Book Review: The Betrayers © January 6, 2001, Rod D. Martin The Betrayers by Phyllis Schlafly and Rear Admiral Chester Ward, USN (ret.) Astonishing Whatever impression this book made at the time (1968), it is an astonishing read today. Written by Eagle Forum President and founder Phyllis Schlafly and Admiral Chester Ward, the thesis of the book is that key members of the Johnson Administration, in particular Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, had actively sought to weaken and impair the defenses of the United States, motivated by a belief that the cause of freedom was doomed, that the Soviet Union would surely win the Cold War, and that preparing for the eventual inevitable surrender was the best means to survival. Regardless of the validity of that position (or of the specific choice of motives), the information used to make the case bears examination. Schlafly and Ward walk the reader through a panorama of Johnson Administration defense and foreign policy positions, compellingly outlining a defensive disaster. The astute reader will recall without reminder that in 1960, the United States possessed overwhelming military superiority over its Communist opponents, and that by 1968 -- just eight years, or two presidential terms, later -- that had turned into mere parity and, in some cases, inferiority. If nothing else, this caused extreme, needless problems for American diplomacy over the following two decades; and of course, it had the potential to cause far, far worse. What Schlafly and Ward show is that the cause of the change was not so much the Soviet build-up as McNamara's dismantling of America's existing force, including (but by no means limited to) the entirety of our B-47 fleet, much of our B-52 fleet, our entire fleet of supersonic (and brand new) B-58s, and our entire surface-to-air missile defense system in North America (a system, by the way, which centered on the Nike-Hercules missile, itself well capable of rudimentary ballistic missile defense). Moreover, in the face of the aforementioned radical Soviet build-up, McNamara canceled all strategic submarine production, the B-70 program, and all modern ICBM development; and generally did everything in his power to decrease American power beneath that of its deadly enemy. Combined with McNamara's non-strategy in Vietnam, one could almost believe The Betrayers' thesis. Perhaps most striking about this book, though, is not its amazing history but its astonishing currency. The Left's arguments against missile defense in particular have not changed in the slightest particular over the past three decades, despite revolutionary advances in technology and the complete upending of the "old world order". Pitifully enough, the arguments were as false then as now: the Nike-Hercules and Nike-X systems -- and even the pitiful Safeguard, deployed and then scrapped by Gerald Ford in 1975 -- were fine systems technologically; and a system of "defense" based on holding millions of people hostage to nuclear terror (otherwise known as "Mutual Assured Destruction") remains hideously immoral. In any case, The Betrayers is one of the more interesting artifacts of the Cold War, and well worth picking up. No serious student of the period, or of current defense policy for that matter, should be without it. Author Archive | Contact Rod Martin -- Rod D. Martin is Founder and Chairman of TheVanguard.Org, America's conservative movement online. A writer, speaker and technology entrepreneur, he is a noted futurist and advocate for liberty who serves as Chairman of the Arlington Group's National Security Team, on the Board of Governors of the Council for National Policy, and as President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA), “the Republican Wing of the Republican Party”.