"Chasing Shadows" by Ken Hughes (2014)

The cover of this book is intriguing at first glance. It is a photo of President Lyndon Johnson in a White House elevator with President-Elect Richard Nixon on November 11, 1968, just days after Nixon won the Presidential election by the 2nd closest margin in the 20^th century; the first being John Kennedy’s victory over Nixon in the 1960 election. There is almost an irony to that alone.

The author mainly concerns himself with tying the Watergate Affair to the 1968 Presidential election, when Nixon basically sabotaged the Paris Peace Talks; talks which would have possibly cost him the election against Vice President Humphrey. Through back channel maneuvers with Anna Chennault; widow of the man who commanded the Flying Tigers during World War Two; Nixon was able to accomplish just that, narrowly winning the election in the bargain. That was in 1968; in 1972 he would win by a landslide.

The real surprise here is the role Lyndon Johnson played in defeating his own Vice President, whose aims and goals regarding Vietnam did not match the party position in reference to the bombing halt. Johnson wanted it pegged to the restoration of the DMZ; with which the Republicans agreed; while Humphrey and McCarthy wanted to stop the bombing without conditions in order to show “good faith” to the North Vietnamese.

Relying on thousands of hours of tape recordings at the Johnson Library and the Nixon Archives, the author paints an accurate picture of the political ambitions which got us into the war in the first place, and then kept us there far longer than was necessary. There were no “clean hands” in the bunch. The Republicans and Democrats were both focused on politics rather than what was right. These tapes prove the point.

While Johnson was advising Nixon; and Nixon was working with Chennault to delay the Peace Talks; an atmosphere of secrecy and subterfuge became the standard operating procedure in Washington. That attitude led directly to Nixon forming the celebrated “Plumbers Unit” in the White House; ostensibly to stop “leaks.” Left to their own devices they went on to embroil Nixon in the Watergate scandal; something he knew nothing about until after it happened. This was Nixon’s Bay of Pigs. He was blindsided by the same group of people in the same way in which Kennedy’s administration was blindsided by the last minute revelation of the full extent of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

This is a very important book in that it finally ties the Watergate scandal to the things which preceded it. There are many who believe that Nixon was set up by the CIA and Howard Hunt; who were working with some Cuban exiles that were connected to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The real question is why?

Nixon was asking for the CIA files on the Bay of Pigs and even stuff related to Dallas from the moment he took office. Why? He was surrounded by people who all had ties to George Bush; either as an oil tycoon, or later as a politician and head of the CIA. Why? This book doesn't answer these questions, but they are inherently connected. The author has touched only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The name Bush doesn't even appear in the index. 

The author even blames the entire ineffectiveness of the B-52 bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail on Pentagon and Cabinet leaks while completely ignoring the Walker Spy Ring, which cost the U.S. approximately 15-20,000 more battle deaths. It is impossible to discuss the B-52 bombing raids, and their having been compromised, without at least mentioning the Walkers. But that is exactly what the author does.

This book is a very detailed and helpful account of the proposed policy to halt the bombing in Vietnam and how it was used as a campaign issue by both sides in the 1968 election. It even shows how Nixon forged a policy of secrecy and paranoia which would eventually culminate in the Watergate burglary and his eventual departure from the White House.

But the book never really answers the crucial question of how; or even why; Nixon would have allowed this to happen. For a wider scope on the issues raised in this book; particularly the “why” behind the Watergate break in; you can do no better than to read Russ Baker’s 2009 book “Family of Secrets.”

In spite of any shortcomings, this book is still an important one, if only because it goes beyond the basic assumptions of Watergate being the product of an overzealous staff and a paranoid President. Nothing as complicated as Watergate could possibly be that simple.

"The Untold History of the United States" by Michael Moore (2012)

I don’t give many bad reviews. As a matter of fact, in the 4 and a half years in which I have been doing this, there have only been three books which I have reviewed negatively. It is no coincidence that these 3 books were all written with an agenda to misinform. One was written by an Islamic, one was written by a Conservative, and now this one written by Michael Moore; no explanation of his agenda necessary. I offer this as proof on my consistency in reasoning.

As he takes us on a whirlwind tour of our American misadventures, concluding that we have met the “Evil Empire” and it is us, he neglects to position his arguments against the backdrop of history as he deplores, page after page, our imperialistic designs. His take on the acquisition of Hawaii is that we were bent on world domination. Completely ignored is the fact that Russia and Japan were already rattling sabers at one another, and would fight a horrific war between them over domination of the Pacific; its resources; and of course Hawaii. Had we not gained possession of Hawaii when we did, then Japan would have been able to launch her planes from carriers based there against San Francisco. But details have never bothered Mr. Moore before, so why was I expecting something different from this book?

Our domination of the Philippine Islands is fairly accurate, though he does seem to gloss over the fact that we did grant them Independence after helping them to defeat the Japanese. And although there have been problems with our still having troops and ships stationed there, for the most part, the people and government of the Philippines seem to regard our presence in the area as more of a positive than a negative.

This is likewise in just about every one of the 132 countries which Mr. Moore laments about, where we have troops stationed. His thinking seems parallel to that of most Conservatives, who continually lament that we cannot be the “world’s policeman.” This is odd reasoning for an avowed liberal such as Mr. Moore claims to be. It gives one pause to think about just why he writes what he does. Is it how he really feels, or just the lure of easy money? By the way, the lure of easy money is one of the things Mr. Moore complains about the most, blaming many of the world’s ills upon it.

Like a reverse image of Rush Limbaugh, Mr. Moore goes charging through the history of America with an agenda. Where Mr. Limbaugh would have you think us Gods; Mr. Moore paints us as devils. He even takes our country to task over the Cuban Missile Crisis, labeling us as the reckless aggressors, even while acknowledging the massive buildup of tactical nuclear weapons which we did not know about at the time. Had we invaded, we would have been wiped out. The policy Of Mutual Assured Destruction, often derided as MAD, is also something which Mr. Moore fails to realize actually saved us from coming to actual nuclear war. Had one side only been able to launch a first strike, there would have been a nuclear war.

Only the fact that neither side could afford to pull the nuclear trigger on the other saved us from catastrophe. Contrast that against today’s post-Cold War world, with rogue nations; and terrorists ones such as Pakistan; in possession of nuclear unarms. Do you feel safer now? Under the policy of M.A.D., there was never a nuclear confrontation after the bombing of Japan at the conclusion of the Second World War. This is something which the author fails to acknowledge, or even mention.

While taking careful and deliberate aim at the policies of the United States in the 1950’s, Mr. Moore paints a bleak picture of the hare brained schemes being considered by the scientific community. Some of these plans were outright wacky; such as the plan to use nuclear weaponry to hasten the melting of the Polar Ice Caps, raising the world’s temperature by 10 degrees; or the scheme to use the atomic bomb to change the course of hurricanes, regardless of the fallout which would occur. There was also thought given to Project Chariot, which would have had the United States military blast holes in Alaska to harvest the shale oil beneath the frozen surface. What he never tells you is that these plans were never implemented, just tossed about. In Mr. Moore’s world, even ideas are prohibited.

The book is not all negative. But even where his facts are correct, he never gives America the credit it is due for the good things she has done. For instance, what other nation in the world would go to the lengths which we did during the Bosnia-Serbian War, when we helped Islamic people from genocide at the hands of their Christian neighbors? And, we did that at a time when tensions were reaching an all-time high between America, which was being billed as the Great Satan, and most of the other Islamic nations of the world. Where was their help in the aftermath of 9/11, when they danced in the streets, while hiding Bin Laden for 10 years?

When it comes time to examine the Second World War, once again we are the evil ones who firebombed cities, which was even worse than the atomic bomb, notwithstanding that had we not done so, the world today would be desolate place as far as freedom is concerned.

In typical fashion, Mr. Moore laments that the bomb was built without necessity, since we already knew that the Germans had abandoned their efforts at gaining such a weapon in favor of further developing the V1 and V2 rockets which they were using to kill civilians in Britain. He seems not to realize that once the tide of the war had changed back in favor of the Germans, they would have continued the experiments towards obtaining a nuclear weapon, if only to subjugate the Soviets.

As a matter of fact; Mr. Moore inadvertently tips his hand here; as it was only the pressure exerted on Roosevelt by the 3 main scientists who had fled Germany, including Einstein, that the bomb was an absolute necessity if we were to win the war. They even corroborated the fact that Germany was then, indeed, working on such a weapon herself, thus fueling the Roosevelt administration’s decision to go ahead with the bomb. It was only Oppenheimer and Davis who slowed the pace down enough to ascertain that the bomb would not ignite the earth’s atmosphere and destroy all life on the planet before proceeding with the experiments. So, one might conclude that the German scientists on both sides were pushing their respective governments to obtain this new weapons technology. Therefore, it is absurd to place the blame for the resultant Cold War on any one leader’s shoulders. This whole section had me wondering about Mr. Moore squares this view of Roosevelt with his hero of the New Deal? Me, I don’t have that problem; I think he was right on both occasions.

As far as the decision to drop the bomb which ushered in the Cold War, without it we would have lost at least 100,000 more Americans in order to take the island fortress of Japan.

By page 392 it becomes apparent that this book will never cease to amaze me. The author blames the policies of Henry Kissinger for the ruin of America’s stature in the world, and uses that as a pretext for the failed Presidency of Jimmy Carter. He uses the logic that the same people were still calling the shots for the White House. Jimmy was a well-intentioned, but un-involved bystander. By this logic, Reagan was innocent of any wrongdoing during the Iran-Contra affair, and Bush was misled into the war in Iraq by faulty advisers with agendas of their own.

This is an interesting book, with a lot of information in it. As such, it needs to be read carefully. Facts are funny things, and in the hands of professional writers and movie makers such as Mr. Moore, can be bent to support whatever conclusion you care to make them support. But, in the end, this book is mainly an apology for being American, and though my government may be temporarily in the hands of idiots, being born American is one thing for which I will never apologize.

"The Hoax" with Richard Gere (2006)

This is a great movie about Clifford Irving’s alleged attempt to forge an autobiography of Howard Hughes. I say alleged because I have never been convinced that Mr. Irving wasn't the foil of larger forces. Think about it; a mediocre author, rejected by his publisher; suddenly comes up with the idea, and opportunity, to do an autobiography of the world’s richest and most reclusive man, and manages to secure a whopping $100,000 advance from the publisher. Now he has to produce the book.

In his mind he is in actual contact with the legendary millionaire via handwritten letters detailing his life’s story. But is he? The handwriting experts all say the letters are genuine, but are they? In this cinematic version, based on actual documents and interviews, the author has hatched this plan with a friend, who doubts that the scheme will work. Banking on the greed of the publisher to land the most coveted book of the last 50 years, they study Hughes’ handwriting, honing their skills to perfection, and then creating the letters.

When he is accused of forging the letters, he manages to raise the advance to $1 million dollars, which only serves to ratchet up the pressure to produce the book. 

The money is exchanged based on the publisher’s eagerness to get the book out, only to be outwitted by either the author, or the forces he claims are arrayed against him. The goal, of course, was to add fuel to the fire when the real powers that be decided to bring Nixon down via Watergate. What better ammunition to have than a documented payment from Hughes via a disgraced publisher to a suspect author? If this seems confusing you really need to brush up on the connections between the Bay of Pigs, Dealey Plaza, and finally the Watergate affair, which was concocted to bring down the President by exposing his links to some of the most atrocious events of the 1960’s.

Excellent acting by Richard Gere; along with a tightly woven account of the events; are the things which drive this film, making it well worth watching.

"Frost/Nixon" with Frank Langella and Michael Sheen (2009)

When President Richard Nixon left office in 1974, he became the first American President to have been forced from the Presidency in our nation’s history. Although he did not have any part in planning the Watergate break-in, he did use the Office of the President to thwart justice and protect those who had committed the crime. Added to that were his numerous transgressions as President, including the secret war in Cambodia, which destabilized that country,  leading to the Pol Pot regime, which slaughtered another million, or more, innocent people. An apology was the last thing anyone thought that they would hear from him. They were wrong.

From almost the moment that Richard Nixon resigned from office, Australian TV show personality David Frost became obsesses with interviewing him. When his original offer was $250,000 the President refused the interview, as he had done with the major networks here in America. But, when Mr. Frost was able to up the ante to $600,000, Mr. Nixon agreed to do the interview. His only condition was that they not discuss Watergate.

This film covers the negotiations, and finally the actual interviews, in which the two men sparred over several sessions, each seeking to take control of the questions and answers. The former President, who had recently been pardoned by the only un-elected president in our nation’s history, tried to keep the interview contained to soft questions by giving long, benign answers to “soft” questions, thus eating up the allotted time for the interview. Mr. Frost, who had to borrow money from his friends to make the show happen, was beginning to play the fool to Mr. Nixon. But, not for long.

By the last session, Mr. Frost was in a tight spot, he owed $600,000 for an interview which was hardly worth selling. So, he did what he had to do; he got tough; tackling Watergate and hitting the President with hard ball questions, allowing him no room to avoid answering to the American people. These last exchanges produced both the President’s assertion that “When the President does it, it’s not illegal”, as well as his final admission that he had let the people of the country down, and disgraced the Office of the Presidency.

The movie is directed tightly, with the tension and anxiety of the times fully palpable to the viewer. Included in the disc are some excerpts from the actual broadcasts. While these were a great addition to the film, they did underscore the fact that the original interviews far eclipsed the dramatic versions portrayed in the film.

For the real interviews, you can do no better than to watch them on You Tube, which has them split into 6 segments of about 10 minutes apiece. This was historical stuff then, and still resonates today, in an election year fraught with lies and liars. Here is the first part of the actual interview;

"Enemies" by Tim Weiner (2012)

From the author of “Legacy of Ashes”, a book which crashed onto the scene in 2007; an extensive history of the Central Intelligence Organization which won the National Book Award; comes this fairly written, and highly researched book about the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The book begins, as any such book must, with an examination of its longtime director, J. Edgar Hoover. From there the authors goes on to chronicle the Palmer Raids and the beginnings of the violent era of labor unrest that swept the nation, beginning with the Black Tom explosion on New York’s busy wartime waterfront during the early years of the First World War, then moving on through the 1920’s and the explosion on Wall Street of a dynamite laden cart at the height of rush hour.

With the 1930’s, and end of Prohibition, came new challenges, particularly on the left, where the Communist infiltration was both feared, and yet, to some extent overrated. As the Depression drew to a close, the agencies attentions, still under the watchful eyes of J. Edgar, were called upon to aid in the war against America’s so-called “fifth columnists”, people who would subvert the cause of freedom from within. Wiretaps, without authorization, were the “norm”, as was opening personal mail in a way which went beyond ordinary censorship, in which your envelope has obviously been opened, and then stamped by the individual who read it. Instead, the agency learned the art of opening select messages on the sly, an art which would later be employed during both the McCarthy Era, as well as the Anti-War days of Vietnam.

The end of World War Two brought even more to the Bureau’s table, as the nation began its painful growth period coming to terms with the Civil Rights movement. The author successfully records the tension between the Bureau and the President over the Freedom Rides, as well as their subsequent failure in the Kennedy Assassination; becoming, to a certain extent; a tool of the CIA for the first time. This would prove telling both during, and after Watergate, as the CIA helped to bring down the President, with the FBI standing helplessly by.

The author takes the reader on a step by step journey through the internal power struggles which ensued upon the death of J. Edgar Hoover, who had been granted Federal Authority to reign for life.

Through the Union busting days of the 1980’s and even on into the 21^st Century and the attacks in New York and Washington, the author traces the role of the Bureau in America today. Fully researched, with a complete section of notes and sources, listed chapter by chapter, this is a good book. Though it offers no great new insights, it does serve as an excellent chronicle of what we do know.

"Nixon's Darkest Secrets" by Don Fulsom

If you skip reading just one book this year, this is the one I'd recommend most. I picked it up at the library, naturally, because the whole era of the 1960's, when I was growing up, is always of keen interest to me. And that interest leaves me open to reading about the greatest news events of my life at the time. Through my reading, I have come to see the links between the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy Assassination, and later, the botched Watergate burglary. I expected this book to affirm some of my own beliefs; which it does to a certain extent; as well as to be a re-hashing of some of the things that have already been written about former President Nixon, including his own autobiographies.

So, I picked it up eagerly, only to be sorely disappointed at the narrow scope of the book, which seems more concerned with character assassination, rather than an confirming, or even opening up new areas of one of our most complex Presidents.

The author, Don Fulsom, is a self-described White House reporter, former UPI Washington Bureau Chief, and currently an adjunct professor at American University, where he teaches a course on "Watergate: A Constitutional Crisis." That information all comes from the inside of the book jacket, and I have no reason to doubt any of it.

This book is perplexing in many ways. First off, for an individual who professes to be an expert on Watergate, he spends an inordinate amount of time exploring Nixon's connection with Bebe Rebozo, the Mafia related "bagman" who supplied Nixon with untold funds over the course of the President's political career. The two men first met in Florida in 1947. Rebozo seems to have been sort of a "knock about" guy at the time. He had already been a flight steward for Pan Am, a gas station owner, and a coin laundry operator. From these humble beginnings, Rebozo was able to forge a friendship with Congressman Nixon, a friendship which would last until the final days of Nixon's failed Presidency.

The most bizarre aspect of this book are the allegations that President Nixon and Bebe Rebozo were homosexual lovers for decades. Indeed the author takes 26 pages of this 260 page book to explore that unsubstantiated allegation; which I have never heard before reading this book; to prove his point. Using quotes from "unnamed" sources, as well as speculation by various individuals, he paints a picture of the Presidents relationship with Rebozo as "sexual". Some of the "proofs" of these allegations come from Bonnie Angelo, the correspondent for Time magazine, who swears she observed Nixon and Rebozo holding hands at a Miami restaurant. She further claims that she had never seen two men holding hands "as long and as fondly as Nixon and Rebozo." The author spends several pages on this alone.

Also high on the list as proof that Nixon was "gay", are the observations of his longtime secretary Evlyn Dorn, who claims that she only saw Nixon touch his wife once, to steady her in the back of a limo as they were standing, presumably during a campaign motorcade.

During Nixon's White House years, Rebozo was at the Presidents side almost continuously, logging in a visit about every ten days or so. These meetings took place at the White House, or at San Clemente, often without his wife and daughters being present. The author offers this as proof of their relationship being sexual.

One of the more bizarre tales of the alleged homosexual relationship involves the two men playing "King of the Pool" late at night. This is a game that all young men have played at one time or another; it involves one of the men floating on a raft while the other tries to turn it over. When that has been accomplished the roles are reversed, and the other guy attempts to regain the raft as his own. This allegation, which is used by the author as "proof" that President Nixon was homosexual, can only be described as strange, on its face alone. In other instances, the author has called forth "experts" on Nixon's "thinking." My only conclusion on that score is that both the author, and the anonymous "top psychiatrist", believe in ESP, or at least reading the minds of two men who are both deceased.

The biggest question I have about this book is this, the author; who is seemingly "hell bent on election" to prove that the President was gay; also accuses him of being a homophobe. I don't see the connection, or rather; I do see the disconnection in this thinking. And, on another level, how can someone who is presumably of moderate to liberal persuasion, use these unfounded accusations to defame an already tainted President? And why bother?

Nixon was far from my favorite President. He extended the War in Vietnam for political gain; which caused an estimated 25,000 additional combat deaths; and allowed his involvement in the Bay of Pigs affair to be used against him as blackmail in the Watergate scandal. His excessive abuse of power is widely known. There is nothing new in this book at all, aside from the bizarre allegations I have already mentioned.

There is one highlight to this book; at the end, after the Index; there is a one page biography of the author. There is no mention of his being married. That, in itself, is of little consequence. But the photo the author uses to show his "inside" connection to the Nixon White House is of him holding hands tightly with the President; and they are both smiling...

Family of Secrets by Russ Baker

This book is the final word on the JFK Assassination and it’s connection to the Watergate break-ins in 1972 and the eventual seating of the first unelected President in the history of the United States. From there it moves on to explain how George H.W. “Poppy” Bush, with the aid of Zappata Off Shore Oil (headquartered in Medilin, Columbia (200 miles from shore) went on to become President of the United States, establishing a political dynasty along the way and leading to the election of Geoge W. Bush and the Iraqi war.

Ever wonder what the Pepsi Convention in Dallas had to do with the murder of the President? Ever asked yourself how could anyone possibly engineer a plot so tightly that it would ensure that the President would pass by the Book Depository? Ever wonder who owned the Book Depository Building and how Oswald got the job a mere 6 weeks before Kennedy’s visit? Ever think about what, if any, was Vice President Johnsons’ role in all of this? Why were 3 of the countrys’ subsequent Presidents in Dallas on the day of the assassination and what does their presence there indicate?

What was Abraham Zapruders unwitting role in all of this? And why was his 8mm film taken by Time-Life and locked away from the public until New Orleans Attorney Jim Garrison forced its release with a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are the details that have bugged me for years. And this book takes it all the way back to Prescott Bush and his early days establishing his family in finance and oil. The trail is murky until you shed some light on it as Mr. Baker has painstakingly done with this book.

For those that believe Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut, acting of his own twisted accord, this book will not interest you. But if you, like myself, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, to name a few, have any lingering doubts as to what really happened, then this is the book for you.

Layer upon layer of twists and turns all lead back to the inescapable conclusion that the Oil Lobby along with the CIA plotted, planned for and finally executed the President of the United States. Who pulled the trigger is another story- and a backseat one at best. The real story is who paid for and orchestrated the biggest crime of the 20th Century. A crime that has continued to pay dividends to the oil industry, the munitions manufacturers and one particular family.

Follow the political growth of the Bush family from its nefarious oil dealings as Zappata Off Shore Oil Group through the turbulent late 50’s and the 60’s. Follow the money as it flows and funds covert op after covert op. Follow George H.W. Bush on his climb to the 41st Presidency of the United States.

Who was George DeMohrenschildt and why did he and his wife take Lee and Marina Oswald under their wing during the months leading up to the assassination of the President?

What was the connection between the Bay of Pigs and Dallas and later Watergate? Why did President Nixon demand that the Watergate Burglars be paid off or it would “lead back to the whole Bay of Pigs thing.” And why did Richard Helms react so violently when this was relayed to him by H.R. Haldeman?

This is the penultimate book on the covert operations of the 1950’s CIA in Latin America and Southeast Asia. It ties together all the questions raised and argued by conspiracy theorists and refutes all the assertations put up by the Lone Assassin Theorists, showing along the way what the real goals were and how they were achieved.

Follow George W. in his early years and see how he was groomed to protect the family and secure power, both political and financial.

I cannot recommend this book enough. For me it is the final word on the events of November 22nd, 1963. It is also an explanation of the Watergate Burglary and its ultimate consequences for American politics, right up to the present day.

You will be amazed by this painstakingly researched and annotated book.