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A review by rschmidt7
Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State by Garry Wills
3.0
Wills does a decent job exploring the growth of the presidency beyond its constitutional limits and beyond the original intent of the office, but he fails to follow through on his thesis that this massive growth of executive power has been derived primarily from the president's sole authority over "the Bomb".
Instead, what Wills actually ends up doing is presenting a case in which every president since Truman has relied on real, perceived, or invented crises to enhance their power. Some of these crises were bomb-related, but not all, or even most. While he begins with a look at Truman, his later chapters examine Reagan-era and Bush, Jr.-era usurpations that have little or nothing to do with nuclear weapons or nuclear crises. By about halfway through the book, Wills is no longer talking about "bomb power," so much as he is talking about "fear power"—scaring the hell out of the American people in order to enhance the scope of the executive branch.
I had hoped for a deeper examination of the presidency's use of nuclear threats, presidents' refusals to repudiate a US first strike, and Americans' erroneous views of the Bomb as an ultimate ace in the hole.
Instead, what Wills actually ends up doing is presenting a case in which every president since Truman has relied on real, perceived, or invented crises to enhance their power. Some of these crises were bomb-related, but not all, or even most. While he begins with a look at Truman, his later chapters examine Reagan-era and Bush, Jr.-era usurpations that have little or nothing to do with nuclear weapons or nuclear crises. By about halfway through the book, Wills is no longer talking about "bomb power," so much as he is talking about "fear power"—scaring the hell out of the American people in order to enhance the scope of the executive branch.
I had hoped for a deeper examination of the presidency's use of nuclear threats, presidents' refusals to repudiate a US first strike, and Americans' erroneous views of the Bomb as an ultimate ace in the hole.