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The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy

David E. Hoffman (Goodreads Author)

4.12 · Rating details · 3,373 Ratings · 297 Reviews

“A tour de force of investigative history.” —Steve Coll

The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.

The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill. In t “A tour de force of investigative history.” —Steve Coll

The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.

The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill. In the last half of the twentieth century the two superpowers had perfected the science of mass destruction and possessed nuclear weapons with the combined power of a million Hiroshimas. What’s more, a Soviet biological warfare machine was ready to produce bacteria and viruses to sicken and kill millions. In The Dead Hand, a thrilling narrative history drawing on new archives and original research and interviews, David E. Hoffman reveals how presidents, scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and spies confronted the danger and changed the course of history.

The Dead Hand captures the inside story in both the United States and the Soviet Union, giving us an urgent and intimate account of the last decade of the arms race. With access to secret Kremlin documents, Hoffman chronicles Soviet internal deliberations that have long been hidden. He reveals that weapons designers in 1985 laid a massive “Star Wars” program on the desk of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to compete with President Reagan, but Gorbachev refused to build it. He unmasks the cover-up of the Soviet biological weapons program. He tells the exclusive story of one Soviet microbiologist’s quest to build a genetically engineered super-germ—it would cause a mild illness, a deceptive recovery, then a second, fatal attack. And he details the frightening history of the Doomsday Machine, known as the Dead Hand, which would launch a retaliatory nuclear strike if the Soviet leaders were wiped out.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the dangers remained. Soon rickety trains were hauling unsecured nuclear warheads across the Russian steppe; tons of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium lay unguarded in warehouses; and microbiologists and bomb designers were scavenging for food to feed their families.

The Dead Hand offers fresh and startling insights into Reagan and Gorbachev, the two key figures of the end of the Cold War, and draws colorful, unforgettable portraits of many others who struggled, often valiantly, to save the world from the most terrifying weapons known to man. ...more

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Hardcover, 592 pages

Published September 22nd 2009 by Doubleday (first published January 1st 2009)

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Oct 06, 2009 Matt rated it liked it

Shelves: nuclear-war

I'll admit I picked this up because I am a fan of nuke porn. I grew up reading the surprisingly subtle On the Beach, the over-written, over-sexed The Last Ship, and the ridiculous Ian Slater series WW III. On television, I was thrilled by The Day After (I've never seen Steve Guttenberg the same, since). I even downloaded On Thermonuclear War, just to see what precautions I could take (step one: don't get into a thermonuclear war; there is no step two).

Some months ago, I read an article on the o ...more

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Jun 17, 2011 Dervishi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book was a fantastic recounting of the Cold War. It was extremely factual, and did well in citing all of the sources for each piece of information and story that made this book non-fiction.

I always found the Cold War as this mysterious time period where we somehow miraculously avoided nuclear annihilation by coming up with Mutually Assured Destruction. However, Hoffman really gives us an in-depth and intimate look at how MAD came about. I was left intrigued as I learned about what the Dead ...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Chad Sayban rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The second half of the twentieth century will always be defined by what became known as The Cold War. Born out of the distrust between the major allied powers in the Second World War, the standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States not only gave shape to the modern world, it also created two weapons building programs unrivaled in history. Ultra secret programs that produced weapons that are too horrifying to imagine and created consequences for those who chose to create them. And whi The second half of the twentieth century will always be defined by what became known as The Cold War. Born out of the distrust between the major allied powers in the Second World War, the standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States not only gave shape to the modern world, it also created two weapons building programs unrivaled in history. Ultra secret programs that produced weapons that are too horrifying to imagine and created consequences for those who chose to create them. And while those weapons were never actually employed in the war that luckily never happened, it wasn’t for lack of trying. And even now, the shadow of those military programs lives on in spite of the end of the Soviet Union. In fact, things might be more dangerous now than they were at the height of the Cold War.

David Hoffman’s inside look at the Cold War arms race and its consequences is in a word…frightening! Those of us who grew up in that time remember the fear that pervaded us – that one day we would wake up to cities being incinerated by nuclear warheads and that would be the end of that. However, until I read. The Dead Hand, I didn’t really appreciate just how close to the brink of World War III we came. Forget the Cuban Missile Crisis. We never came closer to calamity than during a few weeks in 1983 – and few knew anything about it until decades later.

The Dead Hand goes far beyond simply documenting how weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and biological) shaped policy between the superpowers. It describes just how perilously close we came at several points to all out Armageddon. Hoffman provides a wealth of information from sources on all sides of the Cold War. Even more chilling is how even today we are haunted by the legacy of destructive arsenals even though the two primary combatants no longer have a beef with each other. The industry of the two superpowers are now the deadly tools that rough states and terrorists would love to grab a hold of…and just one would alter our world forever.

That is not to say The Dead Hand is perfect. At times, Hoffman’s writing becomes a bit repetitive, at other times he drones on about minor things. However, the overall portrait he paints is both thoughtful and chilling. Hoffman doesn’t end with a litany of conclusions or things that need to be done. Ultimately, there are no easy answers to the world we have built other than a need to be vigilant about allowing paranoia and fear to push into acting in a devastating way. The tools of our protection can become the instruments of our destruction.

The Dead Hand is a must read for anyone who lived through the anxiety of the Cold War or wants to know what threatens our way of life today. The Cold War might be over, but the threats to humanity still remain. Well written…and frankly unnerving.
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Oct 15, 2015 Ints rated it really liked it

Shelves: history

Lai piedod man tas cilvēks, kurš man ieteica izlasīt šo grāmatu, tas bija sen un tviterī. Grāmata man lasītājā stāvēja labu laiku gaidīdama savu kārtu, kaut kā pēc tās iegādes bija pārgājis entuziasms lasīt par Auksto karu. Vispār jau nebija tā, ka uzreiz pārgāja, pirmajā piegājienā tūlīt pēc iegādes es kādas pārdesmit lappuses pievārēju, bet neielasījos un atliku vēlākam laikam.

Par Aukstā kara laikiem ir sarakstītas simtiem grāmatu, sākot no pilnīgiem izdomājumiem un beidzot ar protokolu pārdru Lai piedod man tas cilvēks, kurš man ieteica izlasīt šo grāmatu, tas bija sen un tviterī. Grāmata man lasītājā stāvēja labu laiku gaidīdama savu kārtu, kaut kā pēc tās iegādes bija pārgājis entuziasms lasīt par Auksto karu. Vispār jau nebija tā, ka uzreiz pārgāja, pirmajā piegājienā tūlīt pēc iegādes es kādas pārdesmit lappuses pievārēju, bet neielasījos un atliku vēlākam laikam.

Par Aukstā kara laikiem ir sarakstītas simtiem grāmatu, sākot no pilnīgiem izdomājumiem un beidzot ar protokolu pārdrukām. Par to, kā prezidenti, spiegi, zinātnieki, diplomāti un pārbēdzēji darīja visu iespējamo, lai samazinātu potenciālās kodolkatastrofas draudus. Starp abām lielvarām valdīja savstarpēja neuzticība, paranoja un abas puses (pamatoti) uzskatīja, ka pretinieks savus īstos nodomus slēpj un, tēlojot miera balodi, pa kluso ražo papildus ieročus. Autors ir izmantojis to, ka daļa no bijušās PSRS slepenajiem dokumentiem tikuši atslepenoti un mēģinājis pēc iespējas apkopot Aukstā kara beigu fāzes dokumentus vienā stāstā.

Vispār jau par vēstures grāmatu kā tādu atsauksmi ir diezgan grūti uzrakstīt. Ja neesi speciālists vēstures posmā, par kuru lasi, tad atliek vien uzticēties autoram. Šim autoram uzticēties var, jo katram faktam viņš ir klāt pielicis atsauci. Ja esi pavisam knauzerīgs lasītājs, tad nāktos doties pie pirmavota un pārliecināties, ka atsauce atbilst patiesībai. Taču ar pliku faktu uzskaitīšanu nekāda grāmata nesanāk, autoram ir jāveido arī faktu loģisks izklāsts –stāstījums. Taču jebkurš stāstījums paredz faktu interpretāciju šķietami loģiskā secībā. Tas tādēļ, ka cilvēka smadzenes mums ir tā iekārtotas, jebkurš notikums tajās tiek pārveidots kā cēloņsakarīgs izklāsts. Tas, ka realitātei šāds uztveres veids ir visnotaļ neatbilstīgs, ir mūsu pašu problēma. Arī šajā jomā autors ir centies, cik varēdams, neizvēlēties puses un apskatīt Aukstā kara beigu procesus objektīvi. Tas gan viņam kā Rietumu kultūras pārstāvim nesanāk un PSRS beigu beigās sanāk sliktie.

ASV un PSRS centrālā Aukstā kara stratēģija bija atturēt pretinieku no uzbrukuma. Uzbrukums nozīmētu prettriecienu, un tas savukārt abu karojošo bloku iznīcināšanu. Kodolarsenāli bija pietiekoši, galvenā rūpe bija nodrošināt prettriecienu gadījumā, ja pavēles devēji ietu bojā pirms spētu dot pavēli palaist raķetes. Jāatzīmē, ka vismaz šajā jomā manai bērnības valstij PSRS bija izcila ideja - vienkārša un ģeniāla, tā garantēja to, ka pat ja iznīcinātu visus galvenos, tik un tā naidnieks (ASV) no prettrieciena neizvairītos. Praktiski jebkurš dzīvi palikušais bunkurs varētu palaist speciālu raķeti, kura pārlidojot PSRS teritoriju autonomi iedarbinātu pirmo triecienu pārdzīvojošos kodolieročus.

Taču ne jau tikai kodolieroči bija lielvaru galvenās rūpes, vēl jau ir bioloģiskie un ķīmiskie ieroči. PSRS specializējās Sibīrijas mēra kultivēšanā un baku attīstīšanā. ASV vismaz pēc autora apgalvojuma no šādiem projektiem jau sen bija atsacījusies. Bioloģiskie ieroči kaujas laukā ir absolūti nederīgi, jo iedarbojas tikai pēc pāris dienām. To galvenais mērķis ir civiliedzīvotāji. PSRS bija diezgan daudz slepenu laboratoriju, kurās tika darīts viss iespējamais, lai šādus ieročus pilnveidotu. Tas nekas, ka PSRS ģenētikā atpalika pār desmitgadi, ja ir pietiekami resursi, tad var visu. Ķīmiskie ieroči bija piesaukti pavisam maz, tik vien, ka PSRS viņi glabājas pa roku galam, tāpat kā kodolieroči.

Grāmatas galvenokārt ir centrēta uz PSRS, ir šis tas par ASV, bet 70% ir veltīti PSRS beigu gadiem. Tas radīja zināmu disbalansu, un pilnīgi šķita, ka amerikāņi ir pilnīgi miera atbalstītāji. Buša un Reigana ārpolitikas agresivitāte vairāk esot bijusi kā PSRS procesu nesaprašanas cēlonis nevis ģeopolitiska nepieciešamība. Tādēļ mēs daudz lasām par padomju līderiem, par Gorbačova perestroiku un PSRS militārā kompleksa nevēlēšanos strādāt reālas ekonomikas apstākļos.

Grāmatai lieku 9 no 10 ballēm. Lasīt gan es ieteiktu tiem, kurus patiesi interesē Aukstā kara beigu posms, tā līdz sīkumiem, ko kurš kad teica, kad kāds pārbēga un citi sīkumi. Ja šis vēstures posms Tevi neinteresē, tad šķitīs dikti garlaicīga. Kā jau visām vēstures grāmatām pienākas gala vērtējums nav tik daudz autora objektivitāte, cik lasītāja paša dzīves laikā uzkrātā informācija (lielākoties bez atsaucēm un pa stūriem sagrābstīta) un pārliecība par patiesību.
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Jan 26, 2016 Ruth rated it really liked it

I thought this book would likely be boring; but no. Hoffman starts with a bang and generally kept me turning the pages. I did not remember all the Russian names, but I didn't have to, as some clue was inserted to jog my memory if the name returned. I have to say now, before I forget, that the book left me with a lingering question, which I mentally asked over and over as the book drew to a close. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RABBITS? There was this lovely scientist living in some remote area with his wi ...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Ed rated it really liked it

A chilling account of how close the world came to nuclear catastrophe during the Cold War and also a fascinating account of how the Cold War ended. Very interesting on the dynamics of the Reagan-Gorbachev relationship and also the whole parallel worlds of the US and Soviet Union and their perceptions of each other. Most worryingly it has details of the appalling biological weapons programs the Soviets pursued right up to the end and beyond of the Cold War in contravention of treaties they had si ...more

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Jun 06, 2017 Frank Stein rated it really liked it

Just a few decades later, it's hard to imagine how humanity spent so long living on the nuclear brink. Yet, throughout the Cold War, presidents, politicians, and generals in the United States and Soviet Union spent a good chunk of their time thinking about the "unthinkable," how to end billions of human lives. David Hoffman's book, although overlong and often circuitous, shows us how close we were to destruction, and why we decided to step back from the edge.

As Ronald Reagan remembered in his me Just a few decades later, it's hard to imagine how humanity spent so long living on the nuclear brink. Yet, throughout the Cold War, presidents, politicians, and generals in the United States and Soviet Union spent a good chunk of their time thinking about the "unthinkable," how to end billions of human lives. David Hoffman's book, although overlong and often circuitous, shows us how close we were to destruction, and why we decided to step back from the edge.

As Ronald Reagan remembered in his memoir, during his presidency he carried no wallet or money, "no keys in my pockets - only secret codes that were capable of bringing about the annihilation of much of the world as we know it." Since Dwight Eisenhower, U.S. Presidents have been shadowed at all times by aides with a "nuclear football," a briefcase containing the launch codes and targets for nuclear attack. The increased speed of nuclear missiles, however, meant Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan had to confront the possibility these codes could be used in minutes. The Soviet intermediate range SS-N-18's placed in Europe in 1978 threatened to blow up that continent in five or six minutes, while the Pershing missiles placed there in response in 1983 threatened Moscow in the same time period. Both sides worried about what to do if they could not communicate to launch in time, and became obsessed with command and control channels. The Russians created a semi-"dead hand" nuclear system, whereby a communications missile would launch after a nuclear strike and send codes out to all silos to fire when ready. The world was on hair-trigger alert for years.

Reagan thought he had found a way out, comprehensive missile defense. One revelation from the book is just how important Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, or "Star Wars," was in the superpower standoff in the 1980s. After Reagan's assistant Martin Anderson, his friend Karl Bendetsen, and the scientist Edward Teller all suggested to Reagan that he should propose a defense against nuclear attack, Reagan announced the idea to the world on March 23, 1983, against the advice of almost all his Cabinet. The Soviets became obsessed with the danger it posed to their retaliation capability, even though it remained no more than a drawing board plan. One KGB agent estimated that 40% of the info coming across his desk in that time had to do with missile defense. Ending the SDI was also the main stumbling block between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in negotiating what each secretly longed for, the end of nuclear weapons.

Yet by 1987, Gorbachev and Reagan negotiated an accord taking the intermediate missiles out of Europe. By 1990 the Soviet economy was collapsing so fast that both sides engaged in an arms race in reverse, deactivating submarines and missiles and planes by the thousands, and, for the Soviet Union, finally winding down the extensive biological weapons complex they had illegally kept. Soon, the US began spending billions not to build weapons but to prevent Soviet weapons and scientists from falling into the wrong hands. U.S. inspectors found purified uranium stacked in buckets in unlocked warehouses, or dropped about the floor in empty office buildings. Soviet trains to take weapons back from the old Soviet satellite countries had missiles tied down with wire and sticking out of the sides of the cars. It was a precarious time, and Hoffman makes clear that despite American efforts under the Nunn-Lugar Act to safeguard it, some of the Soviet arsenal probably got away.

The greater Cold War terror did end. By 1991, George H.W. Bush could ask his staff if nuclear football could stop trailing him everywhere, but they convinced him against it. The football still trails the President today. It is a perfect metaphor for what Hoffman calls the "Dead Hand," the continued danger, fear, and destruction that remains from the Cold War arms race, which still threatens much of our lives, even when the creators of the race have long passed. ...more

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Apr 26, 2010 Kelly rated it liked it

"The Dead Hand" covers enormous swaths of narrative terrain with an exceedingly narrow focus. After briefly introducing Soviet forays into biological and chemical warfare in the late 1970s, Hoffman commences with a retelling of the political and diplomatic bullet points between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The central concern of this story is the struggle of both superpowers to reduce or eliminate their respective stockpiles of nuclear weapons, with a subplot devoted to the aforem ...more

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Apr 21, 2012 Gail rated it really liked it

The Cold War seems both so recent and so long ago. This book brought back memories of the day to day events and the feelings they engendered. It was a fascinating summary of the diplomacy that brought down Communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. The back and forth of arms negotiations which did result in a reduction of nuclear weapons were revealing. Gorbachev come across as the major hero (at least to me) for being willing to make major changes in his system of government, though he s ...more

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Jul 23, 2011 Nick Black rated it liked it

Shelves: oppenheimania

Great reporting and research -- I'd barely heard of the Biopreparat, despite The Doomsday Men's emphasis on biochem (particularly Shirō Ishii's Unit 731). Pretty crappy writing, though. The whole thing has a definite air of being hustled together on a bunch of adderall.

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Jan 18, 2013 David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, history

Awesome recounting of the end of the cold war. From Reagan through Yelstin. Reagan come across as a hero. Gates & Snowcroft come off as kind of tools.

The sections on the biological weapons of the Soviets are really wild & scary.

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Jun 11, 2017 Debbie rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017, 2017-pulitzer-challenge, culture, history, health, military, non-fiction, politics, award-winner, science

Incredible story of the history of the Cold War, including how the world almost came to war over a mistake. "Dead hand" refers to the idea of having automated systems determine the efficacy and need for initiating a retaliatory strike on an enemy prior to the arrival of the enemy's already launched attack systems. The book also discusses the Soviet Union's illegal bio-weapons research and development. The leaders of that country were convinced the US was doing it, so the Soviet Union needed to a ...more

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Jul 13, 2017 Katy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: pulitzer-nonfiction-2017, pulitzers-nonfiction

This is a very frightening book with it pointing out all that we have not known and what we don't know at present. The Cold War may be over, but the weapons still remain and so do those who wish to wage war.

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Jun 02, 2012 Ushan rated it liked it

Shelves: nuclear-weapons, cold-war

This is a conventional narrative history of the final stages of the Cold War and its end and aftermath, with an emphasis on weapons on mass destruction, mostly focusing on the Soviet Union and Russia, which is not surprising given that Hoffman was the Moscow bureau chief of the Washington Post in the 1990s. The same topics are mostly covered in the relevant chapters of Richard Rhodes's Arsenals of Folly and Twilight of the Bombs. One topic Hoffman discusses at length and Rhodes doesn't is the So This is a conventional narrative history of the final stages of the Cold War and its end and aftermath, with an emphasis on weapons on mass destruction, mostly focusing on the Soviet Union and Russia, which is not surprising given that Hoffman was the Moscow bureau chief of the Washington Post in the 1990s. The same topics are mostly covered in the relevant chapters of Richard Rhodes's Arsenals of Folly and Twilight of the Bombs. One topic Hoffman discusses at length and Rhodes doesn't is the Soviet biological weapons program. The belligerent in World War II with the most advanced program of biological warfare was Japan, which experimented on live Allied POWs and Chinese civilians. After the war both the Americans and the Soviets availed themselves of Japanese germ warfare expertise, just as they did with German rocketry. The American program was terminated in 1969 by President Richard Nixon; when speechwriter William Safire asked Nixon whether the United States should retain a few germs as a deterrent, Nixon answered, "If somebody uses germs on us, we’ll nuke 'em." Great Britain terminated its program in 1956. The Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain all signed the 1972 convention outlawing biological weapons. However, the convention did not include an effective regime of inspections, so the Soviet Union cheated: tens of thousands of Soviet scientists and technicians worked on weaponized anthrax, smallpox, the Marburg virus and more, genetically engineering the germs to be more effective and resistant to medicine, brewing enough of the poisons in enormous stainless-steel vats to kill the humanity many times over. This was no deterrent: how can something be a deterrent if its existence is a state secret? In Sverdlovsk in 1979, anthrax spores leaked from a factory, killing about 100 people; when the rumors of this found their way to the West, Soviet scientists lied to their Western colleagues that the epidemic was caused by people eating tainted meat; the truth was only acknowledged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The extent of the program was revealed to the West in 1989, when the director of an institute that worked on spraying plague germs from a low-flying cruise missile went to France to sign a contract for lab equipment. He defected to Great Britain and told all he knew; the West hushed it up lest the news of it harms Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of New Thinking. The defector called the Canadian embassy first because he was afraid that if he were to go to the United States or Great Britain, he would be forced to work on these countries' germ warfare programs; he and his colleagues did not believe that these programs did not exist. The Canadian embassy gave him a cold shoulder but the British one was more responsive.

The title of the book comes from a late Soviet second-strike nuclear command-and-control system called the Perimeter. If a Pershing II ballistic missile had hit the Kremlin and killed Konstantin Chernenko and the rest of Soviet leadership before they had time to react to its launch, several junior officers in a bunker would check that a nuclear attack had taken place and normal communication links had been severed, and launch a special rocket with a radio transmitter in place of a warhead. The transmitter would transmit commands for a retaliation strike, which would cause nuclear-tipped missiles to automatically launch. The officers would be analogous to the twitching fingers of a dead hand; hence the title of the book. This is analogous to the Doomsday Machine from the film "Dr. Strangelove". A character in the film says, "The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret!" The Perimeter, however, was secret until the fall of the Soviet Union. The film is black comedy, but the book is nonfiction! ...more

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Nov 24, 2013 Raj Agrawal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: saass-books

This is a book I’ll definitely come back to. I’ve never gravitated toward history books, but this one reads like a novel – but “you can’t make this stuff up.” Hoffman tells the story of the major personalities involved in nuclear deterrence, especially during the Reagan and Gorbachev years. Hoffman shifts some of the emphasis off of Reagan’s effectiveness, and shares credit for the end of the Cold War with Gorbachev. Gorbachev’s genius, ability to shape information, and his apparent concerns wit ...more

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Feb 26, 2011 Glenn Hyman rated it it was amazing

Excellent book! The cold war is very much still with us. Still, Americans or Russians could send up their missiles and really the only possible responses are massive retaliation and doing nothing. I must say that I understand a little bit better the motivation of Ronald Reagan. He could not believe that if the Russians were to send up their missiles, there is not really much that we can do. That was behind the whole Star Wars thing. He wanted some way to protect us from a Soviet first strike, fo ...more

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Feb 13, 2014 Eric rated it it was amazing

Incredible book! An absolute must read for sure. Presents enough well researched background to create significant concern about the possibility both weaponized BW/CW stocks remain in Russia and the expertise/capability remains to make more. With Putin's actions over the last decade, it is clear the world has much to be concerned about with respect to the future actions of the Russian Federation.

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May 04, 2015 Bob rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, war

The Cold War is over, we no longer have nuclear attack drills in schools, so all's well. Right?

Wrong. Way wrong. Turns out the Soviets were developing some seriously dangerous biological weapons, and who knows where this technology has subsequently found a home. Chances are good that some really bad people now have this.

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Feb 28, 2017 John rated it really liked it

How are any of us alive?

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May 13, 2014 Steve Smits rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This amazing and, in many respects, chilling book is an account of the winding down of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. It is amazing because of the interplay on nuclear arms control between the US leadership, principally Ronald Reagan, and the Soviet leaders following Brezhnev. Reagan was sincerely repulsed by the philosophy and practices of communism and his tough talk was an honest expression of his views on the so-called “Evil Empire”. At the same time, a This amazing and, in many respects, chilling book is an account of the winding down of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. It is amazing because of the interplay on nuclear arms control between the US leadership, principally Ronald Reagan, and the Soviet leaders following Brezhnev. Reagan was sincerely repulsed by the philosophy and practices of communism and his tough talk was an honest expression of his views on the so-called “Evil Empire”. At the same time, and this isn’t so widely known, he was genuinely driven by the idea that the world could be rid of nuclear weapons. His disarmament overtures to the Soviets were bold, usually counter to the advice of his civilian and military advisors, and came remarkably close to succeeding.

Against this intention, however, were his constant provocative anti-Soviet public statements that could be legitimately received as antagonistic, even threatening. The story is chilling because of circumstances in the early 1980’s where misperceptions and the response to those brought us to the brink of an actual nuclear exchange. Reagan’s openly hostile demeanor toward the Soviets brought their leaders (a succession of old guard hacks – Andropov and Chernenko) to believe that the United States was planning a first-strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Their level of obsession reached a state of paranoia. They surmised that the US would first take out the leadership through an all-out attack with its nuclear arsenal. This led to devising a command and control protocol that would allow a launch command to be sent without the real-time authorization of the top leaders – a semi-automatic launch command to the missile officers at the silos, hence the “dead hand” that would in effect pull the nuclear trigger. One thing is clear: the Soviets felt genuinely, if erroneously, threatened about the West’s intentions. While they were not reckless about their own use of nuclear weapons, a series of missteps or technical breakdowns stemming from their fears could have resulted in a nuclear exchange. The book recounts incidents where, due to errors in early warning systems, the Soviets thought they were being attacked. The decision time to launch a counter attack is just minutes, the so-called “hair trigger” danger of nuclear strategy.

Reagan’s effort to eliminate nuclear weapons was thwarted by his obsession with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or the so-called Star Wars program). It is puzzling why he held so tightly to this new aspect that would inevitably upset the balance between the super powers. It seems clear that this was not just a bargaining chip he played against the Soviets. He apparently truly believed that this anti-ballistic missile “shield” would protect against nuclear attacks (although the science and technology were/are highly suspect) and could bring about the reduction or elimination of offensive weapons. The Soviets, whose economy could not bear another expensive weapons venture, logically viewed SDI as destabilizing the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) balance between the two countries. SDI would create greater threat to them since, after all, if the US could destroy the Soviet’s nuclear missiles then its own could be used without fear of retaliation.

Another chilling aspect of this story, told at great length and in remarkable detail, is the Soviet’s development of biological weapons. After an international treaty banning the production and possession of biological weapon agents was signed by most countries, the Soviet Union completely violated the treaty by continuing with a full-scale, highly secret program of manufacturing the most heinous weapons imaginable. The Soviets believed wrongly that the US was also ignoring the treaty and they continued on a massive scale to find and weaponize diseases that would create the most horrific consequences if used. The Soviet leaders were aware of this, but couldn’t exercise complete control as there was a powerful military-industrial combine that worked to perpetuate it. Indeed, the influence of the defense/warfare sector of the Russian economy (and surely our own) was a strongly contributing factor to the arms race in all dimensions. (One must remember that the Soviet economy had a huge defense industry, a much larger component of the country’s economy than in the US.)

The Soviet Union collapsed during Gorbachev’s rule. Gorbachev was not the radical reformer that he is often portrayed to be, but his moves to open up Soviet society unleashed forces that took matters far beyond what he intended. Gorbachev and Reagan develop a true rapport, but institutional impediments (including the military/industrial combines in both countries and the SDI) prevented making substantial progress on arms control. It was after the Soviet economy collapsed (and, yes, the constant pressure of keeping up with the Americans had something to do with this) that the unsustainability of the levels of nuclear weapons compelled change.

However, as the Soviet’s economy and authority structure collapsed the already poor controls over nuclear weapons and weapons materials have become clear and very worrisome. The book conveys the laxity of security over weapons and weapons materials and the ability of rogue actors to spread these elsewhere. Even if, thankfully, the chances of full-scale nuclear war have greatly lessened, the possibilities that weapons or weapons components could fall into maleficent hands has greatly increased. In the “MAD” era of the cold war (and one would not wish to return to this) the opposing powers had compelling institutional rationales for not attacking each other. Our new enemies have no such inhibiting pressure on them. There are international programs aimed at destroying stockpiles, or at least accounting for them under strict security, but the chances that these materials could fall under the control of terrorists seems very great. One remembers the fear and revulsion created by two homemade “pressure cooker” bombs in Boston; just think of what could happen if even a small amount of nuclear/radioactive elements were unleashed anywhere in the country. The efforts to gain (regain?) control over the security of the products of the Cold War deserve the highest attention possible.
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Mar 02, 2018 Derek Brozowski rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This book was disappointing to me for several reasons. First, the titular doomsday machine is the subject of significantly less than a quarter of the book. Biological and Chemical weapons and arms control summits are the majority focus of the book. Chemical and biological weapons are definitely scary, but I was looking for nuclear terror instead. Secondly, the author treats Reagan without an ounce of criticism. His lofty speeches and contemplative letters are treated as if they are the only expr ...more

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Dec 23, 2016 Keyton rated it really liked it

There was a lot here that was new to me, and Hoffman does a great job digging out new details and piecing together the overall story. It is sobering to look back and consider how much damage was done by misinformation (willfully perpetuated at times) and misunderstandings. The paranoia, ascription of malice, and a culture of distrust caused on both sides led to enormous injustice and suffering, and it could have ended much worse. The inability of leaders to build real cross-cultural relationship There was a lot here that was new to me, and Hoffman does a great job digging out new details and piecing together the overall story. It is sobering to look back and consider how much damage was done by misinformation (willfully perpetuated at times) and misunderstandings. The paranoia, ascription of malice, and a culture of distrust caused on both sides led to enormous injustice and suffering, and it could have ended much worse. The inability of leaders to build real cross-cultural relationships and update inherited impressions with facts ensured the tension dragged on longer than necessary.

The contrast between the US and USSR during the Cold War is stark. While the US was certainly affected to a great degree, the country continued to mature and progress. The Cold War always threatened, but it was in the background and on the margins, at least comparatively. In the USSR, the Cold War was it. Front and center, alpha and omega. For decades. It sucked the talent, resources, and best minds of the Union out of society and dedicated them to building weapons that would only be used by insane men or malfunctioning systems.

And because of that, they didn't get to start with anything close to a clean slate post-collapse. The economy and society splintered into fiefdoms controlled by military, intelligence groups, and plutocrats. The Soviet 'legacy' was misallocated intellectual capital, misdirected production capacity, gross inefficiency, and marginalization of huge chunks of the population.

Other tidbits:
The Ames and Hanssen leaks had a catastrophic effect on CIA's intel gathering capabilities right as Gorbachev hit the world stage. They had no one in place who could understand Gorbachev and verify that his desire for reform was sincere and deeply-seated, delaying progress much longer than needed.

I had no idea how close Reagan and Gorbachev had been to an agreement on full disarmament. The sticking point was Reagan's dream of a strategic missile defense system ... which scuttled the whole agreement, burned tons of cash, terrified the USSR into accelerating weapons development, and was entirely infeasible.

Post-collapse there was a boom in nuclear startups and entrepreneurs, including at least one offering to dispose of waste with underground nuclear explosions. There was also a brain- and materials-drain that significantly influenced weapons programs in North Korea, Iran, and Syria.

p. 173 On Gorbachev "He was a child of the Soviet system, hardly a radical. But ... he saw a reality that was strikingly different from the artificial world portrayed by the party and the leadership. As he rose through the ranks, he accumulated insights and revelations about the huge chasm between how people actually lived and the stuffy slogans of those who ruled. ... His first reaction to a disappointment or failure was always to strive to improve the system. He was never in a frame of mind to tear it down. ... He had fully absorbed the abysmal reality, but had limited understanding of how to fix it. Gorbachev's achievements in ending the Cold War - braking what he called the speeding locomotive of the nuclear arms race, allowing a revolution in Europe to unfold peacefully, ending the confrontation in the Third World - were not his first objectives. They grew out of his desire for radical change at home, rooted in his experience as a peasant son, a young witness to war, a university student during the thaw, a party official in the stagnation years, and most importantly, out of his own deep impressions about what had gone wrong.
"Gorbachev did not set out to change the world, but rather to save his country. In the end, he did not save the country but may have saved the world."

p. 402 "Yeltsin and his team were determined to completely raze the Soviet system and build a new one. There were many reasons for this approach, not the least of which was that Yeltsin possessed a much stronger view of what he wanted to tear down than what he wanted to build. He sought to eliminate the overweening state that he knew at first hand, while he had no model, just instincts, for constructing a modern free-market democracy."

p. 473 On mitigating the dangers of the post-collapse brain-drain and proliferation. "For ... many of those Westerners who went to the former Soviet Union to staunch the threats, there was also a frustrating unknown. They could tally up the success stories, measure the number of fences built and grants given, but could only guess at what had slipped through their fingers. It was the nature of threat reduction that it was always risky business, devilishly challenging, often defying a chance to declare absolute success. In trying to prevent something, the most consequential and terrifying metric was failure."
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Nov 28, 2010 Brad Hodges rated it really liked it

The Dead Hand, by David E. Hoffman, is the Pulitzer-Prize winning look at the last stages of the Cold War, and it's as fascinating as it is scary. It seems that while we were all asleep in our beds, the world has come close to annihilation more than a few times, sometimes from flocks of geese being taken for nuclear missiles.

I love reading history of times I lived through, because it takes me back to what I was doing at the time. This one starts with the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. preside The Dead Hand, by David E. Hoffman, is the Pulitzer-Prize winning look at the last stages of the Cold War, and it's as fascinating as it is scary. It seems that while we were all asleep in our beds, the world has come close to annihilation more than a few times, sometimes from flocks of geese being taken for nuclear missiles.

I love reading history of times I lived through, because it takes me back to what I was doing at the time. This one starts with the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president, and whatever one thinks of him, it's hard to argue that his actions, as well as his persona, brought the Cold War to an end, and helped end the Soviet Union. Hoffman frequently describes him as a man who is able to hold more than belief in his head at the same time; he was an ardent anti-Communist (his "evil empire" speech snarled relations with the Soviets), but he also had a pipe dream about the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

Hoffman also takes us nimbly through the succession of ancient Soviet General Secretaries, who started dying at an alarming rate. Brezhnev to Andropov to Chernenko, and then finally the relatively young and vigorous Mikhail Gorbachev, who, though he only led the Soviets for five years, may have had more of an impact on recent world history than anyone. As Hoffman puts it, "Gorbachev did not set out to change the world, but rather to save his country. In the end, he did not save his country but may have saved the world."

Gorbachev's twin aims--glasnost and perestroika--energized arms reduction talks, and Hoffman's chapter on the summit with Reagan in Reykjavik is thrilling. It seems that the two men came thisclose to an incredible achievement, but the sticking point was one word--laboratory--in regard to Reagan's SDI ("Star Wars") weapons shield. Of course, SDI was never built. This chapter is almost as good as the incredibly lucid account of the shooting down of the Korea Airlines commercial jet in 1983, which is definitively identified here as an unfortunate accident.

The scariest parts of the book deal with biological and chemical weapons. Amazingly, the U.S. is blameless in all this. Nixon ended those programs in 1969, but the Soviets didn't believe it, and thus continued, even during Gorbachev's reign, and even beyond, when the Soviet Union broke up and the Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, claimed to have stopped them. It's all chilling stuff--anthrax, plague, smallpox, all being developed as weapons, and with innocent bystanders suffering when experiments went awry. In 1979 in Sverdlosk 69 people died in an anthrax outbreak. Of course, there was also Chernobyl, which Hoffman covers in detail.

Besides the biological weapons, there was also the problem of all the nukes in a post-Soviet world. Hoffman spends one of his last chapters in a gripping narrative about how the U.S. raced to relieve Kazakhstan of a large pile of uranium--before the Iranians could by it. As Hoffman puts it, "...in some places the former Soviet Union was turning into a Home Depot of enriched uranium and plutonium, with shoppers cruising up and down the aisles."

The heart of Hoffman's research is interviews with those involved, including Gorbachev. But even more are those accounts from the Soviet scientists who worked on the deadly programs, and ended up seeing the light (and defecting to the West). At times the names come so fast and consonant-rich than I gave up telling one from another, but their stories still resonated. I especially found this passage moving: "The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of seven decades of a failed ideology, hypermilitization and rigid central controls. It left behind 6,623 nuclear warheads on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, 2,760 nuclear warheads on sea-based missiles, 822 nuclear bombs on planes and 150 warheads deployed on cruise missiles, as well as perhaps another 15,000 tactical nuclear warheads scattered in depots, trains and warehouses. It left behind at least 40,000 tons of chemical weapons, including millions of shells filled with nerve gas so deadly that one drop would kill a human being. It left behind tons of anthrax bacteria spores...and perhaps as much as 20 metric tons of smallpox in weapons, as well as pathogens the world had never known...It left behind hundreds of thousands of workers who knew the secrets, and who were now embittered, dispirited, and, in some cases, down to their last sack of potatoes."

By the way, the title refers to a procedure that ensured, if the Soviet command were wiped out, a nuclear response would still be launched, even if no one were left alive to ignite it. It was an example of reality following art, as it was a real-life example of the Doomsday Machine from Dr. Strangelove. ...more

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Jun 24, 2013 Richard Buro rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, rwb-gr-read-and-reviewed

The short version first...

It has taken me two years to finally write this review up for inclusion on Goodreads. The reason I am doing this is the impetus placed on my reviewing by the cli-fi monthly read for January 2015 in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Group at Goodreads. Basically it is a non-fiction work about the unthinkable but frighteningly real postential for particularly nasty weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to become a reality in the world to come. This story is told by David The short version first...

It has taken me two years to finally write this review up for inclusion on Goodreads. The reason I am doing this is the impetus placed on my reviewing by the cli-fi monthly read for January 2015 in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Group at Goodreads. Basically it is a non-fiction work about the unthinkable but frighteningly real postential for particularly nasty weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to become a reality in the world to come. This story is told by David E. Hoffman in The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy.

Why this book and this author? Is it really that important? Or is it just another Dr. Strangelove yarn turned into a non-fiction prophecy? First, Mr. Hoffman has extensive experience as a reporter and writer who lived and worked as a journalist in the former Soviet Union. His reference notes span over 60 pages of mostly primary and carefully selected secondary sources which lend an incredibly detailed picture of his research efforts in preparing this history of events and occurrences in several locations around the world where there are still caches of Cold War WMDs.
Spanning the globe from Russia, Ukraine, Khazakstan, Manchuria, Siberia, America to name but a vew, Mr. Hoffman's story looks at nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) WMDs looking as far back as the 1930s for biochemical testing that Japan did in Manchuria using human subjects to test effects. These types of weapsons are viewed from several perspectives including suspicious accidents attributed to common livestock diseases but which bore resemblance to weaponized biochemical WMDs.

Nuclear weapons, their proliferation, testing, and deployment are covered extensively, and there are several unique elements mentioned. The work's title was shown to be an actual, alternative launch method in the event of a surprise first strike on Russian leadership.The Dead Hand would have provided a means to launch Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in the event of a destructive surprise attack on Russian leadership in Moscow. Using specialized delivery devices, the Dead Hand would provide authenticated directions to remotely launch all ICBMs belonging to Russia. The similarity to a suggested type of "doomsday" device was only superficial, but the concept was disturbing to many outside of Russia, exactly the kind of effect that would have made the Dead Hand a credible addition to a strategic missile deterrent.

The largest area of concern in Mr. Hoffman's work is the on-going stockpiling of WMDs of all types by the world's military establishments. There is credible evidence presented that shows there are locations where WMDs are stored under sparse to nonexistent securiity as well as accidents involving biochemical weapons with severe and (in some cases) fatal consequences due to poor, inadequate, and in some cases inaccurate warnings and precautions needed to prevent exposure to livestock and humans.

While chilling, it is clear that there is credible and extensive evidence to support the concerns that many have about the vulnerability the world faces from the illegal acquisition and terroristic application of WMDs from any world military power with inadequately secured WMDs regardless of type or composition.The basic thing I took away from this work was the clear and present danger that exists. Where lax security, clear stockpiling of proscribed weapons, and poor or no training in how to react to the release of toxic agents or successful, illegal acquisition and deployment of those agents against unwitting civilian victims, governments must make apprepriate safeguards to existing stockpiles of WMDs, and they should also move toward a safe, secure, and positive reduction in WMDs in accordance with existing treaties and agreements to eliminate these weapsons from the face of the earth.

My recommendation is for readers interested in the topics and educated to the meanings of the concepts and vocabulary should consider this an important addition to anyone's To Be Read (TBR) list. Parental guidance is recommended depending on maturity of younger readers, above Grade Level 5. ...more

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Jun 11, 2016 Shelley rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2016, history, cold-war

Reagan escorted his guest [Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko] down the long colonnade from the West Wing to the main White House mansion for a reception...A small chamber orchestra played classical music. Reagan introduced Nancy. At the end of the reception, Gromyko took Nancy aside and said, "Does your husband believe in peace?"
"Of course," she replied.
"Then whisper 'peace' in your husbands ear every night," he said.
"I will, and I will also whisper it in your ear," she said. And with t Reagan escorted his guest [Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko] down the long colonnade from the West Wing to the main White House mansion for a reception...A small chamber orchestra played classical music. Reagan introduced Nancy. At the end of the reception, Gromyko took Nancy aside and said, "Does your husband believe in peace?"
"Of course," she replied.
"Then whisper 'peace' in your husbands ear every night," he said.
"I will, and I will also whisper it in your ear," she said. And with that she leaned over with a smile and whispered softly, "Peace."

If only simple whispers of peace in the ears of Soviet and American leaders could have prevented the misguided suspicions and nuclear arms buildup that characterized the Cold War. In The Dead Hand, David E Hoffman offers a new understanding of both sides of the conflict, aided by his access to internal documents of the Soviet Defense Department, as well as memoirs, diaries and interviews. These sources provide an inside view of the attitudes and reactions of the Soviet leadership in the last years of the Cold War. What were Soviet leaders thinking? What did they say to each other behind closed doors? Interwoven with a detailed account of Reagan's horror at the prospect of nuclear war and his reasoning behind "Star Wars," the capture of both perspectives gives the sense of listening in on an intense conversation--a dysfunctional one, but it keeps the pages turning.

Hoffman includes a terrifying history of the Soviet Union's covert biological weapons program. Brilliant scientists, afraid to refuse assignments from the government or convinced that they needed to counter an alleged secret U.S. program, worked feverishly to genetically engineer pathogens that could wipe out huge populations--smallpox, plague, tularemia, anthrax. The program was so secretive that it is questionable whether Gorbachev knew of it. In contrast, United States stopped research and development of biological weapons in 1969, reasoning that nuclear weapons were a sufficient deterrent. As Nixon said, "If someone uses germs on us, we'll nuke 'em."

Nixon's statement is a good example of militant rhetoric on both sides that camouflaged the extreme abhorrence with which leaders such as Reagan and Gorbachev viewed the possible use of their massive and costly stashes of nuclear weapons. Each side was convinced that the other side was ready to push the button, and they had to be prepared. The "Dead Hand" refers to the Soviet plans to create a Doomsday machine that would launch a retaliatory strike if their leadership was wiped out by an initial U.S. strike. This horrifying scenario of a nuclear weapon launch free of human decision was never actually operative. Instead, they developed a semi-automatic system called Perimeter. As for the U.S., Reagan's vision of the Strategic Defense Initiative was never realized, but it showed his concern that an attack from the "Evil Empire" was possible at any time, and we desperately needed a way to defend ourselves from a fate imagined in "The Day After." In reality, both sides hoped to avoid WWIII, but the realization of this unfolded at a slow, painful, and costly pace.

I was born in 1973, so I lived through the last chapter of Cold War hostilities. I was blissfully unaware of the frightening possibilities. I saw headlines here and there, and I remember when "The Day After" was televised, but it never really sunk in. I was happy watching MTV and spraying my hair with copious amounts of Sun-In. I would have never imagined that the Soviets were cooking up ways to kill me and my family with smallpox or the plague. As terrifying as their biological weapons program was, the real horror is the present danger triggered by the breakup of the Soviet Union and the "leftovers" of the Cold War. The highly enriched uranium and plutonium that sit unguarded in warehouses. The engineers and scientists ready to sell their knowledge and/or weapons to the highest bidder just so they can feed their families. Who will end up with these weapons and the knowledge to develop and manufacture more? Now that MTV sucks and my hair is gray, I'm a little more aware of what's going on in the world. As frightening as the idea of the Dead Hand was, the legacy of the Cold War is the bigger nightmare. ...more

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Nov 02, 2009 Tripp rated it really liked it

Depending on when you call it, the Cold War may have ended 20 years ago (could have been in 86 at Reykjavik or in 91 when the Soviet Union collapsed). Maybe it is for that reason we are seeing a surge in Cold War books. Last year we saw the angry Arsenals of Folly by Richard Rhodes, this year we have a new one from Neil Sheehan called a Firey Peace in a Cold War (just started it, great so far). Take a look at this review essay from Philip Zelikow for a number of books on the era.

In the Dead Hand Depending on when you call it, the Cold War may have ended 20 years ago (could have been in 86 at Reykjavik or in 91 when the Soviet Union collapsed). Maybe it is for that reason we are seeing a surge in Cold War books. Last year we saw the angry Arsenals of Folly by Richard Rhodes, this year we have a new one from Neil Sheehan called a Firey Peace in a Cold War (just started it, great so far). Take a look at this review essay from Philip Zelikow for a number of books on the era.

In the Dead Hand, David Hoffman of the Washington Post covers both the East and West, but sheds a lot of new light on the Soviet side. He shows both the good, the realization that the nuclear arms race could end the world, and would certainly crush the Soviet economy, as well as the bad.

The bad is pretty grim. He spends quite a bit of time showing the rise of the Soviet biological weapons industry. The US, viewing bio-weapons as a strategic liability, signed and adhered to the Biological Weapons Convention and killed the offensive bio-weapons program. The Soviets feared the US was cheating, so they built a secret program with all sorts of horrors like smallpox bombs and new two punch viruses with an initial bug to weaken the immune system followed by a knockout punch bug.

Hoffman also shows the effects on international relations of the terrible management and maintenance practices, secrecy and the use of poor technology. The decrepit system allowed for the penetration of Soviet airspace by a young German in an airplane, Chernobyl, the anthrax outbreak of 79 and the shoot down of KAL 007. Recent history has tried to pin the blame on the US for this. Hoffman shows that the weight lies heavily, if not completely, on the Soviets.

Hoffman also discusses the post-war period where unemployed Soviet scientists sat in rotting buildings with weapons materials stored in filing cabinets. He reveals more about the US efforts to get weapons materials out of the newly independent republics.

I have a few minor complaints. The title is a bit of a dodge. The Dead Hand of the title refers to a Soviet Doomsday machine that would ensure that the missiles would fly even if the Russian leadership perished. Hoffman uses it as a metaphor to describe how the WMD is still out there even if we have forgotten about it. If you are expecting a book that focuses on doomsday machines, look elsewhere.

There are also times where Hoffman has done so much research that it starts to take over the narrative. The level of detail becomes a bit much and bogs down in a, fortunately very few, places. Overall I found it an engaging, well-written and informative read. ...more

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Aug 21, 2011 Mike rated it really liked it

Overall, a great, harrowing, and complex true tale of the Cold War arms race with special attention to the Soviet's covert bioweapons program. When I bought this book, I was expecting it to mainly focus on the nuclear and bioweapons efforts of the USSR, which would have been fine, but I was surprised at the level of detail and introspection provided on the diplomacy between the Soviets, the Americans, and the British during the Reagan-Thatcher years. Having the story told from the frontlines of ...more

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May 17, 2013 Robert rated it liked it

Shelves: history

The Dead Hand is an extensive and well-researched book about the later years of the Cold War and its legacy that still remains with us today. The book primarily focuses on the Reagan Administration and his dealings with the Soviet Union. Although the author often will go from the 1950s through the 1980s when covering certain topics or individuals. The book also jumps from what was going on politically in the United States & Soviet Union but also military/science side of the Soviet Union.

I th ...more

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Jul 09, 2014 Maggie rated it really liked it

So...When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union “an evil empire”, it turns out he was actually on to something. In his excruciatingly-researched examination of Cold War politics, David E. Hoffman categorically examines the deception and lies of military generals and scientists behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s. The title of the book refers to the semi-automated “Doomsday Machine” of the USSR, aka “Project Perimeter” that would retaliate with nuclear missiles against the US in the event of a p ...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Andrew rated it liked it

It's a good book, an interesting book. I learned things about the USSR and cold war history that I probably should have already learned. Education about history is good.

There's a breadth of content and, as I understand it, this book breaks new ground in documenting and publicizing the horrible secret recent history of weapons of mass destruction. It's an important contribution to civil understanding of the threats of proliferation and I hope can inform the public discourse. I came away feeling s ...more

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David E. Hoffman covered Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign for the Knight-Ridder newspapers. In 1982, he joined The Washington Post to help cover the Reagan White House. He also covered the first two years of the George H.W. Bush presidency. His White House coverage won three national journalism awards. After reporting on the State Department, he became Jerusalem bureau chief for The Pos ...more

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“Katayev’s notes show that the military-industrial complex was indeed as large as Gorbachev feared. In 1985, Katayev estimated, defense took up 20 percent of the Soviet economy.16 Of the 135 million adults working in the Soviet Union, Katayev said, 10.4 million worked directly in the military-industrial complex at 1,770 enterprises. Nine ministries served the military, although in a clumsy effort to mask its purpose, the nuclear ministry was given the name “Ministry of Medium Machine Building,” and others were similarly disguised. More than fifty cities were almost totally engaged in the defense effort, and hundreds less so. Defense factories were called upon to make the more advanced civilian products, too, including 100 percent of all Soviet televisions, tape recorders, movie and still cameras and sewing machines.17” — 0 likes

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