Arsenals of Folly The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race Richard Rhodes

The story of the postwar superpower arms race, climaxing during the Reagan-Gorbachev decade. Drawing on a wealth of new documentation, Rhodes reveals how the Reagan administration's unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s led Soviet leader Andropov to conclude that Reagan must be preparing for a nuclear war. In 1983, when NATO staged a larger than usual series of field exercises, the Soviet military came very close to launching a defensive first strike. Then Reagan launched the arms-reduction campaign of his second presidential term and set the stage for his 1986 summit with Gorbachev in Reykjavik. Rhodes reveals the early influence of neoconservatives, demonstrating how the manipulation of government and public opinion with fake intelligence and threat inflation, which the administration of George W. Bush has used to justify current 'war on terror' and the disastrous invasion of Iraq, were developed and applied in the Reagan era and even before.--From publisher description. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a riveting account of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War. In the Reagan-Gorbachev era, the United States and the Soviet Union came within minutes of nuclear war, until Gorbachev boldly launched a campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons, setting the stage for the 1986 Reykjavik summit and the incredible events that followed. In this thrilling, authoritative narrative, Richard Rhodes draws on personal interviews with both Soviet and U.S. participants and a wealth of new documentation to unravel the compelling, shocking story behind this monumental time in human history—its beginnings, its nearly chilling consequences, and its effects on global politics today. pt. 1. A rigid system -- 1. To the Chernobyl sarcophagus -- 2. Moscow does not believe in tears -- 3. A hierarchy of vassals and chiefs -- pt. 2. Apes on a treadmill -- 4. "The bomber will always get through" (1) -- 5. "The bomber will always get through" (2) -- 6. The sorcerer's apprentices (1) -- 7. The sorcerer's apprentices (2) -- 8. Decapitation -- 9. Rehearsing Armageddon -- 10. The warheads will always get through -- pt. 3. Common security -- 11. Going around in circles -- 12. Naysayers hard at work -- 13. Looking over the horizon -- 14. The sovereign right to choose -- 15. The little suitcase -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Permissions acknowledgments -- Index.