Joseph J. Trento
Autor de The Secret History of the CIA
Sobre El Autor
Joseph J. Trento has been an investigative reporter since 1968, when he joined the staff of the legendary journalist Jack Anderson. He is the author of the best-selling book Widows and has worked for CNN's investigative unit; consulted for 60 Minutes, Nightline, and PrimeTime Live; and appeared on mostrar más Meet the Press, CBS Morning News, Good Morning America, and NPR. Currently, Mr. Trento is president of the Public Education Center He lives in Virginia mostrar menos
Obras de Joseph J. Trento
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Género
- male
- Nacionalidad
- USA
- Ocupaciones
- journalist
- Relaciones
- Trento, Susan B. (Wife)
- Biografía breve
- Joseph J. Trento is the author of six nonfiction books and an internationally known investigative reporter for over thirty-five years, and he has been a correspondent for CNN’s investigative unit. He now serves as the president of the Public Education Center, a nonpartisan and nonprofit foundation that conducts investigative reporting on environmental and national security matters. He is the author or co-author of numerous books on national security and intelligence issues, including Prescription for Disaster, Widows, The Secret History of the CIA, and Prelude to Terror.
Miembros
Reseñas
Read in many times. I loved it. Stories from the other side of the curtain, more from the inside of the job.
4 Spies are followed/described and it gave me lots of insight in how things worked then, and (with more sophisticated equipment no doubt), probably still work.
4 Spies are followed/described and it gave me lots of insight in how things worked then, and (with more sophisticated equipment no doubt), probably still work.
4 stars. Few books have shaped my thinking like this book. It's hard to write a review of it because there are so many incredible stories in this book. If you want to know the history of the CIA, this is your book.
The author has spent over 35 years as an investigative journalist covering military and intelligence operations. This book is a compilation of 35 years worth of first-hand interviews, painstaking research, and incredible use of the Freedom of Information Act to obtain previously classified and unknown documents. He has done a good job compiling all of this into a readable book (one 46-page chapter has 93 separate citations).
Americans have never heard of Ted Shackley or Ed Wilson, but men like these have shaped our country's intelligence networks and influenced the course of history (click the links to get a sense of what we're talking about here).
The book is essentially about 2 people: Ed Wilson and George H.W. Bush. Wilson was a good businessman who was part of a CIA that became essentially a privatized business network after Watergate. He was later framed and imprisoned by Shackley and the government, mainly because he knew too much.
George H.W. Bush was the son of one of the original CIA men, Prescott Bush. He worked with anti-Castro CIA activities in the 1960s, and later helped protect the CIA from Congressional scrutiny as CIA Director during the 1970's. He partially oversaw the privatization of the CIA, and his Saudi connections would end up making the CIA reliant on foreign intelligence services and embroiled in controversy like Iran-Contra and Iraqgate.
This book definitely shows a different side of Bush "41". His long-running extramarital affair with Jennifer Fitzgerald, stories of his business failures, proof of him working for the CIA long before he says he did, his role in undermining Jimmy Carter, his role and deposits in illegal banks used for black operations, and his protection of the Saudis while arming both Saddam Hussein and Iran in the 1980's, policies which greatly contributed to Gulf War I and 9/11. You won't find this in his autobiography or at his museum in College Station.
It also fills in many of the gaps in House of Bush, House of Saud which I reviewed here and here a couple years ago.
Very little is said about G.W. Bush, 9/11, and Gulf War II, but the history in the book leading to those events is fascinating. Current President Bush is shown as inheriting a mess. This is the author's commentary on the last page:
"George H.W. Bush 's long partnership with American and Saudi Intelligence and money set in motion events that would fall on the shoulders of a son totally unprepared for the challenge. The arc from Prescott to George W. Bush is a three-generation saga of the rise to power of an American family. Ironically, the Bushes survived and prospered in each generation by making alliances with some of the most anti-American elements, and yet disguised these involvements with the noblest rhetoric of public service. President George W. Bush has a lifetime of friends and family who have always come to his rescue. But sometimes friends fail... as Bush learned when he heard the awful news on September 11, 2001... In that moment, his personal history and the dark secret history his father and grandfather helped shaped all came together."
There's so many events beyond the Middle East that are mentioned in this book. Vietnam, South America, Eastern Europe. Mind-blowing information.
After reporting on the CIA for 35 years and seeing it change shape various times, the author comes to this sad conclusion:
"The CIA during the George W. Bush administration has become at best irrelevant and at worst a joke... The people in charge...have taken America's Intelligence, foreign policy, and military into a private world..."
How it got to that point is shown clearly in the long history recorded in the book.… (más)
1 
justindtapp | otra reseña | Jun 3, 2015 |
justindtapp | otra reseña | Jun 3, 2015 | 
Reasonably interesting and thorough account of management mishaps and political
shenanigans at NASA leading up to the Challenger disaster. Gets a bit bogged in
people and budgets, but I've no reason to dispute the account. Sad tale of a noble
human endeavor that went awry due to dissembling by politicians and bureaucrats.
shenanigans at NASA leading up to the Challenger disaster. Gets a bit bogged in
people and budgets, but I've no reason to dispute the account. Sad tale of a noble
human endeavor that went awry due to dissembling by politicians and bureaucrats.
1 Atomicmutant | Mar 17, 2009 |
Atomicmutant | Mar 17, 2009 | También Puede Gustarte
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Estadísticas
- Obras
- 7
- Miembros
- 466
- Popularidad
- #52,775
- Valoración
- 3.8
- Reseñas
- 5
- ISBNs
- 18
- Idiomas
- 3
Daniel Sheehan and the Christic Institute came close to looking at this but went off on a tangent trying to expand this corruption into a grand unified conspiracy theory responsible for every ill deed.
The first part of the book is about Wilson who was the lynch pin for this graft, but it loses focus and sprawls just like Sheehan with only a tangential connection in the general cultural tendency among the powerful to mix personal business with government policy. The events and anecdotes recounted later in the book about intelligence provided to Iraq and dodgy uniform sales and events from the 1990s onwards are interesting and speak of further corruption but they appear to be entirely independent and parallel to the original thrust of the book at its beginning, Edwin Wilson and his trial. And because of this distraction the central thrust becomes completely lost - it doesn't even cover his 2012 retrial and acquittal thanks to evidence eventually being uncovered that confirmed his claims that he was following orders and not a rogue.… (más)