Much has been written (e.g., David Kahn's Seizing the Enigma, 1991) about the high-grade intelligence (dubbed ``Ultra'' and ``Magic'') available to the Allies during WW II as a result of the UK's ability to read many of Nazi Germany's ciphers and of America's success in cracking Japanese codes. Comparatively less attention has been paid to the lengthy and difficult negotiations that preceded the sharing of information gained from Axis message traffic. Drawing on declassified archival sources, Smith (The Shadow Warriors, 1983, etc.) bridges this gap with an engrossing account of how Whitehall and Washington finally consented to pool their cryptoanalytic resources to defeat common enemies. Noting that most countries spy on friends as well as foes, Smith first focuses on the security concerns and obstacles that long delayed a comprehensive accord. While Great Britain had managed to centralize its code-breaking operations between the wars, US efforts, the author points out, were an uncoordinated hodgepodge marked by intense, distrustful rivalry among the Army's Signal Corps, the FBI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the State Department, and other agencies. By May 1943, however, necessity, patience, and confidence engendered by working relationships yielded the so-called ERUSA agreement that set the stage for unprecedented cooperation during the war's final 30 months—and for an enduring productive partnership. Given the secrecy surrounding any nation's code and cipher activities, the author is unable to pinpoint just when in 1947 a permanent Anglo-American pact was concluded (in response to fears about USSR ambitions). At the close, though, he leaves little doubt that the entente inspired by the sharing of WW II intelligence contributed as much to the winning of the cold war as to victory in Europe and the Pacific. An illuminating rundown on a largely ignored, albeit important, chapter in diplomatic and military history. (One map.)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-89141-483-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Presidio/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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