Offering a clear analysis of the danger of nuclear terrorism and how it can be prevented, The Partnership sheds light on one of the most divisive security issues facing Washington today. Award-winning New York Times journalist Philip Taubman illuminates our vulnerability in the face of this pressing terrorist threat—and the unlikely efforts of five key Cold War players to eliminate the nuclear arsenal they helped create. Bob Woodward calls The Partnership a “brilliant, penetrating study of nuclear threats, present and past,” and David Kennedy writes that it is “indispensable reading for all who would understand the desperate urgency of containing the menace of nuclear proliferation.”

The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb

Biographies & Memoirs

Taubman, Philip

Historical

Harper

Harper-perennial

During the early and most dangerous years of the cold war, a handful of Americans, led by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, revolutionized spying and warfare. In great secrecy and beyond the prying eyes of Congress and the press, they built exotic new machines that opened up the Soviet Union to surveillance and protected the United States from surprise nuclear attack. Secret Empire is the dramatic story of these men and their inventions, told in full for the first time. In a brief period of explosive, top-secret innovation during the 1950s, a small group of scientists, engineers, businessmen, and government officials rewrote the book on airplane design and led the nation into outer space. In an effort no less audacious than the creation of the atomic bomb, they designed, built, and operated the U-2 and supersonic SR-71 spy planes and Corona, the first reconnaissance satellites -- machines that could collect more information about the Soviet Union's weapons in a day than an army of spies could assemble in a decade. Their remarkable inventions and daring missions made possible arms control agreements with Moscow that helped keep the peace during the cold war, as well as the space-based reconnaissance, mapping, communications, and targeting systems used by America's armed forces in the Gulf War and most recently in Afghanistan. These hugely expensive machines also led to the neglect of more traditional means of intelligence gathering through human spies. 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. He reconstructs the crucial meetings, conversations, and decisions that inspired and guided the development of the spy plane and satellite projects during one of the most perilous periods in our history, a time when, as Eisenhower said, the world seemed to be "racing toward catastrophe." Taubman follows this dramatic story from the White House to the CIA, from the Pentagon to Lockheed's Skunk Works in Burbank, from the secret U-2 test base in Nevada to the secret satellite assembly center in Palo Alto and other locations here and abroad. He reveals new information about the origins and evolution of the projects and how close they came to failing technically or falling victim to bureaucratic inertia and Washington's turf wars. The incredibly sophisticated spies in the skies were remarkably successful in proving that the missile gap was a myth in protecting us from surprise Soviet attack. But in some ways, the failure to detect the planning for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, can also be attributed to these powerful machines as the government became increasingly dependent on spy satellites to the neglect of human agents and informants. Now, as we wage a new and more vicious war against terrorism, we will need both machines in space and spies on the ground to fight back.

Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage

History

Americas

Simon&Schuster

In a brief period of explosive, top-secret innovation during the 1950s, a small group of scientists, engineers, businessmen, and government officials rewrote the book on airplane design and led the nation into outer space. Led by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, they invented the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes and the first reconnaissance satellites that revolutionized spying, proved that the missile gap was a myth, and protected the United States from Soviet surprise nuclear attack. They also made possible the space-based 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. He reconstructs the crucial meetings, conversations, and decisions that inspired and guided the development of the spy plane and satellite projects during one of the most perilous periods in our history, a time when, as President Eisenhower said, the world seemed to be "racing toward catastrophe" This is the story of these secret heroes, told in full for the first time.

McNamara at War: A New History

Taubman, William

W.W.Norton&Company

"In this exciting, meticulously researched spy story, Taubman takes readers behind the closed doors of the Eisenhower administration to tell about the small group of Cold Warriors whose technological innovations-including the U2 spy plane and Corona, the country's first spy satellite-revolutionized espionage and intelligence gathering."     -Publishers Weekly"New York Times editor Taubman exudes admiration for the contrarian thinking and enterprise that brought into being the U-2, the SR-71, and the Corona series of surveillance satellites."     -BooklistDuring the early and most dangerous years of the cold war, a handful of Americans, led by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, revolutionized spying and warfare. In great secrecy and beyond the prying eyes of Congress and the press, they built exotic new machines that opened up the Soviet Union to surveillance and protected the United States from surprise nuclear attack. Secret Empire is the dramatic story of these men and their inventions, told in full for the first time.

Secret Empire: Eisenhower, The Cia, And The Hidden Story Of America's Space Espionage, Library Edition

Prichard, Michael

Military

Tantor Media, Inc.

In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz

Review\n"This is a masterpiece. Philip Taubman, one of the great reporters and editors from The New York Times, has dug forever and found the real, authentic George Shultz, one of the true peacemakers of the 20th century. Essentially positive but not avoiding some well-documented criticisms, this biography reminds me of David McCullough's classic biographies of Presidents John Adams and Harry Truman―defining and sure-footed in every paragraph."―Bob Woodward, #1 bestselling author of Peril and Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate\n"The nuanced diplomacy of George Shultz at the end of the Cold War was a major reason that 45-year conflict ended with a whimper rather than the nuclear bang we had all feared. In his biography about Shultz, Philip Taubman masterfully explains the many keys to Shultz's success, including his giant intellect and understated ability to build personal relationships with his interlocutors in the Soviet Union. In the Nation's Service is a must read for those interested in the life and times of one of our nation's foremost secretaries of state."―James A. Baker, III, 61st U.S. Secretary of State\n"Philip Taubman has written an outstanding book about the extraordinary life and public service of Secretary Shultz. As Taubman describes in these pages, Shultz possessed the rare ability to build consensus among people with diverse and sometimes deeply opposing views, exhibiting an agile diplomacy that allowed him to aid in the peaceful end of the Cold War. Taubman's account deftly captures the character of this American icon, the halls of power in which he served the nation, and the consequential one hundred years in which he lived."―Condoleezza Rice, 66th US Secretary of State, Tad and Dianne Taube Director, Hoover Institution\n"Taubman makes a persuasive case that Shultz was one of the most distinguished American officials of the last half century."―H.W. Brands, author of The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America and Reagan: The Life\n"Philip Taubman's new biography of Shultz, In the Nation's Service, offers a more complicated assessment of the well-known government official and of the modern history of the GOP. Shultz's saga of triumph and turmoil offers a reminder that the brutal moral conditions Republican administrations impose on those who work in them were not just confined to Trump, but have been manifest all along."―Washington Monthly\n"Philip Taubman's In the Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz adds a surprising new dimension to the Reagan saga. Through the eyes of Shultz, the secretary of state, Taubman portrays the Reagan administration as swamped and nearly paralyzed by disorganization and infighting. Cabinet members and White House aides were constantly at each other's throats. This will come as no surprise to students of the Reagan presidency, but Taubman, a longtime reporter and editor at the New York Times, introduces a new and highly credible source. [Taubman's research] provides valuable new insight into the Reagan years, and he gives Shultz credit for holding things together."―David E. Hoffman, The Washington Post\n"Taubman's book is remarkable in many ways. [I]t gives Shultz the credit he deserves in guiding Reagan's foreign policy, especially in ending the Soviet empire, that had been reserved for just Reagan, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, President George H.W. Bush, and his top diplomat James Baker."―Paul Bedard, The Washington Examiner\nThe definitive biography of a distinguished public servant, who as US Secretary of Labor, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of State, was pivotal in steering the great powers toward the end of the Cold War. 
Deftly solving critical but intractable national and global problems was the leitmotif of George Pratt Shultz's life. No one at the highest levels of the United States government did it better or with greater consequence in the last half of the 20th century, often ag

Leaders & Notable People

Stanford University Press

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