Download PDF The Dead Hand The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy eBook David E Hoffman

Product details File Size 4797 KB Print Length 610 pages Publisher Anchor; 1 edition (September 21, 2009) Publication Date September 22, 2009 Sold by Random House LLC Language English ASIN B002PXFYPQ

The Dead Hand The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy eBook David E Hoffman Reviews

• I picked up this book after reading Hoffman's Billion Dollar Spy. This book, which won the Pulitzer Prize, is an extrememly gripping account of the of The Cold War during the Reagan administration and the Gorbachev years.
  
  This is not a academic treatment of the subject, not a comprehensive account from the end of World War II through 1991. Instead, we are given an account of how the Reagan administration put pressure on the Soviets and the ways in which the Soviets reacted. It is this reaction that really is the chilling part of this fascinating book and gives rise to the so-called "Dead-Hand" that is the title. The best part of this account is that this book not only discusses the pretty well known aspects of the Reagan years, but the Soviet side of the conflict. In the light of years having passed, this is interesting and history not as well known
  
  Having read many accounts of the Cold War because of personal fascinations, this book in some ways has information that I was familiar with, but Hoffman really uses new sources and synthesizes other accounts that still make this compelling reading on many levels.
  
  This is a very worthwhile book if you have an interest in the subject, and frankly, most thinking person should want some idea just how difficult and scary the 1980's were in many respects. I also think that many of the Reagan doubters that really diminish the man will be surprised (as I was frequently) just how resolute and firm Reagan was during this time despite the negative attention he received (and not all of that negative information was organic either - read the book) . This is a very fair account of those times.
  
  Recommended.
• This book gives a very interesting look into a particular part of the Cold War nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the U.S. But the scope of the book is very limited especially considering its size and from what the title implies. This book has very little to say about the nuclear arms race before the Reagan administration and seems to rush through things after the Reagan leaves office. I think that this is mainly due to the fact that the author was a Washington Post corespondent during the that time and that is what he is most familiar with but it seems very strange reading the detail he gives to Reagan's interactions with the Soviet Union and the way he seems to gloss over the Bush and Clinton Administrations. There is also comparatively little attention paid to the U.S. side of the nuclear arms build up as well as the various schemes that both sides had for dealing with a first strike that they feared the other side would do, The book is named after one of these deterrent measures but the book doesn't really go into any detail on what The Dead Hand actually is and why the Soviets devised this strategy. This is a good book for someone interested in the discussions and negotiations toward the end of the soviet era and it is very informative about the Soviet Chemical and Biological Weapons program but it is not very informative about the overall strategy of deterrence or what was going on on the U.S. side of the race.
• This book contains a LOT of interesting revelations.
  
  David Hoffman does an outstanding job of explaining how the Soviet Union's hierarchy RESENTED the fact that they were so weak, and so vulnerable, and so inflexible.
  
  They did not want to be resisted. It was as though they had a right to world-wide domination and they knew they were too weak to resist any kind of criticism. Amazing.
  
  They knew their top-down command and control system, which they demanded, failed to provide basic essentials for the people of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev KNEW it. Author Hoffman discusses it at great length. But they absolutely refused to relent and instead tightened up their controls, increased the corruption ... and every time they ratcheted down, it made things worse and worse and worse. And the controls were so costly, that they eventually bankrupted the country. But they demanded more and more controls.
  
  [Slightly off topic ... those controls were exported to Cuba and to Venezuela ... and had the same effect. Today in Venezuela, they are rationing water!]
  
  The details of the shootdown of KAL 007 demonstrated that their interceptor force was incredibly clumsy; they were unable to coordinate, they were unable to verify what they were targeting and for such a large country, their airplanes had a very short range. If you look at an airliner or a photo of an airliner, the airplane's registration number is painted at the back end of the fuselage and low. The reason for the seemingly peculiar location is that if the airliner somehow shows up on radar as an "unknown" [a bogie], then an interceptor is supposed to fly to the unknown plane so the pilot can visually identify the type of airplane and then fly close enough to read the registration number and not alarm the passengers.
  
  The Soviet plane got nowhere near the KAL 007 airplane. The Soviet pilot was unable to make an actual identification.
  
  When American planes intercept unknown airliners, the interceptors go up in pairs. One pilot hangs back a mile "just in case" and the other pilot closes to within ten feet or 20 feet. [These are very skillful pilots.] They have to be able to do this at night and in bad weather. Usually, the plane is an off-course airliner. So, they just back away and return to base. If the airplane is "hostile" or if it is some other country's reconnaissance plane, they could escort it or take pictures [the usual procedure] or shoot it down.
  
  The Soviet pilot just shot KAL 007 down. Never made a positive identification.
  
  The book goes into huge detail on the KAL 007 shoot down ... and how it fed into Soviet paranoia and how that tied in with the development of their Dead Hand "philosophy" and "psychology".
  
  And how the Soviets "assumed" that their paranoia was mirrored by the Americans ... which is was not.
  
  [By the way, the U.S. Air Force used a number of different types of aircraft for interception, including the F-102 of which we had about one thousand operated by both the Air Force and the Air National Guard. There were thousands of pilots trained for the mission, as part of the SAGE system. You can look it up. One of the interceptor pilots ... very skilled ... was a Lieutenant George W. Bush. Interesting. Look up the weapons upload of the F-102 for a reason why Bush never discussed his service. Pilots carrying those particular weapons have never discussed their mission. Check out the detail about the F-102; lots of books about it on .]