The gripping story of a chemical weapons catastrophe, the cover-up, and how one American Army doctor's discovery led to the development of the first drug to combat cancer, known today as chemotherapy. On the night of December 2, 1943, the Luftwaffe bombed a critical Allied port in Bari, Italy, sinking seventeen ships and killing over a thousand servicemen and hundreds of civilians. Caught in the surprise air raid was the John Harvey, an American Liberty ship carrying a top-secret cargo of 2,000 mustard bombs to be used in retaliation if the Germans resorted to gas warfare. When one young sailor after another began suddenly dying of mysterious symptoms, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Alexander, a doctor and chemical weapons expert, was dispatched to investigate. He quickly diagnosed mustard gas exposure, but was overruled by British officials determined to cover up the presence of poison gas in the devastating naval disaster, which the press dubbed "little Pearl Harbor." Prime Minister Winston Churchill and General Dwight D. Eisenhower acted in concert to suppress the truth, insisting the censorship was necessitated by military security. Alexander defied British port officials and heroically persevered in his investigation. His final report on the Bari casualties was immediately classified, but not before his breakthrough observations about the toxic effects of mustard on white blood cells caught the attention of Colonel Cornelius P. Rhoads--a pioneering physician and research scientist as brilliant as he was arrogant and self-destructive--who recognized that the poison was both a killer and a cure, and ushered in a new era of cancer research led by the Sloan Kettering Institute. Meanwhile, the Bari incident remained cloaked in military secrecy, resulting in lost records, misinformation, and considerable confusion about how a deadly chemical weapon came to be tamed for medical use. Deeply researched and beautifully written, The Great Secret is the remarkable story of how horrific tragedy gave birth to medical triumph.

The Great Secret: The Classified World War II Disaster that Launched the War on Cancer

History

Conant, Jennet

Military

W.W.Norton&Company

Fierce Ambition: The Life and Legend of War Correspondent Maggie Higgins

Marguerite Higgins was both the scourge and envy of the journalistic world. A longtime reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, she first catapulted to fame with her dramatic account of the liberation of Dachau at the end of World War II. Brash, beautiful, ruthlessly competitive, and sexually adventurous, she forced her way to the front despite being told the combat zone was no place for a woman. Her headline-making exploits earned her a reputation for bravery bordering on recklessness and accusations of "advancing on her back," trading sexual favors for scoops. While the Herald Tribune exploited her feminine appeal--regularly featuring the photogenic "girl reporter" on its front pages--it was Maggie's dogged determination, talent for breaking news, and unwavering ambition that brought her success from one war zone to another. Her notoriety soared during the Cold War, and her daring dispatches from Korea garnered a Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence--the first granted to a woman for frontline reporting--with the citation noting the unusual dangers and difficulties she faced because of her sex. A star reporter, she became part of the Kennedy brothers' Washington circle, though her personal alliances and politics provoked bitter feuds with male rivals, who vilified her until her untimely death. Drawing on new and extensive research, including never-before-published correspondence and interviews with Maggie's colleagues, lovers, and soldiers and generals who knew her in the field, journalist and historian Jennet Conant restores Maggie's rightful place in history as a woman who paved the way for the next generation of journalists, and one of the greatest war correspondents of her time.

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Historical/Biography. A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that changed the course of World War II.

Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

Historical

Simon&Schuster

The untold story of an eccentric Wall Street tycoon and the circle of scientific geniuses he assembled before World War II to develop the science for radar and the atomic bomb. Together they changed the course of history. Legendary financier, philanthropist, and society figure Alfred Lee Loomis gathered the most visionary scientific minds of the twentieth century—Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and others—at his state-of-the-art laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York, in the late 1930s. He established a top-secret defense laboratory at MIT and personally bankrolled pioneering research into new, high-powered radar detection systems that helped defeat the German Air Force and U-boats. With Ernest Lawrence, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist, he pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fund research in nuclear fission, which led to the development of the atomic bomb. Jennet Conant, the granddaughter of James Bryant Conant, one of the leading scientific advisers of World War II, enjoyed unprecedented access to Loomis’ papers, as well as to people intimately involved in his life and work. She pierces through Loomis’ obsessive secrecy and illuminates his role in assuring the Allied victory.

Traces the story of the physicists and their families who lived in the then-secret city of Los Alamos during the invention of the atomic bomb, years during which they lied to outsiders about their daily existences and endured harsh living conditions with minimal privacy. By the author of Tuxedo Park. 150,000 first printing.

109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos

Americas

In 1943, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant, charismatic head of the Manhattan Project, recruited scientists to live as virtual prisoners of the US government at Los Alamos, a barren mesa thirty-five miles outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1943, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant, charismatic head of the Manhattan Project, recruited scientists to live as virtual prisoners of the U.S. government at Los Alamos, a barren mesa thirty-five miles outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Thousands of men, women, and children spent the war years sequestered in this top-secret military facility. They lied to friends and family about where they were going and what they were doing, and then disappeared into the desert. Through the eyes of a young Santa Fe widow who was one of Oppenheimer's first recruits, we see how, for all his flaws, he developed into an inspiring leader and motivated all those involved in the Los Alamos project to make a supreme effort and achieve the unthinkable.

Describes the covert intelligence operations of allied forces during World War II as experienced by wounded RAF pilot Roald Dahl, a patriot who used his charm and wits to infiltrate the upper reaches of Georgetown society and who worked with such figures as Churchill, Roosevelt, and spy chief William Stephenson to influence U.S. policy in favor of England. 150,000 first printing.

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

Now in paperback, and following her extraordinary, bestselling, and much-acclaimed accounts of the most guarded secrets of the Second World War, here is a rollicking true story of spies, politicians, journalists, and intrigue in the highest circles of Washington during the tumultuous days of World War II. When Roald Dahl, a dashing young wounded RAF pilot, took up his post at the British Embassy in 1942, his assignment was to use his good looks, wit, and considerable charm to gain access to the most powerful figures in American political life. Better than any spy fiction, The Irregulars is a fascinating, lively account of deceit, double dealing,and moral ambiguity—all in the name of victory. Richly detailed and carefully researched, Conant’s masterful narrative is based on never-before-seen wartime letters, diaries, and interviews.

Traces the story of the physicists and their families who lived in the then-secret city of Los Alamos during the invention of the atomic bomb, years during which they lied to outsiders about their daily existences and endured harsh living conditions with minimal privacy. By the author of Tuxedo Park. Simultaneous.

Simon & Schuster Audio

Traces the story of the physicists and their families who lived in the then-secret city of Los Alamos during the invention of the atomic bomb, years during which they lied to outsiders about their daily existences and endured harsh living conditions with minimal privacy. By the author of Tuxedo Park. Simultaneous.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Conant, Jennet. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Conant, Jennet

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Conant, Jennet. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Great Secret: The Classified World War II Disaster that Launched the War on Cancer

Fierce Ambition: The Life and Legend of War Correspondent Maggie Higgins

Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos

109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos

109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos