“Engrossing and illuminating.” —Arthur Herman, Wall Street Journal When Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981, the United States and NATO were losing the Cold War. The USSR had superiority in conventional weapons and manpower in Europe, and it had embarked on a massive program to gain naval preeminence. But Reagan already had a plan to end the Cold War without armed conflict. In this landmark narrative, former navy secretary John Lehman reveals the untold story of the naval operations that played a major role in winning the Cold War.
"Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman here confronts one of the momentous issues of American history and the American present--the contending prerogatives of the president and Congress in making war." "Lehman, a lively controversialist and scholar, examines the history of American military decision making from the Revolutionary period to the Gulf War. Whose power is it to declare war, to carry it out, and to sustain its course and bring it to an end? In addressing these major constitutional questions, Lehman is vibrantly contemporary, too, writing as a government insider to offer a exceptionally vivid perspective on Operation Desert Storm and recent military actions in Grenada, Libya, Lebanon, and Panama. Arguing vehemently for the primacy of presidential over congressional power, Lehman adds crucial new details to our understanding of the post-Vietnam era of American politics." "Characteristically, Lehman pulls no punches. He sheds provocative new light on congressional investigations into Watergate and Iran-Contra, authoritatively demonstrating the ways in which Congress has created crippling impediments to presidential power. Yet he provides a fresh understanding of the essential role Congress must play in committing the nation to war, and he enumerates how presidents from Jefferson to Bush have interpreted--and misinterpreted--the powers grated them as commander in chief." "John Lehman's enlightening new book makes a invaluable contribution as to whether responsible judgments will be made if and when the nation must again confront the crucial decision of making war."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
From the youngest ever Secretary of the Navy comes an action-packed history of the service and the heroic men, great ships and epic battles that made it the world's greatest. photos. Maps.
History has been kind to Robert E. Lee. Woodrow Wilson believed General Lee was a “model to men who would be morally great.” Douglas Southall Freeman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his four-volume biography of Lee, described his subject as “one of a small company of great men in whom there is no inconsistency to be explained, no enigma to be solved.” Winston Churchill called him “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived.” Until recently, there was even a stained glass window devoted to Lee's life at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Immediately after the Civil War, however, many northerners believed Lee should be hanged for treason and war crimes. Americans will be surprised to learn that in June of 1865 Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason by a Norfolk, Virginia grand jury. In his instructions to the grand jury, Judge John C. Underwood described treason as “wholesale murder,” and declared that the instigators of the rebellion had “hands dripping with the blood of slaughtered innocents.” In early 1866, Lee decided against visiting friends while in Washington, D.C. for a congressional hearing, because he was conscious of being perceived as a “monster” by citizens of the nation’s capital. Yet somehow, roughly fifty years after his trip to Washington, Lee had been transformed into a venerable American hero, who was highly regarded by southerners and northerners alike. Almost a century after Appomattox, Dwight D. Eisenhower had Lee’s portrait on the wall of his White House office. The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee tells the story of the forgotten legal and moral case that was made against the Confederate general after the Civil War. The actual indictment went missing for 72 years. Over the past 150 years, the indictment against Lee after the war has both literally and figuratively disappeared from our national consciousness. In this book, Civil War historian John Reeves illuminates the incredible turnaround in attitudes towards the defeated general by examining the evolving case against him from 1865 to 1870 and beyond.
This comprehensive laboratory text provides a thorough introduction to all of the significant operations used in the organic lab and includes a large selection of traditional-scale and microscale experiments and minilabs. Its unique problem-solving approach encourages students to think in the laboratory by solving a scientific problem in the process of carrying out each experiment. The Second Edition contains a new introductory section, "Chemistry and the Environment," which includes a discussion of the principles of green chemistry. Several green experiments have been added, and some experiments from the previous editions have been revised to make them greener.
This infectiously readable memoir by the most colorful and controversial Navy Secretary in memory provides the inside story of the origins and battles at home and abroad in building a 600-ship Navy. Young, bright, and ambitious, John Lehman came to office refusing to be just another figurehead. For the six years he served in the Reagan administration, he helped forge an aggressive strategy for achieving maritime supremacy and for rebuilding the U.S. Navy. In this bestselling personal account of those years between 1981 and 1987, he speaks with candor and authority about the ills of the military establishment and the struggles and frustrations he encountered. Lehman reveals instances of political intrigue, including his dramatic Oval Office confrontation with Admiral Rickover at the time of the admiral's firing in 1982 and battles within the Pentagon and Congress. His explanation of the administration's new naval strategy has been called the most comprehensive and lucid ever written, and his descriptions of the Navy in combat over Libya, Lebanon, and Grenada are packed with fascinating details that only an insider could know. The bold insights he presents of a critical turning point in the Cold War will continue to inform and, with the addition of new material to this paperback edition, promise to renewed discussion of the role of the U.S. Navy then and into the future.
