Download or read book Way Out There In the Blue written by Frances FitzGerald and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-02-21 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Way Out There in the Blue is a major work of history by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Fire in the Lake. Using the Star Wars missile defense program as a magnifying glass on his presidency, Frances FitzGerald gives us a wholly original portrait of Ronald Reagan, the most puzzling president of the last half of the twentieth century. Reagan's presidency and the man himself have always been difficult to fathom. His influence was enormous, and the few powerful ideas he espoused remain with us still -- yet he seemed nothing more than a charming, simple-minded, inattentive actor. FitzGerald shows us a Reagan far more complex than the man we thought we knew. A master of the American language and of self-presentation, the greatest storyteller ever to occupy the Oval Office, Reagan created a compelling public persona that bore little relationship to himself. The real Ronald Reagan -- the Reagan who emerges from FitzGerald's book -- was a gifted politician with a deep understanding of the American national psyche and at the same time an executive almost totally disengaged from the policies of his administration and from the people who surrounded him. The idea that America should have an impregnable shield against nuclear weapons was Reagan's invention. His famous Star Wars speech, in which he promised us such a shield and called upon scientists to produce it, gave rise to the Strategic Defense Initiative. Reagan used his sure understanding of American mythology, history and politics to persuade the country that a perfect defense against Soviet nuclear weapons would be possible, even though the technology did not exist and was not remotely feasible. His idea turned into a multibillion-dollar research program. SDI played a central role in U.S.-Soviet relations at a crucial juncture in the Cold War, and in a different form it survives to this day. Drawing on prodigious research, including interviews with the participants, FitzGerald offers new insights into American foreign policy in the Reagan era. She gives us revealing portraits of major players in Reagan's administration, including George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger, Donald Regan and Paul Nitze, and she provides a radically new view of what happened at the Reagan-Gorbachev summits in Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington and Moscow. FitzGerald describes the fierce battles among Reagan's advisers and the frightening increase of Cold War tensions during Reagan's first term. She shows how the president who presided over the greatest peacetime military buildup came to espouse the elimination of nuclear weapons, and how the man who insisted that the Soviet Union was an "evil empire" came to embrace the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and to proclaim an end to the Cold War long before most in Washington understood that it had ended. Way Out There in the Blue is a ground-breaking history of the American side of the end of the Cold War. Both appalling and funny, it is a black comedy in which Reagan, playing the role he wrote for himself, is the hero.
Download or read book The Strategic Defense Initiative written by United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan) and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Reign of Fantasy written by Kerry L. Hunter and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 1992 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not just another book on Star Wars, The Reign of Fantasy provides an explanation for the program's monumental political support during the Reagan years. The fundamental argument of the book is that the more fantastic the Star Wars proposal became, the greater the political success of the SDI program. And, though its primary focus is on Star Wars, the book's greatest contributions lie in the broader questions it raises concerning presidential leadership. What is the role of utopian visions in presidential politics? How could a surreal dream actually drive strategic policy? What are the future implications of Reagan's reign of fantasy to American-style democracy?
Download or read book Reagan s War written by Peter Schweizer and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2003-10-21 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reagan’s War is the story of Ronald Reagan’s personal and political journey as an anti-communist, from his early days as an actor to his years in the White House. Challenging popular misconceptions of Reagan as an empty suit who played only a passive role in the demise of the Soviet Union, Peter Schweizer details Reagan’s decades-long battle against communism. Bringing to light previously secret information obtained from archives in the United States, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Russia—including Reagan’s KGB file—Schweizer offers a compelling case that Reagan personally mapped out and directed his war against communism, often disagreeing with experts and advisers. An essential book for understanding the Cold War, Reagan’s War should be read by open-minded readers across the political spectrum.
Download or read book Reagan s Star Wars written by Walter Parks and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2012-10-03 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: President Eisenhower led us to victory in World War II. He then led our country as President for 8 years. He understood war and he understood how Washington worked. The major message he gave us as he left the presidency was: Beware of the Military Industrial Complex. His warning was very appropriate but it was not heeded by our nation. I know because I not only witnessed it being ignored, but I participated in using the power of the Military Industrial Complex during my aerospace career. Reagan's Star Wars describes why and how the power of the Military Industrial Complex gave birth to the Strategic Defense Initiative known as Star Wars. ***** By the early 1980's it was becoming clear that the USSR would fail. The major US Aerospace companies who were dependent on military spending were growing concerned that peace would be declared and the military budgets would be significantly decreased. They had to do something! Most of the major US Aerospace Companies maintained a study staff to assess military needs and likely budget actions; and, of course to try to influence such actions and budgets. I know the details of the Martin Marietta Aerospace Company's studies and the resulting pitches to the military, congress, NATO, and all affected agencies including the President because I was a corporate Vice President and well aware of our studies. I also had some awareness of such studies at Lockheed Aerospace Company because we had a close relationship with them. The two Companies eventually merged and is now Lockheed Martin Aerospace Company. Their studies viewed the sharp drops in military budgets at the end of military threats like World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. They feared that peace would break out and the budgets would be significantly decreased, maybe even as severe as happened after World War II. President Carter had already dropped the budget to the lowest it had been in over 25 years. The US military budgets would certainly be decreased. What could the Aerospace Giants do to continue our enriched lifestyles? They reasoned that seeking funds for new weapons in a peace time or seeking funds to "patch" existing weapons would not result in the magnitude of budgets that they needed. They put a study together that showed the merits of pursuing a leap frog to the current weapons technology and jumping into technology of the future. They started preaching such a strategy to the US military, to Congress, to the President, NATO and any agency that would listen. The pitch got honed until it began to make sense. The Strategic Defense Initiative, later known as Star Wars, was about to be born. We honed our pitches first with the military staffs in the Pentagon, then the staffers of the key military committees in Congress. Then we were ready for the President. I remember a key pitch to the President that I believe really convinced him in the merits of pursuing a leap frog to current technology. The pitch was about how we could use the workings of the brain of a tiny insect to control the battle field. President Reagan was sold. The military budgets ceased the Carter decline and began to rise. The military industrial complex was working; the military budgets were saved. President Reagan absorbed and understood our "pitches" and proposed a new program: The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) on March 23, 1983. It was to replace the insane old strategic plan of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) that had been in place for many years. The President's proposal was accepted by the military and Congress and SDI was set up in the Pentagon in 1984. The day after President Reagan's announcement the Washington Post published a quote from Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy describing the proposal as "reckless Star Wars schemes." The name stuck, Reagan's Star Wars was born.
Download or read book The Brink written by Marc Ambinder and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An informative and often enthralling book…in the appealing style of Tom Clancy” (Kirkus Reviews) about the 1983 war game that triggered a tense, brittle period of nuclear brinkmanship between the United States and the former Soviet Union. What happened in 1983 to make the Soviet Union so afraid of a potential nuclear strike from the United States that they sent mobile ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) into the field, placing them on a three-minute alert Marc Ambinder explains the anxious period between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1984, with the “Able Archer ’83” war game at the center of the tension. With astonishing and clarifying new details, he recounts the scary series of the close encounters that tested the limits of ordinary humans and powerful leaders alike. Ambinder provides a comprehensive and chilling account of the nuclear command and control process, from intelligence warnings to the composition of the nuclear codes themselves. And he affords glimpses into the secret world of a preemptive electronic attack that scared the Soviet Union into action. Ambinder’s account reads like a thriller, recounting the spy-versus-spy games that kept both countries—and the world—in check. From geopolitics in Moscow and Washington, to sweat-caked soldiers fighting in the trenches of the Cold War, to high-stakes war games across NATO and the Warsaw Pact, “Ambinder’s account of a serious threat of global annihilation…is spellbinding…a masterpiece of recent history” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The Brink serves as the definitive intelligence, nuclear, and national security history of one of the most precarious times in recent memory and “shows the consequences of nuclear buildups, sometimes-careless language, and nervous leaders. Now, more than ever, those consequences matter” (USA TODAY).
Download or read book War Stars written by Howard Bruce Franklin and published by Univ of Massachusetts Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this new and expanded edition of an already classic work, H. Bruce Franklin brings the epic story of the superweapon and the American imagination into the ominous twenty-first century, demonstrating its continuing importance both to comprehending our current predicament and to finding ways to escape from it. Sweeping through two centuries of American culture and military history, Franklin traces the evolution of superweapons from Robert Fulton's eighteenth-century submarine through the strategic bomber, atomic bomb, and Star Wars to a twenty-first century dominated by "weapons of mass destruction," real and imagined. Interweaving culture, science, technology, and history, he shows how and why the American pursuit of the ultimate defensive weapon -- guaranteed to end all war and bring universal triumph to American ideals -- has led our nation and the world into an epoch of terror and endless war.
Download or read book Star Wars written by Loring Wirbel and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2004 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows how space technology is being used by the US military to create and control endless preventative war.
Download or read book How Star Wars Conquered the Universe written by Chris Taylor and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1973, a young filmmaker named George Lucas scribbled some notes for a far-fetched space-fantasy epic. Some forty years and 37 billion later, Star Wars -- related products outnumber human beings, a growing stormtrooper army spans the globe, and "Jediism" has become a religion in its own right. Lucas's creation has grown into far more than a cinematic classic; it is, quite simply, one of the most lucrative, influential, and interactive franchises of all time. Yet incredibly, until now the complete history of Star Wars -- its influences and impact, the controversies it has spawned, its financial growth and long-term prospects -- has never been told. In How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, veteran journalist Chris Taylor traces the series from the difficult birth of the original film through its sequels, the franchise's death and rebirth, the prequels, and the preparations for a new trilogy. Providing portraits of the friends, writers, artists, producers, and marketers who labored behind the scenes to turn Lucas's idea into a legend, Taylor also jousts with modern-day Jedi, tinkers with droid builders, and gets inside Boba Fett's helmet, all to find out how Star Wars has attracted and inspired so many fans for so long. Since the first film's release in 1977, Taylor shows, Star Wars has conquered our culture with a sense of lightness and exuberance, while remaining serious enough to influence politics in far-flung countries and spread a spirituality that appeals to religious groups and atheists alike. Controversial digital upgrades and poorly received prequels have actually made the franchise stronger than ever. Now, with a savvy new set of bosses holding the reins and Episode VII on the horizon, it looks like Star Wars is just getting started. An energetic, fast-moving account of this creative and commercial phenomenon, How Star Wars Conquered the Universe explains how a young filmmaker's fragile dream beat out a surprising number of rivals to gain a diehard, multigenerational fan base -- and why it will be galvanizing our imaginations and minting money for generations to come.
Download or read book Ballistic Missile Defense Technologies written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1985 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mr Reagan s Star Wars written by Harry Gregor Gelber and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Star Warriors written by William J Broad and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1986-10-15 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SCOTT (Copy 1): From the John Holmes Library collection.
Download or read book Reagan s Terrible Swift Sword written by Donald John Devine and published by Jameson Books (IL). This book was released on 1991 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reagan s Secret War written by Martin Anderson and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2010-07-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On February 6, 1981, at his first National Security Council meeting, Ronald Reagan told his advisers: “I will make the decisions.” As Reagan’s Secret War reveals, these words provide the touchstone for understanding the extraordinary accomplishments of the Reagan administration, including the decisive events that led to the end of the Cold War. In penning this book, New York Times bestselling authors Martin Anderson and Annelise Anderson drew upon their unprecedented access to more than eight million highly classified documents housed within the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California—unseen by the public until now. Using his top secret clearances, Martin Anderson was able to access Ronald Reagan’s most privileged exchanges with subordinates and world leaders as well as the tactical record of how Reagan fought to win the Cold War and control nuclear weapons. The most revelatory of these documents are the minutes of Reagan-chaired National Security Council meetings, the dozens of secret letters sent by Reagan to world leaders, and the eyewitness notes from Reagan-Gorbachev summits. Along with these findings, the authors use Reagan’s speeches, radio addresses, personal diaries, and other correspondence to develop a striking picture of a man whose incisive intelligence, uncanny instincts, and quiet self-confidence changed the course of history. What emerges from this treasure trove of material is irrefutable evidence that Reagan intended from his first days in office to bring down the Soviet Union, that he considered eliminating nuclear weapons his paramount objective, and that he—not his subordinates—was the principal architect of the policies that ultimately brought the Soviets to the nuclear-arms negotiating table. The authors also affirm that many of Reagan’s ideas, including his controversial “Star Wars” missile-defense initiative, proved essential in dissolving the Soviet Union and keeping America safe. Riveting and eye-opening, Reagan’s Secret War provides a front-row seat to history, a journey into the political mind of a remarkable leader, and proof that one man can, through the force of his deep convictions, bring about sweeping global change.
Download or read book Ronald Reagan s Star Wars Vision written by Peter Vincent Ronayne and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Second Cold War written by Aaron Donaghy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The compelling account of the last great Cold War struggle between America and the Soviet Union that took place between 1977 and 1985.
Download or read book The Strategic Defense Initiative written by Ralph L. Dietl and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-08-15 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nuclear and Space Talks revolutionized arms control. The Cold War endgame commenced with the umbrella negotiations’ that linked START and INF negotiations to a regulation on the weaponization of space. This volume reveals a US grand strategy to replace deterrence with a collective security order. An entente of the superpowers was needed to transform bipolarity. The US planned the replacement of mutually assured destruction by mutually assured security. A global astrodome was to protect a nuclear disarmed world. The Franco-German special relationship in European affairs had to be amended by a US-SU special relationship to replace classic bloc politics. The Reagan Administration planned a global zero agenda, a joint development of a global protective system and a creation of a Common House of Europe. In brief, the superpowers prepared ‘the velvet revolution’ that eliminated the Cold War structures. Neither containment nor convergence offers a valid explanation of the Cold War endgame. Co-creation is the key to decipher the end of the Cold War. NATO Europe challenged the transformation of bipolarity. The European NWS resisted to a multilateralization of strategic arms control. In Europe the classic Cold War thinking survived the fall of the Iron Curtain. European conservatism contributed to the geopolitical catastrophe of the first order: the downfall of the Soviet Union. The Reagan Administration developed a Grand Strategy to end the Cold War. The US-SU co-creation of an astrodome was meant to ease a global zero agenda. A global collective security structure under the United Nations was to replace deterrence. The superpower project collapsed due to the penetration of US decision-making by NATO Allies. The European NWS totally objected to a multilateralization of strategic arms control to preserve their relative position in the international system.
