WILLIAM NISKANEN. Los Angeles, Cal., December 15, 1980.
PAUL H. NITZE. Arlington, Va., July 23, 1981.
PHILIP A. ODEEN. Washington, D.C., July 1, 1981.
WOLFGANG PANOFSKY. Palo Alto, Cal., June 10, 1981.
PETER PARET. Palo Alto, Cal., December 12, 1980.
GEN. NOEL PARRISH. Alexandria, Va., October 10, 1980.
ERNST PLESSET. Woodside, Cal., June 12, 1981.
GEORGE PUGH. Arlington, Va., March 13, 1981.
EDWARD S. QUADE. Los Angeles, Cal., December 19, 1980.
MARCUS G. RASKIN. Washington, D.C., November 25, 1980.
GEORGE W. RATHJENS. Cambridge, Mass., November 5, 1980.
JOEL RESNICK. McLean, Va., March 6, 1981.
GEN. ROBERT RICHARDSON. Washington, D.C., April 1, 1981.
LEO ROSTEN. New York City, September 21, 1981.
WALT W. ROSTOW. Austin, Tex., June 9, 1981.
HENRY S. ROWEN. Palo Alto, Cal., September 2, December 12, 1980.
JOHN RUBEL. Los Angeles, Cal., December 27, 1981.
JACK P. RUINA. Cambridge, Mass., November 8, 1980.
DONALD RUMSFELD. Chicago, 111., April 24, 1981.
ANTHONY RUSSO. Los Angeles, Cal., June 18, 1981.
WILLIAM SCHAUB. Bethesda, Md., March 18, 1981.
THOMAS C. SCHELLING. Cambridge, Mass., October 27, 1980; May 5, 1981.
JAMES R. SCHLESINGER. Washington, D.C., February 12, 1982.
GEN. BERNARD SCHRIEVER. Washington, D.C., September 30, 1981.
HYSCHULMAN, Santa Monica, Cal (Telephone Conv.), May 7, 1982.
DIETER SCHWEBS. Arlington, Va., March 9, 1981.
HERBERT SCOVILLE, JR. McLean, Va., February 3, 1981.
IVAN SELIN. Arlington, Va., October 9, 1980.
WILLIS SHAPLEY. Washington, D.C., June 3, 1981.
GUS SHUBERT. Santa Monica, Cal., December 16, 1980; June 22, 1981.
LEON SLOSS. Arlington, Va., January 21, 1981.
K. WAYNE SMITH. Washington, D.C., August 27, 1981.
LEVERING SMITH. Arlington, Va., August 10, 1981.
THEODORE C. SORENSEN. New York City, February 9, 1981.
ROBERT D. SPECHT. Los Angeles, Cal., December 17, 1980.
HANS SPEIER. Hartsdale, N.Y., August 18, 1981.
ROBERT C. SPRAGUE. North Adams, Mass., November 23, 1981.
PIERRE M. SPREY. Glen Dale, Md., October 7, 1980.
ELMER STAATS. Washington, D.C., March 11, 1981.
JOHN D. STEINBRUNER. Washington, D.C., March 3, 1981.
MARVIN STERN. LOS Angeles, Cal., August 24, 1980.
SAYRE STEVENS. Bethesda, Md., November 9, 1981.
HOWARD STOERTZ, JR. Herndon, Va., December 1, 1981.
GEORGE TANHAM. Washington, D.C., July 7, 1981.
GEN. MAXWELL TAYLOR. Washington, D.C., February 23, 1981.
FRANK TRINKL. Berkeley, Cal., September 4, December 11, 1980.
JAMES WADE. Washington, D.C., July 21, 1981.
PAUL WARNKE. Washington, D.C., August 24, 1981.
PAUL WEIDLINGER. New York City, February 9, 1981.
MILTON WEINER. Santa Monica, Cal., December 16, 1980.
SEYMOUR WEISS. Bethesda, Md., April 3, 1981.
GEN. JASPER WELCH. Washington, D.C., April 9, 1981.
ROBERT WIESER. Huntington Beach, Cal., June 22, 1981.
PETER A. WILSON. Arlington, Va., August 11, 1981.
ALBERT J. WOHLSTETTER. LOS Angeles, Cal., August 23, December 28, 1980; June 20, 1981.
ROBERTA WOHLSTETTER. LOS Angeles, Cal., June 20, 1981.
COL. THOMAS W. WOLFE. Falls Church, Va., December 9, 1981.
ARCHIE WOOD. Falls Church, Va., November 21, 1980.
ADAM YARMOLINSKY. Washington, D.C., August 14, 1980.
HERBERT F. YORK. Lajolla, Cal., December 24, 1980.
GEN. RICHARD YUDKIN. Washington, D.C., February 3, 1982.
CIRRO ZOPPO. Santa Monica, Cal., December 22, 1980.
EUGENE ZUCKERT. Washington, D.C., February 24, 1981.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A book like this could not have been nearly so complete as it is were it not for the mountains of pertinent documents that have been declassified only in the past few years. For guiding me through many of them, I thank the wonderful staffs at the archival libraries where I spent months engrossed in boxes, files and folders—the John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson and Harry S. Truman Presidential Libraries in Dorchester, Mass., Abilene, Kans., Austin, Tex., and Independence, Mo., respectively; the Modern Military Branch of the National Archives, the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, and the Naval Historical Center at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.; and the Simpson Historical Research Center at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. I also thank the talented archivists at the Special Collection Libraries at the University of Chicago and UCLA, the Sterling Library at Yale University, the Mudd Library at Princeton University, the Archives Library at City College of New York, and the Oral History Project at Columbia University. I also thank those who allowed me to look at personal papers for which I needed permission to do so—Admiral Arleigh Burke, General Curtis LeMay, Adam Yarmolinsky and, for letting me quote from the papers of their late husbands, Mrs. Edward Mead Earle and Mrs. Quincy Wright.
I especially thank John Knowlton at the Library of Congress, who helped to declassify—at my request—thousands of documents in the papers of the Air Force Chiefs of Staff (Generals Hoyt Vandenberg, Nathan Twining, Thomas White and Curtis LeMay). Equally valuable were the SIOP files in the papers of Admiral Arleigh Burke at the Navy Yard in Washington, which also appear declassified here for the first time. Without these collections, much of the material on Air Force politics and practically the entire section in Chapter 18 on the SIOP, the integrated nuclear war plan of the U.S. military, simply could not have been written.
I thank the officials in the Pentagon’s Freedom of Information Office, especially Charles Hinkle and Major Henry Mclntyre (Office of Secretary of Defense) and Ann Wilkinson (Air Force). Although many of my requests for material were denied, they did succeed in declassifying dozens of valuable documents, most importantly the entire set of Draft Presidential Memorandums (DPMs) on strategic and theater nuclear forces signed by former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara from 1961 to 1969. These once-Top Secret papers provide a new perspective, quite different from the one publicly disseminated and popularly believed, on the evolution of “the McNamara strategy.” I thank, as well, those, whom I must for obvious reasons leave nameless, who gave me copies of documents not yet declassified.
Just as important as the documents, often more so, were the interviews that I conducted with 160 characters and close observers of this story; their names are listed after the Notes. Interviews lasted from twenty minutes to twelve hours, with most ranging from two to four hours. With few exceptions, the people involved welcomed me into their homes or offices, graciously answered all the questions they could, sometimes fed me dinner or lunch or both, supplied me with valuable information, tolerated my repeated phone calls or letters or return visits that pestered them for more, and in some cases speculated with me on the larger issues, guiding me to novel perspectives and connections that I sometimes accepted, sometimes rejected, but always found stimulating.
I also thank a few other students and scholars of strategy—Desmond Ball, Kevin Lewis, Mark Lorell and David Alan Rosenberg—for extremely useful conversations and occasional exchanges of documents. And I thank the Books and Magazines Division of Air Force Public Affairs for miscellaneous assistance.
I was fortunate enough to have friends who could give me bed and board in almost every city that I had to visit in the course of my research, some of them putting me up for days or weeks at a time and on several occasions. For making my travels much more pleasant, I warmly thank David and JoAnn Braff, Andrew and Leslie (and Chloe) Cockburn, Darby and Steven Dizard, Diane Eisenberg, Steven Freeman, George Giles, Lisa Gladstone, Stacey Gladstone, Karen Goldberg, Lenny Gordon, Gary and JoAnn Kaplan, Peter Kurth, Lori Lefkovitz, Nicholas Lemann, Kevin Lewis, Donald Margulies, Terry Murray, Robin Netzer, Mark Paul, Carolyn Skorneck, Karen Trott, Judith and Kosta Tsipis, and Mary Williams.