctrine testify to the gravity of the situation. The cold war was not always ""cold""--armed conflicts were narrowly avoided in the Cuban missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs, and war did erupt in Korea and Vietnam. The complex politics of the Vietnam War are represented by voices as divergent as Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh, President Lyndon B. Johnson, antiwar protesters, and a participant in the My Lai massacre. Cold war paranoia permeated American society. The investigations of writer Ring Lardner, Jr., and government official Alger Hiss by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, along with speeches by Senator Joe McCarthy, lay bare the political repression at home generated by the perceived communist threat. Excerpts from Arthur Miller's play The Crucible and the film script of High Noon capture the mood of uncertainty and fear. A picture essay entitled ""The Atom Unleashed"" collects photographs and cartoons to explore one of the most controversial discoveries of the 20th century. Agreements made in the SALT treaties show the cold war finally coming to an end. In his 1992 State of the Union address, President Bush declared, ""By the grace of God, America won the cold war."" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting Remembrances of What Could Happen Again!
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, there were long-standing disagreements until the early 1940s; the Cold War was a bitter, usually non-military conflict for fifty years after WWII.It resumed in 1945, Korean War and Vietnam.As a result, the United States and Soviet Union were always "racing" for arms including nuclear weapons.In the '50s, a climate of fear causing internal instability in the U. S.

The roots of the Cold War lay deep in our past.Russia's miliary power grew and the Soviet Union was developed; consequently, communism was their religion.An uneasy stalemate lasted until 1933.The Great Depression in America caused enemies to become friends there for a time.Stalin vs. Hitler, U.S. Great Britain and Soviet Union formed the grand alliance.Americans believe in the principles of liberty, equality and opportunity.U. S. emerged from the war strong and secure, eager to spread its vision of freedom and economic opportunity around the world.

In 1950s, scientists created new thermonuclear weapons -- hydrogen bombs, which were much more powerful the atomic bomb.Russian Sputnik circled the globe in 1957.Margaret Chase Smith promoted a "Declaration of Conscience" in 1954 as she censured Joseph R. McCarthy's use of hate and character assassination.David Alman, novelist and playwright, promoted the Broadway play, 'The Crucible,' as a parable of McCarthyism.He felt it was "really about the Rosenbergs."McCarthy destroyed many careers and reputations, like Alger Hiss who was proven not guilty of any offence.

In 1962 a film of Richard Condor's novel, "The Manchurian Candidate" was clearly a product of the cold war.Every American will be forced to have to stand up and be counted to say whether they are on the side of rights and freedom or on the side of the traitors of this country.Mrs. Hood would tell me to vote "right" I'd say that "I always vote right."But our versions of choosing sides during the cold was may have differing consequences.You see, she voted "party" and I voted "individual."

After serving in the military for 52 years and being publicly reprimanded by then U. S. President Truman, my hero General of the Army Doughas Mas Arthur stood up to his honor and deep Christian faith.He returned to New York City to a huge celebration where he proclaimed that "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."And as a man of his words, he did as he promised"I shall return."As a child I had a metal statuette which my dad brought home from his years in the U. S. Army and gave it to me.It was my treasure.

"Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect" but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.At the United Nations Khrushelev took one of his shoes off and pounded it on the table where he was having a fit.At the time, he was Russia's leader.Needless to say, for a statesman, he had no manners and was never very stately.Nor was Lyndon Johnson,

Allan M. Winkler is also the author of 'The Politics of Propaganda and do-author of college and high school textbooks. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
John Lewis Gaddis´ acclaimed history of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union during and immediately after World War II is now available with a new preface by the author. This book moves beyond the focus on economic considerations that was central to the work of New Left historians, examining the many other forces -domestic politics, bureaucratic inertia, quirks of personality, and perceptions of Soviet intentions -that influenced key decision makers in Washington, and in doing so seeks to analyze these determinants of policy in terms of their full diversity and relative significance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Post-revisionist says it all
I didn't read this book, but from the other reviews, I gather that there is no chapter describing the origin of Anti-Communism with Woodrow Wilson. I would have to agree that scholars should look beyond the post WWII period for the origins of the Cold War.

Classic history synthesizing orthodox and revisionist perspectives
This book is a classic history of the origins of the Cold War.It must be seen in terms of the debates when it was written.The first interpretations of the Cold War told a story of an aggressive, expansionist Soviet Union subverting democracy in Eastern Europe.In the 1960s and 1970s, revisionists began to tell a different story about American economic expansion ("imperialism") as a cause of the Cold War.

In this book, Gaddis presents a narrative that takes both sides of this debate seriously.He does not write in an "academic" style but aims instead at the general reader.This is the essential post-revisionist history of the Cold War, though he and many others have updated the history after the opening of Soviet archives in the 1990s.

It's a good read, and I highly recommend it despite its age.

Excuse me?
Actually the Cold War started when the Soviets supposedly assasinated General Sikorsky. And before they supposedly did that because of the certain fact Sikorsky didn't like the USSR for their mass murder of thousands of Polish officers, they set up an alternative Polish regime to combat Poland's true one that was in exile in Cairo in 1943. The reason for that was because the authentic Governemnt of Poland would likely pick Sikorsky as the leader of Poland after the war and he could have become president. And if he did there would definitely be NO Communism in Poland, now that would take away the USSR's direct land bridge to East Germany where they always poised themselves to take over the Indusrial Rhineland(Oh my god if I though like Chomsky I would say that the USSR was one big greedy corporation that really according to its game plan wanted to absord West German buisiness prospects that the US Marshall plan created into it's own realm.)

The USSR's placement of Soviet style regimes in Eastern Europe that imprisoned millions is the real cause for the "get tough" policy. Not to mention the Soviet placing 2 million men in Eastern Europe in a posture to attack the West mainly through the Fulda Gap against 1 American Division along the Frankfurt to Rhineland highway. The USSR's intrest in the Industrial Complex has to be looked into it may provide the only explanation for why they murdered so many just so they could keep intact their land bridge to Rhineland.

Authoritative Work on the Origins of the Post WWII Cold War
Gaddis eloquently addresses the causes of the Cold War.Gaddis discusses the policy of the Truman administration and how a "get tough" policy led to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. ... Read more

Product Description
Submarines had a vital, if often unheralded, role in the superpower navies during the Cold War. Their crews carried out intelligence-collection operations, sought out and stood ready to destroy opposing submarines, and, from the early 1960s, threatened missile attacks on their adversary’s homeland, providing in many respects the most survivable nuclear deterrent of the Cold War. For both East and West, the modern submarine originated in German U-boat designs obtained at the end of World War II. Although enjoying a similar technology base, by the 1990s the superpowers had created submarine fleets of radically different designs and capabilities. Written in collaboration with the former Soviet submarine design bureaus, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore authoritatively demonstrate in this landmark study how differing submarine missions, antisubmarine priorities, levels of technical competence, and approaches to submarine design organizations and management caused the divergence. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Bel ouvrage
Livre très complet, retracant chronologiquement le développement des sous-marins dès les années 50. Destiné aux amateurs (avertis). Noumbreuses photos et plans. Un gros + : les plans de certainsprojets aussi extravagants qu'intéressants . Recommandé vivement.

Outstanding
In light of the previously posted shining reviews on this text, I suppose there is not much more to be said, but I felt compelled to bolster what has already been written. This book is, along with Norman Friedman's US Submarines since 1945, without question, among the definetive works on submarines of this period. Outstandingly researched and presented. Do not hesitate to buy this book. Top notch.

Excellent book
I sought a book with a serious overview of the topic of Cold War submarines, and not a book about one or another aspect of the topic. I ended up with a book that contains both an excellent overview as well as serious discussion of specific submarines, strategies, technologies and the men behind the scenes.
The story is well placed within the historical context of the political, military and economical events and processes of the Cold War. The text is well written and well structured.
Especially fascinating is the look behind the scenes of Soviet submarine design, construction and operations - those were among the best-kept secrets of the Soviet Union.
Besides dealing with "main stream" submarines, there are several interesting chapters about different experimental projects; rescue submarines and several fantasy projects, like freight vessels and aircraft carrying submarines.
Although the story is focused on the Cold War period, there is a detailed discussion of WWII technology that highly influenced Cold War designs, as well as descriptions of post Cold War vessels and fleets.
The book is well illustrated with photographs and line drawings.

Great book
Not as many actual pix of subs as most books but it is very well written and also dabbles into the politics and design that went on with each new design of submarine. Nice charts and missile specs and things like that. Goes into greater detail of the US boats more than Soviet.

Absolutely The Best
I was somewhat skeptical of this book when I saw nothing but 5 star reviews from purchasers of the title.However, having read it, this is THE Cold War submarine reference.It contains insights not only into the technologies deployed, but the rational (or in some cases the Irrational) that led to the development of the mysterious technological marvels we could only speculate on during the cold war.The authors clearly show both American and Soviet perspectives on the cold war submarine development.I found the information regarding the CONFORM design on 1967 to be of particular interest.Rickover's insistence on developing the 688 class killed CONFORM.Yet CONFORM was 40 years ahead of anything available at that time.It is interesting that the 688's were far more fragile than one might imagine.Yet Rickover insisted on having his way.Where would we be had the CONFORM design gone through??This book is absolutely the best material that I have read to date on cold war submarines. ... Read more

Product Description
A controversial look at Reagan's role in ending the Cold War- from the author of The New York Times bestseller Rise of the Vulcans

In his surprising new book, critically lauded author James Mann trains his keen analytical eye on Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union, shedding new light on the hidden aspects of American foreign policy. Drawing on recent interviews and previously unavailable documents, Mann offers a new history assessing what Reagan did, and did not do, to help bring America's four-decade conflict with the U.S.S.R. to a close. Ultimately, The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan dispels the facile stereotypes surrounding America's fortieth president in favor of a levelheaded, cogent understanding of an often misunderstood man.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Great Read
James Mann, who has already written several books on the political history of post-war American, provides another great one in this story of Ronald Reagan, the United States, and the Communist world at the end of the cold war.Reagan, the star of the book, had to stand up to several groups of hardliners -- the Rebellion in the title.These included the foreign policy establishment who supported detente, radicals in the Republican Party who wanted Reagan to continue to militantly oppose the Communists everywhere.On the other side, there were hardliners amongst the Communists who did not want newly installed Mikhail Gorbachev, to work with Reagan, who they saw as either unintelligent or militaristic.But it was these two leaders, plus economic and political pressures on each side of the Iron Curtain, that made it possible for the old cold war policies to fall away and a new political era to begin.

I highly recommend this book to readers who are interested in Col War history or either of the main players involved.

Entertaining, but ignores the first half
Mann is correct in giving Reagan credit for allowing Gorbachev a zone of comfort for his reforms, yet ignores the early 1980s. The Soviets inched the world closer to nuclear war through its military buildup, expansion into the Third World, and intimidation of Western Europe. Reagan confronted them in his first term and stopped them. The Soviet strategy of intimidation and expansion was not working, and this led to the appearance of Gorbachev. Gorbachev was appointed not just to deal with the failed economy, but how to deal with reversals abroad. As Reagan said in his address to the British Parliament 'either the ruling elite chooses greater repression and foreign adventure or it chooses a wiser course' Reagan showed the Soviet Union that it could not gain anything abroad and its best course was domestic reform. This is missing from the book.

New Look at Reagan
In the past, as a died blue in the wool liberal, I would have scoffed at the idea of Reagan as good president. Afterall, the powers that be in the liberal establishment hark on the savings and loans scandels, the Iran-Contra affair, and the way the man took a hawkish stance to foreign policy. Furthermore, since casting my first vote for president in 2000, I had been hearing the unashamed hero worship of this man for the past 10 years. He is the standard against which all Repulicans compare each other and themselves. Every Republican primary becomes a goofy jockeyed to prove they are more like Reagan than anyone else. Therefore, one comes to equate all that is conservative to the man that is Ronald Reagan.

However, I think this book offers a chance to maybe take a different look at the former president. For one, I was surprised to find that the so-called hawk, doved later in his administration. I enjoyed hearing about the battles behind the scenes, during which Reagan lost his unwavering support from the far right, and indeed fell under their frequent attacks. This insight gives new light to the current climate of conservative American where such radically conservative personalities as Hannity and Coulter continue to hold the former president up as the quintessential conservative. In addition, over the years, I have heard many modern Republican and Conservative analysts insist that the Reagan push on military build up was an intentional attempt to force the USSR into an unsustainable arms race that would economically destabilize the nation enough to force changes. This book seems to call this explanation into question after examining the words and documents of former Reagan officials. These new insights into the former administration were certainly eye opening.

As far as the writing goes, the book is almost a random amalgamation of anecdotes and stories. As mentioned in other reviews, the author repeats himself often. Perhaps he meant this move to mirror the style of the book's subject, but it does more to exasperate the reader than anything else (one certainly begins to feel for Gorbachev). Furthermore, the book does seem to jump from time to time, and I would often have a go back a few pages because I thought I had missed something. Nevertheless, the book was worth the read for the chance to clarify my views on this former president

A New Look at the Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan's role in the end of the Cold War has been a long-debated topic. Some people believe that he used his pugnacious and confrontational attitude to bring an end to the Cold War. Others believe that he was extremely lucky or did nothing to aid the collapse of the Cold War. James Mann uses his book The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War to zone in on what role Ronald Reagan specifically had to do with the end of the Cold War. He tries to take out the opinions of his administration and fellow politicians and filter out exactly Ronald Reagan's role. James Mann argued that Ronald Reagan did play a large part in ending the Cold War (and does not stray from that), but he did not single-handedly end it; he had a great deal of help from informal advisors (such as Suzanne Massie), fellow politicians, and speechwriters. Reagan believed, contrary to the common belief, that the Soviet Union could be torn down. Previous presidents and his colleagues thought that he would have to attempt to negotiate with Gorbachev to end communism, but he believed that the Soviet Union could be defeated and, with that mindset, made arrangements that eventually ended the Cold War. Reagan created a strong relationship with Gorbachev and worked from there. He did not stick to the regular ways of the Republican party, but looked past them to choose what would work. There was a need for this book -- to settle the arguments about Reagan's role in the end of the Cold War.
James Mann tells the story of Ronald Reagan through an interesting and unbiased rhetoric. He gets very personal in his accounts and does not lump the entire Reagan administration in with Reagan himself. To get intimate with the reasoning behind Reagan's thoughts and policies, Mann uses interviews with many of Reagan's colleagues and friends, including his wife, Nancy Reagan. Mann expands on people and relationships that other books have not dared to explore -- the most significant being Suzanne Massie, Reagan's informal advisor. Massie, a writer, would travel to and from the Soviet Union to take notes and write about the lives of people living in the Soviet Union. She would then report to Reagan about her findings and opinions. Mann obtained these unique facts and such a rich amount of information about Massie through interviews. He personally set up and recorded the interviews for the book which added an undisclosed set of facts to the mix. Midway through the book there is a group of pictures that help add to the understanding of the events that Mann is writing about. These pictures include the location of his "tear down the wall" speech and pictures of Reagan and Gorbachev -- the friendliness emanating from such pictures indicates how hard Reagan was trying to create a strong, workable relationship with Gorbachev. James Mann effectively uses interviews and previously undisclosed notes and documents to back up his thesis.
James Mann was successful in arguing that Ronald Reagan did play a large part in ending the Cold War but did not do it singlehandedly. He writes clearly and concisely by using personable diction. The only confusing part about Mann's writing was that he would often put forward a bunch of names and events and expect the reader to know the background behind them. He did explain foreign words and phrases that the common English speaker wouldn't know, but he didn't provide the background to certain events that would aid the reader in understanding and agreeing with his thesis statement. The book The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War is informative and offers a new viewpoint on Reagan's real role in the end of the Cold War. Readers of this book should have (at the very least) a bit of background knowledge on Reagan's administration and policies before picking up this book, as Mann sometimes expects the reader to know about the events and people he is mentioning. To a reader who is well-educated in Reagan's story, this book will open up a new door of opinion and put forth a convincing appeal using previously undisclosed sources. Overall, it is an interesting read and will have the reader wondering about the behind-the-scenes information of other political stories.

How Reagan Enabled the End of the Cold War

James Mann does a real service here, rescuing Reagan from the neo cons who seem to have taken over his legacy and positioned his arms build up as the cause of the collapse of the USSR. Instead, Mann points out it was Reagan's willingness to negotiate on arms control and seek an accomodation with Mikhai Gorbachev that allowed the walls to crumble.

I have a more favorable opinion of Reagan after reading this book than I did before, but it still felt as if Mann forced a "Great Man" theory of history onto events that may have actually been led from the bottom up, by the people of Eastern Europe and the former USSR. He also points too much weight on Reagan's reliance on sources outside normal diplomatic channels, such as the author Suzanne Massie. This hardly constituted a serious rebellion - even Reagan cut her off when she began pushing to be named ambassador to Russia.

He did recognize Gorbachev was different from his predecessors while Nixon, Kissinger and others were suggesting he was just another Soviet despot. Reagan in this book is shown to have charted his own path and his basic decency seems to have proven more important than intellectual vigor.





... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

it's what I expected
It's just what I wanted. the price is ok. the book is in good condition. and it arrived within the expected time.

Great Interpretation
I read this book for my 1945-present class and it opened my eyes to the hysteria which plagued this country about the Cold War.This document was new to me before reading this book.It made me realize how serious people thought the threat of Russia really was. The beginning talks about how the document came to be, the middle of the book is the actual document its self, then the end has many comentaries from respected scholars and government officals.Great book for anyone interested in the Cold War and many different points of view of the Cold War.

Informative on NSC 68
It was very helpful during my research on Cold War foreign policy and I enjoyed it very much. I would definately reccomend this book to anyone interested in the Cold War, a must have! ... Read more

Product Description
Based on the latest findings of Cold War historians and extensive research in American archives as well as the recently opened archives in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China, this book provides a vividly written, eye-opening account of the Cold War during the years from the end of World War II to its most dangerous moment, the Cuban missile crisis.Amazon.com Review
Was the Cold War inevitable? Was there an internationalcommunist conspiracy? Did Castro and Khrushchev beat Kennedy in theCuban missile crisis? After combing through a mass of declassified andpreviously unavailable documentation to reconsider the collision ofthe American and Soviet empires, Yale professor Gaddis replies in theaffirmative. Given Josef Stalin's convictions, the Cold War wasinescapable: it is the choices that each side made that prove fruitfulfor historical research, and not the mere fact of the war, as Gaddisneatly demonstrates. The American empire--Gaddis's term--prevailedbecause, he says, "democracy proved superior to autocracy inmaintaining coalitions," and not necessarily because of anytechnological or economic advantage. Gaddis dispels severalmisconceptions and urges that students of Cold War history shouldforemost "retain the capacity to be surprised." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (26)

Good in several respects, but not the whole story
Gaddis is indeed a first-rate historian but like some others, after Communism fell, could not help getting just a bit giddy.This has colored his work with a bit of exaggerated emphasis on the "sudden miracle" wrought by Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul, with an assist maybe from Lech Walesa. (sic) Of course, in fact, the end was in sight due to factors within and without the USSR for at least two decades previous.Thus, the Schrecker anti-triumphalist book is an excellent counterpoint as Mr. Dillon (another reviewer) points out.However, she too, got a bit swayed by the mood of immediate events of the mid-2000s, and her angry introduction's words about President Bush (even if correct in some ways) may lead some to put the book aside as a passing partisan polemic, when it is not that at all. Shrecker's compilation is in fact a sober and generally balanced look at a less triumphalist "we won/the end" version that some any others are tempted to dismiss all prior history with (including, in some cases, a few historians over-revising their own work's viewpoints).

Stalinism was the Highest Form of Marxist-Leninism
In the first sections, Gaddis delineated the division of the world.`As long as Stalin was running the Soviet Union a cold war was unavoidable,' his paranoia `transformed the government into a gargantuan extension of his own pathologically suspicious personality.'Deviating from Lenin's prediction of spontaneous revolutions in advanced industrial countries, Stalin `came to see the Soviet Union itself as the center from which socialism would spread and eventually defeat capitalism.' Consequently, `the effect was to switch from the principal instrument for advancing revolution from Marx's idea of a historically determined class struggle to a process of territorial acquisition Stalin could control.'Contrary to this `equation of security with territory,' the Western democracies understood security `to be a collective good, not a benefit denied to some in order to provide it to others.'

In Europe, `one empire arose, by invitation, the other by imposition.'The US abandoned isolationism because of the Pearl Harbor attack, which `created an atmosphere of vulnerability Americans had not known since the earliest days of the republic.'On national security, `Soviet Union by 1947 had become the most plausible source of threat.'Gaddis observed that `Franklin D. Roosevelt's most important foreign policy legacy may well have been to convince the nation that its security depended upon that of others elsewhere, not simply on whatever measures it might take on its own.'Hence, `the British, French, and other West Europeans came to feel that they had a stake in what Washington was doing, despite the fact that it amounted to their own incorporation within an American sphere of influence.'On the other hand, `where Western resistance was unlikely, as in Eastern Europe, Stalin would in time attempt to replicate the regime he had already established inside the Soviet Union.'Therefore, it was no surprise that `Soviet Union did not manage its empire particularly well.'

On Korea and Vietnam, Stalin demonstrated his opportunism in expanding Soviet influence: `It was a curious combination of simultaneous risk-taking and risk-avoidance, suggesting that Stalin was prepared both for a Sino-American war and an American occupation of the entire Korean peninsula.'First, `the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1950 was what Mao wanted: it was in no way imposed on him, as the Soviet Union's alliances with its East European neighbors had been.'Second, `it had taken intense pressure from Stalin to push Mao into Korean intervention in 1950 with the prospect of an immediate North Korean collapse.'Stalin's death put an end of the Korean War.One rule established from the conflict was `that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union would confront the other directly or use all available force; each would seek instead to confine such confrontations within the theaters in which they had originated.'Capitalizing on `the new Chinese state's powerful sense of mission at once nationalist and ideological,' `Stalin specifically encouraged the Chinese to aid Ho Chi Minh.'

In the Middle East, however, Stalin `missed a considerable opportunity for winning friends among Israel's enemies in the Arab world' until after the US diplomatic blunders in Suez, western intervention in Lebanon and Jordan and the Eisenhower Doctrine.After the Suez Crisis, the failure of the Americans to work with Nasser opened the way for Soviet influence.The Eisenhower Doctrine did not take into account of a certain `Arab brand of neutralism, and traditional Arab reluctance to be committed.'Gaddis attributed the bouleversement squarely in Dulles' belief `in filling all power vacuums - even those left, in the Middle East, by the despised British and French.'By following such principles, Dulles `allowed the United States to inherit the enmities imperial powers normally attract when they seek too heavy-handedly to project their influence and deadened his own sensitivities to nationalism, thereby opening opportunities for the Soviet Union.'

Gaddis expounded on the effects of `romanticism residing within authoritarianism.' - `Stalin appears also to have hoped for an `invitation,' especially in Germany, perhaps elsewhere in Eastern Europe, possibly even in Japan.It never came.'First, `Stalin's economic policies caused Soviet presence in those regions came across as exploitative, and this generated resentment among the very people whose loyalty he had hoped to win.'Second, `the semi-sanctioned mass rapes took place precisely as Stalin was trying to win the support to the German people.'Gaddis explained that `in the absence of clear orders, falling back upon their own domestic standards of acceptable behavior.The rules of civil society implicit in democratic politics made the humanitarian treatment of defeated enemies seem natural to the Western allies.'

The case of Germany's division demonstrated the paradox of `Stalin's illusion that ideology sooner or later would override nationalism and bring all Germans, by their choice, into the socialist camp' and elements of control and dependence.His `March 1952 proposal for a 4-power conferenceto arrange free elections throughout Germany' though was not a `missed opportunity' for reunification.`The insistence on dependency shows up clearly in Stalin's attitude toward German reunification: he was for it only if Moscow could run the resulting state' since `only a Germany under Moscow's control could, with any reliability, ensure Moscow's Soviet Union's safety.' The proposal simply `represented a last fragile hope on Stalin's part that he could achieve this outcome by popular consent and without a war.'

One peculiar aspect of the exchanges between the two superpowers and their allies was that `imperializers have never simply acted upon the imperialized; the imperialized have also had a surprising amount of influence over the imperializers.'In the east, `Kim Il-sung exaggerated to both the Russians and the Chinese the degree to which each supported what he himself wanted to do.'Germany's influence was even more pronounced: `Once their country was divided, the Germans' weakness itself became a strength: by being on the verge of collapse - and, as time went on, by simply threatening to collapse - West and East Germans could raise the specter of a former enemy falling under the control of a future enemy anytime they wanted.'Once the Soviet committed to an East German state, the next best alternative to total control of the country, GDR's Ulbricht `maneuvered himself into a position of strength by being weak' as he sabotaged Soviet opposition to his policy of rapid socialization by inciting labor revolts culminating to the execution of Beria, Stalin's pretender.

On nuclear weapons and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy era marked `a departure form Eisenhower's practice, which had been to substitute the fear of war for war-fighting strategies, thereby obviating the need for them' and ushered `an apparent stalemate - a tacit agreement to compete within the single arena in which the Soviet Union was still capable of putting up a respectable fight.'`Kennedy's refusal to compromise on Berlin as his advisers prepared the defense of Western outposts through its nuclear weapons' reversed Eisenhower's policy that `military superiority guaranteed neither national nor international security.'In spite of this, `Kennedy: repeatedly pushed for compromise: `We can't very well invade Cuba.'`Explicit assurance his brother Robert Kennedy gave Ambassador Dobrynin that the administration would soon remove the Turkish Jupiters and a pledge not to invade Cuba' effected a settlement that `was itself a compromise, not a clear-cut victory for either side; the long-term effect was not so much to humiliate the Soviet Union as to bolster its image as an equal to the United States in a Cold War that would continue for another three decades.'It also conveniently sidestepped the `gross deficiencies in the Soviet Union's ability to feed, clothe, and house its own people, or to manage its alliances, or to influence those beyond the reach of its own military control.'

Gaddis posited that `Stalinism was the highest form of Marxist-Leninism and the latter could not function without at least elements of the former.'First, `the Russians, coming out of an authoritarian tradition, knew of no way to deal with independent thinking other than to smother it.'This held true even during de-Stalinization when `Khrushchev appears to have considered only a top-down method' of managing reform and `in the all-important agricultural sector, his policies failed miserably because of his resistance tolocal experimentation.'In such logic, the Soviet system `survived only by balancing contradictions, and that resolving these might wreck it.'Therefore, `De-Stalinization severely weakened Khrushchev's authority over communism elsewhere,' and as the execution of Imre Nagy demonstrated, he `had to be ruthless to hold his alliance together.'Precisely because of the growing disparity between Lenin-Marxism and the west, `the briefest experiment with de-Stalinization had set off centrifugal tendencies in Eastern Europe that ended in bloodbath.'

The collapse of the Soviet Union demonstrated that `diversification of power did more to shape the course of the Cold War than did the balancing of power: Deficiencies in other kinds of power- economic, ideological, cultural, moral- caused USSR to lose its superpower status.'`Democracy proved superior to autocracy in maintaining coalitions.'Contrary to the Soviet methods, `Truman and Eisenhower handled NATO much as they did the Congress of the US: Americans saw little contradiction in pursing independence and integration simultaneously, because their own domestic system had long since achieved that most sustainable balance between these tendencies that the word had yet seen.'`Reviving Germany and Japan while transforming those countries into democracies along the way may have been the most successful of all United States initiatives during the Cold War, in that democratization proved to be such an effective method of stabilization.'

`The important difference between the two great Cold War coalitions, which is that one was resilient and the other brittle.NATO, was an organic alliance: it proved to be deeply rooted, in tune with its environment, capable of shedding branches and limbs when necessary without serious damage.But both the Warsaw Pact and the Sino-Soviet alliance seem today to have been inorganic, even crystalline, in character: they were impressive to look at and hard when touched, but under strain they shattered easily.'

We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History
This book was in great condition even though there were highlights in the book. I could not beat the price. Over all I am very pleased.

Good historical analysis
analysis is just as much about strategic decisions of leaders in authoritarian states verus democracies as it is regarding specific event of the Cold War.The over-arching discussion and chapter organizations make for coherent following of the 40 year history.

As another reviewer noted, should have been titled "What I Now Think"
This is a loathesome book. It exhibits all the worst characteristics of the triumphalist school of Cold War studies: apologetics for imperialism dressed up as moral seriousness, smug superiority, and a massive scholarly apparatus (unnecessary, since the book's argument is no different from a Ronald Reagan speech) to intimidate those grad students who would dare disagree. My favorite part of the book was where Gaddis declared his intention to "take ideology seriously," or examine the way the different ideologies of the US and the USSR impacted their foreign relations. An interesting idea, but Gaddis in fact does nothing of the sort. The entire depth of his "ideological analysis" is the contention that the Americans loved freedom, while the Soviets were authoritarian. This is not ideology analysis: it is plain ideology, and more than that, it is a piss poor explanation for the actions of either the soviet or the American state. Gaddis also argues, in reference to Stalin, that "authoritarianism breeds romanticism." One wonders, however, if he realized the extent to which his little aphorism applied to himself. For Gaddis rigorously excludes the entire revisionist school of cold war studies from his bibliography, a maneuver necessary for his ridiculously romantic view of American foreign policy. ... Read more

Product Description
“Contains unsettling insights into someof themost dangerousgeopolitical crises of thetime.”—The EconomistThis acclaimed study from the authors of “One Hell of a Gamble” bringsto life head-to-headconfrontations between the Soviet premier NikitaKhrushchev and PresidentsEisenhower and Kennedy.Drawingon their unrivaled access to Politburoand KGB materials, Aleksandr FursenkoandTimothy Naftalicombine new insights into the Cuban missile crisis as well as startlingnarratives of the contests forSuez, Iraq, Berlin, andSoutheast Asia, with vivid portraitsof leaders who challenged Moscow andWashington.Khrushchev’sCold War provides a gripping history of the crisis years of the ColdWar. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Cold War Re-visited
With the increasing availability of formerly classified Soviet documents, the authors' have compiled a dramatic re-examination of Khrushchev's pivotal role during
the Cold War.From his emergence to a shared role of leadership in the Politburo
after Stalin's death, to his rapid rise to almost complete political dominance, to his remarkable reading of his nation's crucial position as a developing world power,
Khrushchev's insights into the strenghs, weaknesses and special needs of his country proved central to the world events of this unique period.


Anyone interested in a deeper understanding of this highly intelligent, complex and
resourceful but ultimately self-destructive Soviet leader and the ramifications ofhis policies, will find much that is
new and thought provoking in this well researched book. It is the compelling story
of how this formidable leader changed the course of history both for the former
Soviet Union as well as the United States and its allies. This dramatic read serves as a cautionary tale for those policy makers who currently act on the world's stage.

An Instant Classic on Soviet History
ALEKSANDR FURSENKO'S and TIMOTHY NAFTALI'S KHRUSCHEV'S COLD WAR is one of the best books written on the Soviet leaders life in recent years and incorporates many newly declassified documents to present a new and detailed account on the Soviet leaders life.It is mostly a book about his time in charge during the cold war. The authors do not go back into his childhood or spend much time following his leaving power. It is a political and diplomatic history of his life looking at his failures and accomplishments while in charge of the Soviet Union. It furthers what most researchers on Russia have found recently that if ever the term paper tiger applied, it was to Soviet Russia.Khrushchev made the best of his lack of economic resources and tired to compete as a power on the world stage with few economic developments and a falling standard of living for the Russian people which he constantly worried about.From Hungary to the Cuban Missile Crises with Berlin, southeast Asia and the middle east inbetween this book covers the salient moments in his career with lucid detail and thoughtful analysis.For those who want to learn more about this time in the Soviet Union's history and more about the man who dominated it this is an excellent book to start with.

REVIEW OF ALEKSANDR FURSENKO'S AND TIMOTHY NAFTALI'S KHRUSCHEV'S COLD WAR BY JOHN CHUCKMAN
This book is a gripping read, and it contains new insights into the Cold War, and the authors add some interesting brushstrokes to our historical portrait of Krushchev.

Khrushchev has always been a minor hero of mine. I call him a minor hero because one cannot talk about heroism in an unqualified way with a major figure of an absolute government. Beethoven angrily re-titled the dedication of the Eroica symphony, and I agree with his sentiments in doing it, yet it remains possible to admire some aspects of Napoleon's career.

All individuals must be judged with an appreciation for the constraints under which they operated, and Khrushchev did some very important things and maintained a kind of idealism, despite its rough peasant expression. Khrushchev did want his people to achieve a better life; he cared a great deal about improving agriculture; he was a sincere believer in the ultimate benefits of socialism; he did not want war; and he did want peaceful coexistence with the West before that phrase became commonplace. Above all, Khrushchev was and remains a very human figure, something that cannot be said of a great many absolute leaders.

Khrushchev's role in changing the operations of the Soviet government after decades of Stalin - perhaps the most terrifying dictator of the modern era - was heroic, something I believe he has never been adequately recognized for in the West.

But the same man was ready to crush revolt in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

The title of the book is absolutely accurate: this is Khrushchev's Cold War. Other actors enter and leave the stage, but Khrushchev shapes the story. In that sense, it is necessarily incomplete as a history of the Cold War.

The new insights in the book come from Soviet archives not opened until well into the 21st century. They include who knew what when; the impact of certain events on the Soviet leadership; the real reasons for certain Soviet positions in international affairs; and some of the misunderstandings of American analysts and leaders at the time.

In a few cases, the authors indicate that materials are missing yet, so the book cannot be taken as definitive.

But the book is indispensable to understanding the Cold War, aspects of how the Soviet Union worked, and the Cuban Missile crisis. It is recommended to all with interest in these subjects and to anyone just wanting a good historical read.

Really good book
I'm about 2/3 done with it. I'm reading it slow because i'm busy, but I'm enjoying it.

Having been born in late 1955, as a kid, we saw Khrushchev as a very scary, evil, intimidating man. This book gives me a much more balanced view of the man. Not that it makes him or the USSR foreign policy into heroes, but at least it reveals some of the inner workings of what went into that foreign policy, for better and worse.

One of the best parts of the book is that it describes how badly the West could estimate Soviet capabilities, and how that affected negotiations. Also good is the chapter on the downing of the U-2 plane.

Other reviewers are correct. The book doesn't seem to be just about Khruschev; rather it is more about the motivations and battles within the Soviet government.

All in all, i'm enjoying this book, and learning a lot that I didn't know.

More a book on foreign policy
Khrushchev was a fascinating character. He is one of the few Soviet leaders, which had humanity and warmth.

However if there is one issue that Khrushchev stands out for it is desalinization. I found it disappointing the book did not cover this part of him better.

I would also have liked a more extensive section on the Soviet people and economy and how it affected his leadership.

However it is a terrific study of USSR's foreign policy during his era. While reading the book, It was surprising just how aggressive he was in his foreign policy. I had read it before but I thought that several cold war warriors (historians and politicians) were overdoing it. But it was interesting to read that they had not. His pressure tactics brought the world several times close to a major conflict and was the author of the closest call to a nuclear war that we ever had.

I look forward to Aleksandr Fursenko next book.
... Read more

Product Description
Twenty years in the making, this collection presents 122 top-level Soviet, European and American records on the superpowers' role in the annus mirabilis of 1989. Consisting of Politburo minutes; diary entries from Gorbachev's senior aide, Anatoly Chernyaev; meeting notes and private communications of Gorbachev with George H.W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand; and high-level CIA analyses.Complementing the documents is the inclusion for the first time of the proceedings of an extraordinary face-to-face mutual interrogation (with scholars and documents ) in 1998 of Russian and American senior former officials-Gorbachev advisers Anatoly Chernyaev and Georgy Shakhnazarov, Shevardnadze aide Sergei Tarasenko, U.S. Ambassador Jack Matlock and CIA chief Soviet analyst Douglas MacEachin-aimed at assessing and explaining Moscow and Washington's policies during the miraculous year of 1989. ... Read more

Product Description
The Cold War was as much a battle of ideas as a series of military and diplomatic confrontations, and movies were a prime battleground for this cultural combat. As Tony Shaw and Denise Youngblood show, Hollywood sought to export American ideals in movies like Rambo, and the Soviet film industry fought back by showcasing Communist ideals in a positive light, primarily for their own citizens. The two camps traded cinematic blows for more than four decades.

The first book-length comparative survey of cinema's vital role in disseminating Cold War ideologies, Shaw and Youngblood's study focuses on ten films--five American and five Soviet--that in both obvious and subtle ways provided a crucial outlet for the global "debate" between democratic and communist ideologies. For each nation, the authors outline industry leaders, structure, audiences, politics, and international reach, and explore the varied relationships linking each film industry to its respective government. They then present five comparative case studies, each pairing an American with a Soviet film: Man on a Tightrope with The Meeting on the Elbe; Roman Holiday with Spring on Zarechnaya Street; Fail-Safe with Nine Days in One Year; Bananas with Officers; Rambo: First Blood Part II with Incident at Map Grid 36-80.

Shaw breathes new life into familiar American films by Elia Kazan and Woody Allen, while Youngblood helps readers comprehend Soviet films most have never seen. Collectively, their commentaries track the Cold War in its entirety--from its formative phase through periods of thaw and self-doubt to the resurgence of mutual animosity during the Reagan years--and enable readers to identify competing core propaganda themes such as decadence versus morality, technology versus humanity, and freedom versus authority. As the authors show, such themes blurred notions regarding "propaganda" and "entertainment," terms that were often interchangeable and mutually reinforcing during the Cold War.

Featuring engaging commentary and evocative images from the films discussed, Cinematic Cold War offers a shrewd analysis of how the silver screen functioned on both sides of the Iron Curtain. As such it should have great appeal for anyone interested in the Cold War or the cinematic arts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A superb chronicling of US-Soviet cultural warfare
The reason (thankfully) that the Cold War was cold was its battles were fought by surrogates or waged in unconventional ways, through propaganda, sports, espionage and cultural warfare. Olympic games, chess tournaments and ballet tours took on political and diplomatic significance far out of proportion to reality. So it was with film. In fact, the Cold War may have played out more fiercely on this cultural front than on any other, because film lends itself so well to propagandizing, and because film peaked as a media of influence in the post WWII era.

Shaw and Youngblood (disclaimer: who sits on our magazine's EditorialAdvisory Board) have published the first full account of how the Cold War played out on American and Soviet silver screens. They show, through chronological essays and comparative case studies, that both film industries colluded with their respective states to churn out films that mixed entertainment and propaganda, yet were always in step with the reigning diplomatic mood. Only rarely did filmmakers dare to step outside the bounds of political correctness or ideological purity to make an independent statement.

The downside of this book is its frustration factor: so many fascinating films are mentioned, and so few of them are readily available through movie rental outlets, Netflix or elsewhere. But the fine plot summaries, especially in the comparative section, helps make up for this, and we can learn about such seminal Soviet movies as Spring on Zarechnaya Street, Incident at Map Grid 36-80 (Sluchay v kvadrate) [VHS], Nine Days in One Year, and Officers.

A bit of trivia to put in your back pocket for a future cocktail party. The current Hollywood release, Never Let Me Go, based on Kazuo Ishiguro's novel of the same name, actually had namesake twin: Never Let Me Go (1953), starring Clark Gable, about an American journalist who falls in love with a Soviet ballerina.

As reviewed in Russian Life ... Read more

Product Description
During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty broadcast uncensored news and commentary to people living in communist nations. As critical elements of the CIA's early covert activities against communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the Munich-based stations drew a large audience despite efforts to jam the broadcasts and ban citizens from listening to them. This history of the stations in the Cold War era reveals the perils their staff faced from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Romania and other communist states. It recounts in detail the murder of writer Georgi Markov, the 1981 bombing of the stations by "Carlos the Jackal," infiltration by KGB agent Oleg Tumanov and other events. Appendices include security reports, letters between Carlos the Jackal and German terrorist Johannes Weinrich and other documents, many of which have never been published. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An important phase in the history of the US and our international relations
As a security director for Radio Free Europe during critical years of the "cold war", with a broad background in all phases of "security", Rich Cummings writes a fascinating report on the intrigue, behind-the-scenes planning and violent incidents of the epoch. Those of us who lived in Europe at the time did not know what was happening around us, but Rich's book reveals the full scope of the not-so-cold war in which we participated. Excellent reading for anyone interested in US history from the 50's to the 90's, and indispensable for persons making foreign relations decisions today - lest we forget the lessons of history!

Cold War cockpit
It seems that Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty managed to annoy at one time or another people of virtually all political persuasions, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, from Senator Fulbright to Nicolae Ceausescu. That alone was probably sufficient evidence of their utility.But the sustained efforts of Communist regimes and their agents to denigrate, slander, and violently attack - including bombing and poisonings - RFE/RL and its staff serve to remind us that the institution was a powerful champion of liberty in its target areas. I knew Vlad Georgescu, the eminently civilized and cultured head of Romanian broadcasting, and saw him succumb to a brain tumour that owed to criminal poisoning. Thus there were victims of communism even in the Free World. Richard Cummings ably relates these campaigns to silence the voice of freedom.He deserves great credit for telling the story.

A Missed Opportunity
An interesting Cold War account, but already the Product Description about Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty allegedly broadcasting "uncensored" news and commentary gives a false impression. Censorship has a number of definitions, depending on the viewpoint of its interpreter. First, it is certainly true that the US radio station during the Cold War broke through heavy-handed Communist media censorship and corrected gross distortions in the domestic media of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, but censorship in its own ranks was not foreign to RFERL. It once had censors known euphemistically as "policy officers" whose legitimate efforts to stop violations of its own policy code in programming also resulted many times in censorship, pure and simple. Egregious censorship in later years became rare, and the mechanisms of implementing it were subtler. Second, the backgrounds of employees from Communist countries without a strong history of a free press predestined them to accept censorship with ease if they believed it benefited the US Cold War cause, which they ardently supported. Many an international comment they felt put the US in a bad light was regularly watered down when they put it into their languages for broadcast. Their censorship worked overtime during the Vietnam War when leading democratically elected politicians in Europe and elsewhere blasted the US and American aggression in Southeast Asia. The book also too easily brushes aside Communist criticism of the fact that there were a number of World War Two war criminals working for RFERL. The culprits may have got hired undetected, but their slips of tongue over the years revealed their backgrounds to their coworkers and ultimately to their American employers. However, they kept their jobs. Moreover, the book omits the problem of rabid anti-Semitism in the ranks of RFERL and also ignores the dilemma of Islamic fundamentalism embraced by the Muslim bloc at the station who let it get into their programs to the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union. The Americans did not know then that Muslim fundamentalism was going to come back to haunt them.

Cold War Radio
Both my wife and I enjoyed this book as wewere aquinted with the time and I was stationed in England and listened to Radio free Europe. ... Read more

Product Description
Minotaur is proud to publish The Cold War Swap with The Fools in Town are on Our Side in the second installment of Minotaur's planned rerelease of Ross Thomas's works, following on the heels of Out on the Rim and Briarpatch. The Cold War Swap received both an Edgar Award and the Mystery Writers of America Award for Best First Mystery Novel of the Year. With these rereleases, Minotaur is honored to bring readers the thrillers they deserve, thereby delighting Thomas's fans and introducing him to those readers who may not know what they are missing. In The Cold War Swap, Saloon owner 'Mac' McCorkle runs a popular bar in Bonn, Germany. He becomes the cloak and good friend of a very suave, multilingual, and lethal dagger named Mike Padillo. Late of the OSS, Padillo is the man they send out on the little 'jobs' that never make the papers. His assignment in the 'Swap' is to bring back defectors from the NSA (No Such Agency, at the time) through Checkpoint Charlie. Unfortun-ately, anything that could go wrong does, and McCorkle is soon on his way to help Padillo through the assorted mayhem, kid-nap-ping, murder, and the odd double- and triple-crosses. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Ross Thomas: One of the Best Thriller Writers of All Time
I began with THE COLD WAR SWAP, then systematically read every ROSS THOMAS novel I could lay my hands on.His novels are smart, fast-paced and never predictable.Thomas writes dialogue with a sharp, buttery knife.And there's more than a little swagger.His characters are fascinating, wounded and often brilliant.But most strikingly, they seem to have never been written before.Read Ross Thomas and forever more you will see him show up in the work of his contemporaries.

Here are Ross Thomas's novels in order:

* The Cold War Swap (1966)
* Cast a Yellow Shadow (1967)
* The Seersucker Whipsaw (1967)
* Singapore Wink (1969)
* The Fools in Town are on Our Side (1970)
* The Backup Men (1971)
* The Porkchoppers (1972)
* If You Can't Be Good (1973)
* The Money Harvest (1975)
* Yellow Dog Contract (1976)
* Chinaman's Chance (1978)
* The Eighth Dwarf (1979)
* The Mordida Man (1981)
* Missionary Stew (1983)
* Briarpatch (1984)
* Out On The Rim (1987)
* The Fourth Durango (1989)
* Twilight at Mac's Place (1990)
* Voodoo, Ltd (1992)
* Ah, Treachery! (1994)

Introduces McCorkle and Padillo
For a linear, simple story that lacks complexity, "The Cold War Swap" reads well. Not Thomas' best stuff, but then I wouldn't expect it to be, given that this is the first novel he wrote. However, if you plan to read other works by Thomas that involve characters from this book, begin here.

Time To Discover Thomas
Ross Thomas's THE COLD WAR SWAP is a good introduction to one of the better and often overlooked thriller writers. Grab a handful of his novels (Briarpatch, Ah Treachery, etc.)and you'll come away liking his style, wit, and sense of story structure better than much of what is out there today.
THE COLD WAR SWAP is a look into a period most readers won't remember (post War Germany) which also makes it 'new.' I don't think this one represents his best but it's enough for you to add his name to your reading list. By the time you get through several of his books you'll wonder why you haven't read him sooner.
I'm glad to see the books are being re-released.

A legendary author's debut novel.
The Cold War Swap is the very first of an impressive number of novels written by the legendary Ross Thomas.In it, the recurring characters Mac McCorkle and Mike Padillo are introduced.

McCorkle runs an American style bar and grill in Bonn, West Germany.Padillo, his friend and partner is a covert agent for an ultra-clandestine U.S. intelligence agency.Over the years, Padillo has frequently been called upon to carry out some very dangerous missions on behalf of the agency he works for.On most occasions, McCorkle remains in Bonn covering for his friend while asking no questions.But this time McCorkle gets involved in Padillo's undercover world and does so in a big way.

The Cold War Swap is a tongue-in-cheek send-up of the espionage genre.With plotting that is somewhat less than airtight, Thomas gives us a rather complex tale of cold war intrigue where double crossing is a hazard encountered with frightening frequency.

Told as a first person narrative from McCorkle's perspective, The Cold War Swap just brims with the urbane brand of humor Ross Thomas novels are famous for.An entertaining read, witty and fast paced.

First and Maybe the Best
The Cold War Swap is the first in a long series of excellent mystery/thrillers by Ross Thomas.Thomas's first novel was written during his career as a newsman and public relations expert in many parts of the world.As with all first novels there are a few holes - the one that sticks out most in my mind is the biographical anomaly of main character Michael Padillo - alleged to have been born in 1926 - who after a variegated upbringing by his multi-lingual mother, enters the US Army and "in late 1942 was happily running the bar of an officers' club..."As a veteran myself I found it extremely unlikely that a 16 year old kid would be "running" anything in the US Army.Padillo gets picked for undercover work after someone "browsing through his records" learns that he can speak and write six languages.I'm kind of surprised they didn't discover that he was underage for enlistment at the same time.. In any case the novel is extemely well-written, with sharply defined characters in a classic 50's-60's Cold War "us against them" espionage story.Most of the characters are neither wholly good nor completely evil, and you have some fun trying to figure out which way some of them might bounce.A very satisfying read, well worth checking out from your library if available - a good introduction to the shadowy and shady worlds of money, politics, espionage and government about which Ross Thomas wrote so well during his writing career. ... Read more

Product Description
The "cold war university" is the academic component of the military-industrial-academic complex, and its archetype, according to Rebecca Lowen, is Stanford University. Her book challenges the conventional wisdom that the post-World War II "multiversity" was created by military patrons on the one hand and academic scientists on the other and points instead to the crucial role played by university administrators in making their universities dependent upon military, foundation, and industrial patronage.
Contesting the view that the "federal grant university" originated with the outpouring of federal support for science after the war, Lowen shows how the Depression had put financial pressure on universities and pushed administrators to seek new modes of funding. She also details the ways that Stanford administrators transformed their institution to attract patronage.
With the end of the cold war and the tightening of federal budgets, universities again face pressures not unlike those of the 1930s. Lowen's analysis of how the university became dependent on the State is essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of higher education in the post-cold war era. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Peeking behind the ivy facade
I agree with the book summary supplied by Amazon and with previous, favorable reviews/comments.This book gives valuable insights into how one university built up its resources to become prominent. Do not be put off by any suspicions you may have that the author is "biased;" while I suspect she looks with disapproval on right-wing Cold-warriors, the analysis is thorough and fair.

Let me cite a review excerpted on the back cover of this book, and then rephrase it from my own, perhaps less partisan viewpoint.A reviewer is quoted as saying, in part:"... subtle and meticulous account of the way in which Stanford administrators narrowed and deformed their university's educational and intellectual mission to accomodate cold war priorities ..."Now my partial restatement: "reshaped and targeted their university's educational and research missions to attract funding."

I was a graduate student in Political Science at Stanford in the 1960s, knew some people discussed in the book, and was funded (as a research assistant) by some of the agencies discussed by Lowen. I went on to become an assistant professor at another university, and there encountered some issues paralleling those at Stanford.I wish I knew then what this book has taught me about how faculty related (relate) to the administration and outside funders.I highly recommend this book.

Education-oriented vs research-oriented?
A previous reviewer says this book describes the Cold War conversion of StanfordUniversity "from an education-oriented to [a] research-oriented institution". Might just note that both Stanford'sfounder and its first president held strongly expressed views that research-- particularly including quite applied research -- was an essentialelement of university education.Stanford was research-oriented, as anessential part of being education-oriented, from day one, in 1891.

How money, power and politics shaped the modern university
With intelligence, clarity and humor, historian Rebecca Lowen shows what changed the Americanuniversity from an education-oriented to research-oriented institution anxious to grab a share of Cold War defense spending. Stanford University is her case study and its intriguing and famous staff and alums her cast of characters. ... Read more

Product Description
Developed from the second Oxford Conference on Christian Faith and Economics held in Oxford, England, in 1990, this book reproduces the Oxford Declaration itself and eleven critical responses to what is being called the most important evangelical declaration on the subject of Christian faith and economics in decades. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An ideal start...
The Oxford Conference on Christian Faith and Economics was held January 4 - 9, 1990, but is in many ways an ongoing project. As Ronald Sider states in the introduction, 'it has not been a common experience to hear liberation-oriented theologians affirming free-market strategies of conservative market economists demanding a special focus on justice for the poor.'However, this is very much what happened at the conference at its start, and it proved that there is a great deal more common ground between what is often portrayed in the media (academic and otherwise) as polar opposites.

There were low expectations all around, with each side fearing that they would not get a fair hearing from the other side.However, in the atmosphere of open inquiry and worshipful respect both for God and for each other, a remarkable consensus on many issues was reached.The Oxford Declaration itself contains signatories from among economists, political leaders, business leaders, ethicists, theologians, and church leaders.The affirmed, among other things, a commitment to a scriptural basis of their work, a need for stewardship and justice, the idea of work and human labour as being something to be respected and respectful, and a need for human rights to be supported, such that the freedoms and rights enjoyed by Western people may be made secure for them, and extended to those in the rest of the world.

The second and third parts of this text consist of essays drawn from key thinkers who participated in the conference.Authors include Miroslav Volf, Joe Remenyi, Bill Taylor, E. Calvin Beisner, Stephen Charles Mott, Peter J. Hill, Herbert Schlossberg, Michael Novak, Derek Cross, Rob van Drimmelen, Donald Hay, Lawrence Adams, and Frederick Jones.These essays look at issues of justice, stewardship, poverty, and how action needs to be done.

In the final section, James Skillen draws upon the previous essays to show how things need to progress.Refining responsibility among the signers is one point - whenever the Declaration says 'we affirm...', exactly who are 'we'?What is each individual's responsibility, and what is the responsibility of larger corporate bodies?

What the Declaration lacks, according to Skillen, is a definite plan of action.This book gets high praise for allowing criticism such as Skillen's to be incorporated into the text. Skillen writes, 'A casual reader could come away from this document believing that it really is a statement of principles, when in fact, it is a general Christian confession about life with some reference to a variety of economically connected realities.It does not go very far in articulating a Christian understanding of economics, production, business, labor, public policy, and the responsibilities of the multiple institutions of our society for economic justice.That remains to be done.'

Let us hope that Sider's introductory claim that this is an ongoing process remains uppermost in the minds of the participants.It is unfortunate that we are now fifteen years removed from the Conference, and still much needs to be done.
... Read more