A Memoir of the Missile Age

One Man's Journey

Vitaly Leonidovich Katayev

• Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780817914745
• eBook ISBN: 9780817914769
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Vitaly Leonidovich Katayev was an eyewitness to history as he saw the arms race accelerating at an absurd and inexplicable pace, and he understood why. His perspective was from inside the Soviet system, in an office that was devoted to analysis of arms control and defense matters in the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party and later in an interdepartmental working group. Vitaly Katayev was a skilled designer and an acute observer. His recollections in this book, along with documents he deposited at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, offer an extraordinary window into Soviet decisions and calculations. This monograph shows how Soviet leaders were often hobbled by a poor understanding of what was happening in the United States, but it also demonstrates that Americans, too, had a weak grasp of what was happening in Moscow, before and after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. The misunderstandings on both sides were a symptom of the deepest chasm of the Cold War and A Memoir of the Missile Age provides a valuable key with which to open the Soviet black box.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• A Note to Readers
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I. Snapshots from a Career in Soviet Rocket Design
• Part II. An Insider’s View of Soviet Arms Development and Limitation
• Afterword
• Appendix A: Alternative Names for Soviet Rockets and Missiles
• Appendix B: Scientific, Political, and Military Figures in Vitaly Katayev’s Account of the Soviet Missile Age
• Notes
• Photo Section
• About the Author
• Index