Super Bomb
Organizational Conflict and the Development of the Hydrogen Bomb (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)
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Super Bomb
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Narrated by:
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William Dupuy
About this listen
Super Bomb unveils the story of the events leading up to President Harry S. Truman's 1950 decision to develop a "super" or hydrogen, bomb. That fateful decision and its immediate consequences are detailed in a diverse and complete account built on newly released archives and previously hidden contemporaneous interviews with more than 60 political, military, and scientific figures who were involved in the decision.
Ken Young and Warner R. Schilling present the expectations, hopes, and fears of the key individuals who lobbied for and against developing the H-bomb. They portray the conflicts that arose over the H-bomb as rooted in the distinct interests of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Los Alamos laboratory, the Pentagon, State Department, the Congress, and the White House.
But as they clearly show, once Truman made his decision in 1950, resistance to the H-bomb opportunistically shifted to new debates about the development of tactical nuclear weapons, continental air defense, and other aspects of nuclear weapons policy. What Super Bomb reveals is that, in many ways, the H-bomb struggle was a proxy battle over the morality and effectiveness of strategic bombardment and the role and doctrine of the US Strategic Air Command.
The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
Praise for the book:
"Super Bomb portrays conflicts that arose as rooted in the distinct interests of several institutions, providing both generalists and specialists a better understanding of the world in which we live." (Joseph M. Siracusa, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University)
"Brings new evidence to bear on an important historical issue and engages in detail with the existing scholarship. This is a work of high quality." (David Holloway, Stanford University, author of Stalin and the Bomb)
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 188
Andrew Marshall is a Pentagon legend. For more than four decades he has served as Director of the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon's internal think tank, under 12 defense secretaries and eight administrations. Yet Marshall has been on the cutting edge of strategic thinking even longer than that. Covering some of the most pivotal episodes of the last half century and peopled with some of the era's most influential figures, The Last Warrior tells Marshall's story for the first time, in the process providing an unparalleled history of the evolution of the American defense establishment.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting man
- By FoxMan on 04-28-17
By: Andrew Krepinevich, and others
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The Nuclear Spies
- America's Atomic Intelligence Operation against Hitler and Stalin
- By: Vince Houghton
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 213
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 190
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Story4 out of 5 stars 190
Why did the US intelligence services fail so spectacularly to know about the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities following World War II? As Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, shows us, that disastrous failure came just a few years after the Manhattan Project's intelligence team had penetrated the Third Reich and knew every detail of the Nazi's plan for an atomic bomb. What changed and what went wrong?
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2 out of 5 stars
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Misleading title
- By peter on 12-20-20
By: Vince Houghton
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The Button
- The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump
- By: William J. Perry, Tom Z. Collina
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 51
Written in an accessible and authoritative voice, The Button reveals the shocking tales and sobering facts of nuclear executive authority throughout the atomic age, delivering a powerful condemnation against ever leaving explosive power this devastating under any one person's thumb.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Garbage political tripe
- By Bryan Beaty on 03-15-21
By: William J. Perry, and others
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Prompt and Utter Destruction
- Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan, Third Edition
- By: J. Samuel Walker
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
In this concise account of why America used atomic bombs against Japan in 1945, J. Samuel Walker analyzes the reasons behind President Truman's most controversial decision. Delineating what was known and not known by American leaders at the time, Walker evaluates the options available for ending the war with Japan. In this new edition, Walker incorporates a decade of new research - mostly from Japanese archives only recently made available - that provides fresh insight on the strategic considerations that led to dropping the bomb.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Bullshit woke end
- By Fav on 12-19-23
By: J. Samuel Walker
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My Journey at the Nuclear Brink
- By: William Perry
- Narrated by: Kevin F Spalding
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
My Journey at the Nuclear Brink is a continuation of William J. Perry's efforts to keep the world safe from a nuclear catastrophe. It tells the story of his coming of age in the nuclear era, his role in trying to shape and contain it, and how his thinking has changed about the threat these weapons pose. In a remarkable career, Perry has dealt firsthand with the changing nuclear threat.
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5 out of 5 stars
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His journey has just begun
- By Amazon Customer on 04-18-17
By: William Perry
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The Doomsday Machine
- By: Daniel Ellsberg
- Narrated by: Steven Cooper
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,032
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 913
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 911
The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg's hair-raising insider's account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization, whose legacy - and renewal under the Obama administration - threatens the very survival of humanity. It is scarcely possible to estimate the true dangers of our present nuclear policies without penetrating the secret realities of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, when Ellsberg had high-level access to them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating Insider Story
- By Terry Masters on 12-07-17
By: Daniel Ellsberg
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Dereliction of Duty
- Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
- By: H. R. McMaster
- Narrated by: H. R. McMaster
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 406
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 354
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 354
Dereliction of Duty is a stunning analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations, and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. McMaster pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Rough narration
- By AC Griffin on 12-04-19
By: H. R. McMaster
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The Bomb
- Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War
- By: Fred Kaplan
- Narrated by: Edward Bauer
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 322
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 285
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 285
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.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Excellent, important book, bad narration.
- By Richard L. Hubbell on 02-06-20
By: Fred Kaplan
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JFK's War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated
- By: Douglas Horne
- Narrated by: Larry Wayne
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 74
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Story5 out of 5 stars 71
Ever since researchers and commentators began questioning the conclusions of the Warren Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the response has been: Why would the US national-security establishment - that is, the military and the CIA - kill Kennedy? As Douglas P. Horne details in this audiobook, JFK's War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated, the answer is because Kennedy's ideas about foreign policy collided with those of the US national-security establishment during the height of the Cold War.
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5 out of 5 stars
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FINALLY THE TRUTH!
- By Helen Williamson on 05-28-16
By: Douglas Horne
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Gambling with Armageddon
- Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis
- By: Martin J. Sherwin
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
In this groundbreaking look at the Cuban Missile Crisis, Martin Sherwin not only gives us a riveting sometimes hour-by-hour explanation of the crisis itself, but also explores the origins, scope, and consequences of the evolving place of nuclear weapons in the post-World War II world. Mining new sources and materials, and going far beyond the scope of earlier works on this critical face-off between the United States and the Soviet Union — triggered when Khrushchev began installing missiles in Cuba at Castro's behest....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Important History
- By J. B. Evans on 06-12-21
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How the West Brought War to Ukraine
- Understanding How U.S. and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe
- By: Benjamin Abelow
- Narrated by: Larry Wayne
- Length: 1 hr and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
According to the mainstream Western narrative, Vladimir Putin is an insatiable, Hitler-like expansionist who invaded Ukraine in an unprovoked land grab. That story is incorrect. In reality, the United States and NATO bear much of the responsibility for the Ukraine crisis.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Russian (Soviet) Propaganda
- By John Williams on 12-11-22
By: Benjamin Abelow
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Before the First Shots Are Fired
- How America Can Win or Lose Off the Battlefield
- By: Tony Koltz, Tony Zinni
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
For the better part of the last half century, the United States has been the world's police, claiming to defend ideologies, allies, and our national security through brute force. But is military action always the most appropriate response? Drawing on his vast experience, retired four-star general Tony Zinni argues that we have a lot of work to do to make the process of going to war-or not-more clear-eyed and ultimately successful.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A must read for leaders
- By Ted on 06-17-22
By: Tony Koltz, and others
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Why Intelligence Fails
- Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs Series)
- By: Robert L. Jervis
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4 out of 5 stars 42
The U.S. government spends enormous resources each year on the gathering and analysis of intelligence, yet the history of American foreign policy is littered with missteps and misunderstandings that have resulted from intelligence failures. In Why Intelligence Fails, Robert Jervis examines the politics and psychology of two of the more spectacular intelligence failures in recent memory: the belief that the Shah in Iran was secure and stable in 1978, and the claim that Iraq had active WMD programs in 2002.
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5 out of 5 stars
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It’s complicated
- By "btomaz" on 12-15-22
By: Robert L. Jervis
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Washington Rules
- America's Path to Permanent War
- By: Andrew Bacevich
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 236
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 142
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 146
For the last half century, as administrations have come and gone, the fundamental assumptions about America's military policy have remained unchanged: American security requires the United States (and us alone) to maintain a permanent armed presence around the globe, to prepare our forces for military operations in far-flung regions, and to be ready to intervene anywhere at any time. In the Obama era, just as in the Bush years, these beliefs remain unquestioned gospel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Permanent war and insolvency...thanks Washington
- By Jonnie on 10-13-10
By: Andrew Bacevich
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The Day After
- Why America Wins the War but Loses the Peace
- By: Brendan R. Gallagher
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
Since 9/11, why have we won smashing battlefield victories only to botch nearly everything that comes next? In the opening phases of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, we mopped the floor with our enemies. But in short order, things went horribly wrong. We soon discovered we had no coherent plan to manage the "day after". The ensuing debacles had truly staggering consequences - many thousands of lives lost, trillions of dollars squandered, and the apparent discrediting of our foreign policy establishment.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Experience matters
- By J. Pulton on 03-07-21
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The War Conspiracy
- JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War
- By: Peter Dale Scott
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 16 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
A remarkable analysis linking the assassination of JFK and 9/11, and how both events were used to influence war policy. Peter Dale Scott examines the many ways in which war policy has been driven by “accidents” and other events in the field, in some cases despite moves toward peace that were directed by presidents. This book explores the “deep politics” that exerts a profound but too-little-understood effect on national policy outside the control of traditional democratic processes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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data dump on every rabbit hole
- By Shawn R. Veltheim on 12-20-18
By: Peter Dale Scott
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb
- 25th Anniversary Edition
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 37 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,054
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,621
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,599
Here for the first time, in rich human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly - or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity, there was a span of hardly more than 25 years.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Beware limitations of the reader
- By JFanson on 01-01-19
By: Richard Rhodes