AP Photo / Liu Heung Shing: bottom left and right
Raymond Zilinskas at the Monterey Institute: top left
Ksenia Kostrova and the Hoover Institution Archives: bottom
Ray Lustig / Washington Post: top
Andy Weber: bottom left and right
Christopher Davis: top
George Bush Presidential Library and Museum: bottom
James A. Parcell / Washington Post: top
Andy Weber: middle and bottom
Andy Weber: top and bottom
Andy Weber: top and bottom
Praise for David E. Hoffman’s The Dead Hand
“A stunning feat of research and narrative. Terrifying.”
“The Dead Hand is a brilliant work of history, a richly detailed, gripping tale that takes us inside the Cold War arms race as no other book has. Drawing upon extensive interviews and secret documents, David Hoffman reveals never-before-reported aspects of the Soviet biological and nuclear programs. It’s a story so riveting and scary that you feel like you are reading a fictional thriller.”
“The Dead Hand is deadly serious, but this story can verge on pitch-black comedy—Dr. Strangelove as updated by the Coen Brothers.”
“In The Dead Hand, David Hoffman has uncovered some of the Cold War’s most persistent and consequential secrets—plans and systems designed to wage war with weapons of mass destruction, and even to place the prospective end of civilization on a kind of automatic pilot. The book’s revelations are shocking; its narrative is intelligent and gripping. This is a tour de force of investigative history.”
“[A] taut, crisply written book…. The Dead Hand puts human faces on the bureaucracy of mutual assured destruction, even as it underscores the institutional inertia that drove this monster forward…. A fine book indeed.”
“An extraordinary and compelling story, beautifully researched, elegantly told, and full of revelations about the superpower arms race in the dying days of the Cold War. The Dead Hand is riveting.”
“No one is better qualified than David Hoffman to tell the definitive story of the ruinous Cold War arms race. He has interviewed the principal protagonists, unearthed previously undiscovered archives, and tramped across the military-industrial wasteland of the former Soviet Union. He brings his characters to life in a thrilling narrative that contains many lessons for modern-day policy makers struggling to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. An extraordinary achievement.”
About the Author
David E. Hoffman is a contributing editor at The Washington Post and author of The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia. He lives in Maryland.
Also by David E. Hoffman
The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia
Copyright
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, AUGUST 2010
Copyright © 2009 by David E. Hoffman
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2009.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:
Hoffman, David E. (David Emanuel)
The dead hand : the untold story of the Cold War arms race and its dangerous legacy / David E. Hoffman.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Arms race—History—20th century. 2. Nuclear disarmament—History—20th century. 3. Cold War. 4. Cold War—Influence. 5. Reagan, Ronald—Political and social views. 6. Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich, 1931—Political and social views. 7. United States—Foreign relations—Soviet Union. 8. Soviet Union—Foreign relations—United States. I. Title.
U264.H645 2009
909.82’5—dc22
2009016751
eISBN: 978-0-385-53217-4
Map designed by Gene Thorp
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