Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage

by Philip Taubman

Book Overview

In a brief period of explosive, top-secret innovation during the 1950s, a small group of scientists, engineers, businessmen, and government officials rewrote the book on airplane design and led the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684856999
• ISBN13: 9780684856995
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Enter the 5-Star General

I have been studying secret science research projects during World War II for some time, as well as the development of the Oss and the CIA. This book was an excellent surprise, for it changed and advanced my views in many areas. I was also amazed to find that it was Dwight Eisenhower's respect for Science and Technology that led him to give a green light around 1953 for ramping up espionage, intelligence, and sky and space-borne observation of the Soviet Union, giving a green light (and little accountability) to this work, almost paralleling the Star Wars era of the 1980s! Perhaps this is what led him to say, eventually, "beware the military-industrial complex". Nonetheless, the results eventually led to the end of the Cold War. The book is also a testament to the reasons why we are now weak in counterintelligence--our 40 year focus on observation (which, for example, gave us advance warning of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and a possible invasion of Poland in 1980--which would have been even more disastrous) made us weak in facing terrorism. What is needed now is a conceptual shift of the order that was undertaken after World War II. After visiting Moscow, Eisenhower remarked that the USA and USSR were really allies for about a second. We clearly have been pumping cash and war materiel to those who were only "enemies of our enemies" in a haphazard faship for decades--a practice that clearly must stop. Anyone who has military--foreign relations interests will find that this book fills a very important space in the transition from conventional warfare to limited warfare, to warfare against non-uniformed foes world-wide that strik without massing and have reached American shores in the most serious way since the War of 1812. The 50s are often depicted as a quiet, insular and poorly led period in American history. This book demonstrates that 5-star General Eisenhower did much, much more than lead the Allies to victory in World War II--raising his stature among American presidents considerably in my view. A very impressive and recommended book!

Excellent histroy book on US Strategic Reconnaissance 1950s

It is a clear, consecutive and exciting story which gives readers vivid description on what's going on with strategic reconnaissance on USSR in those cold war days. For the sake of a free world, a small group of super smart Ph.D. engineer, ambitious military officer and brave pilots tried their best to unveil the attacking powers under the iron curtain, and finally they made it --- U2, SR71, and Spy Satellite. I have to say this book changed my mind a lot on President Eisenhower, who overcomed various obstruct from USAF, Congress and so on, pushed the R & D of these reconnaissance craft. In this point, he is a sort of like President Reagan, who brought US a rebirth by speeding up the military race which directly or indirectly speed up the final crash of that "Evil Empire". Great men. No idea why downstair guys gave such a low rating, IMHO, it is a definitly 5 pts book for cold war histroy. btw, Philip was Times's Moscow bureau chief in the late 1980's

Making rocket science accessible

Taubman has done a masterful job of taking a subject that could easily become a technical snore, and creating a riveting account of Cold War intelligence wars that reads like a novel. The author provides appropriate historical, political, and technical context, without overwhelming the reader with extraneous or abstract information. His account of the key players and their roles in the 1950s defense establishment makes this book tremendously engaging.

Fascinating characters, fascinating story

In this book, author Philip Taubman covers a tremendous amount of ground in telling the story of the U-2 spy plane and Corona spy satellite. He opens with a dramatic retelling of a spy flight over the Soviet Union that nearly got shot down, which demonstrates why the Eisenhower administration desperately needed to build better planes and eventually satellites. Taubman is a good storyteller, and he makes what could be a drab review of bureacratic steps into a colorful tale of colorful people like Edwin Land, the inventor of instant photography, and Eisenhower himself. (The president turns out to have done a lot more than play golf!) The book reads quickly but doesn't leave out the meaty details of the story. Secret Empire is very enjoyable for a serious work of non-fiction.

An Excellent Read

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a very, very fast read considering it is non-fiction. I think that Taubman really made the characters come alive, which enhanced learning about what could easily be a boring technical book. However, it lived up to its promise in my mind. I read through it quite quickly and I didn't want to put it down.The coverage of the U-2 development and the development of the Corona satellite were very detailed. Learning about how far those scientists came in such a short time was a very important story to tell and I am very glad that Taubman did the job, because he did it so well.I would have liked more information about the development of the SR-71 and the latest spy satellites, but I suppose that might be classified or just not in the scope of the book. Either way, I am glad that I read it and recommend it to everyone who finds history and science mixed together a great read.