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The Gold Crew
Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M.
Robinson. New York: Warner Books,
1980. 435 pp. $11.95 ($10.76).
Reviewed by Captain Linton F. Brooks,
U. S. Navy
Captain Brooks has served in billets associated with the submarine force for the past 15 years, including service in both attack and ballistic missile submarines. Ashore, he has served in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and as an instructor at a nuclear prototype. He is currently assigned to the Office of the Secretary °f Defense.
The purpose of fiction is entertainment and relaxation. But fiction written with a military setting has another, special value for those who seek to understand war and the military. From Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, through Monserrat s The Cruel Sea, to James Webb’s Fields of Fire, novels have provided illumination and insight into battle and those who wage it that are not available from nonfiction, no matter how authoritative or detailed. Recognition of this fact last year led the Proceedings to alter its long-standing policy against reviewing works of fiction. Unfortunately, Thomas Scortia and Frank Robinson’s The Gold Crew owes little to this tradition of military literature. Instead, the work is in a totally different, more recent tradition: that of the implausible but exciting suspense thriller. The result, while enjoyable, will disappoint those who expect to read about real ships or the real men who sail them.
Scortia and Robinson, best known for the movie “The Towering Inferno,” have an intense “concern for the danger inherent in today s sophisticated technology” and for the terrifying consequences of an error or
* For details on ordering books and special prices see the Book Order Service note in the Books of Interest department.
breakdown in this technology” and, by implication, in the technologists who supervise it. In The Gold Crew they focus on the technology and destructive power of the Trident submarine in a scenario that is wildly implausible. Some unspecified time in the future—apparently the late 1980s—senior U. S. officials become concerned over whether Trident submarine crews will actually obey an order to launch their missiles. To find out, they devise a ten-day series of false messages to one Trident submarine, the USS Alaska, outlining a drastic breakdown in world order and culminating in a directive to launch four missiles. Unbeknown to the crew, the nuclear warheads of these four missiles alone have been removed and replaced with dummies. The spurious drill messages originate from a concealed, automatic tape recorder hidden on board Alaksa; no one on board (including those who know the drill is to be conducted) knows where the recorder is, and no one outside the ship can control it. Only the submarine’s commanding officer and two other officers are to know that the seeming outbreak of world war is only a drill. To this less than credible base are added in quick succession: a contaminant in the submarine’s interior paint which induces extreme paranoia in the entire crew and causes the captain to come to believe that the drill is real; an executive officer covertly using an experimental, exceptionally potent psychiatric drug; a kidnapping of a Russian submarine commander following a collision at sea; and a presidential assistant who seeks to use the drill as a means of forcing a preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The details are equally unconvincing, although some details, like buttoning peacoats against the cold in Charleston in June or changing a characters rank between chapters, suggest a need for tighter editing. Others, such as rubber raft transfers between submarines
in mid-ocean in order to conduct a brief, routine meeting, signatures on naval messages indicating the drafter, and, most particularly, a 24-hour period during a nuclear submarine upkeep when not one single crew member sets foot on board, are both important to the plot and contrary to reality.
What is disconcerting is that despite the fantastic plot and the plethora of cardboard characters, it is difficult to put the book down. The climax, when the Alaska's crew, under the influence of the carefully planned drill messages and the paint-induced paranoia, prepares to launch all missiles—real as well as dummy— while other U. S. forces frantically seek to stop them, is fast-paced and exciting.
There is an undeniable aura about ballistic missile submarines that makes them ideal subjects for fiction. But, as those who have made them know too well, ballistic missile deterrent patrols, however demanding and important, are singularly lacking in suitable drama. However incredible, the unauthorized missile launch is one of the few ways to couple the mystique surrounding these awesome ships with the dramatic tension needed for an adventure novel. The Gold Crew is no less believable than other, similar books. Indeed, the notion of a mind-altering substance in the dosed atmosphere of a submarine is an intriguing one; had the authors been willing to let this idea stand alone they might have written a far more realistic story.
If a Navy professional is a devotee of escapist fiction and is willing to accept action and suspense in place of insights into reality, The Gold Crew will furnish a pleasant diversion. But those seeking to understand submarines and their crews or the potential pressures of a deterrent patrol in moments of crisis can best spend their time elsewhere.
The United States in the 1980s
Peter Duigan and Alvin Rabushka, Editors. Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press, Hoover Institution publication, 1980. 868 pp. Append. Ind. $20.00 ($18.00).
Reviewed by Oscar M. Villarejo
Dr. Villarejo is Professor of English at the U. S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College and also teaches courses in the humanities at the George Washington University.
This is an elaborate work in which 32 experts representing a variety of specialties discuss far-reaching domestic and foreign issues confronting the United States in the present decade. The studies have been divided by the editors into 14 essays devoted to domestic topics and 15 to foreign issues. Each essay has been written by an authority in his field; some of the essays having been composed in collaboration with an associate.
Editors Peter Duigan and Alvin Rabushka summarize the contents of the pieces by saying, “The single theme . . . [which] ties together all the essays in this volume is that we have entered into an era of limits and limited government.” And pursuing this same theme as it applies to U. S. policies abroad in the 1980s, W. Glenn Campbell, Director of the Hoover Institution, remarks in his foreword:
“Overseas, the United States has recognized [finally] that the exercise of responsible power has definite limitations. Foreign aid [to the Third World] cannot by itself cure poverty. Modernization cannot be achieved quickly. At the same time, it has been recognized that the United States cannot export democracy to the rest of the world.” Illustrative of the foregoing remarks made by the editors in respect to developments within the United States which have propelled the nation into “an era of limits and limited government" are the key observations contributed jointly by Everett C. Ladd, Jr. and Seymour Martin Lipset. In referring to the escalating upward curve of expenditures in U. S. Government budgets since the days of the Vietnam
War, both of these public opinion analysts contend that a breakdown in government discipline is evident in excessive spending that contributes to inflation. They summarize the matter thus:
“The passage of California’s Proposition 13 in June 1978 by a two- to-one margin, together with the strong campaigns in other states across the country to impose limits on taxing and spending, are the most frequently cited evidence for this [change], . . . Buffeted by high taxes and inflation, people . . . [have turned] away from the liberal, big-spending social programs first initiated in the United States by Franklin Roosevelt and greatly elaborated upon during the 1960s.”
The chief theme of the economist contributors is that a return to strong growth in productivity and wealth in the nation depends upon a reduction of the government's role as an economic force. Nobel Prize-winner Milton Friedman, in an essay written in collaboration with his wife, speaks in unflattering terms about “Fabian socialism and New Deal liberalism,” and proposes, no less, an economic Bill of Rights for the U. S. Constitution in the form of amendments which would limit total spending by the federal government, forbid government interference in the conduct of international trade, outlaw wage and price controls, prevent the abridgement by the government of occupational freedom, replace progressive with flat-rate personal income taxes, and fix monetary growth at 3 to 5%.
What this volume has to say about long-range foreign and military affairs is of immediate concern to readers in the present crisis atmosphere afflicting the nation in connection with the Iranian dilemma, the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets, and the menacing situation threatening the American oil supply in the Persian Gulf. Hoover scholars had anticipated accurately by many months the Soviet ideological and military challenge in the Middle East and Africa which is a reality today. Peter Duignan and L. H. Gann, experts on Middle Eastern and African affairs, express their
view in one of the concluding essays in the volume:
“Military power should also be used [by the United States] if internal subversion is attempted in the Persian Gulf states or in Saudi Arabia, or in the eventuality of an oil boycott instituted for political purposes. We [the Americans] must show the will and acquire rhe means for such intervention in order to blunt radical take-overs or Soviet expansion.”
All of the foregoing foreign policy issues bring into focus the serious decline of U. S. military power since the era of Vietnam. Edward Teller, whose fame precedes him as a leading atomic physicist in the West, registers justifiable alarm in regard to the expanding military strength of the Soviet Union in the past decade. He observes that as early as 1968, Admiral Sergei G. Gorshkov, the commander-in- chief of the Soviet Navy, said: “The flag of the Soviet Union flies over the oceans of the world. Sooner or later, the United States will have to understand it no longer has mastery of the seas.’ In response to this, Teller replies that he hopes that such a statement is wide of the mark, and that the arms race between the United States and the U.S.S.R. has not been conclusively lost, as yet, by the Americans. Therefore, no other alternative exists at the present time for the Pentagon except to push ahead with the production and refinement of the neutron bomb and the cruise missile.
On the question of the succession crisis which is bound to occur when Leonid 1. Brezhnev relinquishes his post as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R., Dr. Richard F. Staar predicts that Soviet leadership will continue to be semieducated, Machiavellian in its strategy, and totally dedicated to the conquest of power in pivotal portions of the globe. He believes that the crisis will bring into play a conflict between the KGB and the armed forces, and will be highlighted by explosive repercussions within the client states of the U.S.S.R. in Eastern Europe, thus offering distinct possibilities to the United States for exploitation in the name of political freedom.
In spite of the many pessimistic statements which certain of the authors underscore in their essays, it is dear that a dominant leitmotiv threads its way consistently through- ant this valuable compilation: the United States is, by no means, deficient in a national will to deal decisively with the domestic or international problems that confront it.
lieutenant Colonel Parks is a frequent contributor to the Proceedings in the field of international relations.
As the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse continues to draw authors to its examination, so has the conquest of Singapore by the forces of Japanese General Tomoyuki Yama- shita. To date, however, most authors have concentrated their efforts on the loss of Singapore and those two capital ships with little discussion of the events immediately preceding each. David McIntyre, a New Zealander, has gone beyond this point by producing a first-rate historical analysis of the two decades of unmeasured steps leading up to these inter-related debacles. The book would be worth reading were it only for its historical interest. It is of all the more value because of its appropriate analogy to the predicaments of our current defense and foreign policies.
Those familiar with the story of the design of a horse by committee, as well as the myriad problems which have befallen Sanguine/Seafarer/ELF and similar programs, will appreciate fully the problems surrounding the development of the naval base and its defenses at Singapore. A valid strategic requirement was identified, (j.e., the defense of British interests in Southeast Asia), duly studied, and recommendations proffered. Two decades passed between recommendation and execution, with the latter never completely meeting the former prior to the demise of Singapore. The post-World War I idealism regarding disarmament prolonged effective action as the major military powers engaged in the Washington Naval Conference (1921-22) and the ill-fated Geneva Disarmament Conference (1932-34). The British Cabinet stultified development plans in their calculated risk of 1919 when it concluded that Britain would not be involved in a major conflict for ten years (which eventually extended through the Geneva Disarmament Conference), and minimized defense spending based on that assumption. A series of changes of government led to additional studies regarding Singapore, with listings of optimum and minimum alternatives in facilities and defense construction. Development problems were compounded by the fact that funding for the Singapore base depended on contributions from members of the far-flung British Empire. While contributions often were made (or withheld) in direct proportion to the degree of protection afforded a particular empire member by the Singapore facilities, it was the vacillation by the cabinet in its support for a meaningful program for defense of Singapore which did the greatest damage. In the midst of this on- again-off-again support, the military services engaged in internecine war as to the nature of the Singapore defenses. The Royal Navy, already stung by notions of parity rather than its traditional supremacy of the seas (numerically and qualitatively), weighed in for more capital vessels and emplaced coastal guns. The newly created Royal Air Force, led for a substantial portion of the dispute by the indomitable Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Hugh Trenchard, viewed Singapore as a logical point for development of its fledgling roles and missions. The end result of this interservice donneybrook and cabinet hesitation was the all-too-familiar too little, too late, culminating in the ill- conceived posturing for political purposes which sent the Prince of Wales and Repulse to their watery graves.
In closing his excellent historical analysis, McIntyre quotes a highly regarded veteran of the inter-war disputes surrounding Singapore, who said: “It was the illusion that a Two-Hemisphere Empire can be defended by a One-Hemisphere Navy that sealed the fate of Singapore. At the 1980 annual meeting of the Naval Institute, Chief of Naval Operations Thomas B. Hayward concluded his remarks with the lament that . . . today we are trying to meet a three- ocean requirement with a one-and-a- half ocean Navy." There is no better study of this lesson of history, which is particularly relevant now with parallels to present U. S. military events.
THE CHIEFS OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
Edited by Robert W. Love, Jr.
I I * J
This is a history of the chiefs of naval operations from Admiral William S. Benson, the first CNO, to Admiral Elmo R. Zum- walt, Jr. Each of the 19 essays in this volume is devoted to the naval career of one of those men. Each examines the reasons for his being appointed chief of naval operations, and focuses principally on his years in that office. The policies, military strategies, and administrative changes of each incumbent are described and evaluated from a fresh viewpoint in this well- written, easy-to-read biographical study of one of the most powerful offices in the United States.
19801379 pageslillustrated
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Deadline December l, 1980
Three prize-winning essays will be selected in the U. S. Naval Institute’s Annual General Prize Essay Contest. Your constructive thoughts and ideas for a professional sea service audience could make you a winner.
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3. Essays must be received on or before December 1, 1980 at the U. S. Naval Institute.
4. The name of the author shall not appear on the essay. Each author shall assign a motto in addition to a title to the essay. This motto shall appear (a) on the title page of the essay, with the title, in lieu of the author’s name and (b) by itself on the outside of an accompanying sealed envelope containing the name and address of the essayist, the title of the essay, and the motto. This envelope will not be opened until the Editorial Board has made its selections.
5. The awards will be presented to the successful competitors at the annual meeting of the U. S. Naval Institute in April 1981. Letters notifying the award winners will be mailed knowledge in the naval and maritime services, and the advancement of the knowledge of seapower. ”
Essays will be judged for their analytical and interpretive qualities by the Editorial Board of the U. S. Naval Institute.
Alfred Thayer Mahan's third place entry in the 1879 contest was the start of his 35-year professional writing career. Start working on your essay today. Anyone is eligible to enter and win First Prize—$1,500, a Gold Medal, and Life Membership in the U. S. Naval Institute; First Honorable Mention $1,000 and a Silver Medal; or Second Honorable Mention—$750 and a Bronze Medal.
The Editorial Board normally purchases, at its standard rate, a number of essays that are not among the prizewinners for publication in the Proceedings.
on or about February 1, 1981, and the unsuccessful essays will be returned to their authors on that date. The winning essay will be published in the April issue of Proceedings together with the names of the honorable mention essayists, and the names of the other contestants whose essays are purchased for publication.
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Books of Interest
Compiled by Professor Craig L. Symonds, Associate Editor
Naval affairs
Q Aircraft Carriers of the U. S. Navy
Stefan Terzibaschitsch. New York: Mayflower Books, 1980. 320 pp. Illus. Appen. Bib.
$35.00 ($28.00).
This encyclopedic catalog of U. S. aircraft carriers originally appeared in German in 1977. Paying particular attention to design changes, the author catalogs the specifications of all U. S. carriers from the Langley (CV-1) to the Eisenhower (CVN- 69). There are multiple photos of virtually every carrier. The original German- language edition of the book was a Proceedings “Notable Naval Book of 1979. (See the January 1980 Proceedings.)
Great Ships, the Battlefleet of King Charles II
Frank Fox. Greenwich, England: Conway Maritime Press, 1980. 208 pp. Illus. Append. Bib. Ind. £20.00 (Approx. $44.40) ($40.00).
This is a handsome and detailed history of the capital ships of the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century. Though Fox focuses particularly on England s battleships (called great ships in the lexicon of the day), he also provides information on Dutch and French great ships. There is a wealth of detail here, much of it in the more than 200 illustrations and in comprehensive appendices on fleet strength, ordnance, and ship specifications.
g] Rocks and Shoals: Order and Discipline in the Old Navy, 1800-1861
James E. Valle. Annapolis, MD.: Naval Institute Press, 1980. 341 pp. Illus. Append. Bib. Ind. $18.95 ($15.16).
Based largely on the records of naval courts-martial, this volume analyzes problems of naval discipline and the system of naval justice in the American sailing navy. Valle manages to be both scholarly and entertaining as he deals with problems of mutiny, desertion, disrespect, drunkenness, and even sodomy. It is, therefore, a social history as well as a history of naval justice, and complements Harold Langley s classic Social Reform in the United States Navy, 1798-1862.
Sailing Ships of War, 1400-1860
Frank Howard. New York: Mayflower Books,
1979. 256 pp. Illus. Bib. $29.95 ($26.96).
This is not a book for beginners, as Dr. Howard provides an enormous amount of detailed technical data on the design, armament, and rigging of sailing ships of war from their first appearance on the high seas in the 15th century to their demise on the eve of the American Civil War. Despite the hundreds of illustrations, many in color, the principal value of this book lies in the specificity of the detailed information.
MARITIME AFFAIRS
The Audubon Society Book of
Marine Wildlife
Les Line and George Reiger. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1980. 240 pp. Illus. $45.00 ($40.50).
Like the other volumes published by the Audubon Society, this is a beautiful book composed largely of breath-taking double-page photos of exotic marine wildlife. Its format types it as a collector’s volume rather than a survey for the casual reader.
Practical Celestial Navigation
Susan P. Howell. Hebron, CT.: Susan P.
Howell Enterprises, 1979- 259 pp. Illus. Ind. $10.00 ($9.00) paper.
Light on theory and heavy on practice problems, this basic text, oriented toward the instruction of student sailors in the author’s Mystic Seaport school, contains 13 chapters on basic celestial navigation and 7 on advanced techniques. Some nonstandard symbology does not detract from the utility of its practical approach for the novice oceangoing yachtsman.
[31 Schooners
Basil Greenhill. Annapolis, MD.: Naval Institute Press, 1980. 160 pp. Illus. $24.95 ($19.96).
From the early 18th century to the 1880s, the schooner was perhaps the most common cargo carrier in the Western world. With the challenge of steam vessels after the 1880s, schooner designers countered by building three-, four-, and even five-
masted vessels which proved to be profitable as merchantmen into the middle of the 20th century. The author of this pictorial history argues that in addition to
Schoone
being practical, the schooner was also the most aesthetically pleasing cargo carrier of its era.
MILITARY AFFAIRS
[3] Ed Heinemann: Combat Aircraft Designer
Edward H. Heinemann and Cdr. Rosario Rausa, USNR. Annapolis, MD.: Naval Institute Press, 1980. 277 pp. Illus. Appen. Bib. Ind. $18.95 ($15.15).
Ed Heinemann was a high school dropout with a gift for mechanics and design wrho became the principal force behind the production of many successful combat aircraft from the Dauntless dive bomber of World War II to the A-4 of the Vietnam War. This narrative of his life is based on lengthy interviews conducted by Rosario “Zip” Rausa and is thus written in the first person. In many respects, it is a history of aviation design; Heinemann’s associates included Jack Northrop, Donald Douglas, and Howard Hughes. The text is
augmented by detailed line drawings, photos, and performance data.
FICTION
The Short Timers
Gustav Hasford. New York: Bantam Books
1980. 180 pp. $2.25 paper.
When this novel appeared in its hardcover edition in 1979, Newsweek called it "The best work of fiction about the Vietnam War. If not that, it is certainly the most bitter. The gore, the pain, the ubiquitous violence of that war are the very substance of this novel, and the theme is hard to
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miss: war brutalizes its practitioners, or, in the words of the author, “What you do, you become.”
B NAVAL INSTITUTE BOOK SELECTIONS AVAILABLE Ultra Goes to War
Ronald Lew/n. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1978. $12.95 ($10.35). Last order date: 15 August 1980.
The Third World War
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Herbert W. Warden, III, Editor. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1978. $45.00 ($36.00). Last order date: 8 September 1980.
Soviet Naval Diplomacy
Bradford Dismukes and James M. McConnell, Editors. New York: Pergamon Press, 1979. $25.00 ($20.00). Last order date: 3 October 1980.
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James M. Ennes, Jr. New York: Random House, 1980. $12.95 ($10.35). Last order date: 5 November 1980.
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Edwin P. Hoyt. Middlebury, VT.: Paul S. Eriksson, 1979. $12.95 ($10.35). Last order date: 10 January 1981.
Avenger at War
Barrett Tillman. New York: Scribners, 1980. $17.50 ($14.00). Last order date: 15 February
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Modern Warship Design
Norman Friedman. New York: Mayflower,
1980. $22.50 ($ 18.00). Last order date: 1 May
1981.
Final Harbor
Harry Homewood. New York: McGraw Hill,
1980. $11.95 ($9.55). Last order date: 6 May
1981.
A Most Fortunate Ship
Tyrone Martin. Chester, CT.: Globe Pequot, 1980. $17.95 ($14.35). Last order date: 15 May 1981.
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