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First Strike #2
Finding Designated Ground Zero
Finding Designated Ground Zero, a fact-based historical novel, is the second book of The First Strike the U-2 spy plane soaring 70,000 feet above the earth well out of the reach of Soviet SAMs until May 1, 1960, when Francis Gary Powers was shot down near Sverdlovsk shaking the Eisenhower administration's plans for detente and moving the two superpowers ever closer to a nuclear confrontation.
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia Office of Director Allen W. DullesApril 21, 1960Richard Bissell, deep in thought, paced back and forth in front of Director Dulles's desk as he read the Post. "The Soviets cannot have hundreds of ICBMs that Air Force intelligence is claiming," Bissell stated. "The question is, how can I convince you of this? If I don't, LeMay and Power will manufacture a situation that gives Ike no option but to launch a nuclear war. Allen, you and I both know that Soviet ICBMS have to be liquid-fueled with millions of gallons of RP-1 kerosene and LOX. The only way to deliver that fuel is by rail. Other than the Semipalatinsk and Baikonur-Tyuratam areas, there is insufficient rail service to fuel those missiles, and we have found a total of two launch pads in those areas."Dulles gazed up from his newspaper. Why is this guy always trying to push me into a confrontation with the politicos? Does he want my job? Bissell continued. "You've seen the drafts of SIOP-62. It calls for us to deliver more than 3,200 nuclear weapons to 1,060 Designated Ground Zeroes in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe with a death toll estimated in the hundreds of millions. Look at what happened to Nagasaki. We're going to use three 80-kiloton weapons on a city that size. That's fifteen times the explosive power of Fat Man, and you saw what that did." Dulles turned to the Sports section. Bissell knew the discussion was over. SIOP-62 was presented to Secretary of Defense Thomas Gates on December 1, 1960. The attack would be launched from 112 bases around the world. It was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on December 2, 1960, and became effective on April 15, 1961, a few months after President Kennedy took office. The military saw a preemptive window. JFK's civilian scientific advisers had to convince him of the danger to the entire planet if such a plan were implemented. CIA Unofficial "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia Office of Director Allen W. DullesApril 21, 1960Richard Bissell, deep in thought, paced back and forth in front of Director Dulles's desk as he read the Post. "The Soviets cannot have hundreds of ICBMs that Air Force intelligence is claiming," Bissell stated. "The question is, how can I convince you of this? If I don't, LeMay and Power will manufacture a situation that gives Ike no option but to launch a nuclear war. Allen, you and I both know that Soviet ICBMS have to be liquid-fueled with millions of gallons of RP-1 kerosene and LOX. The only way to deliver that fuel is by rail. Other than the Semipalatinsk and Baikonur-Tyuratam areas, there is insufficient rail service to fuel those missiles, and we have found a total of two launch pads in those areas."Dulles gazed up from his newspaper. Why is this guy always trying to push me into a confrontation with the politicos? Does he want my job? Bissell continued. "You've seen the drafts of SIOP-62. It calls for us to deliver more than 3,200 nuclear weapons to 1,060 Designated Ground Zeroes in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe with a death toll estimated in the hundreds of millions. Look at what happened to Nagasaki. We're going to use three 80-kiloton weapons on a city that size. That's fifteen times the explosive power of Fat Man, and you saw what that did." Dulles turned to the Sports section. Bissell knew the discussion was over. SIOP-62 was presented to Secretary of Defense Thomas Gates on December 1, 1960. The attack would be launched from 112 bases around the world. It was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on December 2, 1960, and became effective on April 15, 1961, a few months after President Kennedy took office. The military saw a preemptive window. JFK's civilian scientific advisers had to convince him of the danger to the entire planet if such a plan were implemented. CIA Unofficial "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
282 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 26, 2023
18 people are currently reading
3326 people want to read
About the author
Thomas J. Yeggy
8 books49 followersThomas J. Yeggy has undergraduate degrees in English and psychology. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law and practiced law in Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island, Illinois, for many years. He served as the mental health and substance abuse judge for Scott County, Iowa, for more than 25 years. In that position he developed a keen understanding of the difficulties that everyday life presents regardless of social or economic status. As a judge, he authored more than 1,500 opinions, and only one was reversed by the appellate courts. Thomas was also a licensed Series 7 broker at Beyer & Company Investments in Davenport, Iowa, for more than two decades.
Yeggy’s interest in the development and control of nuclear weapons goes back to images he once saw of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With his keen insight into the nature of humankind and their proclivity to use violence as a problem-solving mechanism, he wondered how we had made it through crisis after crisis without destroying ourselves. In 1992, when Robert McNamara stated that we had made it through the Cuban Missile Crisis with “just plain dumb luck,” Yeggy decided to investigate just how lucky we have been. He explains what he found in this First Strike series. We have been incredibly lucky, but it may not continue.
Thomas currently resides in Pensacola Beach, Florida, with his wife, Eileen, and spends summers back in Davenport with his grandchildren, Jeff and Ashley Brown. You can usually find Thomas and Eileen at Emesis Park in Davenport on a late summer afternoon running with their granddogs, Otis and Emme.
Yeggy’s interest in the development and control of nuclear weapons goes back to images he once saw of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With his keen insight into the nature of humankind and their proclivity to use violence as a problem-solving mechanism, he wondered how we had made it through crisis after crisis without destroying ourselves. In 1992, when Robert McNamara stated that we had made it through the Cuban Missile Crisis with “just plain dumb luck,” Yeggy decided to investigate just how lucky we have been. He explains what he found in this First Strike series. We have been incredibly lucky, but it may not continue.
Thomas currently resides in Pensacola Beach, Florida, with his wife, Eileen, and spends summers back in Davenport with his grandchildren, Jeff and Ashley Brown. You can usually find Thomas and Eileen at Emesis Park in Davenport on a late summer afternoon running with their granddogs, Otis and Emme.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 13, 2024
This is a historical fiction book, but it reads more like non-fiction. Definitely well researched and the author has lots of knowledge. But it was a bit too technical for me and didn't feel like a story. It is pretty scary to read about that time at the beginning of the Cold War and realize how close we came to a major nuclear issue. I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
March 16, 2024
I have finished the first two books in Thomas Yeggy’s First Strike series. This is a historical fiction series following the development and deployment of nuclear weapons in WWII and Cold War. Book 1 is Mushroom Cloud and is set from the start of WWII to the death of Stalin. Book 2 is Finding Designated Ground Zero and is set from the death of Stalin to JFK’s assassination.
I found these two books to very interesting and covers the political and military discussions around the development and deployment of nuclear weapons. The story is primarily set in a conference room and an interrogation of Dr. Caleb Young by William Forde of the FBI. The setting is about one year after the JFK assassination. The books go back and forth in time between the events discussed during the interview and the interactions of the two main characters in the conference room.
The fictional Dr. Caleb Young was a physicist who served in the U.S. State Department and the CIA during his career. He was also a member of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, NM. He has kept daily journals of his meetings and major events during his government service. He references the documents during the interrogation. He participated in high level discussions with the White House, military, espionage services, and foreign governments during his service.
The story line through these two books is well documented and footnote references to a number of government documents. As a reader who is interested in the cold war, this was a very interesting series to read. To anyone with similar interests regarding the policy development during the cold war, this is a very good novel to further your understanding of the series of events that occurred during this period of history.
I received these two books through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. I found them to very good and have purchased the third book in the series. I strongly recommend these books to anyone who likes historical fiction.
I found these two books to very interesting and covers the political and military discussions around the development and deployment of nuclear weapons. The story is primarily set in a conference room and an interrogation of Dr. Caleb Young by William Forde of the FBI. The setting is about one year after the JFK assassination. The books go back and forth in time between the events discussed during the interview and the interactions of the two main characters in the conference room.
The fictional Dr. Caleb Young was a physicist who served in the U.S. State Department and the CIA during his career. He was also a member of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, NM. He has kept daily journals of his meetings and major events during his government service. He references the documents during the interrogation. He participated in high level discussions with the White House, military, espionage services, and foreign governments during his service.
The story line through these two books is well documented and footnote references to a number of government documents. As a reader who is interested in the cold war, this was a very interesting series to read. To anyone with similar interests regarding the policy development during the cold war, this is a very good novel to further your understanding of the series of events that occurred during this period of history.
I received these two books through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. I found them to very good and have purchased the third book in the series. I strongly recommend these books to anyone who likes historical fiction.
November 28, 2023
I enjoyed reading “Finding Ground Zero: Book II of the First Strike Series” by Tomas J. Yeggy. I also enjoyed reading the exceptional first book in this series, “Mushroom Cloud” Book I of this series and found this second book even more thrilling.
It is readily apparent from reading these two books this brilliant author has done extensive research on the exact nature of nuclear weapons. He is highly accurate and points out that one of his goals in writing this series is to give the readers important factual information on nuclear weapons and the resulting devastation from the effects of the “atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, fusion bombs—and their inevitable proliferation and potential ability to destroy the world as we know it.”
To show you what I mean, here is a brief excerpt of Professor Ogawa explaining these bombs,
“‘Fusion occurs when two light nuclei combine to produce a heavier, more stable nucleus. Deuterium fusion is when you force two hydrogen atoms together to produce a helium nucleus with one neutron and two protons. That produces a free neutron that continues as a chain reaction. Remember, those hydrogen 167 ~ Finding Designated Ground Zero ~ protons are both positive charges. They don’t like each other, so we need to have a shotgun wedding.’
“The audience laughed quietly.
“Ogawa smiled. ‘The shotgun is a fission reaction with enough force to push them to the altar where they both say, ‘I do.’ The baby from this union doesn’t take nine months to appear or even nine milliseconds for that matter. It shows up instantaneously and is named ‘neutron.’ It has a lot of energy—a bouncing baby neutron!’
“There was more laughter, a little louder.
“‘A chain reaction ensues, one with a lot more bang for your buck. A fusion bomb can produce 1,000 times the energy of a fissionable device while using an equivalent quantity of matter. A hydrogen bomb, a fusion device, weighs much less than a comparable fission bomb. I have no doubt we will soon have the damnable capacity to deliver them over great distances, perhaps even from submarines.’
“The tittering stopped. A deadly quiet seized every listener.”
I also thought this book is especially relevant and important for understanding current times as the author points out the fact that President Vladimir Putin announced in 2023 that Russia was suspending its participation in the New START treaty with the United States, the last of the treaties that limit the two sides' strategic nuclear arsenals.
In my opinion, this author writes in a highly professional manner which makes the book a captivating and engrossing read. I enjoyed the pace of the story and the sequencing of the events. I liked the protagonist, Dr. Caleb Young, who is a fictional representative of current scientists, and an astute, logical man with a high intellect and strong common sense.
I found the story to be exceptionally thrilling, informative, and very entertaining with short chapters, lots of action, suspense, drama, and much more. I found myself pausing and reflecting on the events, the courageous people involved, the doubts raised, the precautions considered, and how easily things could have gone wrong. It all made me wonder about the future. As Stephen Hawking said, “Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk [emphasis added] of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.”
The author intricately describes the technical aspects of Lockheed’s U-2 spy plane, the Soviets’ struggle to deal with it, and much more about that critical time in history. He accurately describes the personalities of the leaders dealing with it and their actions, all of which heightens the drama of the story.
Some say the best way to educate or increase awareness to others is to provide detailed and highly significant facts and, in my opinion, I feel the author has done this very well through vast research combined into an exceptional and entertaining story.
This book stayed with me, and I believe readers of these stories will find themselves on a new plateau with an increased awareness of electing and appointing proper and qualified leadership followed by continued scrutiny for all those in government whom we depend on much more closely.
I liked the way the author also provides a “Commentary on nuclear weapons”, a “Nuclear Primer”, quick references for acronyms, a bibliography, and endnote references all of which add so much more to this highly enlightening and well-structured story that has been extensively researched.
All in all, I felt this book was fascinating, very well done, and a huge positive plus in hopefully increasing everyone’s awareness of nuclear war, its prevention, mistakes, intentional or the ease of unintentional escalation, and the final devastation of all life. Highly recommended! Very well done!
It is readily apparent from reading these two books this brilliant author has done extensive research on the exact nature of nuclear weapons. He is highly accurate and points out that one of his goals in writing this series is to give the readers important factual information on nuclear weapons and the resulting devastation from the effects of the “atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, fusion bombs—and their inevitable proliferation and potential ability to destroy the world as we know it.”
To show you what I mean, here is a brief excerpt of Professor Ogawa explaining these bombs,
“‘Fusion occurs when two light nuclei combine to produce a heavier, more stable nucleus. Deuterium fusion is when you force two hydrogen atoms together to produce a helium nucleus with one neutron and two protons. That produces a free neutron that continues as a chain reaction. Remember, those hydrogen 167 ~ Finding Designated Ground Zero ~ protons are both positive charges. They don’t like each other, so we need to have a shotgun wedding.’
“The audience laughed quietly.
“Ogawa smiled. ‘The shotgun is a fission reaction with enough force to push them to the altar where they both say, ‘I do.’ The baby from this union doesn’t take nine months to appear or even nine milliseconds for that matter. It shows up instantaneously and is named ‘neutron.’ It has a lot of energy—a bouncing baby neutron!’
“There was more laughter, a little louder.
“‘A chain reaction ensues, one with a lot more bang for your buck. A fusion bomb can produce 1,000 times the energy of a fissionable device while using an equivalent quantity of matter. A hydrogen bomb, a fusion device, weighs much less than a comparable fission bomb. I have no doubt we will soon have the damnable capacity to deliver them over great distances, perhaps even from submarines.’
“The tittering stopped. A deadly quiet seized every listener.”
I also thought this book is especially relevant and important for understanding current times as the author points out the fact that President Vladimir Putin announced in 2023 that Russia was suspending its participation in the New START treaty with the United States, the last of the treaties that limit the two sides' strategic nuclear arsenals.
In my opinion, this author writes in a highly professional manner which makes the book a captivating and engrossing read. I enjoyed the pace of the story and the sequencing of the events. I liked the protagonist, Dr. Caleb Young, who is a fictional representative of current scientists, and an astute, logical man with a high intellect and strong common sense.
I found the story to be exceptionally thrilling, informative, and very entertaining with short chapters, lots of action, suspense, drama, and much more. I found myself pausing and reflecting on the events, the courageous people involved, the doubts raised, the precautions considered, and how easily things could have gone wrong. It all made me wonder about the future. As Stephen Hawking said, “Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk [emphasis added] of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.”
The author intricately describes the technical aspects of Lockheed’s U-2 spy plane, the Soviets’ struggle to deal with it, and much more about that critical time in history. He accurately describes the personalities of the leaders dealing with it and their actions, all of which heightens the drama of the story.
Some say the best way to educate or increase awareness to others is to provide detailed and highly significant facts and, in my opinion, I feel the author has done this very well through vast research combined into an exceptional and entertaining story.
This book stayed with me, and I believe readers of these stories will find themselves on a new plateau with an increased awareness of electing and appointing proper and qualified leadership followed by continued scrutiny for all those in government whom we depend on much more closely.
I liked the way the author also provides a “Commentary on nuclear weapons”, a “Nuclear Primer”, quick references for acronyms, a bibliography, and endnote references all of which add so much more to this highly enlightening and well-structured story that has been extensively researched.
All in all, I felt this book was fascinating, very well done, and a huge positive plus in hopefully increasing everyone’s awareness of nuclear war, its prevention, mistakes, intentional or the ease of unintentional escalation, and the final devastation of all life. Highly recommended! Very well done!
March 30, 2024
This book was "edge of your seat" terrifying. I lived through these events. But this book makes them more terrifying than they were when they were happening. It is a riveting read and I highly recommend it to everyone. It truly brings out the dangers of the Cold War. I received my copy through the Goodreads Giveaway program.
April 27, 2024
This is a well written historical novel set around the events of the nuclear arms race from the 1950s and early 1960s. I’ve been reading history for well over fifty years but learned much from ‘the cold war’ decades. I received this book from LibraryThing for an honest review and I award it 3 stars.
Want to read
April 9, 2024I liked this book. It was well written and held my interest.
April 21, 2024
Finding Designated Ground Zero is a scary historical fiction about the dangers of nuclear war.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews