But fate snatches away one hope when a mansion fire claims the life of Roosevelt, leaving the Democratic party little choice but to nominate Steele, son of a Russian immigrant laborer who identifies more with the common man than with Washington D.C.’s wealthy power brokers.
Achieving a landslide victory, President Joe Steele wastes no time pushing through Congress reforms that put citizens back to work. Anyone who gets in his way is getting in the way of America, and that includes the highest in the land. Joe Steele’s critics may believe the government is gaining too much control, but they tend to find themselves in work camps if they make too much noise about it. And most people welcome strong leadership, full employment, and an absence of complaining from the newspapers—especially as Hitler and Trotsky begin the kind of posturing that seems sure to drag America into war.
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In an era of nuclear posturing, what if the Cold War had
suddenly turned hot?
Bombs Away begins
with President Harry Truman in desperate consultation with General Douglas
MacArthur, whose control of the ground war in Korea has slipped disastrously
away. MacArthur recognizes a stark reality: The U.S. military has been cut to
the bone after victory over the Nazis--while China and the USSR have built up
their forces. The only way to stop the Communist surge into the Korean
Peninsula and save thousands of American lives is through a nuclear attack.
MacArthur advocates a strike on Chinese targets in Manchuria. In actual
history, Truman rejected his general's advice; here, he does not. The
miscalculation turns into a disaster when Truman fails to foresee Russia's
reaction.
Almost instantly, Stalin strikes U.S. allies in Europe and
Great Britain. As the shock waves settle, the two superpowers are caught in a
horrifying face-off. Will they attack each other directly with nuclear weapons?
What countries will be caught in between?
The fateful global drama plays out through the experiences
of ordinary people--from a British barmaid to a Ukrainian war veteran to a
desperate American soldier alone behind enemy lines in Korea. For them, as well
as Truman, Mao, and Stalin, the whole world has become a battleground.
Strategic strikes lead to massive movements of ground troops. Cities are
destroyed, economies ravaged. And on a planet under siege, the sounds and
sights of nuclear bombs become a grim harbinger of a new reality: the struggle
to survive man's greatest madness.
