Review of The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan (2013, Touchstone)

1942, rural Tennessee. The US government rapidly acquires 56,000 acres of land, giving farmers and families three to six weeks to leave their land and homes. Inside the new Reservation of Oak Ridge ground is broken on building a set of factories and a new town. Within two years the place is home to 75,000 people, three large industrial sites including the world’s largest building, and various collections of dorms, apartments, prefab huts, houses and service buildings; it is somewhat rough and ready with mud everywhere and overcrowded. Everyone there has been vetted and sworn to secrecy, not even able to tell fellow workers or family what they do every day. The penalty for talking is eviction, job loss and finding new work difficult. Very few people even know what they are working on. The site is consuming vast quantities of material and is costing a fortune to build and staff, but nothing seems to be coming out. It is, however, a vital cog in the Manhattan Project, enriching uranium, the key component of the atomic bomb. It is only after the bomb is dropped that workers discover what they had been contributing to and the place is acknowledged as officially existing.

Denise Kiernan tells the story of the atomic city from the perspective of the thousands of women working and living there. In particular, it follows the lives of eight women who all worked at Oak Ridge, performing different jobs – chemist, statistician, nurse, cyclotron operator, secretary, cleaner, etc. – and who were from different places and backgrounds. Through these women she charts the growth and development of the site, the work taking place there, the living conditions, and how the community developed. In many ways, Kiernan illustrates how Oak Ridge was a social experiment as much as it was a massive, rapid industrial development: a kind of instant city but one that had unusual social rules such as strict secrecy, separation of family members (even on site, as between black families where husband and wife were made to sleep in separate compounds bordered by barbwire fences, and children were excluded entirely), internal spies monitoring staff and security checks to get in and out, censuring of mail, etc. To provide wider context, the text is punctuated with a second narrative that charts the development of the Manhattan Project and key events, detailing the notable contributions of women to the wider science, politics and industry. As Kiernan acknowledges, life in Oak Ridge and the Manhattan Project was highly compartmentalised, and her history has a similar telling. To some degree this inevitable given the approach taken. Using eight women to tell the story of thousands of women and also the story of Oak Ridge in the development of the atomic bomb is always going to produce a circumscribed and somewhat sketchy view. The payoff though is in the detail of the experience of living and working in the new city. The result is a nicely written, engaging history of Oak Ridge that manages to create a reasonable balance between the wider context and personal stories and which highlights the key roles that women made.

Review of The Man With the Poison Gun by Serhii Plokhy (Oneworld, 2016)

In the late 1950s two leading Ukrainian nationalist leaders were murdered in Munich. Both deaths baffled the nationalist groups and West German police. In the fall of 1961, just before the Berlin wall was erected, Bogdan Stashinsky and his East German wife skipped the funeral of their baby and made a dash into West Berlin. Stashinsky headed to the local CIA headquarters and claimed he was a KGB assassin who had murdered Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera using a secret poison gun. The Americans were suspicious that he might be a plant and passed him over to their West German colleagues. Slowly, Stashinsky, also a Ukrainian forced to work for the KGB, persuaded the police that he was who he said he was, and that he had murdered his compatriots. The subsequent trial placed the Soviet Union on trial as much as Stashinsky and the result had long term implications – Stashinsky was effectively deemed a puppet, with the real murderers those who controlled him, creating a legitimate new legal defence for Nazi war criminals; the KGB was forced to change its policy of overseas political assassination; there was a reshuffle at the top of the Soviet political system, with Aleksandr Shelepin’s career cut short; and the plight of Ukrainian nationalist movement was highlighted.

Serhii Plokhy’s book traces the life of Bogdan Stashinsky, particularly from his entrapment recruitment by the KGB through to his disappearance after his short prison stay post-trial. It’s a factual account that tries to cut through all the misinformation about Stashinsky created by the Ukrainian nationalists, the KGB and East Germans, especially at the time of the trial, when the Cold War propaganda machine went into overdrive. While it does seek to provide an objective view, it is also a largely sympathetic account of a man trying to survive inside the KGB and Soviet system that had a habit of severely punishing its own members for supposed and real transgressions. Usefully, it provides an everyday account of Soviet spycraft, Cold War relations between East and West, and the fragmented overseas Ukrainian nationalist movement that sought to highlight the plight of captive nations of the Soviet Union. It is only towards the end that books drifts to speculation given that what became of Stashinsky after prison is publicly unknown. I found it a fascinating read, especially given the present context of strained relations between the Ukraine and Russia.

Review of Crimea by Orlando Figes (Penguin, 2010)

In 1853, Russia after a lengthy negotiation with the European powers of Britain, France and Austria and threats to the Ottoman Empire, entered the Danubian principalities (now part of Romania).  Ostensibly the origin of the conflict lay in squabbles over access and control of the Holy Lands between the Orthodox Church and Catholics and the treatment of Christians in the Ottoman Empire.  In the background lurked a large geopolitical project of speeding up the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the gain of territory and expansion of the Russian sphere of influence.  The Turks declared war and France and Britain backed them seeking to block Russian imperial plans.  As British and French fleets entered the Black Sea and troops moved into Danube delta, Russian withdrew.  Rather than conclude with peace, France and Britain decided to continue the campaign to cower Russia.  Their intent was to deal a devastating blow in the Crimea, seizing Sevastopol, the Russians main naval base.  After a successful landing in September 1854 and march on the naval base, British and French military leaders made a series of blunders and rather than quickly taking the port ended up in a long and costly siege that lasted eleven months.  In March 1856, Russia sued for peace and the war was officially ended by the Treaty of Paris that forbade a Russian fleet in the Black Sea, led to some Balkan states becoming mostly independent, and to moderate reforms in the Ottoman Empire. 

Orlando Figes provides what one blurb calls ‘wide-angled history’ of the war, drawing on a range of sources to cover the conflict from all perspectives.  The result is a very detailed account of the war, including an extended introduction charting the pathway into the war, and an extended epilogue that documents its short and long-term consequences with respect to European affairs and the political map.  In particular, he details the geopolitical context to the war and the various machinations at work, as well as the key political and military personalities within the various nations, and each of the main battles.  By drawing on personal diaries and newspaper coverage he provides intimate details of bloody encounters and political intrigue.  The book thus provides a fascinating account of the context for and surrounding the war, as well as its actual prosecution.  In many ways, however, the telling could have done with a bit of an edit.  In its ambition to be the most thorough and balanced account of the war, it ends up being overly long, with too much context prior to and after the war, and often too much detail concerning its various elements (there are dozens of vignettes of various minor personalities, for example, which while interesting are effectively asides).  This will be a huge plus for some readers, but for me put too many trees in the woods.  Nonetheless, it is an impressive piece of scholarship and certainly informs the reader about all aspects of the conflict and its aftermath.