Finding Designated Ground Zero

Finding Designated Ground Zero, a fact-based historical novel, is the second book of The First Strike Trilogy: 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.'The powerful imagery brought the horrors and terror of the Cold War and nuclear war as a whole made this a truly atmospheric read.'~ Anthony AvinaCIA 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.