Retired Secretary of the Air Force Releases His First Espionage Novel
Thomas C. Reed & Sandy Baker Collaborate on The Tehran Triangle
HEALDSBURG, CA –Thomas C. “Tom” Reed, formerly of Deerfield, a graduate of The Deerfield Academy, and a former Secretary of the Air Force with the Gerald R. Ford and James E. “Jimmy” Carter administrations, has published his first thriller novel – The Tehran Triangle – with Sandy Baker.
In The Tehran Triangle, Reed, who now resides in Healdsburg, California, fused a lifetime of experience in nuclear weaponry, spy craft, and reconnaissance to a story wedded to fact. With Sandy Baker, they kept the book timely and tied to current events.
“The Tehran Triangle is a fast-paced thriller about the frightening perils of the nuclear age. Tom Reed brings to the story a lifetime of experience in national security, delivering a narrative that is crackling with imagination yet woven from the grim threats of our time,” said David Hoffman, former Foreign Affairs Editor for the Washington Post and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Dead Hand. The novel has also received high praise from retired intelligence officials.
While taking a trip through New Mexico three years ago, Reed noticed the Santa Fe railroad ran past the first nuclear test site, Trinity. “How logical, I thought, for the Iranians to simply build another Hiroshima-type A-bomb in El Paso, ship it to Trinity by rail, then fire it by cell phone when it got to ground zero. They would only need to smuggle in a hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium. Well-paid transnational corporations and Mexico’s drug gangs could do that.”
Could this really happen? “Possibly,” Reed said. “Fate takes funny turns. This story is technically and politically feasible. At the very least, it is a cautionary tale.”
Baker, who lives in Santa Rosa, California, an author and former development director, began collaborating with Reed on the novel two years ago. “We write from different sides of the brain and complement each other. He’s the left side–nuclear engineer and scientist, linear, systematic, analytical, thinking. I’m the right side–poet and writer, creative, perceptive, imaginative, feeling. He wants to go forward; I’m all for going backward.” Despite their differences, they never experienced a disagreement.
Reed’s experience in international intelligence issues is extensive, and he draws heavily from that background in his books. In addition to serving as Secretary of the Air Force, Reed assisted the Pentagon in 1973 in managing certain intelligence projects at the Pentagon in connection with the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East. A decade of involvement in national security matters followed. Even after Reed left Washington in 1983, he continued to advise the Joint Strategic Planning Staff on policy and intelligence matters.
Ballantine Books published his first book, At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War, which includes an Introduction by former President George H.W. Bush. In that book, he delved into the lives of those who fought and ended the Cold War. His more recent book, The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and its Proliferation, was published by Zenith Press in 2009. In addition, Reed was the principal authority appearing in the National Geographic Channel’s Secret History of the Atom Bomb, first aired on April 15, 2010.
For more information about Sandy Baker, visit her website www.sandybakerwriter.com and her blog www.writersandy.wordpress.com. To learn more about Tom Reed and his books, visit his website http://tomreedauthor.com/.
Thomas C. Reed Class of 1951