About this Item
Power, General Thomas S.
Design for Survival
New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1965.
First edition, second impression. Presentation copy from General Thomas S. Power to Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Portal of Hungerford.
A remarkable Cold War presentation copy from one hard-edged architect of strategic air power to another. Thomas Sarsfield Power was Commander-in-Chief of Strategic Air Command from 1957 to 1964, succeeding Curtis LeMay and presiding over SAC at the height of the missile, bomber and nuclear-alert age. He had commanded B-29s from Guam in 1945, and on 9 March that year led and directed the first large-scale firebombing raid on Tokyo, one of the most devastating air attacks of the war. He later served during the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, took part in Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll, and helped build SAC into the airborne instrument of American nuclear deterrence.
Octavo. Original black cloth, gilt titles to spine, Strategic Air Command device stamped in gilt to the upper board, in the original blue printed dust jacket. Inscribed on the front free endpaper: ?Lord Portal of Hungerford / Keep the Free World Strong / Thomas Power / Gen USAF (Ret).?
Lord Portal was Britain?s wartime Chief of the Air Staff, the RAF?s supreme strategic air commander, and after 1945 an important figure in Britain?s atomic-energy administration. The connection is therefore unusually powerful: Power?s book on nuclear deterrence and Western survival, personally inscribed to the British air commander whose own career moved from wartime strategic bombing into the atomic age.
The inscription, ?Keep the Free World Strong,? gives the copy a striking immediacy. Written in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis and amid intense Cold War debate over deterrence, bombers, missiles and Western resolve, the phrase feels sharply prescient today, when nuclear risk, military preparedness and the defence of democratic alliances are again urgent public questions.
A very well-preserved copy. The black cloth remains clean and sharp, the gilt bright, the binding firm, and the contents clean with only light natural toning. The original dust jacket shows rubbing, light marking and minor edge wear, but presents strongly. A compelling presentation copy with exceptional Portal provenance and unusually direct Cold War resonance.
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