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BOOK REVIEWS 265 the answer to the latter is certainly negative. In fact, the navy never quite reached Lehman's objective, peaking just under it in 1989 before declining to its present level of around 550 ships. While the Navy and Marine Corps may enjoy somewhat more immunity than the Army from the present mood on Capitol Hill, further force reductions are certainly in the cards. Novices will find the parts of Lehman's book dealing with the nuts and bolts of building naval and marine forces tough going, but the majority of Command of the Seas deals with more interesting topics: Lehman's battles with the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, and the navy bureaucracy, an examination of naval operations during Lehman's term (Lebanon, Grenada and the Persian Gulf, as well as the Falklands War), and Lehman's conclusions and recommendations for the future. The opening chapter, on the death-struggle between Lehman and Admiral Hyman Rickover for control of the navy, is particularly interesting. Secretary Lehman came into office with the primary goal of forcing the strongly entrenched Rickover into retirement, and Rickover fought him tooth and nail. Lehman's insider account of how top administration and military officials play hardball is of interest to anyone who aspires to one day join the big leagues. Lehman, a naval aviator, makes strong cases for the utility of aircraft carriers and why the U.S. military should rely on America's technical edge to build sophisticated, high-technology weapons, rather than building simpler, less expensive weapons systems. The two main theses of his book are the need for a navy large enough to defend America's interests everywhere around the world simultaneously, and the need to utilize the United States' technological edge over the Soviet Union. The problem is that the Soviet threat is rapidly fading. Lehman, like so many other strategists, has been overtaken by Gorbachev. The book is written in a clear, direct fashion, and reads easily. The author's positions are well thought out and well defended. If only it weren't all so irrelevant. Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism. By Roy A. Medvedev. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. 903 pp. $57.50/cloth. Reviewed by Timothy J. Jennison, M.A. Candidate, SAIS. Twenty years ago, Roy Medvedev's classic account of the origins and horrifying consequences of Stalin's regime met varying levels of enthusiasm in the west. As Medvedev acknowledges, the widespread criticism of the first edition's "onesidedness " is partly responsible for his decision to expand and thoroughly revise his life's work. In its updated 1989 version, Let History Judge is now over 100,000 words and several chapters longer—although not necessarily richer. To a much greater extent, however, the added thickness is due to Mikhail Gorbachev's quest to fill in the "blank spots" of Soviet history. Not only has glasnost freed Medvedev from the constant surveillance which long frustrated his efforts to reveal his account of the shocking horrors of Stalinism, but the softer 266 SAISREVIEW line on educational and intellectual affairs in the Soviet Union has effected the restoration of his voluminous archives which were confiscated in the late 1970s. Medvedev would have been better offlimiting himselfto a thorough revision of Let History Judge rather than plunging into his restored archives for vast amounts of mainly anecdotal material of questionable value to serious scholars. In fact, even he doubts the credibility of many of his sources. Why, then, does he cite them in his work? Possibly for two reasons. First, many of these anecdotes, although ofdubious credibility, effectively stir the reader into adopting Medvedev's point of view. Second, perhaps it is the nature of all individuals who have lost close ones to the excesses of a despotic regime (Medvedev's father was killed in 1938) to use any material they can find, no matter how sensational or illegitimate, if it serves to convincingly discredit those responsible for such murders. Indeed, Medvedev is so obsessed with his mission that he has set himself the task of exposing Stalin as responsible for all shortcomings in the Soviet system, past and present. Stalin is thus not only...

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