Download or read book Memoirs Of A Cold War Son written by Gaines Post and published by . This book was released on 2000-02 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1951 Gaines Post was a gangly, bespectacled, introspective teenager preparing to spend a year in Paris with his professorial father and older brother; his mother, who suffered from extreme depression, had been absent from the family for some time. Ten years later, now less gangly but no less introspective, he was finishing a two-year stint in the army in West Germany and heading toward Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship, having narrowly escaped combat in the Berlin crisis of 1961. His quietly intense coming-of-age story is both self-revealing and reflective of an entire generation of young men who came to adulthood before the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. Post's experiences in high school in Madison, Wisconsin, and Paris, his Camus-influenced undergraduate years at Cornell University, and his army service in Germany are set very effectively against the events of the Cold War. McCarthyism and American crackdowns on dissidents, American foreign and military policy in Western Europe in the nuclear age, French and German life and culture, crises in Paris and Berlin that nearly bring the West to war and the Post family to dissolution—these are the larger scenes and subjects of his self-disclosure as a contemplative, conflicted "Cold War agnostic." His intelligent, talented mother and her fragile health hover over Post's narrative, informing his hesitant relationships with women and his acutely questioning sense of self-worth. His story is strongly academic and historical as well as political and military; his perceptions and judgments lean toward no ideological extreme but remain true to the heroic ideals of his boyhood during the Second World War.
Download or read book Fighting the Cold War written by John R. Galvin and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When four-star general John Rogers Galvin retired from the US Army after forty-four years of distinguished service in 1992, the Washington Post hailed him as a man "without peer among living generals." In Fighting the Cold War: A Soldier's Memoir, the celebrated soldier, scholar, and statesman recounts his active participation in more than sixty years of international history -- from the onset of World War II through the fall of the Berlin Wall and the post--Cold War era. Galvin's illustrious tenure included the rare opportunity to lead two different Department of Defense unified commands: United States Southern Command in Panama from 1985 to 1987 and United States European Command from 1987 to 1992. In his memoir, he recounts fascinating behind-the-scenes anecdotes about his interactions with world leaders, describing encounters such as his experience of watching President José Napoleón Duarte argue eloquently against US intervention in El Salvador; a private conversation with Pope John Paul II in which the pontiff spoke to him about what it means to be a man of peace; and his discussion with General William Westmoreland about soldiers' conduct in the jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia. In addition, Galvin recalls his complex negotiations with a number of often difficult foreign heads of state, including Manuel Noriega, Augusto Pinochet, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Ratko Mladić. As NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during the tumultuous five years that ended the Cold War, Galvin played a key role in shaping a new era. Fighting the Cold War illuminates his leadership and service as one of America's premier soldier-statesmen, revealing him to be not only a brilliant strategist and consummate diplomat but also a gifted historian and writer who taught and mentored generations of students.
Download or read book Crossing the River written by Victor Grossman and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with an accusation from the US Army's highest legal authority in 1952, Grossman left his unit stationed in Bavaria and swam the Danube to East Germany. He traces his childhood and experiences as a student, worker, and soldier; then describes life in his new home among a surprisingly large community of defectors. There is no index. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Download or read book Memoir of a Cold War Soldier written by Richard E. Mack and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A career soldier, Richard E. Mack served in the US Army until 1976, when he retired as a colonel. In this volume he recalls his service in front-line combat units in Korea and Vietnam, commenting on the tasks, challenges, problems and concerns of all soldiers during these conflicts.
Download or read book Living the Cold War written by Christopher Mallaby and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insider's account of the Cold War as seen by a key diplomat abroad and in London. A privileged view of work that won the Cold War, written with humour and insight.
Download or read book From F 4 Phantom to A 10 Warthog written by Steve Ladd and published by Air World. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This behind-the-scenes account of a USAF career is “an absorbing read, written with the classic humor fighter pilots seem to have” (Flight Line Book Review). From Baron von Richthofen to Robin Olds, the mystique of the fighter pilot endures. The skill, cunning, and bravery that characterizes this distinctive band of brothers is well known, but there are other dimensions to those who take to the skies to do battle that have not been given the emphasis they deserve—until now. You don’t have to be an aviation aficionado to enjoy Colonel Steve Ladd’s fascinating personal tale, woven around his twenty-eight-year career as a fighter pilot. This extremely engaging account follows a young man from basic pilot training to senior command through narratives that define a unique ethos. From the United States to Southeast Asia, Europe to the Middle East, the amusing and tongue-in-cheek to the deadly serious and poignant, this is the lifelong journey of a fighter pilot. The anecdotes are absorbing, providing an insight into life as an Air Force pilot, but, in this book, as Colonel Ladd stresses, the focus is not on fireworks or stirring tales of derring-do. Instead, this is an articulate and absorbing account of what life is really like among a rare breed of arrogant, cocky, boisterous, and fun-loving young men who readily transform into steely professionals at the controls of a fighter aircraft. “This book will appeal to a variety of readers with its Vietnam War combat stories and accounts of flying the Warthog in Cold War Europe. Fun, flying, international experiences—you won’t want to put it down.” —Aviation News
Download or read book Khrushchev The Man and His Era written by William Taubman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004-03-30 with total page 929 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the life story of twentieth-century Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, featuring information from previously inaccessible Russian and Ukrainian archives.
Download or read book Trapped in the Cold War written by Hermann H. Field and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The disappearance behind the Iron Curtain of the American brothers Noel and Hermann Field in 1949, followed by that of Noels wife and their foster daughter, was one of the most publicized international mysteries of the Cold War. This dual memoir gives an intensely human dimension to that struggle, with Hermann narrating all that happened to him from the day he was abducted from the Warsaw airport to his release five years later, and Kate relating her unrelenting efforts to find her husband. Thousands of potential victims of Hitlers dragnet were rescued in 1939 and during World War II through separate efforts of the Field brothers. Arrested in Czechoslovakia in 1949, Noel was taken to Hungary and used as an example of American perfidy in show trials. Hermann went to Poland primarily to find out what had happened to his brother. After Hermanns abduction, he was taken to the cellar of a secret Polish prison, where he was held for five years. He gives us a detailed account of his battle to survive, alternating despair and horror with mordant humor. Meanwhile, his family had no idea whether he was still alive and if so, where. This moving story, based on detailed notes made by the authors during and shortly after the events described, presents an inside-outside counterpoint, as Hermanns chapters on his inward journey in his cellar world alternate with Kates efforts in London to find him by scrutinizing accounts of political events in Eastern Europe for clues and penetrating the diplomatic corridors of power in the West for help. Hermann had been arrested by a Polish security agent who later defected and became one of the Wests most important informants on Soviet operations in Eastern Europe. The search for the Field brothers was complicated by their history of leftist connections, for this tense period in the Cold War was also the era of McCarthyism in the United States. The book ends with an Epilogue that analyzes the events of fifty years ago in the light of what we know today, as the result of newly available archival material.
Download or read book The First Cold Warrior written by Elizabeth Spalding and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2006-05-26 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first days of his unexpected presidency in April 1945 through the landmark NSC 68 of 1950, Harry Truman was central to the formation of America’s grand strategy during the Cold War and the subsequent remaking of U.S. foreign policy. Others are frequently associated with the terminology of and responses to the perceived global Communist threat after the Second World War: Walter Lippmann popularized the term “cold war,” and George F. Kennan first used the word “containment” in a strategic sense. Although Kennan, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall have been seen as the most influential architects of American Cold War foreign policy, The First Cold Warrior draws on archives and other primary sources to demonstrate that Harry Truman was the key decision maker in the critical period between 1945 and 1950. In a significant reassessment of the thirty-third president and his political beliefs, Elizabeth Edwards Spalding contends that it was Truman himself who defined and articulated the theoretical underpinnings of containment. His practical leadership style was characterized by policies and institutions such as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the Berlin airlift, the Department of Defense, and the National Security Council. Part of Truman’s unique approach—shaped by his religious faith and dedication to anti-communism—was to emphasize the importance of free peoples, democratic institutions, and sovereign nations. With these values, he fashioned a new liberal internationalism, distinct from both Woodrow Wilson’s progressive internationalism and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s liberal pragmatism, which still shapes our politics. Truman deserves greater credit for understanding the challenges of his time and for being America’s first cold warrior. This reconsideration of Truman’s overlooked statesmanship provides a model for interpreting the international crises facing the United States in this new era of ideological conflict.
Download or read book Gangway Regular Navy written by Richard I. Merrell and published by CWO3 Richard Merrell. This book was released on 2005 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering the Cold War era from 1960-1980 with a strong focus on humor, Gangway, Regular Navy! is a historically and militarily accurate portrayal of world events during that time period. M3283HB - $25.00
Download or read book General de Gaulle s Cold War written by Garret Joseph Martin and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The greatest threat to the Western alliance in the 1960s did not come from an enemy, but from an ally. France, led by its mercurial leader General Charles de Gaulle, launched a global and comprehensive challenge to the United State’s leadership of the Free World, tackling not only the political but also the military, economic, and monetary spheres. Successive American administrations fretted about de Gaulle, whom they viewed as an irresponsible nationalist at best and a threat to their presence in Europe at worst. Based on extensive international research, this book is an original analysis of France’s ambitious grand strategy during the 1960s and why it eventually failed. De Gaulle’s failed attempt to overcome the Cold War order reveals important insights about why the bipolar international system was able to survive for so long, and why the General’s legacy remains significant to current French foreign policy.
Download or read book Lost in the Cold War the Story of Jack Downey America s Longest Held POW written by John T. Downey and published by . This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1952, John T. "Jack" Downey, a twenty-three-year-old CIA officer from Connecticut, was shot down over Manchuria during the Korean War. The pilots died in the crash, but Downey and his partner Richard "Dick" Fecteau were captured by the Chinese. For the next twenty years, they were tortured, put through show trials, held in solitary confinement, placed in reeducation camps, and toured around China as political pawns. Other prisoners of war came and went, but Downey and Fecteau's release hinged on the United States acknowledging their status as CIA assets. Not until Nixon's visit to China did Sino-American relations thaw enough to secure Fecteau's release in 1971 and Downey's in 1973. Lost in the Cold War is the never-before-told story of Downey's decades as a prisoner of war and the efforts to bring him home. Downey's lively and gripping memoir--written in secret late in life--interweaves horrors and deprivation with humor and the absurdities of captivity. He recounts his prison experiences: fearful interrogations, pantomime communications with his guards, a 3,000-page overstuffed confession designed to confuse his captors, and posing for "show" photographs for propaganda purposes. Through the eyes of his captors and during his tours around China, Downey watched the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the drastic transformations of the Mao era. In interspersed chapters, Thomas J. Christensen, an expert on Sino-American relations, explores the international politics of the Cold War and tells the story of how Downey and Fecteau's families, the CIA, the U.S. State Department, and successive presidential administrations worked to secure their release.
Download or read book Fearing the Worst written by Samuel F. Wells Jr. and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After World War II, the escalating tensions of the Cold War shaped the international system. Fearing the Worst explains how the Korean War fundamentally changed postwar competition between the United States and the Soviet Union into a militarized confrontation that would last decades. Samuel F. Wells Jr. examines how military and political events interacted to escalate the conflict. Decisions made by the Truman administration in the first six months of the Korean War drove both superpowers to intensify their defense buildup. American leaders feared the worst-case scenario—that Stalin was prepared to start World War III—and raced to build up strategic arms, resulting in a struggle they did not seek out or intend. Their decisions stemmed from incomplete interpretations of Soviet and Chinese goals, especially the belief that China was a Kremlin puppet. Yet Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-sung all had their own agendas, about which the United States lacked reliable intelligence. Drawing on newly available documents and memoirs—including previously restricted archives in Russia, China, and North Korea—Wells analyzes the key decision points that changed the course of the war. He also provides vivid profiles of the central actors as well as important but lesser known figures. Bringing together studies of military policy and diplomacy with the roles of technology, intelligence, and domestic politics in each of the principal nations, Fearing the Worst offers a new account of the Korean War and its lasting legacy.
Download or read book Reflections of a Cold Warrior written by Richard Mervin Bissell and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard M. Bissell, Jr., the most important CIA spymaster in history, singlehandedly led America's intelligence service from the age of Mata Hari into the space age. Under his guidance the U-2 spy-plane, the SR-71 "Blackbird," and the Corona spy satellite were developed, and the agency rose to the pinnacle of its power. Bissell was also, however, the architect of the infamous Bay of Pigs operation that failed to overthrow Castro in 1961 and led to the decline of the CIA. In this compelling memoir, Bissell gives us an insider's view of the personalities, policies, and historical forces surrounding these and other covert operations and the lessons learned during those times of conflict.Bissell begins by describing his early years as a member of America's unofficial aristocracy. Born in a house that his father bought from Samuel Clemens, he was educated at Groton and Yale and befriended by Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, among others. Bissell recounts how he became acting head of the Economic Cooperation Administration, the agency in charge of the Marshall Plan after World War II, and helped to create the European Payments Union. Bissell was brought into the CIA in 1954, where he initiated a revolution in intelligence-gathering techniques. He reveals the details of these developments, as well as of the unique CIA-Lockheed partnership he pioneered, his participation in the CIA-sponsored coup to overthrow Arbenz in Guatemala, and his involvement in crises in Laos and the Congo. Bissell's memoir sheds light not only on pivotal points of American foreign policy but also on America's evolution from isolationist to interventionist superpower.
Download or read book Daughter of the Cold War written by Grace Kennan Warnecke and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2018-04-11 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grace Kennan Warnecke's memoir is about a life lived on the edge of history. Daughter of one of the most influential diplomats of the twentieth century, wife of the scion of a newspaper dynasty and mother of the youngest owner of a major league baseball team, Grace eventually found her way out from under the shadows of others to forge a dynamic career of her own. Born in Latvia, Grace lived in seven countries and spoke five languages before the age of eleven. As a child, she witnessed Hitler’s march into Prague, attended a Soviet school during World War II, and sailed the seas with her father. In a multi-faceted career, she worked as a professional photographer, television producer, and book editor and critic. Eventually, like her father, she became a Russian specialist, but of a very different kind. She accompanied Ted Kennedy and his family to Russia, escorted Joan Baez to Moscow to meet with dissident Andrei Sakharov, and hosted Josef Stalin’s daughter on the family farm after Svetlana defected to the United States. While running her own consulting company in Russia, she witnessed the breakup of the Soviet Union, and later became director of a women’s economic empowerment project in a newly independent Ukraine. Daughter of the Cold War is a tale of all these adventures and so much more. This compelling and evocative memoir allows readers to follow Grace's amazing path through life – a whirlwind journey of survival, risk, and self-discovery through a kaleidoscope of many countries, historic events, and fascinating people.
Download or read book Memoirs of a Cold War Warrior written by Keith Harvey and published by . This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few inside accounts have been published in Australia written by those who were active in that part of the Cold War which took place inside Australia's social institutions, especially the trade union movement. Most published memoirs have been written by those on the extreme left of the political spectrum or by defectors from the anti-communist movement. In his account, Keith Harvey, an anti-communist student and trade union movement activist describes his involvement in the struggle carried out, he says, by often unsung people with the highest motives.
Download or read book Our Germans written by Brian E. Crim and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2018-01-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping history of one of the United States' most controversial Cold War intelligence operations. Project Paperclip brought hundreds of German scientists and engineers, including aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, to the United States in the first decade after World War II. More than the freighters full of equipment or the documents recovered from caves and hastily abandoned warehouses, the German brains who designed and built the V-2 rocket and other "wonder weapons" for the Third Reich proved invaluable to America's emerging military-industrial complex. Whether they remained under military employment, transitioned to civilian agencies like NASA, or sought more lucrative careers with corporations flush with government contracts, German specialists recruited into the Paperclip program assumed enormously influential positions within the labyrinthine national security state. Drawing on recently declassified documents from intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, the FBI, and the State Department, Brian E. Crim's Our Germans examines the process of integrating German scientists into a national security state dominated by the armed services and defense industries. Crim explains how the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency enticed targeted scientists, whitewashed the records of Nazis and war criminals, and deceived government agencies about the content of security investigations. Exploring the vicious bureaucratic rivalries that erupted over the wisdom, efficacy, and morality of pursuing Paperclip, Our Germans reveals how some Paperclip proponents and scientists influenced the perception of the rival Soviet threat by volunteering inflated estimates of Russian intentions and technical capabilities. As it describes the project's embattled legacy, Our Germans reflects on the myriad ways that Paperclip has been remembered in culture and national memory. As this engaging book demonstrates, whether characterized as an expedient Cold War program born from military necessity or a dishonorable episode, the project ultimately reflects American ambivalence about the military-industrial complex and the viability of an "ends justifies the means" solution to external threats.
