Reflections of a Cold Warrior

Reflections of a Cold Warrior PDF Author: Richard Mervin Bissell
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300146108
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Richard M. Bissell, Jr., the most important CIA spymaster in history, singlehandedly led America's intelligence service from the age of Mata Hari into the space age. Under his guidance the U-2 spy-plane, the SR-71 "Blackbird," and the Corona spy satellite were developed, and the agency rose to the pinnacle of its power. Bissell was also, however, the architect of the infamous Bay of Pigs operation that failed to overthrow Castro in 1961 and led to the decline of the CIA. In this compelling memoir, Bissell gives us an insider's view of the personalities, policies, and historical forces surrounding these and other covert operations and the lessons learned during those times of conflict.Bissell begins by describing his early years as a member of America's unofficial aristocracy. Born in a house that his father bought from Samuel Clemens, he was educated at Groton and Yale and befriended by Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, among others. Bissell recounts how he became acting head of the Economic Cooperation Administration, the agency in charge of the Marshall Plan after World War II, and helped to create the European Payments Union. Bissell was brought into the CIA in 1954, where he initiated a revolution in intelligence-gathering techniques. He reveals the details of these developments, as well as of the unique CIA-Lockheed partnership he pioneered, his participation in the CIA-sponsored coup to overthrow Arbenz in Guatemala, and his involvement in crises in Laos and the Congo. Bissell's memoir sheds light not only on pivotal points of American foreign policy but also on America's evolution from isolationist to interventionist superpower.

Reflections of a Cold Warrior

Reflections of a Cold Warrior PDF Author: Richard Mervin Bissell
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300146108
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book

Book Description
Richard M. Bissell, Jr., the most important CIA spymaster in history, singlehandedly led America's intelligence service from the age of Mata Hari into the space age. Under his guidance the U-2 spy-plane, the SR-71 "Blackbird," and the Corona spy satellite were developed, and the agency rose to the pinnacle of its power. Bissell was also, however, the architect of the infamous Bay of Pigs operation that failed to overthrow Castro in 1961 and led to the decline of the CIA. In this compelling memoir, Bissell gives us an insider's view of the personalities, policies, and historical forces surrounding these and other covert operations and the lessons learned during those times of conflict.Bissell begins by describing his early years as a member of America's unofficial aristocracy. Born in a house that his father bought from Samuel Clemens, he was educated at Groton and Yale and befriended by Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, among others. Bissell recounts how he became acting head of the Economic Cooperation Administration, the agency in charge of the Marshall Plan after World War II, and helped to create the European Payments Union. Bissell was brought into the CIA in 1954, where he initiated a revolution in intelligence-gathering techniques. He reveals the details of these developments, as well as of the unique CIA-Lockheed partnership he pioneered, his participation in the CIA-sponsored coup to overthrow Arbenz in Guatemala, and his involvement in crises in Laos and the Congo. Bissell's memoir sheds light not only on pivotal points of American foreign policy but also on America's evolution from isolationist to interventionist superpower.

Reflections of a Cold War Warrior

Reflections of a Cold War Warrior PDF Author: Ed McGushin Sr
Publisher: Publishamerica Incorporated
ISBN: 9781607497608
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
The author, in a letter to his grandchildren, recounts his experiences growing up under the threat of nuclear holocaust and launching a forty-year career as a Cold War Warrior. He describes his training as an Army ranger and paratrooper, and subsequent assignments to Berlin, Germany, when the Wall was built in August 1961, and as an 82nd Airborne Division company commander in the Dominican Republic in 1965. For two years he led the unglamourous but dangerous life of a combat unit advisor in Vietnam, first with a Vietnamese parachute battalion in 1966 and again in 1972 with the Vietnamese Rangers during North VietnamA[a¬a[s Easter invasion. After a capstone assignment to the Pentagon, McGushin began a second career as a national security analyst, designing modern command and control systems to counter the increasingly sophisticated Soviet threat. McGushin successfully intertwines headline-making world events with insights gained from personal experience throughout the Cold War. With the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989, followed quickly by the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the Cold War ended. Our Cold War Warriors were victorious.

Inside the Cold War a cold warrior's reflections

Inside the Cold War a cold warrior's reflections PDF Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 142899128X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description


Inside the Cold War

Inside the Cold War PDF Author: Chris Adams
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
ISBN: 9781478344384
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
This publication reflects a compilation of excerpts from an unpublished broader treatment that recounts the nearly five decades of delicate coexistence between two nations known as the “superpowers” during the international conflict known as the “Cold War.” Publication of this text fulfills one of the author's principal purposes in the original manuscript; that is to pay tribute to that special breed of American heroes known as the “Cold Warriors” – the men and women who served in the strategic nuclear forces during the Cold War. Another purpose is to provide a brief parallel view of Soviet war fighters. These two opposing groups of warriors served their respective countries faithfully during those critical years of roller coaster politics, inconsistent diplomacy, and occasional lunacy. The Cold Warriors were the centerpiece of that protracted conflict; many paid the supreme price. This text attempts to provide a reasonably comprehensive essay on the Cold Warriors – both American and Soviet – their commitments, their weapons systems, their missions, and their sacrifices. It has been said that the ware is faceless; the Cold War represents a time when two nations created unprecedented arsenals and stood ready to attack, or be attacked by, the faceless enemy. The United States and the Soviet Union maintained that unprecedented mutual stance over a sustained period of time. There were a series of critical events during this war, including the Berlin Blockade, the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Korean and Cuban crises, and the war in Vietnam. All involved the Cold Warriors in one way or another. They were often called upon to transition from their primary strategic nuclear combat preparation role into totally different mission environments and war-fighting systems. These transitions required retraining and reorientation as well as relocating. Then they returned to their original strategic nuclear mission – which required still more retraining, reorientation, and relocating.

Inside The Cold War. A Cold Warrior's Reflections

Inside The Cold War. A Cold Warrior's Reflections PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
This publication reflects a compilation of excerpts from an unpublished broader treatment that recounts the nearly five decades of delicate coexistence between two nations known as the "superpowers" during the international conflict known as the "Cold War." Publication of this text fulfills one of my principal purposes in the original manuscript; that is, to pay tribute to that special breed of American heroes known as the "Cold Warriors"-the men and women who served in the strategic nuclear forces during the Cold War. Another purpose is to provide a brief parallel view of Soviet war fighters. These two opposing groups of warriors served their respective countries faithfully during those critical years of roller coaster politics, inconsistent diplomacy, and occasional lunacy.

Inside the Cold War: a Cold Warrior's Reflections

Inside the Cold War: a Cold Warrior's Reflections PDF Author: Air University Air University Press
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781082485725
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
General Adams reflects on his experiences in the cold war, during which he served in both manned bombers and missile silos. He tells stories of famous and not-so-famous cold warriors, including some from the US Navy. Some stories are humorous; some stories are tragic. Having traveled extensively in Russia and some former Soviet Union states after retirement, General Adams tells us about his former adversaries, the Soviet cold warriors. In the process, he leaves no doubt about his respect for all who served so valiantly in the "strategic triad"--the strategic command, the ICBM force, and the submarine Navy.

Understanding the Cold War

Understanding the Cold War PDF Author: Adam Bruno Ulam
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412840651
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
Understanding the Cold War is the story of a man and an epoch. Its telling moves between detailed personal history and an Olympian assessment of the origins, significant events, and outcome of the Cold War. Professor Ulam describes his hometown, family, and early education, as well as his departure, with his brother, for the U.S. just days before the Nazi invasion of Poland would have trapped them. Then follows reminiscences of his college and Harvard years, all rich with anecdote and insight, and his thoughts as an acknowledged expert on Soviet affairs. The volume offers basic antidotes to simplistic explanations. Whether discussing the Kirov assassination or the Moscow Trials of the so-called Trotskyist Bloc, or the nationalist basis of disputes between China and Russia during the Vietnam War period, Ulam avoids the sensational and the speculative in favor of the the empirical and the evidentiary. The core segments of the work review the Cold War from the belly of the Stalinist and later post-Stalinist communist system. And in a section entitled "The Beginning of the End," Ulam discusses the Gorbachev interregnum and the early years of the transition from communism to democracy. He well appreciates how the ease of the transition does not betoken a simple movement to the democratic camp. In contemplating the changing nature of the new political configuration, one could hardly have a better guide to clarity and authenticity than Adam Ulam. Reviewing Understanding the Cold War, Stephen Kotkin, director of Princeton's Russian Studies Program, observed "...And whereas some celebrated analysts, such as John Maynard Keynes, had dismissed Marxism as 'illogical and dull,' Ulam highlighted the doctrine's intricacy and comprehensiveness, which, he argued, explained its attraction not just to peasants, but also to intellectuals." "There is really only one legitimate measure of an autobiography, and that is its ability to bring the author to life for the reader, giving a sense of who the person was and what it must have been like to have known him or her. On that score, Adam Ulam's [Understand the Cold War] succeed on every level. To spend time with this book is to spend time with Adam himself. ... Adam Ulam's autobiography stands on its own, giving a clear picture of both the man and his career and displaying his analytical prowess and pe4rsonal charm in abundance." -Thomas P. M. Barnett, Project Muse Adam B. Ulam (1922-2000) taught at Harvard University from 1947 until his retirement in 1992. He was Gurney Professor of History and Political Science, and twice director of the Russian Research Center. He was the author of 19 books, including Prophets and Conspirators in pre-Revolutionary Russia (published by Transaction), Stalin: The Man and His Era, Lenin and the Bolsheviks, The Unfinished Revolution, Philosophical Foundations of English Socialism, and a political novel: The Kirov Affair. Paul Hollander is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusettes, Amherst, and a fellow of the David Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University. His books include Soviet and American Society, Political Pilgrims, The Survival of the Adversary Culture, and Anti-Americanism.

Reflections on the Cold War

Reflections on the Cold War PDF Author: Lynn H. Miller
Publisher: Philadelphia : Temple University Press
ISBN:
Category : Cold War
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
"The essays in this volume grew out of a lecture series at Temple University during the 1970-71 academic year." Includes bibliographical references and index.

Liberando: Reflections of a Reluctant Warrior

Liberando: Reflections of a Reluctant Warrior PDF Author: John E. Horn
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0359743889
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Merriam Press World War 2 Memoir Series. John H. Horn's wartime experiences as a B-24 pilot in the famous "Liberandos" bomb group, the 376th, are recounted in this work by his son, John E. Horn. Horn was one of millions in World War II who did their jobs. He was mighty lucky and blessed to have come home unscathed. Most of the real learning about air combat was on the job. Military schools and training don't really produce combat-ready men and women. They produce attitudes as well as thinking and re-acting skills. Actual combat is the real teacher. John was forever grateful to his crew and the leaders of the 376th Bomb Group who suffered his inexperience and naiveté. Without their patience, he would not have developed into a competent, safe, and living combat pilot. 31 photos, illustrations, maps.

Witness to History

Witness to History PDF Author: Robert R. Ulin
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1456736167
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
This book is a first person account of military service during the Cold War in Europe from the erection to the destruction of the Berlin Wall. It is also about combat in Vietnam as an artilleryman in the Central Highlands and as an infantry advisor in the Mekong Delta. The author participated in the investigation of a fragging incident that killed an NCO, he put down an attempted mutiny and directed the first artillery counter-battery attack on Soviet artillery manned by North Vietnamese regulars in the tri-border era of VietnamLaos, Cambodia and Vietnam. He worked with the CIA in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam managing the Phoenix Program while assigned to Tam Binh District where he met the legendary John Paul Vann and hosted visits by Sir Robert Thompson, the British guerrilla warfare expert and John Erlichman, advisor to President Richard Nixon. Between tours of duty in Vietnam, he returned to Germany with a Pershing Missile unit that experienced severe discipline problems including drugs, assault and attempted murder. This book is about a thirty-three year military career from private to colonel during a particularly difficult time for the US Army. He served in Germany, Vietnam and Belgium and conducted missions in Africa. While in Belgium he served at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), the American Embassy and finally NATO headquarters. The author participated in a NATO Summit attended by President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher and completed his career on the faculty of the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he participated in the first uniformed visit to Warsaw, Prague and Budapest following the demise of the Warsaw Pact.