Category Archives: Reviews

109 East Palace

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book cover of 109 East PalaceThe fascinating book “109 East Palace, Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos,” was written by Jennet Conant.  She is the granddaughter of James B. Conant, the administrator of the Manhattan Project. The address in the title was given to people who were to report for work on the Manhattan Project.  They would enter a wrought iron gate and narrow passageway off a tourist plaza to meet Dorothy McKibbin, a widow who became the gatekeeper for twenty-seven months to Los Alamos and personal confidant to Oppenheimer.  The relationship between General Leslie R. Groves and Oppenheimer also fits into the story.  The two men were able to work together effectively despite opposite personalities.  The author writes in the preface that the book “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” by Richard Rhodes details “the saga of scientific discovery,” while her book examines “the very personal stories of the projects key personnel.”

Arthur Compton, the director of the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) at the University of Chicago (unofficially “bomb headquarters,”) summoned J. Robert Oppenheimer to an assembly of brilliant physicists including Edward Teller, Hans Bethe, Felix Bloch, Richard Tolman, and Robert Serber to meet in attic rooms in Le Conte Hall. The meetings were held in the utmost secrecy, but Priscilla Greene, Oppenheimer’s young secretary one day walked into his office to find a drawing of what “…was obviously a bomb.” “Almost immediately after that, everyone started calling it ‘the gadget’.” Continue reading →

Grant

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front cover of Grant biographyI posted a review of the more than thousand page Ulysses S. Grant autobiography and thought I should follow that with the 173 page biography by John Mosier for those who want to know more about Grant but don’t have many days of reading time to commit. I understand that, although I will comment that the autobiography gives a much richer insight into the man and his remarkable accomplishments as a general. My primary complaint about Moiser’s book is that he could have reduced it by any number of pages if he hadn’t spent so much time comparing Grant’s military actions to those of other great generals. A couple of instances would have been appropriate and instructive, but there are dozens of instances.

Moiser is indeed a Grant fan. The fly cover says, “…Mosier reveals the man behind the military legend, showing how Grant’s creativity and genius off the battlefield shaped him into one of our nation’s greatest military leaders.” Grant had many critics, and the book attributes much of the criticism to other generals (read Halleck) who feared Grant’s successes would detract from their careers. Newspapers were filled with stories about the horrible slaughters of Civil War battles, and there emerged an image that Grant was a drunken butcher who won battles by sacrificing the lives of thousands of the soldiers in his overwhelmingly large forces. My belief is that Grant was indeed a master strategist who cared deeply about human life, understood the need for solid logistics, and was amazingly quick at determining proper tactics to take advantage of terrain. In short, I believe Grant was a leader in the true definition of what would make the average soldier in the trenches or on the march look at him and decide he was a man worth following. I submit the absolute trust given Grant by William Sherman, who famously said something to the effect “I know that you will come save me, if alive.” I can’t think of a more powerful endorsement of trust between comrades in arms. Continue reading →

Third Wave of Racism in America?

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New Jim CrowSlavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration – are these the evolution of racism in America?

The New Jim Crow is written by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights lawyer and associate professor at Stanford Law School. She says that over ten years of working for the ACLU she has come to believe that liberal and civil rights groups are failing to recognize an important issue – mass incarceration – and failing to recognize that it is a racial issue.

Part of the problem is that no one wants to be seen as favoring criminals. As Alexander notes, there were several blacks who personally fought segregation on buses, but if they resisted arrest or had unsavory relatives, they didn’t make a good test-case for civil rights leaders. Rosa Parks became that test case because, not only did she refuse to give up her seat, she was unimpeachable.

Alexander defines mass-incarceration as time in prison, plus notes that “ex-offenders are discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives… in voting, employment, housing, education, public benefits, and jury service.” This creates a permanent underclass and, since black and brown men are incarcerated at much higher rates than whites for the same crimes, this is a racial underclass.

She failed to realize this herself for many years, so “knowing as I do the difficulty of seeing what most everyone insists does not exist, I anticipate this book will be met with skepticism… may seem like a gross exaggeration… this book argues that mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow.” Continue reading →

The Complete Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant

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complete-personal-memoirs-of-us-grantI’ve been busy reading about the U.S. plans for nuclear war with the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and fell behind on reading on other history subjects. No worries, I found a review of Grant’s autobiography in my file when I was writing reviews under the title of “Amateur Historian.” Volume I is 584 pages and Volume II is 554 pages with a 78 page Appendix. The origin of Grant’s books is interesting.  Mark Twain was suffering financial problems and heard that Grant was interested in publishing his memoirs to overcome similar financial problems.  He visited Grant and offered to publish the book with a 75/25 split of profits. Grant knew by the time he accepted the offer that he was dying of mouth and throat cancer.  There are reports Twain furnished Grant with cases of Vin Tonique Mariani, a Bordeaux wine combined with cocaine.  The “tonic” allowed Grant to overcome pain and finish his writing before he died.

Grant’s books details troop movements before, during, and after various battles, complete with names of officers commanding various segments of both armies.  Logistical efforts and geography of the battle sites are described, along with detailed hand drawn maps.  Although I understand the significance of these descriptions, I admit to skimming while looking for anecdotes that would reveal more about Grant. Grant’s actual name was Hiram Ulysses Grant, but he was appointed to West Point as Ulysses Simpson Grant, with the Simpson being taken from his mother’s maiden name. West Point had a policy of not accepting any name other than what was on the nomination form, so the incorrect name stuck. Current lore finds it ironic that the general who led Federal troops at the end of the Civil War had U.S. as his first two initials. His detractors said his initials stood for “Unconditional Surrender Grant.”   Continue reading →

Atomic Energy for Military Purposes: The Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb under the Auspices of the United States Government

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atomic-energy-for-military-purposesThis report, written by Henry DeWolf Smyth at the request of Major General L.R. Groves (who led the Manhattan Project), is better known the “Smyth Report.” The copyright announcement by Smyth is interesting. “Reproduction in whole or in part authorized and permitted.” Groves wrote in the Foreword that “…there is no reason why the administrative history of the Atomic Bomb Project and the basic scientific knowledge on which the several developments were based should not be available to the general public.” There also are blunt warnings against requesting or releasing additional information “…subject to severe penalties under the Espionage Act.” Smyth explains in the Preface that “The ultimate responsibility for our nation’s policy rests on its citizens and they can discharge such responsibilities wisely only if they are informed.” He explains that the report is written about the construction of atomic bombs for “…engineers and scientific men who can understand such things and who can explain the potentialities of atomic bombs to their fellow citizens.” The book gives a tutorial on the history of research on atomic structure and radioactivity and the basics of nuclear physics.

The administrative history of the research has been well-documented in many sources, but many of them probably used the information in this book. One issue that was considered in depth early on was the need for secrecy about the research that was being considered or was on-going.  A “Reference Committee” was established in the National Research Council “…to control publication policy in all fields of possible military interest.” Journal editors would send copies of papers to the committee for review. The system worked well. Most physicists were soon absorbed into the various projects, “…which reduced papers being submitted to the committee almost to the vanishing point.” The arrangement was voluntary, but scientists in the country cooperated.  Scientists in Germany, the Soviet Union, and other countries recognized that the United States was attempting to develop atomic energy for a weapon based on the sudden absence of research papers being published by scientists in the U.S.

One piece of information that disagrees with many other sources is that Harry Truman was well aware of the project and its magnitude when he was a Senator. He was briefed by Stimson and Groves on the project immediately after FDR’s death and his inauguration, and he kept “…in constant touch with the program.” Continue reading →

US Nuclear Weapons: A Secret History

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us-nuclear-weapons-secret-historyThis book by Chuck Hansen is an encyclopedia of nuclear weapons, and I recommend it as such to anyone who would be interested in reading about that. The book is listed at $144 on Amazon, so I recommend trying the interlibrary loan system before you commit to a purchase. It had less information about the subjects in which I have as an interest, and the short review to follow is a reflection of that. It has great pictures of various nuclear blasts as well as pictures of various weapon bodies and various delivery systems. Hansen’s feelings about nuclear weapons are not subdued. He describes in the introduction that “…a vast empire has arisen largely unnoticed in the United States.” “The secret empire has cost taxpayers dearly: $89 billion in development costs since 1940, and $700 billion for delivery systems for its products. The sheer volume and number of these products is mind-boggling: between 1945 and 1986, the nuclear weapons complex in the U.S. manufactured approximately 60,000 warheads of 71 types for 116 different weapons systems.” “The U.S. government has always gone to extreme lengths to keep this orgy of nuclear self-indulgence hidden from public view.” There is a reference that “…tens of millions of documents chronicling this vast ‘black project’ remain locked away in vaults…” (It makes one wonder how the author was able to find anything to write about.)

Ironically, a discussion follows of how it had been thought the U.S. would maintain a nuclear monopoly much longer than what occurred. The Soviets were able to steal everything they needed by espionage to develop atomic bombs while bypassing the need to invent and test the design information developed by the U.S. Continue reading →