A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954

In A Cross of Iron, one of the country’s most distinguished diplomatic historians provides a comprehensive account of the national security state that emerged in the first decade of the Cold War. Michael J. Hogan traces the process of state-making as it unfolded in struggles to unify the armed forces, harness science to military purposes, mobilize military manpower, control the defense budget, and distribute the cost of defense across the economy. At stake, Hogan argues, was a fundamental contest over the nation’s political identity and postwar purpose. President Harry S. Truman and his successor were in the middle of this contest. According to Hogan, they tried to reconcile an older set of values with the new ideology of national security and the country’s democratic traditions with its global obligations. Their efforts determined the size and shape of the national security state that finally emerged.

• Based on comprehensive research in all available archival and manuscript material • A comprehensive treatment of its subject • Deals with a subject that resonates in discussions of military strategy, defense spending and tax policy at the end of the Cold War

Preface and acknowledgements; 1. The National Security discourse: ideology, political culture and state making; 2. Magna Charta: the National Security Act and the specter of the Garrison state; 3. The high price of peace: guns-and-butter politics in the early Cold War; 4. The time tax: American political culture and the UMT debate; 5. ‘Chaos and conflict and carnage confounded’: budget battles and defense reorganization; 6. Preparing for permanent war: economy, science and secrecy in the National Security state; 7. Turning point: NSC-68, the Korean war and the National Security response; 8. Semiwar: the Korean war and rearmament; 9. The Iron Cross: solvency, security and the Eisenhower transition; 10. Other voices: the public sphere and the National Security mentality; 11. Conclusion; Selected bibliography; Index.

\'[A] truly outstanding piece of original research, synthesis, and interpretation … a major contribution to the field and a \'must\' read for all US historians\' American Historical Review

\'Hogan\'s fine book drives home the point that the overall impact of the national security state was, in dollar terms and enlargement of federal power, far greater that the effect of social programs … Easily the most comprehensive and conceptually innovative study of the institutionalization of the cold war.\' The Boston Book Review

\'The author succeeds brilliantly in demonstrating the impact of political culture on the formation of a new American state fundamentally different from that which existed before.\' Foreign Affairs

\'Hogan\'s powerful, neo-Bryanite message shines through in the end: tough talk by American leaders led to big expenditure, and \'humanity was sacrificed on a cross of iron\'.\' Journal of American History