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Abstract
Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb, by Michael S. Goodman. Stanford University Press, 2007. 295 pages, $50.
Notes
1. R.J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence, 1945–1964 (London: John Murray, 2001), p. 5.
2. The National Security Council selected two teams. The CIA's own Soviet experts comprised Team A, and academics comprised Team B, led by Professor Richard Pipes, known for his hawkish views on the Soviet Union. He and his panel were convinced that the CIA had gone soft; its liberal “civilian” views, reinforced by arms control experts in the scholarly community, had led to a National Intelligence Estimate that downplayed the Soviet intent on world conquest. According to Team B, the Soviet Union was subtly seeking and could achieve a first-strike, war-winning strategy, not peaceful coexistence with the United States. Specifically, Team B accused the CIA of miscalculating Soviet expenditures on weapons systems, thereby underestimating the formidable strength of the Red Army. Team A, in turn, charged the Pipes panel with exaggerating the Soviet peril.