Vistica, Gregory L. Fall From Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy. New York: Simon & Schuster (Touchstone Edition), 1997. 478 pages.

Author Gregory Vistica, a reporter for Newsweek, tells us how the Navy brass really operates in the Pentagon. This book centers on John Lehman, Reagan's secretary of the Navy. Lehman was an egomaniacal infighter who destroyed anything that stood in the way of bigger battleships and bloated budgets. Tough-sounding flyboys such as Lehman were darlings to the fanged neocons who littered the Reagan years. A more sober analysis of the Soviet threat (which was already starting to rust in port), and of new threats from missile technology, might have saved billions. The subtitle for this book should have been, "Boys and Their Toys."

Then there were the scandals and morale problems. Vistica takes us behind the scenes of the Tailhook scandal, the Admiral Boorda suicide, the "Ill Wind" procurement scandal, the John Walker spy case (Walker gave the Soviets access to the Navy's secret communications for more than 17 years), the Iowa battleship explosion and cover-up, and the cruiser Vincennes, which shot down of an Iranian airliner and received combat action ribbons for killing all 290 civilians aboard. You won't find many heros in these pages; this is Reality Check time. It's unfortunate that it takes about two dozen investigative books from excellent journalists to balance out just one fake Tom Clancy thriller. Blame it on Hollywood culture and Pentagon corruption.
ISBN 0-684-83226-7

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