Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Sayonara Sanity?
War Scare
The Soviets Draw an Ace
Strategic Error
First Forbearance
The Cart Before the Horse
French Chestnuts in the Fire
The President Vacillates
Muscling Up
Sword of Damocles
The Last Sideshow
The Autobahn to Armageddon
Cocked Gun
Amateur Hour
Harebrained Schemes
Muddling Through
Multilateral Folly
High Noon
Two Bluffs
Best-Laid Plans
Strategic Incompetence
Unplayable Card?
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index

Promotional Information

Answers the question why, when the atomic bomb had been used with such devastating effect against the Japanese Empire in 1945, American leaders put this most apocalyptic of weapons back on the shelf, never to be used again in anger.

About the Author

TIMOTHY J. BOTTI is an unaffiliated historian who is the author of The Long Wait: Forging of the Anglo-American Nuclear Alliance, 1945-1958 (Greenwood, 1987).

Reviews

?In this highly detailed account, Botti usefully debunks the commonly held notion that nuclear war was held to be "unthinkable" by presidents and their advisers during crises over the first 20 years of the Cold War (Berlin, Korea, Formosa, and Cuba, among others). He suggests instead that overreaching by threatening or engaging in military action in areas not in the vital interests of the US has posed a major risk in the possible use of such weapons.?-Choice

"In this highly detailed account, Botti usefully debunks the commonly held notion that nuclear war was held to be "unthinkable" by presidents and their advisers during crises over the first 20 years of the Cold War (Berlin, Korea, Formosa, and Cuba, among others). He suggests instead that overreaching by threatening or engaging in military action in areas not in the vital interests of the US has posed a major risk in the possible use of such weapons."-Choice