William Godel Archives - Don Kasprzak

The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World by Sharon Weinberger. Sharon has written for Wired, Slate, the Financial Times and the Washington Post Magazine. Furthermore, Sharon is the former editor-in-chief of Defense Technology International. Today Sharon is an executive editor at Foreign Policy.

Obviously the simply amazing stories within The Pentagon’s Brain (my review) inspired me to read Sharon’s book. The Imagineers of War is a very worthy reading experience all by itself.

Unquestionably both books combine for an amazing one-two punch of DARPA history. The most astounding impact of DARPA technology? Many weapons developed for Vietnam are today a cornerstone of US troop technology in Afghanistan: precision weapons, drones, robots, and networked computing.

The first half of The Imagineers of War reveals the very large, looming role of William Godel. He certainly casts a long shadow across DARPA’s early history. However only Sharon can address Godel’s departure and later accusations that may have crippled DARPA.

For the most part, Sharon provides a deep dive into the lives of key players at DARPA. Godel is certainly no exception. Severely injured fighting as a Marine in World War II, he began working as a spy in 1949. Besides Godel’s assignment, he was recruiting former German scientists held in Soviet-controlled East Berlin. Godel is unquestionably acknowledged by American military leaders as an emerging key resource along with Edward Lansdale and William Colby.

Part One:

The opening chapters address the bombing of Nagasaki to post World War II goals. One focus was securing Germany’s key physicists including Wernher von Braun from the Soviets. The role of von Braun’s departure is quite amazing. His team was working at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville Alabama. This team would design Jupiter-C missiles. Then Sputnik changed everything.

The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency by Annie Jacobsen. Her narrative is certainly compelling, describing the historical launch of ARPA. The name of the organization first changed from its founding name to DARPA in March 1972. Yet it was changing back to ARPA in 1993, only to be reverted back in March 1996.

This book is addressing five categories of time: Cold War, Vietnam War, Operations other than war, War on Terror, and Future War. Researching newly de-classified materials make Annie’s book difficult to put down.

Cold war events beginning with Sputnik led to the formation of ARPA. Without over exaggerating, this group would be changing the world. There are so many brilliant physicists, scientists, and mathematicians, this book is literally a Who’s Who of brilliant minds called upon to drive the Pentagon’s mission.

Annie is a master storyteller. She clearly reveals Eisenhower’s administration was ill prepared for post war technology challenges.

Cold war hysteria in the State Department was certainly ripe after China fell to Mao in 1949. France would be defeated by an Asian guerrilla force in 1954. Certainly Sputnik only added to that hysteria in 1957.