Fighting for Peace

This book was basically the "Reagan's Defense Departments Greatest Hits". The author was the Secretary of Defense for 7 of the 8 Reagan years and this is his recollection of his time in the office. Let me start by explaining what this book is not. It is not a detailed account of the politics the author was involved in with the military build-up and expanding budgets, a blow by blow account of the military actions during the Reagan years, nor a kiss and tell scandal book. The are more then enough detailed books out there about each of these subjects, and to be fair, there would be no way you could detail all these items in one book.What we do get is a nice overview of the military actions during the author's term as the Secretary of Defense, a good overview of some of the political issues and a recap of Iran - Contra from his point of view. The reviews of the military actions are at a high level and are very good at providing the reader with why the action was taken, the outcomes of the action, and the other factors that needed to be kept in mind politically. We get a good review of the Grenada invasion, the Lebanon peace keeping, the Libyan attacks and the Kuwait shipping protection from Iran. We also get his views on the nuclear arms deployment in Europe, the KAL 007 shoot down, SDI and Iran - Contra. The author even found time to pick on the Reagan administration's favorite whipping boy - Al Haig.Overall the author does a good job. He provides a very readable and interesting book that is written with some warmth. He stays away from any criticism of his performance or the Reagan administration as a whole, but you expect that from a memoir. This book is a nice addition to your collection for anyone that is interested in the 80's or the Reagan administration. There are even a number of interesting facts and details about the Middle East that are still relevant today. You will enjoy each page of this book.

Most accounts of the Reagan administration characterize Casper Weinberger as the hawkish pro-military buidup Defense Secretary of the early years and the un-bending, un-yeilding Pentagon chief of the later years before he was "ousted". This book offers Cap's perspective and, even if you don't agree with all his reasoning and policies, provides a different perspective of the Reagan years. You don't get everything that occured during Weinberger's rein, but he does offer his angle of most of the major events and reasons for his being maligned towards the end of his term. His loyalty to Reagan is un-questioned and this story is somewhat biased towards those policies, but it's definetly worth reading (you may have some trouble finding it as it's out of print). Highly recommended.