Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage

NY: Simon & Schuster. Near Fine in Very Good+ dust wrapper. 2003. First US Edition. Hardcover. 441 pages. A lovely copy. Spine head bumped; unclipped dust wrapper faintly edgeworn and lightly rubbed.; <b>'During the early and most dangerous years of the cold war, a handful of Americans, led by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, revolutionized spying and warfare. In great secrecy and beyond the prying eyes of Congress and the press, they built exotic new machines that opened up theSoviet Union to surveillance and protected the United States from surprise nuclear attack. This is the dramatic story of these men and their inventions, told in full for the first time. <p>In a brief period of explosive, top-secret innovation during the 1950s, a small group of scientists, engineers, businessmen, and government officials rewrote the book on airplane design and led the nation into outer space. In an effort no less audacious than the creation of the atomic bomb, they designed, built, and operated the U-2 and supersonic SR-71 spy planes and Corona, the first reconnaissance satellites -- machines that could collect more information about the Soviet Union's weapons in a day than an army of spies could assemble in a decade.'</b> .