Customer Reviews

Fail Safe

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The arms race takes a turn for the worst as a nuclear strike is accidentally started. The fate of millions depends on the diplomacy of the highest echelons of government and the act of one man. It all seems like a bad movie plot now but thirty years ago, this was the fear in the hearts of all. I read this book in 1982 when the nuclear threat was still quite real but nowhere near as intense as it was during the early 60's. You'll finish reading this book wondering, "Were we ever this close to the end of the world?". The greatest horror stories are the ones that could actually happen. As dated as it is, Eugene Burdick still manages to take you on a wild ride to the Apocalypse.

Although somewhat dated, "Fail-Safe" is a taught novel that ranks among the best Cold War thrillers. The characters have real depth, and the writing moves at a brisk, tense...but not hurried pace. In fact, the authors do such an excellent job of cranking up the tension in one long, slow pull, I felt almost physically drained upon finishing it.

Of particular note, the authors have succeeded in writing a novel that operates on two levels. In the tradition of "On the Beach" by Shute, "Fail-Safe" is both a gripping novel, and a thoughtful commentary on the almost absurd politics of the Cold War. The authors examine what was at the time a very real concern about the hair-trigger between peace and global destruction; the concern that machines were supplanting humans. In so doing they reveal more about the mentality of the Cold War than many works of history.

In the end, "Fail-Safe" does a superb job of capturing the terror of the Cold War. It succeeds as both a thriller, and as a work of thought provoking literature. Enjoy!

I had read this book maybe 40 years ago when I was in school. I recommended it to my 17 year old son for a book report in light of all the conflicts in our world today. He not only was "in awe" after reading the book, he got an A on his report. If you read the book, follow it up with the movie... the original (black and white) NOT the remake! Larry Hagman plays the role of Buck superbly!!!!!

A fictionalized, but chillingly realistic depiction of the men and machines who nearly brought the world to extinction during the height of the Cold War. An unidentified blip approaching North America appears on an automated tracking system. Is this the long-feared attack, or just another in an endless series of false alarms? Rather than find out after it's too late, the bombers are once again sent out, none of them certain if it's just another drill, or the real thing. But this time a mechanical failure in the automated system causes the bombers to go beyond their Fail Safe points, past which there is no return. Should we go ahead and launch an incapacitating first strike, since retaliation is assured anyway? Or do we help the enemy to shoot down our own planes, hoping to avert nuclear holocaust?

Among the cast of spare-drawn characters is Peter Buck, a natural linguist who is the White House's Russian translator despite his acute disinterest in politics, General Bogan, commanding officer of the information center known as the War Room, Colonel Cascio, who can't quite escape the poverty of his working-class roots, Lieutenant Colonel Grady, commander of a group of Vindicator bombers, and the President, who is faced with a situation that could win the Cold War - or destroy human civilization. The action takes place amidst the bomber group and in the War Room, but especially in the calculating minds of the men charged with making the most dangerous of all possible decisions.

As one might expect from a forty-year-old novel, the technology is rather out of date, but the moral lesson is as strong as ever. Every system, no matter how redundant, will eventually break down, making nuclear weapons far too dangerous to keep around. The president's final, grim decision is a lesson in moral courage, but even that may be insufficient in the dangerous years ahead, as nuclear proliferation continues. Written very convincingly in simple and straightforward prose, this book is not so much an entertainment as a call for political action. Let's get rid of these things before it's too late for all of us.

Although it is now close to FORTY years old, "Fail-Safe" puts today's crop of political novelist to shame. A more compelling story has not been written.

The story is simple: a mechanical error send a group of U.S. Bombers towards the Soviet Union. The President tries mightily to recall them, in an effort to avoid the inevitable Soviet retaliation. He has to make an incredible sacrifice to keep the world from World War III.

Forget about the incredibly complex turns of my favorite writer of this genre, F. Forsyth. T. Clancy 's interwoven stories and mind numbing detail does not even come close to this simple, chilling story. Could it happen? Of course not, because of the fail-safe system. Or so they tell us...

Like Coke, this is the real thing.

I first read this book back in junior high school shortly after it had originally been published (I'm dating myself here). It was a cutting edge thriller then and the subsequent movie was Dr. Strangelove without the laughs. I read it again recently and while it pales pyrotechnically (and just plain technically) compared to Tom Clancy fare, it is a thrilling snapshot of the paranoia of the early 60's.

The ultimate "What if..." novel of the post-War era, FAIL-SAFE still holds up remarkably [and tragically] well in the post-9/11 era. Several critics have pointed up the political aspects of this book, but in a way this is more of a sci-fi novel in the sense that the technology of war would safeguard us against danger when the opposite is the truth: reliance upon technology is equally dangerous. Read this novel as a precursor to the film "War Games" or the t.v. movie of early 70s, "Colossus: The Forbin Project".

But even as political thriller, this book is still powerful. All the characters stand up well and are truly believeable. The plot and pacing are gripping. Considering Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler had had no real writing experience previous to FAIL-SAFE, it is just as compelling and well-crafted as anything written by Tom Clancy. That's how good this book is.

Rocco Dormarunno, author of THE FIVE POINTS

Fail Safe epitomized the dangers of the Cold War, and no less than Herman Kahn at the famous Hudson Institute think tank gave the novel's thesis even more credibility by predicting that every year there was a 2 percent chance of the U.S. and Soviet Union having a nuclear war. It was scary stuff, and as a young junior high student reading about the world for the first time, I ate it up, wondering if there was a future for the human race after all.

For many years, I was certain that the 35,000 nuclear weapons that the U.S. had built, along with the tens of thousands built by the Soviets at the height of the Cold War, were simply too impressive an arsenal not to lob at least a few of them at each other at some point, so no one was more surprised than I when nothing of the sort ever happened, not to mention the fact that the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962 was a harrowing recent memory for Americans. But fortunately the novel's prediction never occurred, but no book of the period surpassed Fail Safe's realistic portrayal of how such a catastrophic misshap might come to pass. Fail Safe was a taughtly written, tense, dramatic, and credible book that still packs a punch today, and who knows, maybe in an age of terrorism it might still turn out to be true some day after all?

By the way, Burdick was also the author of The Ugly American (not to be confused with Graham Greene's The Quiet American), a book whose central message about the dangers of cultural absolutism and cultural ignorance in the U.S. remain as valid as when the novel was published in 1958. This attitude continues to influence and drive U.S. foreign policy today, often with disastrous results, and the book is still worth reading for its cautionary message about the dangers of such ignorance.

I used this book for a very small group of high schoolers to satisfy an American Lit requirement as well as to introduce an American History unit on The Cold War. Excellent piece of lit. and a book that the boys could really get their teeth into.

This 1962 thriller is one of the most frightening novels ever penned. The story grips the readers with tension and fear after the U.S. accidentally launches a nuclear strike against Moscow. Can the bombers be called back before it's too late? What happens if they get thru and destroy the Soviet capital? The story is set in the White House and Pentagon, and occurs in the space of a few short hours - from the launching of the bombers due to false alarm, to frantic but unanswered calls that they return to base, to their terrifying approach to the Soviet capital. Readers feel as if they are on the scene, and we see in stark terms how tragedy can result from a combination of mistrust, miscalculations, and technological errors.

This fast-reading thriller by Eugene Burdick (1918-65) and Harvey Wheeler (1918-2004) captures the tenure of the Cold War - it was published the same year as the Cuban missile crisis. FAIL SAFE was also made into a solid 1964 film starring Henry Fonda and Walter Mathau.