Offner, Arnold A. Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.
Offner, Arnold A. Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.
According to Skinner, FA 81.5, the author "argues that Truman's unsophisticated, confrontational approach to statecraft made the Cold War longer, meaner, and more expensive than necessary.... Another Such Victory adds up to an authoritative sum of all doubts about Truman's foreign policy.... Sadly, the calculus is not as original as it is comprehensive."
Corke, I&NS 18.4, seems disappointed that the author of this "revisionist" interpretation did not spend more space beating up on the CIA ("glaring deficiency").
Ovendale, R. "Britain, the United States, and the Cold War in South-East Asia, 1949-1950." International Affairs 58, no. 3 (1982): 447-464.
Perl, Matthew. "Comparing US and UK Intelligence Assessment in the Early Cold War: NSC-68, April 1950." Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 119-154.
The author compares NSC-68 (April 1950) with JIC (51) 6 (January 1951). The American and British utilized "dissimilar assumptions and interpretive approaches" in their intelligence assessments of the Soviet Union. It was on the "subjective questions -- the 'mysteries' -- that US and UK analysts disagreed throughout the early years of the Cold War, America's view of Communist doctrine leading them to ascribe aggressive intentions to the USSR long before Britain was prepared to do so."
Pollard,
Robert A. Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945-1950. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
Reynolds, I&NS 3.2, finds that this book "is a readable, clear analysis, offering concise summeries of American policy on crucial events." Nevertheless, the author's concentration on the State Department means that "we get little real sense ... of the Pentagon's very different approach to national security.... Pollard also shows little awareness of British contributions to Cold War scholarship."
Poteat, S. Eugene. "Who Won the Intelligence Battles of the Cold War?" Intelligencer 9, no. 3 (Oct. 1998): 15-16.
"[O]ne of the great intelligence wins of all time belongs to the ... KGB and GRU. Their remarkable success in obtaining western military and industrial secrets permitted the Soviet Union to successfully challenge the West for many years beyond what would have otherwise been a natural death."
Powers, Thomas. "The Bloodless War." New York Review of Books, 23 Oct. 1997. Chapter 8 in Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda, 141-158. Rev. & exp. ed. New York: New York Review of Books, 2004.
The author looks at the Cold War through Murphy, Kondrashev, and Bailey's Battleground Berlin (1997), Whitney's Spy Trader (1993), and Wolf's Man Without a Face (1997). "Anyone interested in just how complex a counterintelligence case can become should read the fourteen pages in which Battleground Berlin lays out the intricate web of what was known to whom, through which channels," as the KGB closed in on Col. Pyotr Popov.
Powers, Thomas. "The Bottom Line." New York Review of Books, 13 May 1993. Chapter 20 in Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda, 295-320. Rev. & exp. ed. New York: New York Review of Books, 2004.
The author looks at the "secret cold war" through the work of a number of writers: Persico, Casey (1990); Perry, Eclipse (1992); Yousaf, Bear Trap (1992); Bower, Red Web (1989); Lamphere and Shachtman, The FBI-KGB War (1986); Mangold, Cold Warrior (1991); Wise, Molehunt (1992); Blake, No Other Choice (1990); Newton, The Cambridge Spies (1991); Schecter and Deriabin, The Spy Who Saved the World (1993); Kessler, Moscow Station (1989); Darling, The Central Intelligence Agency (1990); Montague, General Walter Bedell Smith (1992); Hersh, The Old Boys (1992); and Richelson, American Espionage and the Soviet Target (1987) and America's Secret Eyes in Space (1990).
Ransom, Henry Howe.
Can American Democracy Survive the Cold War? Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1964.
The author worries that national security-related legislation may be eroding the foundation of American democracy. Nonetheless, his basic American optimism shows through his concerns.
Reed, Thomas C. At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War. New York: Ballantine, 2004.
According to Cerami, Parameters, Winter 2004-05, the author provides "insider accounts of Washington and White House politics and insights on the Cold War Presidents." Reed's narrative is also "significant for its insight on science and technology, and on the research and development communities. In addition, it includes some gripping spy stories and illustrates the realities of bureaucratic and organizational politics involving the Pentagon, the CIA, and the White House."
Schaller, Michael.
The American Occupation of Japan: The Origins of the Cold War in Asia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Smith, Arthur L., Jr. Kidnap City: Cold War Berlin. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002.
Brown, I&NS 20.2 (Jun. 2005), notes that from an intelligence point of view the author's "recognition of the key role played by the US Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC)" is of particular interest. Smith "reminds his readers that the CIC was first to the front lines in the covert war against the Soviets."
Stack, Kevin P. "The
Cold War Intelligence Score." American Intelligence Journal
18, no. 1/2 (1998): 69-72.
The "Editor's Note" appended to this article states: "This comparison effort is of interest even though readers may take exception to some of the author's positions and conclusions."
Clark comment: I agree with that assessment. Using only open-source materials, Stack concludes that "the Soviet Union scored a win over the United States in the 'intelligence security war' of the Cold War." That conclusion may or may be correct, but the strongly conservative ideological bias shown in the author's analysis certainly does little to "prove" his point.
Steury, Donald P., ed. On the Front Lines of the Cold War: Documents on the Intelligence War in Berlin, 1946-1961. Washington, DC: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999.
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