Upon assuming the presidency in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower came to be seen by many as a doddering lightweight. Yet behind the bland smile and apparent simplemindedness was a brilliant, intellectual tactician. As Evan Thomas reveals in his provocative examination of Ike's White House years, Eisenhower was a master of calculated duplicity. As with his bridge and poker games he was eventually forced to stop playing after leaving too many fellow army officers...

A terrorist attack with nuclear weapons is the most dangerous security issue America faces today--and we are far more vulnerable than we realize. Driven by this knowledge, five men--all members of the Cold War brain trust behind the U.S. nuclear arsenal--have come together to combat this threat, leading a movement that is challenging the United States and other nations to reconsider their strategic policies. This book tells the little-known story...

"Here, for the first time, former high level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking first-hand account of America's nuclear program in the 1960s. From the remotest air bases in the Pacific Command, where he discovered that the authority to initiate use of nuclear weapons was widely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, which, if executed, would cause the near-extinction of humanity, Ellsberg shows that...