Page 52 - Australian Defence Magazine - June 2018

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NO FRONT LINE
AUSTRALIA’S SPECIAL FORCES AT WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
By Chris Masters
Published by Allen & Unwin RRP $34.99 in paperback ISBN 9781760111144
Chris Masters is highly regarded as an investigative journalist. This book has been 10 years in the making with Masters having been given unprecedented access to all levels of Australia’s Special Forces, becoming the first and only reporter to be embedded with Australian Special Forces
THE GHOST
THE SECRET LIFE OF CIA SPYMASTER JAMES JESUS ANGLETON
By Jefferson Morley Published by Scribe Publications
RRP $35.00 in paperback ISBN 9781925322606 James Jesus Angleton was CIA counter-intelligence chief from 1954 to 1975. His tenure as America’s spymaster covered the period of Cold War intrigue (he grew close to Kim Philby) and the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Remarkably,
in Afghanistan. What he lays before the reader, to use his own words, is “as tough an investigative mission as I’ve ever undertaken”. His detailed descriptions of engagements are revealing as he recounts each phase of Australia’s involvement in a war in which distinguishing friend from
foe is a constant challenge.
By the ADF’s own estimation, Masters writes, “not since WWI have Australians engaged in such intense and sustained conflict. If personnel did become desensitized
it is not surprising”. As problems emerged, it was the stories of misbehaviour and misdemeanours that made headlines. Yet the legacy for those who served is carried by “a narrow cohort now largely disconnected from the broad community” in circumstances where “the outcome is not [a matter of] national survival accentuates doubts about cost, risk and moral comfort.”
as Morley notes, whatever Angleton’s reaction to the event, he did not “commit his thoughts to paper” having generated no known reports or analyses on Oswald. Later it was revealed that the CIA failed to disclose their plots to kill Castro thus compromising the integrity of the Warren Commission’s investigation into the assassination. Angleton, says Morley, failed disastrously as counter- intelligence chief over the cover up. He almost certainly had “a granular knowledge of Oswald long before Kennedy was killed”. By mid 1960s Morley describes Angleton as reigning as “the Machiavelli of the new American national security state”. Despite the shortcomings of his tenure, there was no high-level penetration of the CIA on Angleton’s watch, asserts Morley, who describes him as ingenious and vicious yet brilliant.
THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE
CONFESSIONS OF A NUCLEAR WAR PLANNER
By Daniel Ellsberg Published by Bloomsbury RRP $39.99 in hardback ISBN 9781608196708 Recently featured in the film The Post, Daniel Ellsberg was a high level defence analyst who leaked 7,000 pages of secret documents on the Vietnam War (the Pentagon Papers), revealing vital information that had been kept from the American public. What is not widely known is
YOUNG HITLER
THE MAKING OF THE FUHRER
By Paul Ham
Published by William Heinemann
RRP $32.99 in hardback ISBN 9780143786559 Despite being studied extensively, Adolf Hitler remains an enigma to
many historians. In Young Hitler, Paul Ham examines Hitler’s early life. Unlike many returning soldiers from WWI, Ham says “Hitler thrilled to battle, refused
to accept defeat and fell
into the darkest slough of
that he simultaneously copied 8,000 pages of even more highly classified material about nuclear war plans which he also intended to leak. What emerges now, years later, is an insider’s account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization. He writes in detail about the Cuban missile crisis which eventually saw Khrushchev back down amid assurances the US would not overthrow the Cuban government. Ellsberg has produced a compelling memoir of an insider’s account of what a nuclear strike really means and just how urgent it is
that nuclear disarmament
be taken seriously. In his
final chapter he writes of his regret at not releasing the documents about nuclear war planning that he had copied and then lost. He now urges potential whistleblowers to come forward to raise public awareness of this awful threat.
despond at the Armistice”. If this assessment is accurate, then it is not difficult to understand why Hitler was driven to avenge what he perceived as Germany’s unjust treatment under the Treaty of Versailles. Ham argues, however, that Hitler was more the opportunist who took advantage of the catastrophic conditions in the post war years than a natural born leader. The time was ripe for the emergence of a saviour who would make Germany great again and Hitler possessed the necessary traits to assume this role. Ham believes, along with the acclaimed historian Ian Kershaw, that “what happened under Hitler is unimaginable without
the experience of WWI and what followed it”. Ham concludes that “Hitler was an extreme example of a recurring and dangerous type of political animal.”
52 | June 2018 | www.australiandefence.com.au
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