Nike: Recommended Reading
Once upon a time, America's major cities were protected from surprise attack from the air by Rings of Supersonic Steel.
These supersonic sentinels are gone now, but you can rediscover this fascinating Cold War Era technology in the second edition of Rings of Supersonic Steel.
This is the only civilian book currently in print to list the locations of former NIKE missile sites.
Learn how the NIKE and other Cold War missile systems worked.
Locate former nuclear missile sites in your neighborhood.
A must have for your reference shelf and a great field guide when exploring those old underground bunkers.
US Strategic and Defensive Missile Systems 1950-2004
For 40 years following the end of World War II, the Western democratic governments and the Eastern Bloc Communist powers were locked in the ideological, political, and economic struggle of the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union developed missile systems capable of delivering conventional and nuclear explosives against enemy massed bomber formations in the air, and of delivering retaliatory nuclear payloads against ground targets located on distant continents. The missile systems played both a defensive role, and a potential offensive role, which was parlayed to the public as deterrence against attack by the rival bloc. This title provides a detailed overview of the fixed-launch-site strategic missile systems of the United States.
DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis
Veteran military analysts Polmar (Spyplane, etc.) and Gresham (Seapower, etc.) distinguish their examination of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis from scores of other books on the subject by detailing how military maneuvers undertaken months in advance led to the tense showdown. The book's title, which is also the name of a Discovery Channel documentary based on this volume, comes from the acronym for Defense Condition Two, the Unites States' highest state of military alert short of war. The only time America went to DEFCON-2 during the Cold War was on October 22, 1962, the day that President Kennedy publicly denounced the Soviet Union's construction of missile launching sites in Cuba. The authors, who interviewed Russian, American and Cuban military men who had leading roles in the showdown, provide new logistical information on how the Soviet Union moved a small nuclear arsenal to Cuba. They deftly meld accounts of what happened in the sea and air with descriptions of the political and intelligence operations in Washington and Moscow. Thoroughly researched and suspenseful, their book is an excellent choice for fans of Cold War history.