Background
Herken, Gregg was born on May 23, 1947 in Richmond, California, United States. Son of Bernard and Marguerite (Goff) Herken.
(This book makes clear how, and why, after World War II Am...)
This book makes clear how, and why, after World War II American diplomats tried to make the atom bomb a "winning weapon", an absolute advantage in negotiations with the Soviet Union. But this policy failed utterly in the 1948 Berlin crisis, and at home the State Department opposed those scientists who advocated international cooperation on nuclear matters; Truman's advisers predicted, with spectacular inaccuracy, that the Soviet bomb was a generation away; the government exploited the activities of Soviet atom spies to frustrate civilian control of nuclear energy. In 1949, Moscow announced its first atomic explosion, and the failure of America's "winning weapon" led to the search for another, the hydrogen bomb. After absorbing these revelations and analyses, it is hard to imagine comprehending the origins and evolution of our Cold War policies without this book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00166CHXA/?tag=2022091-20
( This book makes clear how, and why, after World War II ...)
This book makes clear how, and why, after World War II American diplomats tried to make the atom bomb a winning weapon," an absolute advantage in negotiations with the Soviet Union. But this policy failed utterly in the 1948 Berlin crisis, and at home the State Department opposed those scientists who advocated international cooperation on nuclear matters. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394503945/?tag=2022091-20
(This book is a history of the complex relations between s...)
This book is a history of the complex relations between scientific advisors, primarily physicists, and U.S. presidents in their role as decision makers about nuclear weapons and military strategy. The story, unsurprisingly, is one of considerable tension between the "experts" and the politicians, as scientists seek to influence policy and presidents alternate between accepting their advice and resisting or even ignoring it. First published in 1992, the book has been brought up to date to include the experiences of science advisors to President Clinton. In addition, the texts of eleven crucial documents, from the Einstein-Szilard letter to President Roosevelt (1939) to the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative by President Reagan (1983), have been added as appendixes.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804737703/?tag=2022091-20
(Since the first atomic bomb was exploded in 1945, a close...)
Since the first atomic bomb was exploded in 1945, a close community of civilian experts, including scientists, academics, and think-tank intellectuals, has advised the American government on the prospects of nuclear war. Based on interviews with these experts, as well as hundreds of pages of recently declassified documents, Counsels of War is the first book to trace in detail the deliberations and shifting recommendations of the experts on the bomb from Hiroshima to "Star Wars." Gregg Herken writes about the people whose profession it has been to think about the unthinkable--Robert McNamara, Paul Nitze, Herman Kahn, Bernard Brodie--including their intense rivalries, personal animosities, and often contentious relationship with the professional military. He reveals how the influence of the scientist and strategist has extended well beyond the laboratory and the classroom--in the proposal of Kennedy's advisers for a nuclear "demonstration" and even a "clever first-strike" against the Russians, for example. Counsels of War also shatters certain popular assumptions about U.S. nuclear policy. As Herken points out, while American doctrine stresses "retaliation," U.S. strategists have always planned to "pre-empt" a Soviet attack. Herken shows that the lines in the current nuclear debate were actually drawn at the dawn of the atomic age, and that the experts' technically abstruse arguments have only served to hide from the public the fundamental, deeply held--and quite subjective--differences at the heart of the debate. Since Hiroshima, there has been a growing awareness of the peril created by nuclear weapons, yet the crucial questions that were never adequately addressed in 1945 unanswered today. Given the inability of the experts to confront the essential dilemma of the nuclear age, Counsels of War calls for a new nuclear debate, one focused on American rather than Soviet intentions and that seeks an answer to the fundamental, yet still unresolved question: What are these weapons for?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394527356/?tag=2022091-20
Herken, Gregg was born on May 23, 1947 in Richmond, California, United States. Son of Bernard and Marguerite (Goff) Herken.
AB, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1969; Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy, Princeton University, 1974.
Assistant professor, Oberlin (Ohio) College, 1978-1979; assistant, then associate professor, Yale University, New Haven, 1979-1985; senior research associate, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1985-1988; chairman, then curator military space, Smithsonian, Washington, since 1988. Senior research and policy analyst Advisory Committee Human Radiation Experiments, Washington, 1993-1995.
(Since the first atomic bomb was exploded in 1945, a close...)
(Since the first atomic bomb was exploded in 1945, a close...)
(This book makes clear how, and why, after World War II Am...)
( This book makes clear how, and why, after World War II ...)
(This book is a history of the complex relations between s...)
(The story of the Atomic Bomb in the Cold War.)
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
Member American History Association, Organization American Historians, Society Historians of America Foreign Relations.
Married Aven Switzer, July 23, 1983. 1 child, Benjamin.