Shall America Be Defended?; SALT II and Beyond

New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House Publishers, 1979. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. [2], 267, [3] pages. Footnotes. DJ edges worn: small tears, small chips missing, creases. Daniel O. Graham (April 13, 1925 – December 31, 1995) was a U.S. Army officer. Graham was born in Portland, Oregon and grew up in Medford. He attended college at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the army's Command and General Staff College, and graduated in 1946. He also attended the U.S. Army War College and ultimately rose to the rank of lieutenant general in the United States Army. Graham served in Germany, Korea, and Vietnam and received several decorations including some of the highest the United States military bestows: the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit with two oak leaf clusters, and the Distinguished Intelligence Medal during his distinguished 30-year military career. From 1963–1966, Graham worked for the CIA in the Office of National Estimates. During the Vietnam war from 1967-1968 he was chief of the army's military intelligence estimates. Graham served again in the Office of National Estimates during 1968–1971, then served as director of collections for the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1971. During 1973–1974 Graham served as deputy director of the CIA under Director William Colby and from 1974–1976 he was the director of the DIA. General Graham is a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. He was chairman of the American Space Frontier Committee and the Coalition for the Strategic Defense Initiative, and co-chairman of the Coalition for Peace through Strength. After he retired, Graham's goal was to defend against nuclear attack. This book gives a thorough examination of the facts and arguments surrounding the question--Shall America be Defended? Conventional wisdom holds that nuclear war is so total as to produce only total losers. A generation of American leaders has not considered the possibility that either the United States or the Soviet Union could actually use nuclear weapons against the other to defend itself or its interests. All that is necessary, they believe, is for both sides to possess sufficient weapons to destroy each other. Since about 1974, however, the United States no longer had the capacity to inflict as much harm on the Soviet Union as the Soviet Union could inflict on the United States. The Soviets have built missiles that can destroy a sufficient part of America's nuclear arsenal so as to limit sharply our capacity to retaliate. Equally as important as the particulars of SALT II is the spirit of the treaty. That spirit is the doctrine is that safety for both the United States and the Soviet Union lies in the absolute vulnerability of each to the other's weapons. As long as American officials entertain this doctrine, they will not want to take advantage of opportunities for the defense of America. Written to lay to rest the widespread notion that no defense is possible against nuclear weapons, General Graham examines the effect of nuclear weapons on U.S. military strategy, the strategy of the USSR for winning wars in the nuclear age, the Soviet's plans for the protection of its civilian population, and the vulnerability of American nuclear forces to a surprise attack. The Soviet Union, the author argues, is well along the road to creating a military reality in which a nuclear war, World War III, would do less damage to the Soviet Union than any previous war. Condition: Very good / Good.

Keywords: Nuclear, SALT II, Arms Control, Cold War, Nuclear Weapons, Soviet Union, Strategic Defense, Civil Defense, Deterrence

[Book #13663]

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