The Bomb

Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War

By: Fred Kaplan

Narrated by: Edward Bauer

From the author of the classic The Wizards of Armageddon and Pulitzer Prize finalist comes the definitive history of American policy on nuclear war—and several presidents’ actions in nuclear crises—from Truman to Trump.

Fred Kaplan, hailed by The New York Times as “a rare combination of defense intellectual and pugnacious reporter,” takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank” in the Pentagon, and the vast chambers of Strategic Command to bring us the untold stories—based on exclusive interviews and previously classified documents—of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just barely avoided nuclear war from the dawn of the atomic age until today.

Kaplan’s historical research and deep reporting will stand as the permanent record of politics, the military history of nuclear weapons, and the struggles within the Department of Defense and the Pentagon strategies. Discussing theories that have dominated nightmare scenarios from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Kaplan presents the unthinkable in terms of mass destruction and demonstrates how the nuclear war reality will not go away, regardless of the dire consequences.

Good summary of the topic some interesting historical insights.

An interesting book, and if the listener is interested in the topic, a compelling listen. It explains how national nuclear weapons policy evolved, after development and use during WWII; Truman’s decision to place initial control in civil hands under the AEC; the consequence of loss of monopoly after the Berlin crisis; massive retaliation on civil population (where leadership and war industries existed); counter force, focusing on potential first strike in order to destroy Soviet attack capacity; the development of the Single Integrated Operating Plan (SIOP) that produces its own strange logic, and, perhaps by design ignored successive presidential guidance on the subject until late in the Cold War, and many other interesting twists and turns. One of the biggest surprise is the author’s apparent assessment that some of our presidential leaders perceived as doves (Carter, Clinton, and to a lesser degree Obama) have been more successful at nonproliferation efforts than some of our perceived Republican hawks. Indeed, it describes circumstances concerning North Korea during the run up to the Iraq War, which is the best evidence I’ve heard yet for avoiding what some have called wars of choice, and I was there and supported the effort. The book, however, seemed surprisingly kind to Reagan and Bush and complimentary of Obama, but if you are a Trump fan, you probably wont appreciate the author’s characterization of him in the last chapter. To be clear, this book covers the topic described. The author’s discussion and characterization of presidential leadership is a minor and probably inevitable part of the story, as the office of president provides the final guidance on setting nuclear weapons policy, and the person of the president is vested with the ultimate power to decide if and when to use such weapons. As the world returns to an era of potential armed conflict between Great Powers, the US, Russia and China, this book should be of interest to any concerned citizen seeking to understand the policy, and remaining areas of debate: first strike or no first strike, development and use of tactical theater nuclear weapons to counter Russia’s development of the same. All in all, a good listen. My only disappointment is that the author offered no comment on how developing weapons technologies, hypersonic missiles, which would seem to threaten land based ICBMs and aircraft carriers, and super fast nuclear armed torpedos, which could possibly threaten out boomer fleet, affected current strategy. Maybe in a second book.

Frightening but enlightening.

Kaplan successfully pulled together the historical threads of the story of American nuclear policy.

Good book, narration bad

The narration is very frustrating and distracting. It’s read with over done and poor theatrics. This isn’t necessary in a non-fiction books. This is pushing me toward only buying non-fiction when read by the author.

Excellent overview of nuclear weapons policy

The focus of this book is on the political aspects of nuclear weapons policy. It does shine a rather unfavorable light on Curtis LeMay. Ignore the Trump supporter reviews, the book is great.

Interesting history to Great analysis.

The book goes administration to administration looking at different approaches to nuclear strategy. The book provides an intimate history of the conversations and conflicts at the highest levels of military and civilian power in the US government.
The last chapter, which dealt with President Trump's ... unique understanding of nuclear policy really shows how crazy some of the assumption made about nuclear war are. Fred Kaplan's writing is strong and the narration kept me interested