Rearming for the Cold War

Rearming for the Cold War, 1945-1960

The Historical Office has published Rearming for the Cold War, 1945–1960, by Elliott Converse. This is the first publication in a multivolume series on the history of the acquisition of major weapon systems by the Department of Defense. The volume is an extensive overview of changes in acquisition policies, organizations, and processes within the United States military establishment during the decade and a half following World War II. Many of the changes that shaped the nature and course of weapons research and development, production, and contracting through the end of the century were instituted between 1945 and 1960; many of the problems that have repeatedly challenged defense policymakers and acquisition professionals also first surfaced during these years.

This study is the first to combine the histories of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the military services into one account. The volume is organized chronologically, with individual chapters addressing the roles of OSD, the Army, Navy, and Air Force in two distinct periods. The first, roughly coinciding with President Truman’s tenure, covers the years from the end of World War II through the end of the Korean War. The second spans the two terms of the Eisenhower presidency from 1953 through early 1961. The volume approaches the subject through discussion of the evolution of acquisition policies, organizations, and processes; the interservice and intraservice political context of acquisition; the relationship between rapidly advancing technology and acquisition; the role of the defense industry in new weapons development; the origins and growth of a specialized acquisition workforce; and acquisition reform. Case studies of individual systems illustrate the various forces influencing weapons programs.  See    http://history.defense.gov/pub_acqh.shtml for more information.

Report, Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues

“Ethically Impossible”: STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948

Report of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues

Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, Washington, DC
September 2011
www.bioethics.gov

Available from

Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues
1425 New York Avenue NW, Suite C-100
Washington, DC 20005
202-233-3960

This report examines a study funded by the U.S. Public Health Service in Guatemala in 1946–48 on sexually transmitted diseases using experiments that were “clearly unethical.” President Barrack Obama charged the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues in November 2010 to research and report on the Guatemalan experiments after he learned of the experiments that deliberately infected the subjects with syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid. The subjects included soldiers, patients from a state-run psychiatric hospital, and commercial sex workers. Serology experiments, not involving exposure, continued in 1953, even using children.

The President also asked the Commission to review current practices in human subject research to safeguard “the health and well-being of participants in scientific studies supported by the federal government.”

Allied Participation in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM
By Stephen A. Carney, 2011

Allied Participation in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM examines the achievements and contributions of the allied nations that supplied ground troops to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq during 2003–2009. It does not cover forces deployed to Iraq under the aegis of the United Nations or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The U.S. military’s experience in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM reconfirms the necessity of coalition building in modern warfare, even when the U.S. Army and Marine Corps ground forces shoulder the largest burden. This monograph offers separate sections on each coalition ally and presents basic information about deployed military forces and their general operational experiences in Iraq. It also provides a framework for more detailed histories to follow.

Domestic Publication Date: December 30, 2011
Government Printing Office S/N: 008-029-00541-7 (Paper);
CMH Pub # 59-3-1Pp. x, 129; illustrations, tables, charts, maps $16
For additional information, contact Bryan Hockensmith at 202-685-2625, or at bryan.hockensmith@us.army.mil

Center of Military History Online Catalog:  http://www.history.army.mil/catalog/index.html
GPO’s Online Bookstore:  http://bookstore.gpo.gov, or call (202) 512-1800 or toll-free 1-866-512-1800.

Then Came the Fire: Personal Accounts from the Pentagon, 11 September 2001, Edited by Stephen J. Lofgren, 2011.

This latest publication from the U.S. Army Center of Military History brings some of the stories about the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon to life. Stephen J. Lofgren, general editor of this collection, and a team of oral historians conducted hundreds of interviews with witnesses, first responders, and survivors of the Pentagon in the days immediately following the event. The anthology consists of excerpts from the accounts of sixty-one people, both oral interview and written, who were involved in the attack, and it provides their stories and perspectives on that day. The range of personal experiences is broad. It includes individuals who watched the plane strike the building, Pentagon occupants—some of whom were badly injured—who sought to escape the burning area, and bystanders and other Pentagon personnel who sought to help and rescue colleagues, as well as people involved in the response and recovery efforts. This book, prepared for the tenth anniversary of the attacks, is an important compilation of personal recountings of the Pentagon on 11 September that will serve to remind future generations of the tragedy and the acts of valor on that day.

Publication Date: September 2, 2011
GPO S/N: 008-029-00545-0; CMH Pub 70-119-1 (Paper)
344 pages; illustrations, abbreviations, index
For additional information, contact Bryan Hockensmith at 202-685-2625 or bryan.hockensmith@conus.army.mil

Center of Military History Online Catalog:  http://www.history.army.mil/catalog/index.html
GPO’s Online Bookstore:  http://bookstore.gpo.gov, or call (202) 512-1800 or toll-free 1-866-512-1800.

Afghanistan: Alone & Unafraid
By Lt. Col. David A. Benhoff, Marine Corps History Division, 2011

Civilizations and peoples have interacted, and sometimes clashed, for centuries in Afghanistan.  It is a land where East meets West, mountains rise from deserts, and life was hard for many long before al-Qaeda and the Taliban. “These are people that are proud of their history, they’re proud of their culture,” observes one U.S. Marine officer. “They know they have a place.”

People and place are chronicled in vivid detail in this new photographic montage. Lieutenant Colonel David A. Benhoff deployed in mid-2009 as a field historian for the Marine Corps History Division to document the work of Marine Embedded Training Teams with the Afghan National Army. What he captured with camera and microphone extends well beyond the military efforts—it records the multidimensional face of rural Afghanistan itself. Readers will come away with a new appreciation of these people and their way of life.

Lieutenant Colonel Benhoff has previously published the award-winning photographic work Among the People: U.S. Marines in Iraq (2008).  He collaborated on the current project with designer Vincent J. Martinez of Marine Corps University Press.

Where to order:  http://bookstore.gpo.gov/actions/GetPublication.do?stocknumber=008-055-00242-7

Eavesdropping on Hell: Historical Guide to Western Communications Intelligence and the Holocaust, 1939–1945, by Robert J. Hanyok, Center for Cryptologic History, 2005.

This aptly titled book does three important things.  First, it addresses directly the question of what Allied leaders knew, and when they knew it, about the Holocaust from their widespread collection and cryptanalysis of Axis communications (COMINT).  As it turns out, this was quite a bit, although not much of it was “actionable.”  Next, several chapters describe the process and extent of U.S. and British COMINT, especially emphasizing its limitations.  These chapters are valuable reading for anyone with an interest in intelligence affairs, quite apart from what they say about the Holocaust.  Finally, Hanyok discusses the documentary sources for COMINT and the Holocaust, for those who wish to pursue the subject in even more detail.

Center for Cryptologic History (CCH) publications, including Eavesdropping on Hell, are available in hard copy by contacting CCH at history@nsa.gov or by calling the Center at 301-688-2338.  CCH’s publications are also available in softcopy at:

www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/cent_crypt_history/public/index.shtml.

The Bureau of Reclamation’s Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy:  1933–1942 by Christine E. Pfaff.  U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, February 2010. Paperback, 538 pages.  ISBN 9780160824241.

The Bureau of Reclamation’s Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy:  1933–1942 expands significantly on a volume completed in 2000 by the same author. It was the first comprehensive study to focus entirely on Reclamation’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) program. Although Reclamation’s program was smaller than that of other agencies, the impact was profound. Reclamation CCCers rehabilitated irrigation systems that had fallen into serious disrepair, developed supplemental water supplies, and constructed new projects. The CCC also provided Reclamation the opportunity to develop recreational facilities at a number of its reservoirs. Included in the new book is a brief overview of the national CCC program and a description of Reclamation’s CCC program, followed by individual forms containing the history and activities of each Reclamation CCC camp. This revised edition, which is heavily illustrated with historic photographs, further highlights some of the outstanding accomplishments of Reclamation’s CCC program.

Copies are available through the U.S. Government Printing Office bookstore.  For additional information, contact Tom Lincoln, Federal Preservation Officer, Bureau of Reclamation, at 303-445-3311.

The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983, by Edgar F. Raines, Jr. U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2010.

This second volume in the U.S. Army Center of Military History’s Contingency Operations Series provides an account of how Army logistics affected ground operations during the Grenada intervention and, in turn, how combat influenced logistical performance. Noteworthy is the book’s emphasis on the role of individuals and of the decisions they made based on the necessarily incomplete and sometimes misleading information available at the time. The narrative ranges through all levels of war—from the meetings of the National Security Council, where the president grappled with the question of whether to intervene in the wake of a bloody coup, to the jungles of Grenada, where a sergeant in combat coped successfully with a Cuban ambush despite a lack of hand grenades. Raines is careful to place Army logistical planning and operations in a joint context as well as grounding them in the Army’s post-Vietnam reform of logistical organization and doctrine. In addition to furnishing a fascinating account of a complex operation, The Rucksack War identifies many issues that may well influence the conduct of U.S. forces in future short-notice contingency operations.

Publication Date: December 30, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-16-084182-8 (Cloth); GPO S/N: 008-029-00523-9 (Cloth); CMH Pub 55-2
ISBN: 978-0-16-084183-5 (Paper); GPO S/N: 008-029-00524-7 (Paper); CMH Pub 55-2-1
Pp. xxviii, 649; illustrations, bibliography, guide to abbreviations, map symbols, index

For additional information, contact Bryan Hockensmith at 202-685-2625, or at bryan.hockensmith@us.army.mil
Order from GPO’s Online Bookstore at http://bookstore.gpo.gov, or call (202) 512-1800 or toll-free 1-866-512-1800.

Center of Military History Online Catalog:  http://www.history.army.mil/catalog/index.html

NASA’s First 50 Years: Historical Perspectives

This volume of essays derives from NASA’s October 2008 conference celebrating the agency’s 50th anniversary. Historians and policy analysts discussed NASA’s role in aeronautics, human spaceflight, exploration, space science, life science, and Earth science, as well as crosscutting themes ranging from space access to international relations in space and NASA’s interaction with the public. The essays serve as a fascinating retrospective on NASA’s role in American culture and in the history of exploration and discovery as well as lessons learned from the past 50 years.

Edited by Steven J. Dick. NASA SP-2010-4704. Order U.S. Government Printing Office, 1-866-512-1800.

From Hot War to Cold: The U.S. Navy and National Security Affairs, 1945–1955, by Jeffrey G. Barlow. Stanford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978804756662, Cloth, 710 p., $65.

From Hot War to Cold examines the contentious unification hearings over roles and missions of the three services that led to the passage of the National Security Act of 1947, discusses the formation of NATO, and analyzes Eisenhower’s “New Look” defense policy in which the president sought to balance military readiness with economic realities. The book also details the Navy’s perspective on international crises during this turbulent period, including the rise of the Chinese Communists and their victory over the Nationalists, the outbreak of the Korean War, and the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam. This study is based upon an extensive review of thousands of once-classified documents and interviews with a number of retired senior U.S. Navy and Army officers. The author is a historian at the Naval History & Heritage Command.