Secret Empire
Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Simon & Schuster
Published:17th May '04
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
In a brief period of explosive, top-secret innovation during the 1950's, a small group of scientists, engineers, businessmen, and government officials rewrote the book on airplane design and led the United States into outerspace. Their inventions - the U-2 and SR-71 spyplanes and the first spy satellites - made possible the space-based reconnaissance, mapping, communications, and targeting systems used in the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Veteran New York Times reporter and editor, Philip Taubman interviewed dozens of participants and mined thousands of previously classified documents to tell this hidden, far-reaching story. The hugely expensive and incredibly sophisticated spies in the skies proved that the missile gap was a myth, protected us from surprise attack, and kept us ahead of the game vis-a-vis the Soviets. Now as we confront new and increasingly vicious wars against terrorism, we need them as well as human spies to fight back.
Tom Wolfe Author of The Right Stuff It's hard to believe that the story of the biggest and most radically conceived espionage operation of the twentieth century hasn't been told before now....In this absorbing book, Philip Taubman shows us the entire Secret Empire for the first time.
Seymour Hersh Philip Taubman has written a book of pure pleasure -- a true adventure tale of good men doing good deeds for the good of the country at a time, in the 1950s, when America was united against the Evil Empire. It is also a story of a group of men who sped up the slow processes of science in the name of national security, and forever changed the way the world worked.
Los Angeles Times Taubman takes the subject further with newly declassified archival documents and interviews with pioneers who had previously been reluctant to talk. The result is a fascinating story of America's secret space race.
The Boston Globe Fans of Tom Clancy novels will doubtless be chagrined to discover that those who actually won the Cold War were not Harrison Ford look-alikes but studious engineers and physicists....Many of those who are the heroes of this tale...finally get their due in Taubman's book.
ISBN: 9780684857008
Dimensions: 214mm x 140mm x 36mm
Weight: 491g
472 pages