Counsels of War

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Gregg Herken writes about the people whose profession it has been to think about the unthinkable--Robert McNamara, Paul Nitze, Herman Kahn, Bernard Brodie--including their intense rivalries, personal animosities, and often contentious relationship with the professional military. He reveals how the influence of the scientist and strategist has extended well beyond the laboratory and the classroom--in the proposal of Kennedy's advisers for a nuclear "demonstration" and even a "clever first-strike" against the Russians, for example. Counsels of War also shatters certain popular assumptions about U.S. nuclear policy. As Herken points out, while American doctrine stresses "retaliation," U.S. strategists have always planned to "pre-empt" a Soviet attack