Dr. Strangelove, I Presume [Hardcover]

Michael Foot (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

In May 1998, India resumed the underground testing of nuclear weapons. Pakistan responded with tests of its own, and all of a sudden the arms race was on again. Not that it ever stopped—China, Israel, Iran, and Iraq have been pursuing weapons-building programs, and the ultimate horror of nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists draws ever near. In this book, Michael Foot looks back over 40 years of fighting the nuclear menace and surveys the world scene at the close of the 20th century as a warning of the continuing danger of building weapons of mass destruction.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 241 pages
• Publisher: Gollancz (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0575066938
• ISBN-13: 978-0575066939
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,557,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Power Paki, May 15, 2002

By 

chazeem "pakpwr" (Corsicana, Tx United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dr. Strangelove, I Presume (Hardcover)

Mr. Foot did extensive research before writing the book. Its a good book to read if u want to read the nuclear history and development of the weapons in South Asia. Although the author leans highly toward the Indian case and tries to white wash any and all of their acts, a criitcally aware reader can easily see through it. Recomended to all.

4.0 out of 5 stars Worrying look at post war (dis)armament, April 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dr. Strangelove, I Presume (Hardcover)

Foot's central subject in Dr Strangelove I presume is India and Pakistan, and the events which led to the 1998 nuclear tests. His key assertion is that the spread of nuclear weapons beyond former USSR to countries like India and Pakistan has its roots in a tragic misjudgment by the US, UK and others at the height of the Cold War, of the true political aims of the non-aligned nations. India may not have kow towed to the US as a regional ally, as Pakistan did, but the neither did she seek the backing of the USSR - and certainly not of her aggressor to the north, communist China. Like the best histories, Dr Strangelove is more than a trip down memory lane - it explains the present. India, as Foot carefully charts, sought to safety in the international rule of law, and attempted - a sort of Sweden of the South - to act as honest broker in a heated international climate where the world bungled its way to the brink of destruction too many times. The US `logic' which met these activities was, put simply, `If you are not unquestioningly for us, you must be dead-set against.' A view surely contradicted by the crowds who greeted Eisenhower on his 1958 visit - where he was feted as the leader of the same liberal America which had just defeated fascism. Still, it was an indifferent world which noted the Chinese Invasion of Goa in 1962, and India's diplomatic and military weakness weighed on Prime Minister Nehru's mind to his dying day. International indifference to India's welfare, Foot argues, played its own part in pushing India, and other country's to seek the `safety' of a nuclear umbrella of its own.

Throughout Dr Strangelove Foot quotes from the worryingly simplistic series of briefs which shaped the post-war world: a case in point is Eisenhower's brief on Kashmir, "The bulk of whose population is Muslim, like Pakistan's. It is controlled by India, a Hindu nation, and heated feelings remain from the bloody skirmishes between Indians and Pakistanis for control." Foot's own contention that, "India could offer better safety and protection for Muslims than Pakistan itself." could form the basis of an entirely separate, not to say controversial, text. Still, Foot clearly knows India, and her post-war leaders well, and like many born into a colonial world, he has a grasp of the tensions and personalities involved which any front-bencher, including the current Foreign Secretary, clearly struggle to match.

As background to the story of the Indian sub-continent, Dr Strangelove deals with a number of subjects. There are over-lengthy attempts to correct the `misconceptions' surrounding the Labour party and CND's unilateralist thinking of 1983, and Foot's description of his and Denis Healey's trips abroad are made to sound like shuttle diplomacy, with a centrality to historical events, which they clearly did not have. Lengthy quotes from old CND newsletters are, on balance marginally less useful than Foot's insights into regional power politics. He goes on to do better though.

Aside from events on the Indian sub-continent, the direct link Foot makes between the failure of the official nuclear powers to meaningfully promote any kind of disarmament and the proliferation of the weapons world-wide is the most convincing theme of Dr Strangelove. As Foot recalls, in the early `80s, fresh Cruise and Pershing programmes were being commissioned by Nato as the Salt II agreement was being ratified. And he has a point - the original proliferation of the weapons has impacted on our own more complex world. When countries like Belarus have 36 warheads, managing the balance of power becomes a trickier act - a point better recognised in recent James Bond screen plays than by the topically inactive George Robertson.

Where I wanted a clearer steer from Dr Strangelove was on the future prospects of a safer nuclear world, and here Foot is weaker - a little too taken up with the past. Inspection is key to any level of disarmament, and he enthuses over the achievements of the UN inspectors' work in Iraq. The UN Charter and the creaking structures of the UN, as Foot points out, remain the best way forward for a safer world. But otherwise, his sources are a little old. CND, for example, is clearly an inadequate standard bearer in the 1990s, even for Foot's brand of decency. Dr Strangelove is essentially a history, but like all the best histories, is a tool for comprehending the present.