5 comments about The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind.

1. The Bomb in My Garden was very easy to read and held my interest throughout. Although I did not know Dr. Mahdi as a student at Colo School of Mines, he was in school at the same time as I, graduating three years after me. That added to my interest in the book.
   
   It gives an insight into the kind of goverment Dr. Mahdi had to work under and give in to.



2. Once you get started you won't be able to put this book down. This oral hisory shows how honorable, intelligent people with the best intentions can be forced to do the work of a corrupt regime. Thank you, Mr. Obeidi, for coming forward with your story revealing the individuals and countries (including our own) that made the acquisition of nuclear-producing components possible, in spite of the nuclear ban. It makes the current situation of nuclear fuel enrichment in Iran and North Korea all the scarier. Thank you, Kurt, for organizing this story so well and making the scientific jargon so easily understood.



3. I just finish reading the book of Mahdi Obeidi.
   I found informative, interesting and entertaining.
   In his book the author manipulate us into being sympathetic and compassionated for his case.
   (just as Albert Speer would have done)
   I certainly do not deny that to work in an oppressive dictatorship is extremely difficult and that most of us one day or the other compromises our integrity for our job security or for the safety or the security of those we love.
   Nevertheless at the end we stand responsible and accountable for our acts, especially if we are men and women of faith.
   One day every one of us will have to give an account for his/her actions or in-actions.
   It will cost us; sometimes a lot or even everything to stand for what we know is right or is true, even our freedom or the live of these we love.
   DC Obeidi took the chance to have thousands or millions killed, thank to his efforts, to protect himself and his immediate family.
   The Nazi engineers did just the same.
   Would Dc Obeidi have had any pride at all if one of the atomic bomb, that he helped to built, had landed on Israel or another county and killed thousand or millions?
   I believe that he would have.
   Would he have turned down the honors and the rewards from the government he served?
   I believe that he would have not.
   Adolf Eichmann was very proud of killing millions of Jews very efficiently as good Nazi bureaucrat.
   Dc Obeidi is not different, he just did not had the chance to go to the end of the experimentation.
   To stand or not to stand is what distinguish a man from a slave.
   If nothing else Dc Obeidi was and still is a slave of his fears.



4. This book reads like one of the best spy thrillers, without the ending comfort of knowing it's only fiction.
   
   Obeidi's story puts into perspective the frail protection that exists against the development and use of nuclear weapons in the world today.
   A complex issue often over simplified is illuminated by this factual account of how close Iraq came to the development of weapons grade uranium and the bomb.
   
   This book should be required reading.



5. It is more than a cliche to say that Saddam Hussein was a madman, and in fact, it is an understatement. Mahdi Obeidi spent a major portion of his career as a scientist under the thumb of Saddam and his minions, and the twists and turns this imposed on his life would surely have broken a lesser man. Somehow Mahdi found the strength to persevere the horrific threats, forced isolation from his wife and children, the unbearably stressful, not to mention insane schedules he often had to work under, and much much more.
   
   Throughout the book he offers insights into the mind of Saddam Hussein that only someone who has experienced that brutal regime could truly comprehend. Try as we might, and as chilling as it often is, we can only imagine what it must have been like. As the top man in Saddam's nuclear program, he succeeded in enriching uranium and was well on the way to success in building a nuclear weapon. This fearsome weapon would have been in the hands of one of the world's true madmen, a tyrant whose only obstacle to surpassing Hitler in atrocities committed was his lack of power to do so. What if he had succeeded though in his nuclear ambitions? How does the world disarm someone like that? The prospect is chilling and it CAN happen again. Read this book, you will learn how and get a glimpse of what must be done to prevent it.
   
   Below is a short quote from the CIA website at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no4/bombs_in_garden.html;
   
   "The Bomb In My Garden is not documented with sources, but the names, dates, and events discussed allow checking of key facts. Moreover, the former head of the UN Iraqi Survey Group, David Kay, and a number of American nuclear specialists find the story largely accurate and compelling as indicated by their comments in the book and on the dust jacket. Mahdi Obeidi concludes that Saddam came close to having an atom bomb in 1991 and probably intended to restart the program given an opportunity. As to the future, Obeidi warns the reader that "illicit nuclear programs share a common weak spot: they need international complicity" to succeed, and there are many unemployed nuclear scientists still in Iraq."
   
   In other words, it is likely in Obeidi's opinion that Saddam had a passion for the bomb that only his deposing and subsequent execution could stop...........

No comments about Fields of Fire: A Life of Sir William Hamilton.

4 comments about Name-Dropping: From FDR On.

1. What a great read this is. Galbraith brings out a personal side of people we could only imagine exists. Of course, he reveals the same of himself. (Ever see a picture of him smiling?) The book reads quickly. In fact, my only complaint about the book is that I got so relaxed while reading it that I fell asleep too easily. (I read late at night). I'm sure, as I did, you'll be envious of Galbraith's acquaintances with the "characaters" of this book. Buy it!



2. Name Dropping is a great high-level recap of Galbreath's insider experience as an influential 20th century statesmen. Like a grandfather recounting the salient parts of our recent American history and his career, its everything that you would not expect from an agricultural economist -- entertaining, witty, and easy to read. Highly recommended for train rides, short flights, or rainy days.



3. My daughter gave me this book as a gift, I guess, because I'm an economist. I wish she hadn't. Others obviously think Galbraith's musings more than a little entertaining; I don't. He came across to me as asserting that the only people worth knowing were the ones he once served/worked with. I would rate some his ancedotes as amusing, but the flavor of the book seemed to be that of a very old man, whose core beliefs have been repudiated by history, claiming that the idea of a command economy just didn't get a fair shake. All these socialist countries just haven't done it right, and they just don't make 'em like they used to.



4. John Kenneth Galbraith was at one time a hero of mine. Read more than 10 of his books over the years. Bought this book and read it having been a hero of mine. I urge for all people to read to this book for the sole reason to show how out of touch, "ivory tower" tenured intellectuals has misguided us.

   The 20th is ending and the era of "ivory tower egghead" is coming ot a close. The preeminent egghead is Professor Galbraith and this books is a clarion call of a out of touch egghead socialist. Buy it for records.

   As a former student of economics and history, only when one leaves the university does one realize none of these people have ever had a "real" job so much as working McDonald. Tenure has given them lifelong employment-what in China is called the "iron rice bowl".

   Professor Galbraith has written over 30 books. However, has this man ever open a business, work at a private company, try to make a product or services that the people want and need.

   Academica and Government are havens for those who want job security, lifetime employment and insulation from the marketplace and the "customer".

   Professor is the ultimate egghead socialist and dreams up fantasies where everyone lives "fulfiling life" with jobs, health care, and education. The Soviet Union and China failed miserably building stagnant socialist economies and the whole world is moving from a planned economy to a market economy. This books by Professor Galbraith is a testament to "ivory tower egghead" who refuse to confront reality. Never mind the "egghead" refuses to get a real job where they have to actually work for a living.

   I recommend all to buy this book. Agree or Disagree. This book is a final testament of the greatest "egghead" of them all and how the world is moving to markets and totally bypasses them and yet they continue to champion socialism and collectivism: ideas that are going the way of the dinosour.

3 comments about Yo, Augusto/i, Augusto Pinochet.

1. A good biased account. Strongly from the left the journalist dissects and documents the Pinochet regime, explaining in terrible detail the horrors he visited upon many in Chile. The major drawback here is the fact that this book does not acknowledge that had socialist revolution not be stopped by Pinochet it would have continued on its course and Chili would look like Cuba today without freedom of speech and the other horrors of dictatorship. In the final analysis Pinochet was the lesser of two evils, regardless of the anti-Pinochet propaganda.

   Seth J. Frantzman




2. Very good experience with this seller. five stars.



3. This book presents a well documented picture of Pinochet's regime in Chile and the experiences of many whose basic civil liberties were denied in the best cases and in the worst case killed or dissappeared. Starting with the bloody coup d'etat in 1973, the military Junta turned Chile's democratic social experiment in an ELECTED socialist government to more than a decade of repression. This dictatorship sponsored a complete rewriting of the legal and constitutional framework of the country by the military and their civilian supporters. A book worth reading as the ravages of this US-backed right wing conservative dictatorship and its uncontrolled neo-liberal economic policies were a blight on generations of Chileans and has left indelible traces of its social and psychological destruction still tangible 15 years after Chile "transitioned" to democracy.

No comments about Letters From France The Private Diplomatic Correspondence of Benjamin Franklin 1776-1785.

3 comments about The Fords: An American Epic.

1. This book recounts the origins and life of the Ford family from the rise of Henry Ford, the founding the great automotive company, its ebbs and flows, through the reign of Henry Ford II. It reads very well and has a great deal of interesting information.
   
   One of the difficulties in writing a book like this is how to balance the personal details with the epic story of the global corporation. I believe Collier and Horowitz pull off the balance quite well. However, when this book came out there was a great deal of discussion about the womanizing that the family worked hard to keep out of the public eye. Some condemned this book because of these intimate details. Some claimed they were fabricated. Nowadays, given what we know about public versus private lives, it probably would not raise many eyebrows.
   
   The life of Henry the Great is fascinating because of his genius and his limitations. His son Edsel has a story that is as tragic as any you might read in fiction. Henry II was given the task of saving the family company and with the team he built around himself he did an admirable job. The battles with Lee Iacocca may be slipping into ancient history, but it is still a very interesting story in the history of corporate governance. The recounting of Henry II's divorces and such may be fairly petty and is certainly not as important as his missing the real threat of the Japanese car companies.
   
   The book is now almost twenty years old, but it still has its merits.



2. The uniqueness of this book is that it focuses on the personalities of Henry Ford, his son Edsel and his granson, Henry II. The history of Ford Motor Company is presented as an outgrowth of these porsonalities. As a career Ford employee, it is my opinion that Ford Motor Co. has always reflected the personalities of those in charge to a somewhat greater extent than other large corporations. So the author's approach is particularly appropriate. And it works well. This is an absorbing book for anyone with an interest in the Ford family in relation to the growth and decline of Ford Motor Company and, motre widely, the business in the twentieth century.



3. 'The Fords: An American Epic' by David Horowitz & Peter Collier
   
   Horowitz & Collier deliver yet another superb narrative of one of America's historic, controversial and complex families. They have this genre down to a science.
   
   This is, without doubt, the best book on the Ford family I have read, and I've read a few. For an unbiased look at Henry's early tinkering in the garage to the perfection of the production line to his controversial stances on important world events, this book has no comparison. The strange inter-family relationships are broken down in detail and explained with clarity. The book focuses on family & business, which was no easy feat: Henry & Edsel's relationship; Lee Iacocca's influence on the Ford Motors; the return of "Hank the Deuce"; to Bill Ford's generation and more recent family activity.
   
   A wonderfully enjoyable read that is as detail laden as it is fast paced. An easy call for 5 stars!
   
   - JC

No comments about Artes de Mexico # 23. En el mundo de Luis Barragan / In the World of Luis Barragán.

4 comments about Stauffenberg: A Family History, 1905-1944.

1. Peter Hoffmann's biography of Stauffenberg is the best anyone is likely to write on the subject. The book comprehensively assesses all primary sources hitherto used by Stauffenberg's previous biographers, plus many additional sources which the author himself found. Hoffmann's previous books, among them 'THE HISTORY OF THE GERMAN RESISTANCE, 1933-1945', and 'HITLER'S PERSONAL SECURITY' serve as a foundation to this work which, all told, spans 30 years of scholarly research. As the depth and breadth of this study eclipses any other attempt to date, its conclusions are unassailably judicious. Thus, Hoffmann's 'STAUFFENBERG' has made perhaps the most definitive contribution to the historical field of resistance to the Third Reich.



2. Of the ten or so serious biographies on Stauffenberg, this will stand as the text to refer to for comprehensiveness and objectivity. The prose is clear, the questions of enduring interest are all answered, and the reader meets the man. Unreservedly recommended.



3. "Long live our holy Germany" were the last words of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg on the night of July 20, 1944. Peter Hoffmann's magnificient book is a salute to the Stauffenberg brothers and most importantly Claus von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg was the real thing, a man of deep Christian principles and extradionary courage who knew that the future of Germany was more important than his life and the life of his fellow conspirators. He made the ultimate sacrifice so that others could live in freedom. Stauffenberg is not only a hero of Germany, but of anyone on earth who loves freedom and respects the laws of God and humanity. Stauffenberg was Germany's guardian angel, who attempted to save his nation and slay the man he deemed "the antichrist." Doctor Hoffmann paints a wonderful picture of Stauffenberg's early life and military career. He then moves into minute detail of the plot to kill Hitler and the man whom fate had chosen to lead it. Simply a great scholastic achievement.



4. Aside from being the single man in history to make several (and one very famous) attempts on the life of Adolf Hitler, Claus Von Stauffenberg was a unique guy.
   
   Born in 1907 to Prussian aristocracy, Stauffenberg was playing the cello, reciting Shakespeare, and taking an interest in Catholic theology
   by the age of exactly 12. Had he made a career out of any of these three, his fate would have been less cruel. Claus Von Stauffenberg, though, was a born soldier.
   
   Ultimately becoming a General Staff officer in the German Abwehr, Stauffenberg and his brothers Berthold and Alexander still made considerable time for poet Stefan George, and were part of his "Secret Germany", a quasi-mystical poetic cult of sorts which worshipped George as "Master, and the three brothers were were prophesied by the poet manque as the future leaders of the Fatherland. Goethe, Holderlin, Rilke and Nietzsche were heralded as the predecessors of the movement. The problem with the entire affair was that George was not very talented and his literary salon was composed mostly of teenage boys.
   
   Despite George, the slow but sure rise of the Third Reich (which, like most Germans, Stauffenberg initially welcomed and his inevitable participation in nearly all of Germany's military campaigns, Claus Von Stauffenberg always retained an odd detachment from his surroundings and a sense of self which was very strong.
   
   The sheer wealth and richness of not only Stauffenberg's life, but the life of his wealthy and somewhat sheltered family--his career as a decorated soldier in the Wehrmacht, his prestige as a model, and as head of the General Staff office--makes his brutal death in front of the Bendleerstrasse in Germany a surreal and bizarre turn of events.
   
   Stauffenberg was aware of Germany's imminent defeat, yet as early as 1942 he was making some quit imprudent remarks about the Fuhrer: "In August 1942 Stauffenberg told Major Joachim Kuhn, a close friend, that the treatment of the Jews and other civilians was monstrous, *that Hitler had lied about the cause of the war*, and that he had to be removed. He then shouted: "They are shooting Jews in the masses. These crimes must not be allowed to continue!"
   
   Then in in another outbrust which later got him arrested, news of more atrocities sparked Stauffenberg to scream in front of SS and general staff alike:"Does not one German soldier have the courage to shoot that pig?"
   
   Attempt after attempt failed; Stauffenberg was regularly seen carrying a "remarkably plump briefcase" (as Albert Speer put it) to three different meetings in Hitler's "Wolf's Lair" in Prussia. Once Hitler did not show up: the second time Stauffenberg's incompetent superiors instructed him to not to set the fuse, and the third time the bomb exploded and by sheer chance did not kill Hitler.
   
   Even in the face of the Gestapo's considerable wrath, Stauffenberg did his best to get the coup de'etat to to succeed. In a most fortunate turn of events for Stauffenberg, probably, a General Staff officer involved in the plot turned on the other plotters and had a handful of them, Claus included, shot on the night of July 20, 1944.
   
   Why? Why was such a priviliged and wealthy figure in the German army who would certainly never have been charged with war crimes choose to sacrifice his life, the life of his family and friends, in an attempt so tenuous and fraught with uncertainty?
   
   The answer, I think, lies in Stauffenberg's unbelievable bravery, sense of common decency, and Christian background. Without these things he may indeed have been a terrifying force for the Third Reich. He could no longer stomach what was going on around him. Peter Hoffmann here gives the definitive biography of this heroic man who embodies perhaps the most inspiring example of "what might have been" in history. A must read.

No comments about Macmillan (British Prime Ministers of the 20th Century) (Life&Times).

No comments about Mussolini (Routledge Historical Biographies).