Reflections of a Technocrat - Managing Defense, Air, and Space Programs During the Cold War

Reflections of a Technocrat - Managing Defense, Air, and Space Programs During the Cold War
Author: John L. McLucas
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2012-08-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781479181100

Reflections of a Technocrat is an autobiography that ends as a biography. John McLucas died on the first of December 2002, at the age of 82, with all but the last chapter remaining to be started. He had been preparing to do a memoir, on and off, for many years, but only in the late 1990s, as declining health caused him to cut back on other commitments, did he devote a large part of his energies to getting the job done. To help complete this project, he engaged me—Ken Alnwick—a retired Air Force pilot and defense analyst, and my associate, Larry Benson, a recently retired Air Force historian. We are both grateful for the opportunity of getting to know John and his gracious wife, Harriet, as well as to research and help write about the many people, institutions, technical achievements, and national security issues with which he was associated. Chief among his numerous affiliations was the US Air Force. He began his civilian career with the Army Air Forces right after World War II and continued to advance the Air Force mission as a reserve officer, defense contractor, government executive, and valued consultant for the rest of the century. Not long before John died, he and Harriet decided the time had come to move out of their spacious home in Alexandria, Virginia, to a more manageable apartment in The Fairfax, a pleasant retirement community at nearby Fort Belvoir. In anticipation of the move, John decided to donate the bulk of his papers, professional library, and much of his memorabilia to two schools he admired: the Air Force Academy and Embry- Riddle Aeronautical University, with additional papers offered to the Comsat Alumni Association. His files helped shed light on every phase of his career up to and including recent activities as a director at Orbital Sciences Corporation, chairman of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation, trustee of the Air Force Historical Foundation, and contributing member of several other public service organizations. The process was not easy. Each dusty box released a flood of memories as we went through the agonizing process of deciding what to keep, what to send to the repositories, what to give away, and what to relegate to recycling bins or the county landfill.

Reflections of a Technocrat

Reflections of a Technocrat
Author: Air University Press
Publisher:
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2017-05-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781521273814

Reflections of a Technocrat is an autobiography that ends as a biography. John McLucas died on the first of December 2002, at the age of 82, with all but the last chapter remaining to be started. He had been preparing to do a memoir, on and off, for many years, but only in the late 1990s, as declining health caused him to cut back on other commitments, did he devote a large part of his energies to getting the job done. To help complete this project, he engaged me - Ken Alnwick - a retired Air Force pilot and defense analyst, and my associate, Larry Benson, a recently retired Air Force historian. His career choices led him into a wider variety of scientific, technical, and defense management positions than almost any of his contemporaries. In the field of aviation, for example, John was the only person to have held the positions of both secretary of the Air Force and administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. As someone who had a great respect for history, he wanted to add to the record of what had transpired during his tenure in these and other important positions and to share his perspectives on what it meant to lead technology-oriented organizations. He was also a staunch advocate for the peaceful and unifying aspects of space endeavors and saw this book as another venue to espouse this cause, which had engaged him for over two decades and been the theme of his previous book, Space Commerce. John McLucas accrued almost 50 years' experience on both sides of the government procurement table. From that perspective, he also hoped to analyze various acquisition strategies, such as the value of prototyping (which he had employed with great success to bring the A-10 and F-16 aircraft to fruition) and a willingness to accept risks when appropriate. As preparations for the book proceeded, he conducted numerous interviews with senior active duty and retired defense officials on the subject of acquisition reform. He was never quite able, however, to coalesce this research into a more comprehensive theory for the defense acquisition process beyond his passionate support for competitive "fly-offs" of major weapon systems and for reinvigorating the roles of the service secretaries and their military chiefs as a counterpoint to what he saw as an unhealthy concentration of power in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Contents: Chapter 1 - From Country Boy to Company President * Chapter 2 - Career Broadening in Science and Technology * Chapter 3 - My Air Force Years People and Politics * Chapter 4 - Modernizing the Force - New Systems for Future Air Supremacy * Chapter 5 - What Can Now Be Told - The National Reconnaissance and Air Force Space Programs * Chapter 6 - Facing Other Issues-Overseas and at Home * Chapter 7 - Managing Civil Aviation and Commercial Space Programs * Chapter 8 - Promoting Space, Science, and Technology

At the Abyss

At the Abyss
Author: Thomas Reed
Publisher: Presidio Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307414620

“The Cold War . . . was a fight to the death,” notes Thomas C. Reed, “fought with bayonets, napalm, and high-tech weaponry of every sort—save one. It was not fought with nuclear weapons.” With global powers now engaged in cataclysmic encounters, there is no more important time for this essential, epic account of the past half century, the tense years when the world trembled At the Abyss. Written by an author who rose from military officer to administration insider, this is a vivid, unvarnished view of America’s fight against Communism, from the end of WWII to the closing of the Strategic Air Command, a work as full of human interest as history, rich characters as bloody conflict. Among the unforgettable figures who devised weaponry, dictated policy, or deviously spied and subverted: Whittaker Chambers—the translator whose book, Witness, started the hunt for bigger game: Communists in our government; Lavrenti Beria—the head of the Soviet nuclear weapons program who apparently killed Joseph Stalin; Col. Ed Hall—the leader of America’s advanced missile system, whose own brother was a Soviet spy; Adm. James Stockwell—the prisoner of war and eventual vice presidential candidate who kept his terrible secret from the Vietnamese for eight long years; Nancy Reagan—the “Queen of Hearts,” who was both loving wife and instigator of palace intrigue in her husband’s White House. From Eisenhower’s decision to beat the Russians at their own game, to the “Missile Gap” of the Kennedy Era, to Reagan’s vow to “lean on the Soviets until they go broke”—all the pivotal events of the period are portrayed in new and stunning detail with information only someone on the front lines and in backrooms could know. Yet At the Abyss is more than a riveting and comprehensive recounting. It is a cautionary tale for our time, a revelation of how, “those years . . . came to be known as the Cold War, not World War III.”

Black Hearts

Black Hearts
Author: Jim Frederick
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2010-02-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307450988

“Riveting. . . a testament to a misconceived war, and to the ease with which ordinary men, under certain conditions, can transform into monsters.”—New York Times Book Review This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment—a unit known as “the Black Heart Brigade.” Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq’s so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the country’s most dangerous location at its most dangerous time. Hit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks, suffering from a particularly heavy death toll, and enduring a chronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heart platoon—1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion—descended, over their year-long tour of duty, into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality. Four 1st Platoon soldiers would perpetrate one of the most heinous war crimes U.S. forces have committed during the Iraq War—the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. Three other 1st Platoon soldiers would be overrun at a remote outpost—one killed immediately and two taken from the scene, their mutilated corpses found days later booby-trapped with explosives. Black Hearts is an unflinching account of the epic, tragic deployment of 1st Platoon. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with Black Heart soldiers and first-hand reporting from the Triangle of Death, Black Hearts is a timeless story about men in combat and the fragility of character in the savage crucible of warfare. But it is also a timely warning of new dangers emerging in the way American soldiers are led on the battlefields of the twenty-first century.

101 Life Skills Games for Children

101 Life Skills Games for Children
Author: Bernie Badegruber
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2011-01-01
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 089793590X

How do you teach tolerance, self-awareness, and responsibility? How can you help children deal with fear, mistrust, or aggression? Play a game with them! Games are an ideal way to help children develop social and emotional skills; they are exciting, relaxing, and fun. 101 LIFE SKILLS GAMES FOR CHILDREN: LEARNING, GROWING, GETTING ALONG (Ages 6-12) is a resource that can help children understand and deal with problems that arise in daily interactions with other children and adults. These games help children develop social and emotional skills and enhance self-awareness. The games address the following issues: dependence, aggression, fear, resentment, disability, accusations, boasting, honesty, flexibility, patience, secrets, conscience, inhibitions, stereotypes, noise, lying, performance, closeness, weaknesses, self confidence, fun, reassurance, love, respect, integrating a new classmate, group conflict. Organized in three main chapters: (I-Games, You-Games and We-Games), the book is well structured and easily accessible. It specifies an objective for every game, gives step-by-step instructions, and offers questions for reflection. It provides possible variations for each game, examples, tips, and ideas for role plays. Each game contains references to appropriate follow-up games and is illustrated with charming drawings.

Space Commerce

Space Commerce
Author: John L. McLucas
Publisher:
Total Pages: 258
Release: 1991
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Space Commerce relates the story of private enterprise's unsteady rise to prominence as a major influence on world space policy and research. The first space race proved the technological and military prowess of the two superpowers; but since the 1970s that contest has been supplanted by a multinational struggle to command the commercial opportunities of space. The commercial space age was born in 1965 when Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite, went into orbit. With characteristic ingenuity, American industrialists began to dream of garnering billions of dollars per year from space-based products and services. In the microgravity of space, they hoped, hitherto unavailable drugs could be produced that would revolutionize medicine; in the high vacuum of space, crystals of extreme purity could be grown in orbital laboratories, both for biological research and for application in the manufacture of advanced microcircuits. In this book John McLucas covers the broad sweep of space commerce, both the vision and the reality: the construction of communications satellites and their ground control stations; the sale and leasing of communications services; remote sensing and measurement of earth's processes; navigation by satellites, serving ships, airplanes, and automobiles; the design and deployment of space laboratories for scientific research and product development; and life science experiments to determine the effects of space habitation on humans. Drawing on his considerable expertise, McLucas brings a sober perspective to his assessment of the technological accomplishments as well as the challenges still faced by industry in space. He incorporates into his discussion an illuminating analysis of the economic and political impact of space commerce and its rapidly changing international character.