Gregg Herken

Biographic Data

ID1106963
NAMEGregg Herken
GIVEN NAMESGregg
FAMILY NAMEHerken
SIGNATUREHERKEN G
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of California, Merced
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS32
TOTAL CITATIONS17
WORKS AS AUTHOR32
WORKS AS EDITOR0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1980
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX3

  • Alex Wellerstein, The Most Awful Responsibility

    Gregg HerkenARTICLEJournal of Cold War Studies2026

    An early biography of Harry Truman quoted the former president as reminiscing that he had enjoyed the most wonderful childhood “imaginable.” The biographer noted that the remark was appropriate insofar as Truman had almost certainly imagined it. A similar observation might be made about the Truman of Alex Wellerstein's excellent new book: although the 33rd president confessed to shouldering the “most awful responsibility” when he made the decisio…

  • Douglas Waller, The Determined Spy

    Gregg HerkenARTICLEJournal of Cold War Studies2025

    Veteran journalist Douglas Waller has written the definitive biography of a man who is largely unknown in the United States but who nonetheless had a profound influence on U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. In early September 1948, Waller's subject—Frank Gardiner Wisner—became head of the newly formed Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), which, despite being a department of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was initially controlle…

  • Nuclear Weapons, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and the Cold War

    Gregg Herken, John Earl Haynes et al.ARTICLEJournal of Cold War Studies2024

    This forum contains three detailed analyses of the film Oppenheimer (2023), an eponymous dramatic production directed by Christopher Nolan about the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in overseeing the Manhattan Project, the secret U.S. wartime effort to build a nuclear bomb. Oppenheimer was hugely successful at the box office and earned critical acclaim, but experts on various aspects of U.S. national security policy during the early C…

  • Tom Ramos, From Berkeley to Berlin

    Gregg HerkenARTICLEJournal of Cold War Studies2024

    Despite the importance of the two U.S. nuclear weapons design laboratories—Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)—to national security, they are largely unknown to most Americans. Surrounded by security fences, and patrolled by armed guards, the two sites employ almost 25,000 people and cost the government nearly $8 billion a year. But most of what goes on behind the barbed wire remains—much like t…

  • American Survivors

    Open AccessGregg HerkenARTICLEWestern Historical Quarterly2024

    Journal Article American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. By Naoko Wake Get access American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima & Nagasaki By Naoko Wake(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. viii + 392 pp. Illustrations, notes, select bibliography, index. $29.95) Gregg Herken Gregg Herken emeritus professor, University of California, Santa Cruz and Merced, Santa Cruz, California, USA [email protected]…

  • The Smithsonian’s Decision to Exhibit the ‘Enola Gay’

    Open AccessGregg HerkenARTICLEPublic History Weekly2022

    s Exhibition Script No. 1

  • Le KGB et l'art de la compromission

    Gregg HerkenARTICLECommentaire2017

  • Target Enormoz

    Gregg HerkenARTICLEJournal of Cold War Studies2009References: 1

    Alexander Vassiliev's notebooks fill in long-standing gaps in historians' understanding of Soviet nuclear espionage in the western United States during the Second World War and Cold War. Scholars are, in effect, finally able to see some of the most notorious spy cases in modern history from the Soviet side. The notebooks exonerate some individuals who were accused of spying—and whose careers were ruined as a result—while confirming the guilt of o…

  • J. Robert Oppenheimer

    Gregg HerkenARTICLETechnology and Culture2007

  • Jeremy Bernstein, Oppenheimer

    Gregg HerkenARTICLEJournal of Cold War Studies2007

    January 01 2007 Jeremy Bernstein, Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma Gregg Herken Gregg Herken Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Gregg Herken Online Issn: 1531-3298 Print Issn: 1520-3972 © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2007 Journal of Cold War Studies (2007) 9 (1): 98–99. https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws.2007.9.1.98 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter…

  • Whole World on Fire

    Gregg HerkenARTICLETechnology and Culture2005

    Reviewed by: Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation Gregg Herken (bio) Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation. By Lynn Eden. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003. Pp. xiv+365. $32.50. This is a grim but fascinating book, with a seemingly simple question at its heart: Why, despite extraordinary resources and a near half-century of gruesome practical experience,…

  • Way Out There in the Blue

    Gregg HerkenARTICLETechnology and Culture2001

    The hope of rendering nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete" that Ronald Reagan raised in March 1983, in his famous "Star Wars" speech, is still very much with us. While both the technology and the political setting have changed since then, the results are thus far pretty much the same

  • Commentary

    Gregg HerkenARTICLEDiplomatic History2000

    “Sir, my dismay is great! Those spirits that I called, I now cannot control.” Nobel Prize-winning physicist Isidor Rabi used to be fond of observing that those who compare government-sponsored scientific research to a Faustian bargain have obviously never read Faust. Rabi made his comment with regard to America’s atomic scientists. But the image of the ambitious savant who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for great knowledge and thus great…

  • Impacts of the Early Cold War on the Formulation of U.S. Science Policy

    Gregg HerkenARTICLEIsis1996

  • Elements of Controversy

    Gregg Herken, Barton C HackerARTICLEJournal of American History1995

    Journal Article Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947–1974. By Barton C. Hacker. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. xxiv, 614 pp. $55.00, ISBN 0-520-08323-7.) Get access Gregg Herken Gregg Herken National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 82, Issue 2, …

  • Citizens against the MX

    Gregg Herken, Matthew Gla et al.ARTICLETechnology and Culture1994

  • Citizens against the MX

    Gregg HerkenARTICLETechnology and Culture1994

    technologyand culture Book Reviews 633 the factors they weighed in decision making. Bereft of context, their decisions often seem the product of conspiracy. Related to these problems is the narrow focus of Gerber’s research in primary sources. She exploited recently declassified Hanford docu­ ments but did not carry her research into some important collections located elsewhere. She did not consult the records of the Manhattan Engineer District, …

  • The Advisers

    Gregg HerkenARTICLETechnology and Culture1993

    464 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE way clearly toward the future. The analysis remains wedded to Snow’s notion that the problem is one of lack of communication between scientists and nonscientists. The relationship between science advisers and policymakers is much more complex than is suggested by the simple image of the need for dialogue and better communication. Bruce L. R. Smith Dr. Smith is a senior staff member in the Center for Public …

  • The Advisers

    Gregg Herken, Bruce L R SmithARTICLETechnology and Culture1993

    America's governing system is unique in the extent to which scientists and other outside experts participate in the policy process. No other nation has used these experts as extensively - not merely for advice on the allocation of resources to science but in broad policy issues. This wide-ranging study traces the rise of scientists in the policy process and shows how outside experts interrelate with politicians and administrators to produce a uni…

  • Cardinal Choices

    Bruce L R Smith, Gregg HerkenARTICLETechnology and Culture1993

  • Raising the Atomic Curtain

    Gregg Herken, Roger M Anders et al.ARTICLEReviews in American History1988

  • Planning for Nuclear War

    J Samuel Walker, Gregg HerkenARTICLEReviews in American History1986

  • The not‐quite‐absolute weapon

    Gregg HerkenARTICLEJournal of Strategic Studies1986Cited by: 1

    (1986). The not‐quite‐absolute weapon: Deterrence and the legacy of Bernard Brodie. Journal of Strategic Studies: Vol. 9, Dilemmas of Nuclear Strategy, pp. 15-24

  • American Scientists and U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy

    Open AccessGregg HerkenARTICLEPeace & Change1985

  • Counsels of War

    George T Mazuzan, Gregg HerkenARTICLEJournal of American History1985

    Journal Article Counsels of War. By Gregg Herken. (New York: Knopf, 1985. xvi + 409 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $18.95.) Get access George T. Mazuzan George T. Mazuzan United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 72, Issue 3, December 1985, Pages 740–741, https://doi.org/10.2307/1904395 Published: 01 December 1985