Assignment Pentagon: The Insider's Guide to the Potomac Puzzle Palace (Ausa Book) (Hardcover)

by Perry M. Smith (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
"The Kind of answers you'd get in an informal conversation with an old Pentagon hand." Armed Forces Journal International. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 271 pages
• Publisher: Pergamon-Brassey; 1st edition (May 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0080367194
• ISBN-13: 978-0080367194
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,233,151 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for understanding the Pentagon's inner workings, March 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Assignment Pentagon: The Insider's Guide to the Potomac Puzzle Palace (An Ausa Book) (Paperback)

As an Air Force Captain currently assigned to the Pentagon, I've found this book to be invaluable in understanding how the pieces fit together in the Puzzle Palace. I read it once before arriving and have re-read several sections during my tenure in the Pentagon. I anxiously await Gen. Smith's next update.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An invaluable source for analysis of the DoD, August 22, 1998

By	(Jeffrey A. Liss) [e-mail] "monupics" (Baltimore, Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Assignment Pentagon: The Insider's Guide to the Potomac Puzzle Palace (An Ausa Book) (Paperback)

Assignment Pentagon: An fascinating, almost voyeuristic, look into the world behind those five-sided walls, this book is invaluable for officers newly posted to ground zero of the DoD bureaucracy. I read it as a college student studying international relations and the formulation of U.S. foreign/defense policy and found it essential for understanding the unique culture that operates at the Department of Defense. Anyone who wants to understand how the world's largest office building, and the bureaucracy it supports, really works should read this book. Its lessons and observations are applicable to most corporate environment, and I could easily see Assignment Pentagon, or some adaptation thereof, becoming the "Art of War" of the next decade.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Survive in the Puzzle Palace, April 28, 2001

By	"[e-mail]" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Assignment Pentagon: The Insider's Guide to the Potomac Puzzle Palace (An Ausa Book) (Paperback)

If you ever wondered about what it is like to work inside the Pentagon, or what it takes to work on a high level staff, then this book is for you. Although primarily written for Pentagon staffers, this book applies to all staffers at all levels of the military and civilian/private sector. Not a whole lot of theory, just a lot of good, first-hand experience and common sense. This book helped me in previous assignments, and now I refer to it often while assigned to the Pentagon.