(Three different views of former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara are contained in the books reviewed below)
McNamara: His Ordeal in the Pentagon
Henry L Trewhitt. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. 307 pp. $7.95
Reviewed by Captain Clarence O. Fiske, U. S. Navy
(A naval aviator, Captain Fiske’s professional background includes polar operations, logistics, and politico-military planning, with graduate work at the University of Maryland. He served on the Joint Staff, Joint Chiefs of Staff Prior to reporting to his present assignment on the staff of the Naval War College. His book review also appeared in the November 1971 issue of the Marine Corps Gazette.)
For what is essentially a biography, McNamara reads with a novel-like fascination. Whatever one’s feelings may be about this most controversial and energetic man during his tenure as Secretary of Defense, both critic and admirer can expect a rewarding reading experience. The admirer will come to better understand the whole man, and the critic will get a heartwarming reexamination of the old-fashioned virtues of patriotism, devotion to duty, and loyalty. What is quite unusual in the “McNamara Monarchy” is that Robert S. McNamara presumed automatic loyalty from below (or quit) in his intense desire to provide loyalty upward to the two presidents he served.
For the students of strategy and top-level management and decision making, this book goes deeply into the development of the doctrine of flexible response and the transition from the John Foster Dulles concept of “massive retaliation.” Considering that both were based on the domino theory (the latter by intent, the former by application), it is little wonder that the storm of controversy broke, although the makers of both concepts anticipated calm seas and quiet waters.
The author, Henry L. Trewhitt, was a former defense correspondent for the Baltimore Sun and is now the diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek magazine. Considering the alleged hostility toward McNamara of Newsweek’s parent company, The Washington Post, one has no grounds to believe this work to be anything other than an objective analysis and abridged biography of the career of a very controversial public figure.
While the first three chapters are biographic in nature and relate to the pre-Pentagon days, the military reader will be largely interested in the remaining eight chapters which cover what has come to be known as the McNamara legacy. All of the major issues are there—civilian control over the military, the TFX, the FDL, ABM, Skybolt, new bombers, and nuclear aircraft carriers—and throughout it all, Vietnam—the early days, further U. S. involvement, the Tonkin Gulf incident, escalation, bombing of the North, the Pueblo—all are covered in fascinating detail. While there is but little that has not been said before, author Trewhitt, without access to the Pentagon papers, went to great length to interview many persons close to the top-level decisions made on these critical issues. Regrettably, only a few of these top sources are identified by name. One senses that McNamara’s intense sense of loyalty upward rubbed off on his associates. While they are willing (for various reasons) to state their views, only a very few permit their names to be used—despite the fervor of their views, they are still unwilling to openly espouse his cause or crucify his person.
For those who knew the Secretary in his Pentagon days as a fountainhead of ever-ready detailed facts, as an almost cynical, cold, and demanding figure, Trewhitt has done an excellent job in showing the reader the warmer, human, and philosophic side of our eighth Secretary of Defense. The author could be considered as an apologist for the McNamara years, but this reviewer found him to be most objective. Central to the work is the theme that once McNamara adopted the “. . . doctrine of graduated response, which he had shaped in great measure to his own specifications . . . ,” he found that doctrine to be “on trial.” Once both Presidents had adopted it, the Secretary found himself less convinced as a person of its validity, but staunchly devoted to it as a spokesman for the Administration. “To the extent that Vietnam did test the strategy, the strategy and its architects and executors were found wanting.” It had worked in Cuba—why did it fail in Vietnam?
While the author provides a sound answer to that question founded in the realm of politics and a misperception of the nature of guerrilla warfare, he builds an outstanding rationale, perhaps unintentional, which is closely akin to Kalus Knorr’s concept of the “will to win.” Trewhitt proves that the Viet Cong and the North had it, the U. S. public, and its allies, either never had it, or once demonstrated initially, soon lost it when the price in “blood and treasure” rose dramatically.
To arrive at a final conclusion on McNamara’s tenure in office, at least for contemporary times, the reader is urged also to study McNamara’s own explanation, The Essence of Security (1968) and the work of William W. Kaufmann, The McNamara Strategy (1964), both by Harper & Row.
In the past, this reviewer had always thought the five-day Arab-Israeli War was the best explanation of Knorr’s thesis on the will to win (War Potential of Nations, Princeton University Press, 1956). Henry Trewhitt has certainly updated that thesis, and the case study is the American society and Vietnam.
Decisions of Robert S. McNamara: A Study of the Role of the Secretary of Defense
James M. Roherty. Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, 223 pp. $7.95
Reviewed by Lieutenant Alexander G. Monroe, U. S. Naval Reserve
(Lieutenant Monroe received a B.A. degree with distinction in 1964 from the University of Virginia. Following graduation, he served on active duty as a watch and division officer on board the USS Aucilla (AO-56), and then in the Amphibious Force. After his release from active duty in 1967, he attended graduate school at the College of William and Mary and was awarded an M.A. degree in government two years later. He is presently executive officer of the Naval Reserve Military Training Division 5-14(M) and assistant to the President of the University Center in Virginia.)
In what must be one of the first works on this active though admittedly turbulent period, James Roherty performs a needed function, namely placing the stewardship of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in its proper political perspective. His book concentrates not on faulting the conception and execution of McNamara’s program, but rather on specifying his place in a continuum of Secretaries who, in Roherty’s view, are nothing more than bureau leaders, responsible for the development and execution of an enormously complex and expensive enterprise of obvious importance. Though Roherty is scrupulously fair to McNamara and his decisions, the thesis of his work is implicitly plain—the ideal incumbent of this post will be a “politician.” This term, in the author’s view, is not opprobrious and denotes a man “. . . whose conclusions are the result of bargaining with a plurality of interests whose standing he recognizes and accepts. . . .”
In several painstakingly-researched, but nonetheless fascinating chapters, Roherty sets forth the statutory history of the Defense Department, but more importantly, he conveys an accurate sense of the political atmosphere of different administrations in which the Department was established and has grown. There was, for example, in James Forrestal’s mind the necessity for a strong civilian secretary, if for no other reason than to prevent domination of national security by parochial Army interests. Robert Lovett was concerned with the proper use of civilian and military executive skills. An important consideration during the Eisenhower years was the fact of a Chief Executive with vast military experience and clear ideas regarding the substance of national security programs and policies. Thus, an appropriate secretarial skill in these times became administrative supervision that could be exercised by someone such as Neil McElroy, who the author designates, “. . . the mild-mannered man from Cincinnati.” The Secretary’s role has, in the author’s view, been largely defined by the role-player’s conception of himself.
From this historical sketch, Roherty develops the theory that Secretaries may be, for the most part, characterized as either “generalists,” or, “functionalists.” The former, of whom Thomas Gates, Jr., is a fine exemplar, were eminently competent negotiators, men whose broad education and vocational experience qualified them as conciliators. The “functionalists,” of whom Neil McElroy is an example, were pre-occupied with the efficient operation of a program that had been determined by outside sources.
Robert McNamara, Roherty contends, does not correspond to either of the images that he presents. He was not a generalist because he refused to accept the role of a politician, and he was not a functionalist because he was preoccupied with both the development and the execution of all aspects of the country’s defense enterprise. This preoccupation is evidenced by the development of a great variety of scenarios or situations in which it might be necessary to apply military force and a “program structure” for the defense effort.
Professor Roherty maintains that McNamara operated with little or no regard for the “political” realities of his post, and to support this contention, he discusses two situations—the controversy surrounding the building of the advanced manned strategic bomber and the gyrations associated with the construction of a conventionally-powered USS John F. Kennedy (CVA-67). The former case involved the Secretary’s conviction that continued emphasis on manned strategic aircraft was inadvisable and the Air Force’s failure to supply factual data to refute this judgment. The second involved a situation in which McNamara rejected factual studies on the question of nuclear power, but more importantly, from a political standpoint, failed to set his bureaucratic house in order.
The Navy, Roherty argues, should have been direct and forthright with the question of a nuclear carrier, insisting from the very onset of the situation that the ship be nuclear-powered. The Defense Secretary was, however, less than candid in responding to Congressional inquiries into the matter, and furthermore, appeared to ignore the considerable favorable advice of professional Navy men. The most serious defect in the Secretary’s handling of the situation was in his “political” behavior. Two days after he directed the Navy to begin construction on the Kennedy, a Deputy Secretary wrote to Senator John Pastore, stipulating that a decision with respect to the ship’s propulsion system had not been made.
The situation concerning the carrier is important, because it is the author’s opinion that it demonstrates McNamara’s reliance on economic data with little consideration for external factors; i.e., judgments of operating personnel, considerations of propulsion of the Fleet in the future, or the desires of Congressional leaders whose appropriations actions are influenced by the demeanor of bureau leaders as well as their decisions. Even when the Secretary announced the construction of a nuclear carrier, CVAN-68, he explicitly based his decision on new “cost studies,” and not views of the traditional role-players.
There are a number of other elements that ought not to go unnoticed in this book. Though it stresses the primacy of negotiation among various role-players, it recognizes the continuity of the Defense effort, if not of all governmental endeavors. We live in a time in which certain academicians, political figures, and ordinary citizens have criticized defense spending in terms that have alleged a heinous conspiracy. Roherty extracts a statement from McNamara that these critics might be well-advised to ponder:
. . . it is idle . . . to argue which administration is entitled to credit for this or that particular system. Let it be said once and for all that the weapons systems entering our forces today are to a great extent based on technology created during the prior administration and even the administration before that . . . .
Roherty thus implicitly argues that in an age of advancing technology, there will be risks in developing means for the execution of an obvious governmental function, that they must be borne, and that finally, all of the traditional role-players must be represented. This reviewer can find no valid reason to reject the thesis of this well-reasoned, and thoroughly-documented explanation of the primacy of politics in this vital governmental function.
How Much Is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program, 1961-1969
Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, New York: Harper and Row, 1971. 364 pp. $8.95.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Robert J. Massey, U. S. Navy (Retired)
(Lieutenant Commander Massey, a naval aviator during both World War II and the Korean War, holds a B. A. degree from San Diego State College, and a M. A. and Ph.D. in Public Administration from The American University. Presently a consultant in defense research and development management, he was a student of defense management and defense institutions during the period covered by the book.)
How Much is Enough? is an important book, competently executed, and well written. Most readers, however, will probably find it more than a little irritating. While some readers may expect to find an objective report by competent, first-hand participants—which the authors were—the book is actually skilled pleading for one side in what the authors view as “adversary proceedings” before the jury of history.
Alain Enthoven came to the Department of Defense from the RAND Corporation a few months before the advent of the McNamara era to help institutionalize ideas in Hitch and McKean’s book, Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Era. Enthoven rose rapidly in the esteem of McNamara, gaining influence, and power. In 1965, the office he headed was elevated to the status of Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (Systems Analysis). K. Wayne Smith was his special assistant and is now an assistant to Dr. Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s assistant for National Security Affairs.
The authors state frankly the partisan nature of their book in its preface:
This book was written . . . to make a case for what we believe to be the proper role of the Secretary of Defense . . . [and] to increase public understanding of the uses of analysis in defense decision making and to help build support for its increased use.
The authors do a credible job of pleading their case, selecting favorable facts and arguments, and omitting or shaping those which might detract. In their case, the authors represent three “clients:” Robert McNamara, the man and his place in history; the concept of “systems analysis” as a way of looking at problems; and the institution of “Systems Analysis” as an organization and contender for, and wielder of, power at the Secretary of Defense level.
The “opposition” in this historical adversary proceedings is the Services, or as they put it, the “Service bureaucracies.” They argue that while individual Service members are competent, patriotic, dedicated, and the like, that institutional limitations and biases force the Services to policies and positions which would deflower the national interest unless restrained by some countervailing power, such as the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis.
In building their case, the authors make almost no concessions concerning the person and causes they champion and concede almost no virtue to the opponents.
Concerning major decisions during their regime—judgments now considered less than brilliant—things such as the TFX and Vietnam did not, in Navy idiom, happen on their watch. The giant C-5A, with its well-publicized cost overruns was really a success, and they maintain that the total package concept is valid.
Their case that “. . . institutional factors working against the national interest in the defense establishment . . .” make it impossible for the Services to either perceive or pursue the common good, is reflected throughout the argument. The following are four examples:
(a) Each Service emphasizes its own mission at the expense of joint missions.
(b) One of the main traits of career military officers is a preoccupation with means rather than ends.
(c) It would have cost an officer his career to speak out, even within the confines of the Defense Department, against the views of his Chief of Staff.
(d) The history of the 1950s shows clearly that under financial pressure the Services will seek to keep the prestige items—the major combat units and the glamorous weapons systems—and cut back the unglamorous support items essential to readiness. The result is the hollow shell of military capability, not the substance.
To sum up, How Much is Enough? does an excellent job of what its authors set out to do—plead a case. In so doing, they have provided selected facts and tailored arguments concerning an important period in the history of defense management. The book cannot be ignored by any conscientious scholar studying or writing about the issues with which it deals.
But what is to be said for the other side? It would be a shame to “send the case to the jury” without ever hearing the case in rebuttal.
Professional Reading
Compiled by Robert A. Lambert, Associate Editor
Battle Class Destroyers
Peter Hodges. London: Almark, 1971. 64 pp. Illus. $4.50.
Covering design, layout, fittings, weapons, and service careers, this is a detailed pictorial account of the Royal Navy’s final destroyer class built in the “traditional” destroyer style.
The Battle of Saratoga
Rupert Furneaux. New York: Stein & Day, 1971. 304 pp. Illus. 17.95.
The personalities of the chief participants on the battlefield—Burgoyne, Arnold, Gates—and behind the scenes—Germain, Howe, Schuyler—are in the forefront of this reconstruction of the campaign that saved the American Revolution.
Battle of the Ruhr Pocket
Charles Whiting. New York: Ballantine, 1971. 160 pp. Illus. $1.00 (paper).
A history is presented of the battle which completely broke the power of the German army to continue the war on the Western Front.
The Black Devil of the Bayous
Edwin M. Jameson and Sanford Sternlicht. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Gregg Press, 1970. 205 pp. Illus. $15.00.
Poorly written for the most part, certainly much over-priced, is this biography of the steam sloop Hartford, victor at New Orleans and Mobile, but victim of time at Norfolk where she was broken up in 1957.
The British Seaman
Christopher Lloyd. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970. 319 pp. Illus. $9.50.
The danger, disease, squalor, cruelty, and corruption that were a seaman’s lot in the Royal Navy from the Middle Ages to the mid-19th century are described in this sociological tract.
The Case Against a Volunteer Army
Harry A. Marmion. Chicago: Quadrangle, 1971. 107 pp. $1.95 (paper).
While a fair summary of the arguments on both sides of this vital question is presented, the conclusions seem to be rooted more in emotion than in logic.
Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865
Naval History Division, Navy Department. Washington, DC.: U S. Government Printing Office, 1971. 1,090 pp. Illus. $9.75.
With some minor changes, this important reference, originally published as six separate parts between 1961 and 1966, has been brought together as one volume.
Disaster Log of Ships
Jim Gibbs. Seattle, Wash.: Superior, 1971. 176 pp. Illus. $12.95.
Photographs and text in this large-format volume record the hundreds of shipwrecks that have occurred along the Pacific coast from Baja, California, to Alaska.
Divine Thunder
Bernard Millot. New York: McCall, 1971. 243 pp. Illus. $7.95.
The religious, cultural, and historical threads of the kamikaze motivation are woven through this excellent account of Japanese suicide tactics in World War II.
The European Discovery of America
Samuel Eliot Morison. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. 712 pp. Illus. $15.00.
The northern voyages of Ericsson, Cabot, Verazzano, Cartier, Frobisher, Raleigh, and others, both factual and fictional, are the subjects of this lively history combining humor and scholarship in dissecting tall tales, bogus charts and maps, piecing together details of actual discoveries, and delving into the ethnic controversies that constantly surround America’s discovery. Recommended.
Flying Leathernecks in World War II
Thomas E. Doll. Fallbrook. Calif.: Aero, 1971. 94 pp. Illus. $3.95 (paper).
Beginning with the year 1940, this album presents a pictorial review of the BG-1s, SOC-3s, F3Fs, TBFs, F4Us, and many other aircraft flown by the Marine Corps.
40 Days with the Enemy
Richard Dudman. New York: Liveright, 1971. 182 pp. $5.95.
The Washington Bureau Chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, tells of his experiences as a Viet Cong captive during the 1970 American invasion of Cambodia.
Freshwater Whales
Richard J. Wright. Kent, O.: The Kent State University Press, 1969. 299 pp. Illus. $9.00.
Shipbuilding and shipping on the Great Lakes from the late 19th century to the present, is seen through the history of the American Ship Building Company.
The Frigates
James Henderson. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1971. 192 pp. Illus. $5.50.
A facile writing style enhances the fast-paced action of these small warships that figured so large in the naval engagements in the years from 1793 to 1815.
The Future of South Vietnam
F. P. Serong. New York: National Strategic Information Center, 1971. 67 pp. No price given (paper).
A scenario for the end of the war followed by economic and political growth within the framework of the present form of government is presented.
Grande Dizionario di Marina
M. Bernabo Siloratz and F. Picchi. Salerno, Italy: Di Mauro, 1970. 963 pp. Illus. No price given.
For the person who has everything—an English-Italian maritime dictionary.
Hitler
Alan Wykes. New York: Ballantine, 1971. 160 pp. Illus. $1.00 (paper).
Advanced, incurable syphilis, with its effects of irrationality, irresponsibility and intemperance of speech and action, is the strongly-argued thesis offered for Hitler’s meglomaniac behaviour in this interesting treatment of his life.
Illustrated History of World War I in the Air
Stanley Ulanoff. New York: Arco, 1971. 171 pp. Illus. $8.95.
Lafayette Escadrille, Red Baron, Sopwith Camel, Fokker, the first air-to-air missile, the first airborne torpedo—all are part of this chronicle of a turning point in military history. Presented with 68 black-and-white and 23 colored illustrations.
Marine Salvage
Joseph N. Gores. New York: Doubleday, 1971. 525 pp. Illus. $12.50.
Although it is loaded with interesting technical details of salvage operations, this is not a textbook as might be implied by the title. Rather, the book is an anecdotal case history of this long, and sometimes not-so-honorable, profession that seeks to make a profit from the sea’s vagaries and man’s blunders.
The Merchant Shipping Code of the USSR (1968)
William E. Butler and John B. Quigley, Jr. (eds.). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970. 169 pp. $9.00.
Corresponding roughly to the domain of admiralty law in the United States, this is a comprehensive statement of Soviet civil and administrative law governing maritime transport and shipping; including, in certain situations, warships.
New Guinea
John Vader. New York: Ballantine, 1971. 160 pp. Illus. $1.00 (paper).
In the festering swamps and sodden jungles, the Japanese lost 100,000 men in their campaign whose purpose was to achieve supremacy in the Coral Sea. This is the story of the Australian-American effort to stop the Japanese who had not known defeat until that campaign.
The North Staffordshire Regiment
H. C. B. Cook. New York: Hillary House, 1971. 135 pp. Illus. $6.50.
This slim history tells of a regiment whose units have served in every corner of the world, including several well-known battles in the American Revolution, since its formation in 1758.
Oceans, Poles and Airmen
Richard Montague. New York: Random, 1971. 307 pp. Illus. $6.95.
The long-gone era of first flights over the oceans and the poles is remembered by a newspaperman who knew many of those pioneer flyers. There are several critical pieces concerning Byrd’s flight over the North Pole, which the author claims to be a complete fraud.
Of Rivers and the Sea
Herbert E. French. New York: Putnam, 1970. 318 pp. $6.95.
Man’s use of, and involvement with, water—lakes, springs, rivers, fountains, glaciers, exploration, industry, agriculture, bathing, bathrooms—is the subject of this highly anecdotal and entertaining discussion.
Operation Rescue
Heather David. New York: Pinnacle Books, 1971. 191 pp. Illus. $1.25 (paper).
With a short introduction by H. Ross Perot, this is an account of the attempted rescue of American POWs thought to be held in the North Vietnamese camp at Son Tay.
The Pacific: Then and Now
Bruce Bahrenburg. New York: Putnam, 1971. 318 pp. Illus. $7.95.
Nostalgia and contemporary journalism are brought together in this survey of World War II battlefields from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. In the already cited Battleground South Pacific, photographs are paramount, while in this treatment, pictures are incidental. While the two books vary in format, and in scope, their conclusions are the same—the native cultures of most Pacific islands have steadily decayed since the war’s end.
Present and Future Civil Uses of Underwater Sound
Committee on Underwater Telecommunication. Washington, DC.: National Academy of Sciences, 1970. 129 pp. Illus. $3.50. (paper).
Technical papers and committee reports summarize the growing problems in the underwater world, draw conclusions and make recommendations on a wide range of topics, including among others signaling methods, emergency communications, frequency use, allocation, and regulation.
Radar and Electronic Navigation
G. J. Sonnenberg. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970. 312 pp. Illus. $15.00.
For this fourth edition, a chapter has been added on satellite location systems and inertial navigation methods. Existing chapters on the Decca and Loran systems have been expanded.
The Royal Army Service Corps
Graeme Crew. New York: Hillary House, 1971. 320 pp. Illus. $7.50.
No reckless charges, no valiant last stands, just steady, unglamorous endurance, keeping supplies moving to the combat front is the historical lot of this unsung unit, covered in this latest of the Famous Regiments Series.
Search for Franklin
Leslie H. Neatby. New York: Walker, 1970. 281 pp. Illus. $7.50.
The several late 19th century searches for the famous polar explorer Sir John Franklin are the subject of this account.
Ships of the Navy 1775-1969 Volume 1: Combat Vessels
K. Jack Bauer. Troy, N.Y.: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1970. 359 pp. $10.00 (paper).
Gathered from official records, private papers and museum collections, this solid piece of research displays in abbreviated form individual statistics on the major vessels of the U. S. Navy, past and present.
Soviet Russia and the Middle East
Aaron S. Klieman. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970. 107 pp. $2.45 (paper).
A survey of Russia’s historic interest in this crucial area.
The Soviet Union and the Law of the Sea
William E. Butler. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971. 245 pp. $12.00.
Strictly for the legal specialist is this treatise, which sees the Soviet approach to international law as less manipulative, opportunistic, and selfish than popularly believed and more in the nature of traditional, sophisticated, and world-community oriented. All aspects are not covered; specifically, law of the sea in time of war is completely omitted.
Steam at Sea
K. T. Rowland. New York: Praeger, 1970. 240 pp. Illus. $8.00.
Numerous photographs and drawings aid this chronological account of the steamship’s development, tracing the achievements of individual men, and analyzing the important inventions that made steam development possible.
“There She Blows”
Ben-Ezra Stiles Ely. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1971. 208 pp. Illus. $6.95.
Primarily, this is an account of the author’s whaling experiences written in 1844 when he was about 20 years old. Illustrations and a biographical introduction, as well as notes on the text have been added by the editor, Curtis Dahl, great-grandson of the greenhorn sailor.
Travel Guide for Servicemen
Joseph K. Taussig, III, and Dorothy P. Taussig. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1971. 160 pp. Illus. $2.95 (paper).
A detailed guide to nearly 500 military bases in the United States with information on services and facilities available for transient servicemen and their families.
Underwater Acoustics
Leon W. Camp. New York: Wiley, 1970. 308 pp. Illus. $17.50.
This is a textbook concerned with the design and evaluation of equipment used in underwater communication and in data transfer.
The Uses of Talent
Dael Wolfle. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. 204 pp. Illus. $6.50.
Looking at the uses and abuses of high-talent manpower in the United States, the book analyzes ways in which this country educates and employs its brighter men and women. Administrative planning is advocated in order to avoid overspecialization and wasteful use of the professional labor force. While the emphasis is on civilian factors, the application to the military is obvious.
Usque ad Mare
Thomas E. Appleton. Ottawa, Canada: Department of Transport, 1968. 318 pp. Illus. $10.00.
This is a history of the Canadian Coast Guard and Marine Services.
The War for a Persian Lady
Barbara English. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971. 192 pp. Illus. $4.95.
The last war fought by the East Indian Company, 1856, is told as a comic-opera farce in which incompetence by British military leaders is more than matched by their Persian opponents. The British victory did, however, take its place in a growing imperial strategy that secured India’s northwest frontier.
The War with Cape Horn
Alan Villiers. New York: Scribner’s, 1971. 338 pp. Illus. $10.00.
Drawing on his own experience, on interviews with old shipmasters, and on original ships’ logs, an exciting account of the voyages of the great square-riggers fighting to round Cape Horn is presented. The pictures equal the narration in interest.
RE-ISSUES
The Great Age of Sail
Joseph Jobe (ed.). New York: Viking [1967] 1971. 267 pp. Illus. $16.95.
Slightly reduced in format size from the original publication; otherwise the same illustrations and editorially unabridged.
Knots and Lines
Paul and Arthur Snyder. Tuckahoe, N.Y.: John de Graff [1967], 1970. 103 pp. Illus. $6.95.
The Rise of New York Port [1815-1860]
Robert Greenhalgh Albion. New York: Scribner’s [1939], 1970. 481 pp. Illus. $15.00.
South Street: A Maritime History of New York
Richard C. McKay. Riverside, Conn.: 7C’s Press [1934], 1969. 460 pp. Illus. $9.95.
Panzer Battles
Maj. Gen. F. W. von Mellenthin. New York: Ballantine [1956], 1971. 458 pp. Illus. $1.65 (paper).
Uniforms of the American, British, French and German Armies in the of the American Revolution 1776-1783
Old Greenwich, Conn.: WE Inc. [1926], 1971. 289 pp. Illus. $8.00.
All illustrations are black and white.