| Edition |
First edition. |
| Description |
xix, 534 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [501]-509) and index. |
| Summary |
From Sheehan, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic "A Bright Shining Lie," comes the never-before-told story of the nuclear arms race that changed history--and of the visionary American Air Force officer Bernard Schriever, who led the high-stakes effort with the ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missiles) program. |
| Contents |
Prologue: A rite of succession -- Book I: Becoming an American. Ellis Island and a tragedy in Texas ; A benefactor and the house on the twelfth green ; The virtues of golf ; White silk scarves and open cockpits ; Entering the brotherhood ; A fiasco and reform ; Staying the course ; A fork in the road ; "Let's dive-bomb the bastards" ; The text on war -- Book II: Inheriting a different world. Atomic diplomacy ; Spies inside the barbed wire ; "The balance has been destroyed" ; The state that was Stalin ; A confrontation and a misreading ; Containing the menace ; Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor fog ; Stalin gets his bomb ; The consequences of delusion ; Good intentions gone awry -- Book III: The perils of an apprenticeship. Hap Arnold's legacy ; Getting organized ; Bomber leader ; Into the lion's den ; Moscow opts for rockets ; A nuclear reactor in the sky ; Low-level tactics and the flying boom ; The last tangle and an ambush -- |
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Book IV: Starting a race. Seeking scientific validation ; When Hungary was Mars ; A fascination with explosions ; Finding an ally ; Marshaling the expertise ; The Tea Pot Committee ; Getting started ; "Okay, Bennie, it's a deal" -- Book V: Winning a president. A schoolhouse and a radical new approach ; The guru of rockets ; A problem with Tommy Power ; How greed corrupts ; An assault from an unexpected quarter ; A sense of adventure ; No time for family ; Getting to Ike ; A difficult dialogue at Geneva ; No more nitpicking ; A radar in Turkey -- Book VI: Building the unstoppable. A competitor ; The team of Mettler and Thiel ; John Bruce Medaris and Werner von Braun ; The Cape of the Canebrake vs. "Moose" Mathison ; A few grains of sand ; Medaris goes for the ICBM ; The reluctant rescuer ; Thor vs. Jupiter ; Sputnik ; Thor readies for England ; Jamie Wallace's Thor show ; The biggest airlift since Berlin ; "Roy... I want you to get me Camp Cooke" ; A tie ; Black Saturday ; The trials of Atlas and a Christmas surprise ; Whose missile gap? ; A victory despite the bugs ; Minuteman: Ed Hall's triumph ; "You couldn't keep him in that job" -- Book VII: A spy in orbit and a game of nuclear dice. A would be spy in the sky goes awry ; Mathison snatches the prize ; Discoverer "goes black" into Corona ; A harebrained scheme ; Palm tree disguises ; Keeping the military on the leash ; "Use of 'em or lose 'em" ; LeMay and Tommy Power as the wild cards ; Avoiding Götterdämmerung ; Buying time for the empire to implode -- Epilogue: The Schriever luck. Johnny von Neumann finds faith but not peace ; "The slowest old trey has ever gone in a Cadillac" ; Losing it all and forgiving a brother ; "Only in America" ; A reunion with Hap -- Interviews. |
| Subject |
Schriever, Bernard A.
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United States. Air Force -- Officers -- Biography.
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Generals -- United States -- Biography.
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Military engineers -- United States -- Biography.
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Intercontinental ballistic missiles -- Design and construction -- History.
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Intercontinental ballistic missiles -- United States -- History.
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Nuclear weapons -- United States -- History.
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Cold War.
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Aeronautics, Military -- Research -- United States -- History.
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Astronautics -- Research -- United States -- History.
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| ISBN |
9780679422846 hardcover alkaline paper |
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0679422846 hardcover alkaline paper |
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9781588369055 (eBook) |
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