cover image Spying Without Spies: Origins of America's Secret Nuclear Surveillance System

Spying Without Spies: Origins of America's Secret Nuclear Surveillance System

Charles A. Ziegler. Praeger Publishers, $93.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-275-95049-1

The Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb on August 29, 1949, signaling the end of the U.S. nuclear monopoly and the start of the postwar arms race. Despite Soviet efforts to conceal their test, it was detected by a long-range surveillance system with origins in WWII. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, the authors of this accessible study describe the organization of the responsible agency-called by several names through the years, it is currently the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC), headquartered at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida-and the development of radiological, sonic and seismic technology that has monitored nuclear activity worldwide for over 40 years. The study fills a gap in the historical record, revealing America's nuclear surveillance capability and its pervasive, though unheralded, effect on foreign policy and the arms race. Ziegler and Jacobson both teach anthropology at Brandeis University. (Mar.)