Using newly released documents, the author presents an integrated look at American nuclear policy and diplomacy in crises from the Berlin blockade to Vietnam. The book answers the question why, when the atomic bomb had been used with such devastating effect against the Japanese Empire in 1945, American leaders put this most apocalyptic of weapons back on the shelf, never to be used again in anger. It documents the myopia of Potomac strategists in involving the U.S. in wars of attrition in Korea and Southeast Asia, marginal areas where American vital interests were in no way endangered....

"The Long Wait "examines the history of the United States' dealings with the United Kingdom on nuclear matters in the first dozen years following the Second World War. Chief among the issues analyzed are whether to share nuclear information, know-how, and technology with the British; whether to cooperate in the control and allocation of critical raw and nuclear materials, whether to grant the British any right of consultation on use of American nuclear bombers based in Britain, and on what terms to introduce into Britain American intermediate range nuclear-tipped missiles.