Cold war brinkmanship (Alex DeVolpi) USofA

Cold War Brinkmanship: Nuclear Arms, Civil Rights, Government Secrecy (Volume 1) Paperback – November 5, 2017

by Dr. Alexander DeVolpi (Author)

Available at amazon.com Involved in many Cold War events, the author became an insider — a nuclear physicist looking right into the dragon’s mouth, at the atomic weapons that made things so chilling and nearly calamitous. This isn’t simply an historical narrative; it’s also an exposé of institutions that nurtured a nuclear-arms, threatening inhumane consequences almost to our oblivion.

This first-hand narrative chronicles the half-century nuclear crisis: nerve-wracking situations, from one global instability to another — tracking the Cold War, its anxieties, 1

controversies, and impact. All of us wittingly or unwittingly had a stake in the nucleararms race.

After graduating from military school, college, and then active-Navy duty for three years as a commissioned officer partly during the Korean War, I eventually reached the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the naval research reserve.

Attending graduate school under the GI Bill, becoming a PhD physicist, I gradually backdoored into the esoteric domains of nuclear reactors and weapons — and later arms control and treaty verification. That gave me a seat at the table — literally lunch at cafeterias of nuclear laboratories, and at the most sensitive facilities of the former Soviet Union, as well as agencies and entities within the U.S. government. Becoming an expert in nuclear technology and weapons gave me access to most nuclear secrets, as well as decades of human inequities and governmental arrogance. It didn’t take long to gain a conservative fear of atomic weapons.

What distinguishes Cold War Brinkmanship from other memoirs is my unusual firsthand roles — knowledgeable insider, witness, participant — sometimes an activist and target of FBI investigation (documented under FOIA).

This personalized narrative tracks the Cold War, its anxieties, controversial issues, and impact. Whether you were a fellow citizen, part of the silent majority or vocal minority, or a conscientious bureaucrat — together we had a stake in the outcome of the frightful and expensive nuclear-arms race.

Just a single conscientious mortal decision was (and still is) needed to activate the nuclear “football,” to incinerate and irradiate: Standing by in every weaponized nuclear nation is someone awaiting authorization for the chain of command to carry out orders of immense consequence. Such fateful decisions and consequential orders were carried out to hasten World War II’s end, destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Something similar, or much worse, almost happened during the Cold War Cuban missile crisis.

Our children, their children, people around the world: None ought to suffer such traumatic and dangerous challenges. With pockets of famine, civil injustice, wars of liberation, suicidal ideologies, natural disasters, other global instabilities — who needs a return to Cold War brinkmanship? Decisionmakers, be cautious! >>>> Cold War Brinkmanship: Nuclear Arms, Civil Rights, Government Secrecy (Vol. 1 published November 2017) Vol. 1: Cold War Convulsions; Worldwide Conflict; Public Anxiety; Cold War Establishment; Nuclear Controversy; Control and Protest; Government Oversight and Bureaucracies; 21st Century Secrecy and Privacy; Outlook for Democracy and Civilization Vol. 2: Cold War Controversies; National-Security Issues; Pro-Publico; Ionizing Radiation; Nuclear Legacies; Technical Challenges….

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