Ship’s Library

By DAVID W. MUNNS
Assistant Editor

AT THE ABYSS: An Insider’s History of the Cold War
by Thomas C. Reed, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, March 2004. 368 pp. $25.95
ISBN: 0-89141-821-0.

America’s fight against communism was a tumultuous struggle spanning nearly half of the last century. Thomas C. Reed, former secretary of the Air Force, was at the heart of the Reagan administration during the final years of the Cold War and was involved in various capacities throughout the era. In a revelatory account of this period, Reed provides his insider’s perspective on the strategic battle that guilefully prevented what could have become World War III, a battle wrought with the threat of nuclear devastation.

Ironically, Reed began his involvement in this historic period developing thermonuclear weapons at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Northern California. He served as director of national reconnaissance, a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan for national security policy and eventually as one of the youngest secretaries of the U.S. Air Force. It is with this experience that Reed offers At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War as both a historic analysis and a cautionary retrospective of the Cold War.

The book “tells the story of the heroic men and women on both sides of the Iron Curtain who fought that Cold War and kept us from plunging into the abyss of nuclear disaster along the way,” as former President George Bush states in his introduction.

Reed points to Whittaker Chambers, author of the revolutionary work Witness, who provided the American lexicon surrounding the Iron Curtain to a semi-reluctant American public. Joseph Stalin’s seizure of Soviet power during the years following Lenin’s death created a palate for the devastation and isolation that allowed the oppressive communist regime to gestate on Russian soil. When Nikita Khrushchev succeeded Stalin in the 1950s, a stage was set, following famine in the Ukraine and the enslavement of much of the Russian populace to build “the nuclear facilities that fueled the Soviet military machine while slowly killing those who operated them,” that enabled a generation of oppressive rule.

Reed traces the formation of tyrannical powers in China — with the rule of Mao Tse-tung and his “bizarre economic plan” to “vastly increase the production of food, steel, and infrastructure, all perceived to be the sinews of a modern state” through the formation of severely repressive communes — and with “lesser dictators” such as North Korea’s Kim Il Sung, who utilized the training techniques of communist prewar Moscow. Reed spells out similar patterns in Romania, Cuba, North Vietnam and Cambodia that allowed for a mounting threat by communist regimes against western civilization and, most importantly, against freedom, democracy and capitalist ideals.

By the time President Dwight D. Eisenhower entered office, there already was a significant intelligence dilemma that led to the eventual creation of a new American military force whose intent was to have a sheer capacity to deter action by any impending military. This armament began with Howard Hughes, “a man of both inherited wealth and creative genius” who “was making movies, building airplanes, running an airline, dating movie stars and organizing the future.” Hughes was indeed casually at the burgeoning helm of America’s nuclear warfare program with Si Ramo, “a young scientist from General Electric,” and Dean Wooldridge, a student with “‘one of the greatest technical minds’ Ramo ever knew.”

The development of weapons by these philanthropic and technological geniuses was a precursor to the surprise Soviet launch of Sputnik, “a declaration of technological war by the Soviet Union.” In the time that followed, arms proliferated, starting with rockets and missiles and leading to plutonium- and titanium-based weapons that were at the forefront of the tense conflict that culminated in the 1980s, when Reed himself was in a position of power under President Reagan.

Reed writes, “President Reagan put the pieces in place to end and win the Cold War. He was not the ‘victor’ in this struggle; the citizens of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were the big winners. Nor was he the closer; George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev filled those shoes. Ronald Reagan’s contribution was to rearrange the chessboard of history in a whole new way.”

Reed provides in-depth details of the brilliance executed by Reagan in this grand “chess game” leading to the eventual bankruptcy of the U.S.S.R. He compares much of the war to a series of diplomatic countermoves between Russia and the United States. In his chapter, “The Queen of Hearts,” Reed discusses a significant player in these games, Nancy Reagan. Reed notes that in order “to maintain the tranquility and glamour of her environment, Nancy became an instigator of palace intrigue that nearly derailed her husband’s rendezvous with destiny. Nancy was the Queen of Hearts, and like that playing card, she presents two faces for historians to decipher.”

Reed is candid about the role the first lady played in Reagan’s election and her efforts to portray the presidency, and all its accommodations, as grandiose, far different from the key leadership posts present under communist rule. Nancy Reagan, as portrayed by Reed, “provided not only the personal care; she supplied the ambition and the focus” to accompany President Reagan’s competitive drive to triumph in “his ongoing contest with communism.”

At the Abyss is a critical read from the eyes of an individual consumed by the conflict during the Cold War. It not only provides a thorough history and analysis of the war, but takes a jarring lessons-learned portrait of the successes and failures in military policy and strategy that prolonged and placated perhaps the most enduring international conflict of this generation “as we continue to live at the abyss.” Reed cautions that “nuclear technology cannot be uninvented. … We must remember that these weapons are unlike anything ever seen or experienced by most people now alive.”

OPERATIVES, SPIES, AND SABOTEURS: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of WWII’s OSS
by Patrick K. O’Donnell, New York, N.Y.: Free Press, March 2004. 365 pp. $27
ISBN: 0-7432-3572-X.

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a critical component ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt to permeate and cripple Axis powers during World War II. Patrick K. O’Donnell compiles information from more than 300 interviews and recently declassified government files to tell the story of the men and women who served under the OSS and who played an undisputable role in lodging victory for Allied forces in his new book Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs.

The OSS provided a foundation for modern special operations forces. Assembled by William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, the OSS was founded to revamp primitive pre-World War II U.S. intelligence forces that paled in comparison to other countries’ intelligence services because, as one Navy intelligence officer noted, to Americans, “espionage is by its very nature not to be considered as ‘honorable’ or ‘clean’ or ‘fair’ or ‘decent.’” Intelligence before World War II was assembled by four departments: the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the War Department’s Military Intelligence Division (G-2) and the Special Intelligence Service, which was established in 1940 to deal with intelligence crises in Latin America. These departments, however, were not sufficient for U.S. intelligence needs during wartime. Principally, the problems were dissemination of information, lack of funding, reliance on attachés (who were instructed to avoid sabotage and espionage during peacetime) and arbitrary chains of command.

In response to these problems, Donovan curried the government to “develop shadow-war capabilities.” Immediately, a White House agency, the Coordinator of Information (COI), was formed in 1940, “effectively creating America’s first peacetime national intelligence organization,” in order to coordinate the four intelligence services. However, the agencies revolted against the COI, according to O’Donnell, making it essentially impotent.

The relationship between the COI and the newly formed Joint Chiefs of Staff when America entered World War II also was tenuous. “In order to solve this perception problem and gain access to military support and greater resources, Donovan proposed bringing COI under the control of the Joint Chiefs,” writes O’Donnell, whereupon “the name was changed to the Office of Strategic Services.”

OSS developed methods of shadow-warfare and technology seemingly overnight. It spawned a new way of fighting wars by stealthily penetrating enemy lines and truly paved the way for U.S. Special Operations Forces.

O’Donnell explores the chronology of OSS from the agents’ perspectives in this book. He writes the untold story of these men and women giving the significance that is deserved of this pre-eminent organization. These agents, never commended with medals or media attention, were the ones who penetrated opposition planning and provided valuable intelligence to the U.S. military that was critical to the ultimate demise of Axis powers.

Also Received:

ENIGMA: The Battle for the Code
by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, New York, N.Y.: Wiley, Feb. 2004. 422 pp. $16.95
ISBN: 0-471-49035-0.

This is likely the most complete chronology of the cracking of the German Enigma code, which was attributed by Winston Churchill as “the secret weapon that won the war.” It contains numerous pictures, a chronology, a glossary, appendices, thorough notes and an index.

SPARE PARTS: A Marine Reservist’s Journey from Campus to Combat in 38 Days
by Buzz Williams, New York, N.Y.: Gotham Books, March 2004. 303 pp. $26
ISBN: 1-592-40054-X.

The U.S. military has relied heavily on reservist forces to defend freedom in recent events. This book tells Buzz Williams’ compelling story of his struggle from civilian life to combat. It is an unheralded account of the emotional and physical tests facing U.S. reserve recruits as well as an inspiring story of triumph and dedication.

SOLDIERS LOST AT SEA: A Chronicle of Troopship Disasters
by James E. Wise Jr. and Scott Baron, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, Jan. 2004. 296 pp. $29.95
ISBN: 1-59114-966-5.

Soldiers Lost at Sea is a catalog of several lost U.S. ships and pays homage to the heroism, tragedy, patriotism and scandal that surrounded the lives of the sailors who perished in these troopship disasters. The book contains 80 photographs, eight illustrations, appendices, notes, a glossary, bibliography and an index.