The Right Fights Back: Playbook 2012 (POLITICO Inside Election 2012)


Mike Allen - 2011
    The first edition, The Right Fights Back, follows the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.   The battle for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination promises to be one of the most hotly contested and closely fought in recent memory, as establishment Republicans, Tea Party favorites, and dark horse insurgents vie to take on President Obama in the November election. In The Right Fights Back, Mike Allen, chief White House correspondent for POLITICO, and Evan Thomas, the award-winning journalist and author of Robert F. Kennedy and The War Lovers, chronicle the dramatic events of this historic campaign as it unfolds.   With exclusive real-time reporting from the campaign trail, The Right Fights Back provides detail, color, and in-depth analysis that take readers beyond the hourly headlines and commentary. From the role of Super PACS and conservative interest groups to the clashes of personality and policy that will define the race to capture the GOP nomination, this is a history-as-it-happens account of the resurgent American right at the crossroads.

Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump


Michael Isikoff - 2018
    election and help Donald Trump gain the presidency.Russian Roulette is a story of political skullduggery unprecedented in American history. It weaves together tales of international intrigue, cyber espionage, and superpower rivalry. After U.S.-Russia relations soured, as Vladimir Putin moved to reassert Russian strength on the global stage, Moscow trained its best hackers and trolls on U.S. political targets and exploited WikiLeaks to disseminate information that could affect the 2016 election.The Russians were wildly successful and the great break-in of 2016 was no "third-rate burglary." It was far more sophisticated and sinister — a brazen act of political espionage designed to interfere with American democracy. At the end of the day, Trump, the candidate who pursued business deals in Russia, won. And millions of Americans were left wondering, what the hell happened? This story of high-tech spying and multiple political feuds is told against the backdrop of Trump's strange relationship with Putin and the curious ties between members of his inner circle — including Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn — and Russia.Russian Roulette chronicles and explores this bizarre scandal, explains the stakes, and answers one of the biggest questions in American politics: How and why did a foreign government infiltrate the country's political process and gain influence in Washington?

31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today


Barry Werth - 2006
    The congressional hearings, Nixon’s increasing paranoia, and, finally, the devastating revelations of the White House tapes had torn the country apart. Within the White House and the Republican Party, Nixon’s resignation produced new fissures and battle lines—and new opportunities for political advancement.Ford had to reassure the nation and the world that he would attend to the pressing issues of the day, from resolving the legal questions surrounding Nixon’s role in Watergate, to dealing with the wind down of the Vietnam War, the precarious state of détente with the Soviet Union, and the ongoing attempts to stabilize the Middle East. Within hours of Nixon’s departure from Washington, Ford began the all-important task of forming an inner circle of trusted advisers.In richly detailed scenes, Werth describes the often vicious sparring among two mutually distrustful staffs—Nixon’s and Ford’s vice presidential holdovers—and a transition team that included Donald Rumsfeld (then Nixon’s ambassador to NATO) and Rumsfeld’s former deputy, the thirty-three-year-old coolly efficient Richard Cheney. The first detailed account of the ruthless maneuvering and day-to-day politicking behind everything from the pardon of Nixon to why George H. W. Bush was passed over for the vice presidency, to the rise of a new cadre of Republican movers and shakers, 31 Days offers a compelling perspective on a fascinating but relatively unexamined period in American history and its impact on the present.

The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA


Joby Warrick - 2011
      In December 2009, a group of the CIA’s top terrorist hunters gathered at a secret base in Khost, Afghanistan, to greet a rising superspy: Humam Khalil al-Balawi, a Jordanian double-agent who infiltrated the upper ranks of al-Qaeda. For months, he had sent shocking revelations from inside the terrorist network and now promised to help the CIA assassinate Osama bin Laden’s top deputy. Instead, as he stepped from his car, he detonated a thirty-pound bomb strapped to his chest, instantly killing seven CIA operatives, the agency’s worst loss of life in decades.   In The Triple Agent, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Joby Warrick takes us deep inside the CIA’s secret war against al-Qaeda, a war that pits robotic planes and laser-guided missiles against a cunning enemy intent on unleashing carnage in American cities. Flitting precariously between the two sides was Balawi, a young man with extraordinary gifts who managed to win the confidence of hardened terrorists as well as veteran spymasters. With his breathtaking accounts from inside al-Qaeda’s lair, Balawi appeared poised to become America’s greatest double-agent in half a century—but he was not at all what he seemed. Combining the powerful momentum of Black Hawk Down with the institutional insight of Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side, Warrick takes the readers on a harrowing journey from the slums of Amman to the inner chambers of the White House in an untold true story of miscalculation, deception, and revenge.

The Fall of Richard Nixon: A Reporter Remembers Watergate


Tom Brokaw - 2019
    Tom Brokaw, the NBC News White House correspondent during the final year of Watergate, gives us a close-up, personal account of the players, the strategies, and the highs and lows of the scandal that brought down a president. Brokaw writes, “Even now, almost half a century later, I am astonished by what the country went through, and I wanted to share press stories from the inside looking out—what it was like to be on call 24/7, the twists and turns, the laughs and tensions during this historic time.”

Frost/Nixon: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews


David Frost - 1975
    Frost's encounters with such figures as Swifty Lazar, Ron Ziegler, potential sponsors, and Nixon as negotiator are nothing short of hilarious, and his insight into the taping of the programs themselves is fascinating.Frost/Nixon provides the authoritative account of the only public trial that Nixon would ever have, and a revelation of the man's character as it appeared in the stress of eleven grueling sessions before the cameras. Including historical perspective and transcripts of the edited interviews, this is the story of Sir David Frost's quest to produce one of the most dramatic pieces of television ever broadcast, described by commentators at the time as “a catharsis” for the American people.

The Ends of Power


H.R. Haldeman - 1977
    Also in the book, Haldeman explained Nixon's statement in the Watergate tapes that Watergate could "open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing". Haldeman said that "Bay of Pigs" was a reference to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Six Seconds in Dallas: A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assassination


Josiah Thompson - 1967
    Using eye- and ear-witness testimony, drawings made from stills of the Zapruder film (which may have been tampered with but is NOT a fabrication!), and expert analysis, Josiah Thompson's SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS remains the best study of the assassination--and the best proof of a conspiracy--to have emerged from the 60s, or any other decade for that matter.By Rocco Dormarunno on August 20, 2004

Dr. Feelgood: The Shocking Story of the Doctor Who May Have Changed History by Treating and Drugging JFK, Marilyn, Elvis, and Other Prominent Figures


Richard A. Lertzman - 2013
    Kennedy code-named “Dr. Feelgood,” developed a unique “energy formula” that altered the paths of some of the twentieth century’s most iconic figures, including President and Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis. JFK received his first injection (a special mix of “vitamins and hormones,” according to Jacobson) just before his first debate with Vice President Richard Nixon. The shot into JFK’s throat not only cured his laryngitis, but also diminished the pain in his back, allowed him to stand up straighter, and invigorated the tired candidate. Kennedy demolished Nixon in that first debate and turned a tide of skepticism about Kennedy into an audience that appreciated his energy and crispness. What JFK didn’t know then was that the injections were actually powerful doses of a combination of highly addictive liquid methamphetamine and steroids.Author and researcher Rick Lertzman and New York Times bestselling author Bill Birnes reveal heretofore unpublished material about the mysterious Dr. Feelgood. Through well-researched prose and interviews with celebrities including George Clooney, Jerry Lewis, Yogi Berra, and Sid Caesar, the authors reveal Jacobson’s vast influence on events such as the assassination of JFK, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy-Khrushchev Vienna Summit, the murder of Marilyn Monroe, the filming of the C. B. DeMille classic The Ten Commandments, and the work of many of the great artists of that era. Jacobson destroyed the lives of several famous patients in the entertainment industry and accidentally killed his own wife, Nina, with an overdose of his formula.

The Crisis Years: Kennedy & Krushchev 1960-63


Michael R. Beschloss - 1991
    Beschloss is the author of Kennedy and Roosevelt: An Uneasy Alliance and Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair. Photos.

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America


Sarah Kendzior - 2020
    His anti-democratic movement is the culmination of a decades-long breakdown of U.S. institutions. The same blindness to U.S. decline – particularly the loss of economic stability for the majority of the population and opportunity-hoarding by the few – is reflected in an unwillingness to accept that authoritarianism can indeed thrive in the so-called “home of the free”.As Americans struggle to reconcile the gulf between a flagrant aspiring autocrat and the democratic precepts they had been told were sacred and immutable, the inherent fragility of American democracy has been revealed. Hiding in Plain Sight exposes this continual loss of freedom, the rise of consolidated corruption, and the secrets behind a burgeoning autocratic United States that have been hiding in plain sight for decades. In Kendzior’s signature and celebrated style, she expertly outlines Trump’s meteoric rise from the 1980s until today, interlinking key moments of his life with the degradation of the American political system and the continual erosion of our civil liberties by foreign powers.Kendzior also offers a never-before-seen look at her personal life and her lifelong tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – living in New York through 9/11 and in St. Louis during the Ferguson uprising, and researching media and authoritarianism when Trump emerged using the same tactics as the post-Soviet dictatorships she had long studied.Hiding in Plain Sight is about confronting injustice – an often agonizing process, but an honest and necessary one – as the only way that offers the possibility of ending it.

The Death of a President: November 1963


William Manchester - 1967
    The Death of a President, November 20-November 25, 1963 [Hardcover]

Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich


Peter Schweizer - 2015
    Since then, they’ve earned over $130 million. Where did the money come from? Most people assume that the Clintons amassed their wealth through lucrative book deals and high-six figure fees for speaking gigs. Now, Peter Schweizer shows who is really behind those enormous payments.In his New York Times bestselling books Extortion and Throw Them All Out, Schweizer detailed patterns of official corruption in Washington that led to congressional resignations and new ethics laws. In Clinton Cash, he follows the Clinton money trail, revealing the connection between their personal fortune, their “close personal friends,” the Clinton Foundation, foreign nations, and some of the highest ranks of government.Schweizer reveals the Clinton’s troubling dealings in Kazakhstan, Colombia, Haiti, and other places at the “wild west” fringe of the global economy. In this blockbuster exposé, Schweizer merely presents the troubling facts he’s uncovered. Meticulously researched and scrupulously sourced, filled with headline-making revelations, Clinton Cash raises serious questions of judgment, of possible indebtedness to an array of foreign interests, and ultimately, of fitness for high public office.

See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism


Robert B. Baer - 2002
    This riveting book is both an indictment of an agency that lost its way and an unprecedented look at the roots of modern terrorism, and includes a new afterword in which Baer speaks out about the American war on terrorism and its profound implications throughout the Middle East.“Robert Baer was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East.”–Seymour M. Hersh, The New YorkerFrom The PrefaceThis book is a memoir of one foot soldier’s career in the other cold war, the one against terrorist networks. It’s a story about places most Americans will never travel to, about people many Americans would prefer to think we don’t need to do business with.This memoir, I hope, will show the reader how spying is supposed to work, where the CIA lost its way, and how we can bring it back again. But I hope this book will accomplish one more purpose as well: I hope it will show why I am angry about what happened to the CIA. And I want to show why every American and everyone who cares about the preservation of this country should be angry and alarmed, too.The CIA was systematically destroyed by political correctness, by petty Beltway wars, by careerism, and much more. At a time when terrorist threats were compounding globally, the agency that should have been monitoring them was being scrubbed clean instead. Americans were making too much money to bother. Life was good. The White House and the National Security Council became cathedrals of commerce where the interests of big business outweighed the interests of protecting American citizens at home and abroad. Defanged and dispirited, the CIA went along for the ride. And then on September 11, 2001, the reckoning for such vast carelessness was presented for all the world to see.

Nixon: A Life


Jonathan Aitken - 1994
    Presidential chronicles and other outside sources have tried to capture it in full, but Nixon: A Life is the first to succeed. Nixon: A Life is the first entirely objective biography of Richard Nixon. Jonathan Aitken, who, in addition to serving in Parliament, serves as Her Majesty's Minister of State for Defense, conducted over sixty hours of interviews with Nixon and was granted unprecedented access to thousands of pages of Nixon's previously sealed private documents. The results of Aitken's interviews and research shed new light on a presidency that is just now beginning to be understood by serious students of history. Among the questions Aitken answers with fresh insight are: . Why didn't Nixon burn the Watergate tapes? How did he achieve his astonishing comebacks after being defeated by Kennedy in 1960 and resigning from the presidency in 1974? What were his relationships with political figures such as Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, and personal friends such as Bebe Rebozo and Robert Abplanalp? What caused him to overcome his doubts and pursue the Alger Hiss spy case in Congress? What are Nixon's innermost spiritual beliefs and intellectual influences? What drives him now? Previously published in Great Britain to rave reviews, Nixon: A Life is the first Nixon biography written by a non-American author. Aitken's refreshingly unencumbered positions on Watergate and Vietnam provide a unique perspective on Nixon's life and his presidency. Nixon: A Life breaks important new ground as a major work of political biography. It is a work that will inspire historiansto recognize the outstanding diplomatic achievements of a man whose journey from tainted politician to respected foreign policy expert and elder statesman has been nothing short of remarkable.