Redeeming Vietnam: Techno-Thriller Novels of the 1980s

Abstract

In 1978, General Sir John Hackett, former commander in chief of the British Army of the Rhine and NATO's Northern Army Group, joined forces with six other leading British generals and admirals. Together they wrote The Third World War: August 1985, a novel that vividly describes a Soviet air and land attack on Western Europe and naval battles in the North Atlantic.' Both the Soviet attack and NATO's response remain below the threshold, until the Soviets destroy Birmingham, England, killing 300,000 people and wounding an additional 250,000. In retaliation, NATO launches four nuclear missiles at Minsk. Its destruction sparks national liberation movements throughout Eastern Europe and the non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union, and leads to a coup in the Kremlin. According to Hackett et al., WW III lasts eighteen days and ends with a complete Western victory. The Third World War received rave reviews in England. In the United States, New York Times military correspondent Drew Middleton described it as a compelling account of the utmost seriousness, fascination, realism, readability, and relevance. By 1979