The intelligence failures exposed by the events of 9/11 and the missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have made one thing perfectly clear: change is needed in how the U.S. intelligence community operates. "Transforming U.S. Intelligence" argues that transforming intelligence requires as much a look to the future as to the past and a focus more on the art and practice of intelligence rather than on its bureaucratic arrangements. In fact, while the recent restructuring, including the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, may solve some problems, it has also created new ones. The authors of this volume agree that transforming policies and practices will be the most effective way to tackle future challenges facing the nation's security. This volume's contributors, who have served in intelligence agencies, the Departments of State or Defense, and the staffs of congressional oversight committees, bring their experience as insiders to bear in thoughtful and thought-provoking essays that address what such an overhaul of the system will require. In the first section, contributors discuss twenty-first-century security challenges and how the intelligence community can successfully defend U.S. national interests. The second section focuses on new technologies and modified policies that can increase the effectiveness of intelligence gathering and analysis. Finally, contributors consider management procedures that ensure the implementation of enhanced capabilities in practice. "Transforming U.S. Intelligence" supports the mandate of the new director of national intelligence by offering both careful analysis of existing strengths and weaknesses in U.S. intelligence and specific recommendations on how to fix its problems without harming its strengths. These recommendations, based on intimate knowledge of the way U.S. intelligence actually works, include suggestions for the creative mixing of technologies with new missions to bring about the transformation of U.S. intelligence without incurring unnecessary harm or expense. The goal is the creation of an intelligence community that can rapidly respond to developments in international politics, such as the emergence of nimble terrorist networks while reconciling national security requirements with the rights and liberties of American citizens.

Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945 is a path-breaking work that uses biographical techniques to test one of the most important and widely debated questions in international politics: Did the advent of the nuclear bomb prevent the Third World War? Many scholars and much conventional wisdom assumes that nuclear deterrence has prevented major power war since the end of the Second World War; this remains a principal tenet of US strategic policy today. Others challenge this assumption, and argue that major war would have been `obsolete' even without the bomb. This book tests these propositions by examining the careers of ten leading Cold War statesmen-Harry S Truman; John Foster Dulles; Dwight D. Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy; Josef Stalin; Nikita Krushchev; Mao Zedong; Winston Churchill; Charles De Gaulle; and Konrad Adenauer-and asking whether they viewed war, and its acceptability, differently after the advent of the bomb. The book's authors argue almost unanimously that nuclear weapons did have a significant effect on the thinking of these leading statesmen of the nuclear age, but a dissenting epilogue from John Mueller challenges this thesis.

Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Concise Edition

The closest most of us will ever come to being inside the Oval Office at a moment of crisis.

For sheer drama, this work of history may never be duplicated. The events of the Cuban Missile Crisis unfold in the actual words of President John F. Kennedy and his top advisers. Now available in a new, concise edition, this book retains its gripping sense of history in the making. 20 photographs.

"[A] splendid achievement, as powerful and exciting a book as one is likely to read this year...."—Barry Gewen, New York Times Book Review

"Gripping history."—Richard J. Tofel, Wall Street Journal

"[M]esmerizing. I was utterly fascinated....the best, fullest account of crisis yet and will remain so for decades to come."—Stephen E. Ambrose

"[A]s close as most people will ever get to being a fly on the wall during the discussions of leaders."—Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, James G. Blight

..". a valuable book of scholarly yet highly readable studies...every organist and anyone interested in the music of J. S. Bach should haveit." -- Early Keyboard Journal

..". a very perceptiveand informative guide... " -- Early Music

..". this bookis a must." -- The American Organist

..". invaluable andentertaining... " -- American Music Teacher

..". amongthe most important and accomplished studies on eighteenth-century performance. Itscomprehensiveness, clarity, and scholarship make it indispensable." --Performance Practice Review

In J. S. Bach as Organist, specialistsfrom six countries explore Bach's relationship to his favorite instrument during allperiods of his career. J. S. Bach as Organist is a book for scholars, performers, and students. Authoritative and wide-ranging.

Thrust into the presidency by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson immediately confronted the twin challenges of leading a nation in mourning while ensuring the continuity of government. As one of his first acts, Johnson ordered a secret taping system installed in the White House and began recording his telephone conversations. This three-volume boxed set continues the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs's acclaimed Presidential Recordings series, covering the time period between February 1, 1964, and May 31, 1964. During these dramatic months, LBJ launched his War on Poverty, questioned the viability of the U.S. policy in Vietnam, and deftly managed the progress of a historic civil rights bill through Congress.

Lyndon B. Johnson secretly recorded 700 hours of telephone conversations as president. With these three volumes, slipcased with audio DVD, the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs begins a groundbreaking series that will ultimately include annotated transcripts of all of Johnson's White House conversations. Covering the dramatic months of November 1963 through January 1964, these volumes depict a man coming to grips with the awesome responsibilities of the presidency while simultaneously trying to lead a nation and a government in mourning. Captured on tape are Johnson's efforts to conciliate the Kennedy family while putting his own imprint on the office. Abroad, he is consumed by a coup in Vietnam, a bloody anti-American riot in Panama, a near civil war in Cyprus, and persistent leaks from within his own administration. Domestically, he pushes forward the civil rights revolution and leads a single-minded drive to reduce the size of the federal budget to gain political room for his war on poverty. Texts with audio DVD

The most remarkable window that Americans have ever had into how their country is governed.

These volumes provide a unique glimpse into the real workings of the Kennedy White House, presenting perhaps the most reliable record of the Kennedy presidency ever published. In the summer of 1962, President John F. Kennedy installed a secret taping system in the White House. His aim was to record meetings and conversations he considered important, probably intending to use them when he wrote the memoir of his years in office, a book he never had the chance to write. The tapes are now being authoritatively transcribed, and those for the period from the installation of the tape system through October 28, 1962 (the end of the Cuban missile crisis), are presented here in their entirety.

Among the many highlights in these volumes, a fall in the stock market leads President Kennedy to consider a short-term tax break; a leak of highly classified intelligence information to the New York Times spurs Kennedy to confer with his advisers about how, for the first time, the White House might use the Central Intelligence Agency for domestic surveillance of American reporters; Kennedy tapes the tense hours as the White House dispatches the army to rescue James Meredith following Meredith's effort to enroll at the University of Mississippi; and, of course, the fascinating, secret discussions during the Cuban missile crisis.

The result is stunning, fly-on-the-wall history. Aided by the multimedia companion enclosed with this set on CD-ROM, anyone can now travel back in time and be there at the top of the most powerful government in the world in a time of crisis.

"It is hard to imagine a more instructive or exciting history than the presidential recordings of JFK's 'Great Crises.' The tense debate, the confusion, the insights, the jokes, the courage—it's all there, as it really happened. This is the true 'West Wing.'" —Evan Thomas

"The Great Crises is a treasure trove of new insights and information on three of the most promising and dangerous months in American history. These volumes will intrigue the general reader and keep historians working hard for a long time as we assess and reassess John Kennedy's presidency." —Michael Beschloss

"These volumes of presidential recordings both fascinate and illuminate. They show how John F. Kennedy reached his vital decisions, and they cast important new light on the conflicts of our times. This is history in the raw, and it is compelling." —Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

"There is nothing comparable to this multi-volume collection of presidential materials. This work is and will be an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the twentieth-century American presidency." —Robert Dallek