The Dead Hand

The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy

By: David E. Hoffman

Narrated by: Bob Walter

Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

“A tour de force of investigative history.” —Steve Coll

The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill. In the last half of the twentieth century the two superpowers had perfected the science of mass destruction and possessed nuclear weapons with the combined power of a million Hiroshimas. What’s more, a Soviet biological warfare machine was ready to produce bacteria and viruses to sicken and kill millions.

In The Dead Hand, a thrilling narrative history drawing on new archives and original research and interviews, David E. Hoffman reveals how presidents, scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and spies confronted the danger and changed the course of history. The Dead Hand captures the inside story in both the United States and the Soviet Union, giving us an urgent and intimate account of the last decade of the arms race. With access to secret Kremlin documents, Hoffman chronicles Soviet internal deliberations that have long been hidden. He reveals that weapons designers in 1985 laid a massive “Star Wars” program on the desk of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to compete with President Reagan, but Gorbachev refused to build it. He unmasks the cover-up of the Soviet biological weapons program. He tells the exclusive story of one Soviet microbiologist’s quest to build a genetically engineered super-germ—it would cause a mild illness, a deceptive recovery, then a second, fatal attack. And he details the frightening history of the Doomsday Machine, known as the Dead Hand, which would launch a retaliatory nuclear strike if the Soviet leaders were wiped out. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the dangers remained. Soon rickety trains were hauling unsecured nuclear warheads across the Russian steppe; tons of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium lay unguarded in warehouses; and microbiologists and bomb designers were scavenging for food to feed their families. The Dead Hand offers fresh and startling insights into Reagan and Gorbachev, the two key figures of the end of the Cold War, and draws colorful, unforgettable portraits of many others who struggled, often valiantly, to save the world from the most terrifying weapons known to man.

©2009 David Hoffman (P)2009 Random House

Critic reviews

“Authoritative and chilling. . . . A readable, many-tentacled account of the decades-long military standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union. . . . The Dead Hand is deadly serious, but this story can verge on pitch-black comedy—Dr. Strangelove as updated by the Coen Brothers.”—The New York Times

“Revealing, alarming and compelling throughout. . . . This richly reported account vividly chronicles the insanity of the arms race. . . . Taut, crisply written. . . . The Dead Hand puts human faces on the bureaucracy of mutual assured destruction, even as it underscores the institutional inertia that drove this monster forward. . . . A fine book indeed.”—T. J. Stiles, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“In a compelling narrative packed with vivid detail and telling quotations, Hoffman tells the story of how Reagan and Gorbachev halted the arms race.”—The Times Literary Supplement

Scary

As someone who lived through the latter part of the Cold War, growing up in Alaska, the threat of first strike was very terrifying to me. It has stuck with me to this day. This book makes it all the scarier.

A grim tale of humanity at its worst

The utter insanity of an arms race to develop weapons to destroy humanity and eliminate life on the planet. The facts are set out in detail in a comprehensive coverage of the history of Cold War lunacy. An excellent book.

A must-read for modern history fans

It turns out the arms race is a great lense through which to tell the story of the Cold War. Lots of things I had a loose understanding or awareness of made whole. Lots of things I thought I knew made fresh. Lots of first and second-hand accounts given that make a point without any authorial moralizing. Excellent book.

Most Enlightening

I am a child of the cold war. I remember the duck and cover drills in elementary school, I worked in Civil Defense (volunteer) in the 70's and watched the Reagan assault on the evil empire. I've also visited Moscow on multiple occasions and considered that I was standing on a spot probably target by US missiles. I learned that the cold war was far more than nuclear bombs and missiles. The cold war included frightening experiments with biological warfare too. The Dead Hand lays bare the Soviet plans for biological warfare. The book enumerates errors and accidents along the way that cost lives.
The concept of a dead hand device is really only tangential to the book. It's full of real stories of soldiers, diplomats, and politicians who managed to keep the peace in an era of profound mistrust. You will be educated by this volume and I highly recommend it to you.

Good summary of Cold War excesses and wind down

This book has a good summary of the excesses of the Cold War arms race for both the USA and Soviet Union and focuses on efforts, successful and missteps, for arms reduction by all means (universal treaties, bi-lateral treaties, and unilateral disarmament, and covert espionage.

Try not to be so pessimistic

This book is a must read and I really don’t know how we have made it this far as a human race.

Nonfiction that Reads Like Fiction

So entertaining. Historically informative. Manages to cover 20 years of ground thoroughly. Learned much from the Russian perspective.

terrifying

a comprehensive and edifying review of the legacy of the cold war. As the author states, the cold war is over, but the problems created by it are far from gone

a glimpse from the other side

Fascinating subject matter bolstered by a great reading performance. Starting to go stale with the invasion of Ukraine.

Good Read, But No So Much About the Dead Hand

This book is a well-researched informative read, although the title is somewhat misleading: while the Dead Hand and nuclear weapons are covered, more detailed exposition is devoted to Soviet-era chemical and biological weapons programs and the relevant political/diplomatic events preceding and during the unraveling of the USSR. Reagan and Gorbachev are discussed at length, as is the history and operation of the Soviet anthrax program. Nuclear weapons and pre-1980 US-USSR relations and weapons programs are covered, but to a lesser extent than one might expect given the book's title.

Though my curiosity re: the dead hand hasn't been fully satiated, there are some fascinating details and insights in this book. The author has succeeded in shedding some new light on a topic shrouded in secrecy, and, as such, helped communicate the terrible nature of these weapons, the political dynamics that led to their creation, and the successes and failures of the mechanisms setup to curb their proliferation.