Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.42 (645 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0684856999 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 464 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-06-23 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"Look,up in the sky" according to FrKurt Messick. The book Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage by Philip Taubman could be likened to a triptych of America's first steps into the dark world of space through the murky processes of Cold War intelligence operations and military competitiveness. The first third looks at the period of time immediately following World War II, when the Cold War had not yet become a matter of settled doctrine, nor had the Soviet Union been id. Enter the 5-Star General Dr. Victor S. Alpher I have been studying secret science research projects during World War II for some time, as well as the development of the Oss and the CIA.This book was an excellent surprise, for it changed and advanced my views in many areas. I was also amazed to find that it was Dwight Eisenhower's respect for Science and Technology that led him to give a green light around 1953 for ramping up espionage, intelligence, and sky and space-borne observation of the Soviet Union, giving. Making rocket science accessible Taubman has done a masterful job of taking a subject that could easily become a technical snore, and creating a riveting account of Cold War intelligence wars that reads like a novel. The author provides appropriate historical, political, and technical context, without overwhelming the reader with extraneous or abstract information. His account of the key players and their roles in the 1950s defense establishment makes this book tremendously engaging.
was neither outpacing the U.S. The new technology was driven by the need for safer ways to spy on the Soviet Union-hundreds of pilots had been killed or lost in aerial reconnaissance missions-and, as Taubman argues, it served as a peacekeeper by eliminating the fear of surprise attack. Taubman sheds light on a era when the nation's lawmakers were regularly kept in the dark about CIA and other spy agency activities. in the manufacture of long-range bombers nor fielding hundreds of intercontinental missiles as feared. . From Publishers Weekly In this exciting, meticulously researched spy story, Taubman takes readers behind the closed doors of the Eisenhower administration to tell about the small group of Cold Warriors whose technological innovations-including the U2 spy plane and Corona, the country's first spy satellite-revolution
During the early and most dangerous years of the cold war, a handful of Americans, led by President Dwight D. In a brief period of explosive, top-secret innovation during the 1950s, a small group of scientists, engineers, businessmen, and government officials rewrote the book on airplane design and led the nation into outer space. In great secrecy and beyond the prying eyes of Congress and the press, they built exotic new machines that opened up the Soviet Union to surveillance and protected the United States from surprise nuclear attack. He reveals new information about the origins and evolution of the projects and how close they came to failing technically or falling victim to bureaucratic inertia and Washington's turf wars. But in some ways, the failure to detect the planning for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, can also be attributed to these powerful machines as the government became increasingly dependent on spy satellites to the neglect of human agents and informants. In an effort no less audacious than the creation of the atomic bomb, they designed, built, and operated the U-2 and supersonic SR-71 spy planes and Corona, the first reconnaissance satellites -- machines that could collect more information about the Soviet Union's weapons in a day than an army of spies could assemble in a decade. Now, as we wage a new and more vicious war against terrorism, we will need both machines in space and spies on the grou