Michael Burleigh
Fully Cocked
15 Minutes: General Curtis LeMay and the Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation
By L Douglas Keeney
St Martin’s Press 372pp £16.67 order from our bookshop
At the end of the Second World War the US was the sole nuclear power in the world, although paradoxically it did not possess a single functioning atomic bomb after the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were big, complex devices requiring weeks to prepare and prime. The US also had an air force and navy capable of projecting power around the globe, even if in Europe the Soviets had a colossal advantage, with 4.5 million troops, 15,500 combat aircraft and vast numbers of tanks.
The obvious answer to this conventional imbalance was to rapidly stockpile nuclear bombs – the initial target was 200 such weapons – and combine them with a dedicated bomber force, Strategic Air Command (SAC). Unlike the 1,000-bomber raids of the Second World War, this would concentrate on small
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'What they created in the neighbourhood resembled more a distillation of the High German culture of their past than a fresh start.'
@GeorgeProchnik tells the story of the German–Jewish intellectuals who settled in Jerusalem in the early 20th century.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/vienna-by-temple-mount
'Good translation is ... a refined art. It requires not just excellent language skills, but experience, emotional intelligence and enterprise as well.'
@Bridget_Kendall on how interpreters navigate the 'perilous waters of diplomacy'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/to-put-it-diplomatically
'Being an ambitious female artist working in the avant-garde was far from easy. Her art ... was found variously to be feminine, cold and artisanal'.
@TanyaHarrod on @EleanorClaytone's 'finely written study' of Barbara Hepworth.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-carved-her-own-way