Someone Is Out to Get Us

September 15, 2019
A pop-history chronicle of fear and distrust during the Cold War years. In this sprawling, anecdote-laden account, journalist and Emmy Award-winning TV producer Brown (Ring Force, 2012, etc.) recalls the most outlandish moments of the years 1946 to 1989, when geopolitical tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union dominated world events. The period pitted "capitalism versus communism, the God-fearing versus the atheists, the force of light battling the forces of darkness," writes the author, producing a paranoia reflected in the final warning of Hollywood's The Thing From Another World (1951): "Keep watching the skies!" The resulting four-decade drama, spurred by the "overhyped menace of communism," included the Truman loyalty program, the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, and the arms and space races, with an incendiary cast including Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Richard Nixon, and many others. All of this will be familiar to most readers. Writing with plenty of attitude ("The men in the Kremlin were running a bullshit factory"), Brown lumps together colorful, disparate moments of the period--e.g., UFO sightings, the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, FBI claims of a communist plot behind the movie It's a Wonderful Life, and the Cuban missile crisis--in ways that seem more exploitive than illuminating. Quotes from serious historians offer some perspective, but Brown's eye is on the sheer spectacle of noisy conflicts and controversies. He sometimes swerves off course to discuss violence (from Dirty Harry to Charles Manson), supernatural terror (The Exorcist), and magical thinking (the Bermuda Triangle) as well as air disasters, gas shortages, and other calamities of the period. These matters apparently popped up during his extensive online research, conducted while "wearing sweats, picking my nose [and] noshing on pretzels." Diverting but ultimately tiresome--not be confused with a true history of the Cold War.

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October 21, 2019
Novelist and documentarian Brown (Ring Force) delivers a vivid revisionist history of the Cold War, redefining the period from the end of WWII to the fall of the Berlin Wall as a “compendium of misconceptions, fallacies, frauds, comedies, tragedies, lies, and deceits.” Arguing that the Soviet Union was much weaker than the American public was led to believe, Brown details how the Cold War distorted U.S. politics. His examples include FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s creation of an “illegal” surveillance state; the laundering of the reputations of Nazi doctors and scientists so they could research mind control and biological warfare for the U.S. military; McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist; the “domino theory” that led to the Vietnam War; the “unconscionable waste” of the “heedless” nuclear arms race; and the CIA’s destabilization of democratically elected governments in Guatemala and Iran. After paying close attention to the first two decades of the Cold War, Brown breezes through the rest of the 1960s and the 1970s before crediting “once-in-a-millennium” Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for thawing relations with the West by ending the arms race. A closer look at what was happening behind the Iron Curtain would help Brown to make his case that the U.S.S.R. wasn’t the threat it seemed to be, but his selective portrait of U.S. government misbehavior will shock many readers and confirm others’ worst suspicions.

February 28, 2020

Brown (Ring Force) offers up a binge-worthy, popcorn-flavored exploration of some of the Cold War's darkest and most sensational episodes. This is not a work of serious history (Wikipedia is openly quoted in the bibliography); instead, it is well suited to satisfy the appetites of hungry armchair historians and conspiracy enthusiasts, providing vivid glimpses into dark struggles of the past in brief and digestible episodic chunks. In introducing his book, Brown posits that stories about the Cold War are at best "incomplete" and at worst "horribly wrong." What follows is the "true and complete account" of this period, presenting what the author claims is a "cautionary tale pointing to a misguided and troubling legacy of humiliation and hubris." Individual chapters feature Cold War-era favorites such as atomic weapons, the birth of Containment, Operation Paperclip, UFOs, George Orwell's Animal Farm, the Cambridge Five, and McCarthyism. Transparent political punditry and the occasional personal reminisce perplex what would otherwise stand as a regaling read. Unnecessarily crude language appears throughout. VERDICT All told, Brown delivers a tantalizing, stranger-than-fiction collection guaranteed to entertain. For fans of the History Channel and similar historical adventures.--Philip Shackelford, South Arkansas Community Coll., El Dorado

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October 1, 2019
Brown's history covers the years between 1942 and 1984, when spies stole plans for the atomic bomb and war-hungry generals itched for a chance to use it. Readers will discover how vulnerable U.S. presidents were during this time, relying on advisers' intelligence reports and having to make life-altering decisions based upon them. That Russia's economy was in ruins and Japan was preparing to surrender add dimension to the decisions that were ultimately made. In other words, Brown makes clear that there was no good guys or bad guys in any scenario; rather, readers will understand how U.S. military and political leaders dealt in obfuscation, subterfuge, and ambiguity. Historical figures like the Rosenbergs, Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, Roy Cohn, Kim Philby, Nikita Krushchev, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon make appearances, and the list goes on until the fall of the Soviet Union. Readers who love Cold War-era U.S. history will glom onto Brown's book, even if they come away agreeing with the old Pogo comic strip: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)