An Untold Story of the Cold War

In 1945, the atomic bomb gave mankind the means, for the first time, of committing suicide. The American people were – for a while at least – shocked by what they’d done. But by now, that seems to have evaporated. Why? One wonders if all the endless series of quasi-scientific Doomsday scenarios, global warming, carcinogenic chemicals, air pollution, acid rain, overpopulation, pandemics, which come and go in a kaleidoscope of titillating horrors, do not reflect a deep but suppressed disquiet over the real danger to our extinction – nuclear war.

But what was the real threat back before we got bored with it, when it was taking shape in the beginnings of the Cold War, in the 1940s and ‘50s? Mr. Robberson explores this question, and tries to recreate the spirit of the times, through the intersection of four stories: the mysterious loss of an Air Force Globemaster in the Atlantic in 1951, the creation of a nuclear force capable of striking Russia, General Curtis LeMay’s role in this, and a never-revealed scandal, Brigadier General Paul T. Cullen’s bigamy. Robberson’s prose is clear and dramatic, and he has done a great deal of research, but let it be said, this book is a work of journalism, not scholarly history. Also, his penchants for unsubstantiated guesses, hyperbole, and mind-reading, are serious distractions. Still, I read it with a reasonable amount of profit.

Let me summarize it for you and you can decide whether it’s worth a look. First, what are the four stories the author seeks to blend together? Do they pan out? Number one is the Globemaster lost at sea on March 23, 1951 without survivors or known cause. It COULD have been carrying the first American nuclear weapon to a British base (suspicions of sabotage!!!) but there is no evidence that it was. Second, lost aboard it was General Cullen, an airman with a distinguished career, who was guilty of turning himself into a security danger through his private life; he was a bigamist, having married his lover secretly in Mexico while already married. Unwise, but there is no evidence his behavior led to any kind of security breach. The third issue involves Curtis LeMay, who was responsible for the flight, and IF it was carrying an atomic bomb would have been responsible for THAT. Meaning what? The author makes much of LeMay’s immediate postwar talk of the need for preemptive nuclear strikes, but there is no evidence of nefarious plans on his part to undermine Truman and Eisenhower’s later policies of nuclear restraint, during the period LeMay oversaw the creation of the first American nuclear strike force based in Europe.

Three duds – so what is the fourth issue, and the only one that gives the book value? This is the actual history of the creation and early years of the American nuclear strike force. There was a great deal of political talk at the time, and among historians afterwards, about the role of American nuclear weapons in dealing with the Soviet Union. American military analysts immediately post war certainly saw the Soviets as militarily easily capable of overrunning Western occupation forces in Germany and then France, with an American nuclear attack as a sole possible counter. Or was it? Did we really have any additional atomic bombs then? Or nuclear capable bombers?

In fact, the US had a tiny number of bombs at first – fewer than 10 in 1946, and of the many B-29 bombers on hand, only 27 were nuclear weapons-capable, codenamed “Silverplate.” None of these were deployed to Britain till 1949, and even then without bombs. So, to this reviewer it seems that an earlier postwar Soviet invasion of western Europe, coinciding with the 1948 Berlin crisis or the Korean invasion in 1950, could not have been met by a nuclear strike. (And by the way, wouldn’t a first use of nuclear weapons then have been met with vast outrage on the part of the western public? And wouldn’t a Soviet drive into western Europe have been followed by massive uprisings in the subject eastern European countries? Just wondering.)

Truman cut the conventional armed forces drastically, provoking the 1949 “Revolt of the Admirals”, coming solidly behind the USAF and its nuclear strategic bombing theorists and their “billion dollar blunder” of the B-36. A year later, he found himself forced to fight a very conventional “limited war” in Korea, unable or unwilling to use nuclear weapons. Meanwhile we are shown the growth of LeMay’s British-based bombers into a credible nuclear strike force. Propeller-driven bombers had proven terribly vulnerable to the MiG-15 in Korea, but the first B-47s arrived in Britain in 1953. LeMay continued to champion preemptive strikes, totally failing to understand President Eisenhower’s careful strategy, combining containment with nuclear deterrence. Robberson carries LeMay ahead to 1962, when he argued with President Kennedy for a preemptive strike on the Russian missiles in Cuba – and is firmly turned down. His misunderstanding of nuclear weapons was the same as Khrushchev’s: they simply couldn’t be used- without initiating World War III.

Globemaster Down fails to work as a convincing thriller, but it contains a lot of interesting background to these years and issues, still complex and emotionally laden. If you are interested, it might be worth a look. Another issue is, of course, that journalism has a much more immediate effect on political effects than does scholarly history. The popular understanding of things may be emotional, irrational, and oversimplified, but it’s what rules in a democracy, and often trumps hard truth. In this sense, Robberson’s book is quite revealing and an historical document in its own right.

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Our Reviewer: Robert P. Largess is the author of USS Albacore; Forerunner of the Future, and articles on the USS Triton, SS United States, the origin of the towed sonar array, and the history of Lighter-than-Air. He has contributed book reviews to ‘The Naval Historical Foundation’ (http://www.navyhistory.org) and The International Journal of Naval History (http://www.ijnhonline.org). His earlier reviews here include The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command, King Arthur’s Wars: The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of England, Clouds above the Hill: A Historical Novel of the Russo-Japanese War, Winning a Future War: War Gaming and Victory in the Pacific War, The Fate of Rome, "Tower of Skulls", A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to the Fall of Corregidor, July 1937-May 1942, Nathaniel Lyon’s River Campaign of 1861, Korea: War without End, Exterminating ISIS, Admiral Canaris, Armies Afloat: How the Development of Amphibious Operations in Europe Helped Win World War II, The Spy in the Archive, Origins of the Cold War 1941–1949, Questioning the Carrier, A Poisoned Chalice, and Deterrence and Denial: The Historic Power of Fleets in Being.

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Note: Globemaster Down is also available in audio & e-editions.

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