Tuesday, July 7, 2020

The Fifth Horseman, by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre


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really liked it
bookshelves: terrorism

So in the Libyan fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
Said when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
With our own feathers, not by others' hands
Are we now smitten
 --Aeschylus (quoted at p. 378)

The history books tell us that, when Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi surrendered his 30-year nuclear program in 2004, his program had "remained in very early initial, developmental stages."

But what if Qaddafi had succeeded in his nuclear ambitions--succeeded beyond his wildest dreams? This thriller offers a thoroughly detailed and believable scenario, wherein the Libyan dictator smuggled a 3 megaton H-bomb into New York City. Qaddafi threatens to detonate the nightmare weapon, unless Israelis evacuate their "settlements," and allow the "right to return" to Palestinians.

The book makes for an exciting read, and is an absorbing book, on account of the authors' 4 years of research to detail the book with a number of "open secret" details:

page 34: The essential workings of the hydrogen bomb, with a reference to the Charles Hansen letter of 1979, offering more details (if anyone's interested) :P

pages 123-132: A detailed description of the "fail safe" procedures of an Israeli pre-emptive nuclear strike on Libya. In the book, the strike is aborted at the last minute.

page 151: A reference to the US "Doomsday Plane".

pages 195-199: The detailed effects of a 3 megaton groundburst detonated at the heart of New York City

pages 211, 242-250, 294-297, 337-338: Discussion of the feasibility of evacuation of New York City. The book refers to a document, "The Feasibility of Crisis Relocation in the Northeast United States," which is a very real document

pages 330-333: How to divert plutonium from a nuclear reactor

Needless to say, this is a deeply interesting, suspenseful and well-crafted thriller.

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