1 comments about Che Guevara: A Biography.

1. The author tries to separate the myth from the man and does offer some interesting analysis from his cynical viewpoint. But in debunking the myth, his point of view oversteps and creates another myth. The reader must continually weed these opinions from the facts, which he weaves in, back and forth in chronological time, using this device to often repeat his criticism, both real and imagined. Being published in 1969, Daniel James was at the disadvantage of writing soon after the events, but he does manage to make some interesting analysis when he's not too busy alienating Che.

4 comments about The Faith of Condoleezza Rice.

1. Being a political aficionado, I am always intrigued about the faith (and supposed faith) of popular politicians. Condoleezza Rice is particularly intriguing because of her rising prominence, first in Bush 41's administration, and now in the second term of Bush 43's administration. In addition, she was the Provost of Stanford University when my wife Marni attended the school. I went to the rival (I mean, superior) school, the University of California at Berkeley. But even though she was in Washington, DC while I was in graduate school at Berkeley (2000-2004), Dr. Rice was a known figure among Christian circles. So when I saw Tim Challies' review of this book, it naturally perked my interest.
   
   The book is an entertaining and interesting read. It spends several chapters looking carefully at Rice's upbringing in Birmingham, Alabama, tracing her deeply Christian roots back to her grandparents (and maternal great-grandmother). A dogged perseverance seems to have marked each of her ancestors as they sought to resist slavery. Rice's father (John Wesley Rice) was a Presbyterian minister and a dedicated family man. Condoleezza was their only child, and her parents poured love, time, and money into her intellectual, musical, and athletic development. For example, Condoleezza had piano and ice skating lessons (both rarities for African American girls of that era).
   
   The future Dr. Rice experienced racial prejudice in her childhood, but her parents refused to let it get them down. While her parents were friends with civil rights leaders, it seems they themselves were not particularly involved in protests and the like. Rather, they wanted Condi to "beat the system" by being more educated and thereby more accomplished than others, and to never let her race be an excuse for failure. I was impressed by the tireless can-do attitude of her parents, and it seems to have obviously shaped Condoleezza.
   
   She began her college years majoring in music, but realized she could not compete with younger, more talented pianists. So she shifted to another passion --- international politics, and Russia in particular. Interestingly, she was mentored by Josef Korbel, a Professor at the University of Denver who was simultaneously mentoring his daughter Madeline, who later took the surname Albright by marriage. Two future female Secretaries of State mentored by the same man.
   
   A bit about Dr. Korbel: He had been an advisor to exiled Czech president Edvard Benes, who lived in London until the Nazis were defeated in WWII. Korbel then moved back to Czechoslavakia, became an Ambassador to Yugoslavia, but was forced to flee when the Communists captured the nation. He was tried and sentenced to death in absentia, but fortunately obtained asylum in the United States.
   
   Through her reputation as an expert on Russia, she eventually impressed key people in President George H.W. Bush's administration, which led to an appointment. The current President later tapped her for a more prestigious position, and in between she was the Provost of Stanford.
   
   A member of the PC-USA, Condoleezza's faith in Christ strikes me as deep, sincere, and genuine. However, the last chapter reveals a somewhat swirling manner of expressing her spiritual pilgrimage. She tends to see a dichotomy between faith and reason, as if one hinders the other. In her own words, she "needs to have a better unity of faith and reason" in her personal life, in her personal relationship with God (p. 198). I found myself wanting to send Dr. Rice the text of John Piper's excellent message on this topic from the Ligonier Conference this past March.
   
   Overall, the book is a fun, stimulating read. If you are at all interested in what has shaped Condoleezza Rice, I think you will find it worthwhile. Montgomery gives readers a fuller picture of Rice's personal history by interweaving critical historical events (e.g., in the Civil Rights Movement) with the various junctures of Rice's life. I only wish more treatment was given for how Rice came to her own political convictions, which (as I understand them) tend to be conservative on fiscal and military issues, but more moderate/liberal on social issues. For example, I would really like to know more about how Rice views affirmative action, and how she defends her pro-choice position as a Christian.



2. If you are looking for a new view on Dr. Rice this is the book to read. What an unexpected delight! It is rich in history and gives detailed information about Dr. Rice's life (including her childhood). The author interviewed most of Dr. Rice's family and friends and even got the Secretary of State to sign off on the book after reading it herself. Montgomery is carving out a niche for biographies and I will anticipate her next book with great fevor.



3. Condoleezza Rice has shown us an all business side in the world of politics. It is nice to know that the decisions she makes every day are made by a woman who's faith is of the utmost importance to her. The author has done a remarkable job bringing us the facts in a book that I couldn't lay down. I have read all of Leslie Montgomery's books and she just continues to keep me interested and wanting more.



4. It is easy to be skeptical about the faith claims of politicians. It is rare for a politician to claim to be anything other than a Christian and yet so few of them show any real evidence of the faith they profess. Of course there are undoubtedly some who rise to power that truly are genuine Christians. In The Faith of Condoleeza Rice, Leslie Montgomery shows Condoleeza Rice to be one of these.
   
   Though this is a book about a woman who has made her mark as a politician, it is not a book about politics. Rather, it is about the faith the of Condoleeza Rice and the legacy of faith that was passed down to her by her family. Growing up in a family of Presbyterians, many of whom were clergy, Rice seems to have always considered herself a believer. She was born into a remarkable family, the only child of parents who gave everything they had to give her everything she needed to be one of the most influential people in the world. As the book traces Rice's life, it also traces the history of racial tension and reconciliation in the United States. Rice was born into the geographic and chronological heart of the Civil Rights Movement. While her parents kept her largely sheltered from the strife surrounding them, she certainly did notice the world changing around her.
   
   I was intrigued by the intellectual nature of Rice's faith. While in many ways she has a simple faith and says she has never doubted the tenets of her faith, at the same time her faith has become remarkably developed in her mind as she has reflected on the Bible. The parts of the book in which the author discusses the particulars of Rice's faith, and especially those that are drawn directly from interviews with her, make for fascinating reading. While the book attempts to portray Rice as a spiritual hero I am not so sure that the author succeeds at this. She certainly appears to be a Christian, but to consider her some kind of a spiritual giant would seem to be overstating it. After all. Rice's faith, while certainly driving and motivating her, is not what she is known for. Her faith is an important part of who she is, but it is something she must necessarily keep in the background much of the time.
   
   The book moves quite quickly and, thankfully, unlike many biographies, does not dwell upon things like the books Rice has written. While they are mentioned, the author (rightly, no doubt) assumes that readers will have no interest in knowing just what Rice had to say about Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft. It is well-written, fast-moving, and is certainly an enjoyable read.
   
   So while I would not be likely to read this book as an attempt to peer in the life of a spiritual hero, I would gladly recommend it as an interesting glimpse into the life of a woman who is extraordinarily gifted and who has not risen to a position of great responsibility and great authority despite her faith, but, it would seem, because of her faith.

5 comments about Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why.

1. What makes this book so great is its limited focus on the Warren Commission itself, and not alternative theories of the JFK Assassination.
   
   The political origins of the Commission are described incredibly well. Virtually no objective reader can have any doubt whatsoever that the Warren Commission went into the investigation already armed with an assigned and foregone conclusion.
   
   This is the book that non-academic namecalling authors, such as Vincent Bugliosi, are afraid to tackle in an open forum.



2. This is a well written and welcome addition to the seemingly Himalayan pile of works on the world's biggest unsolved murder case and a subject that still haunts America to this day. It is fair to say that the FBI never closed the case and it is no surprise then that works such as this continue to appear. So many however are poorly written, cover the same old ground and present largely unsubstantiated theories of conspiracy. Whilst I disagree personally with the authors stance that Oswald could not have been the lone assassin on the assumption that the single bullet theory must be incorrect, I found much of the text on the on the Commission's work generally to be of high value. Of the many recent ie, post 2000 publications on the subject, I would recommend this book as a good example of a well written pro conspiracy text. It is frustrating though to find yet another author who fails to analyze the magic bullet theory in an open minded fashion - ignoring the ground breaking work of the Discovery Channels documentary "Unsolved History: JFK - Beyond the Magic Bullet DVD" including the work undertaken by a team of Australian medics and wound ballistics experts who reconstructed the shot meticulously to show that it was indeed possible and highly probable that all the non fatal wounds of Kennedy and Governor Connally were caused by the same bullet.
   An interesting exercise would be to compare this to Earl Warren's chapter on the JFK assassination in his 1977 memoirs. One would find a resolute assurance that the Commission acted honorably in all aspects from Warren himself, this book however contests that whilst the Commission acted benignly in its path to the conclusion that there was no conspiracy, it failed to investigate properly some key aspects of the case and that had they done so we would have been left with a much less murky past and a rather less suspecting general public.



3. Groupthink is defined as `a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' striving for unanimity overrides their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.' If one reads McKnight's exhaustive book about the Warren Commission, this definition would fit precisely to this group of men. In a recent survey, it was revealed that over a third believe that 9/11 was the efforts of a government conspiracy. Be that as it may, it is not a stretch then to assume that more Americans believe that the Kennedy assassination was a result of a conspiracy. However, the harm that that belief can cause now is minimal at best, because it is more then 40 years after the event, and our citizenry has become predisposed to ignore history. McKnight's large book presents very persuasive arguments that the Commission itself was flawed at the outset, by bureaucratic infighting and persistent groupthink. Early on in the investigation, McKnight argues, the FBI and the White House knew that the answer to the murder must be Oswald acted alone. This is justifiably the way that the new administration should have acted, since we must remember that November 1963 was very near the mid-point of the Cold War, and any thought of a Soviet plot would have stirred a massive amount of unrest.
   
   When the Warren Commission was formed, the Commission at the very least should not have assumed anything when it came to ballistics, suspects, witnesses or foreign connections. Instead, it became merely a rubber stamp for the Hoover-Johnson `official' story that began taking shape even before Kennedy was buried. The very disturbing aspect of the whole investigation is that early on, the FBI and other agencies knew that there were more then 3 shots. How this was swept aside immediately has led some people to believe that a government conspiracy was in effect to hide a previous conspiracy. McKnight contends that dissatisfied elements of the CIA who were incensed with Kennedy's Cuba policy executed the killings as sort of a bureaucratic grudge match. The point, McKnight contends, is that the CIA was trying to force the new administration's hand in dealing with Cuba from a more hard-line perspective. McKnight writes that they were disappointed, because Johnson merely continued the Kennedy policy of politely ignoring Cuba. Not the most well thought out plan! While I find this theory interesting, it does not account for the fact that Central Intelligence, throughout several administrations, has had long standing grudge matches with the executive branch. Yes, the CIA operated with impunity in Iraq, Nicaragua and the Congo, but it should not be assumed that just because the CIA executed these missions that they would have showed the same kind of impunity against an American president on American soil. When McKnight sticks to the leads and the information that the Warren Commission choose to ignore, the book can be very good, but the careless postulating later on becomes a drag on the books' central topic.



4. McKnight's book contains little that is "news" those familiar with this case. This is not a book of new disclosures, or examinations of trails gone cold, but perhaps something that will be valued more for it's refusal to move outside it's narrow focus: the conduct of the Warren Commission, and it's relationship with the various investigatory agencies and the handling (and mis-handling) of those who testified and their information. This is a "safe" book, in that there is no speculation (or even examination) of the motives of the WC or possible explanations for the many gaffs pointed out in the committee operations. This is a well documented examination of the flaws in the structure and function of the WC , and ultimately an interesting book for those students of history or government who may be less interested in the results than in the process. This is Meagher or Weisberg without the passion, but very well documented, and of use to those seeking a more recent view of WC activities and participants based on current information.



5. Everything you read in this book has been published or aired before. However, the writer has a certain flair and is a tremendous story-teller. It is ten times the book that Joan Mellen wrote about Jim Garrison -- which was an embarrassment to thinking people.

5 comments about The American Agent: My Life in the CIA.

1. I love everything CIA. But his book gets off to a super slow start. 120 pages in and all the character has been in the hospital the whole time doing rehab. I realize this is a true story, but it is kinda boring at first.
   
   I may try to finish it... I am not sure.



2. A wonderful account of an interesting career. If you are into government, intelligence, foriegn politics, or just plain old spy novels, you should definately read this book.



3. Some of the content of the book is fascinating. I enjoyed when he discussed operational details, but they seemed few and far between. As other reviews have said, the book seems focused on house hunting and the like. I also found his writing style to be a bit up and down. It almost reads like a first draft, with a strange flow.
   I would recommend the book for anyone who is interested in the subject because there is not that much available that describes life inside the Agency. That being said, it is by no means a great read.



4. Good insite into the internal politics at the CIA. Pulls no punches regarding who (historically) supported the agency's mission and who did not.
   
   Good perspective of what our field agents face abroad, their lifestyle, challenges with landguages, cultures, etc.
   
   Slightly disappointed Holm did not go more into specific or theoretical cases. Also, he rants a bit too much at the end to get 31 yesrs of frustratio off his chest.



5. Holmes is a very detailed man. He tells his lifestory in great detail. Some of it is interesting, some of it is not. He does an excellent job in describing the agency and how it operates. Unfortunately, you have to read or go through a lot of junk to get there.
   
   If you want the "quick and dirty" info about the CIA and how it operates, do not get this book. If you want great details about our operations in the Congo, Laos, and Asia and you have plenty of time, this is the book to read.

No comments about Does People Do It?: A Memoir (Stories and Storytellers).

5 comments about Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

1. The Book: Not a Hillary (or Clinton) bashing book at all - very fair.
   Its a well written, well researched compilation of the life and political career of HRC. They left nothing out. I even printed a Clinton White House time-line just to keep up with some of the chapters that jumped around a bit.
   I learned allot about today's politics in Washington. How polititicians constantly position themselves on the issues in order to remain in good standing with their constituents and keep their jobs. The book makes it clear that the Clintons (especially Hillary) do this more profoundly then anyone one else. They have crafted it into an art form consisting of lying, telling half-truths, only taking partial responsibility (if any at all) on things gone wrong, blaming others, etc.
   
   Yet somehow the authors can't avoid including details about the massive amount of energy, intelligence, education, connections, leadership skills, dedication and endless campaigning and speech writing it takes for people in the congressional arena to debate, argue and fight over issues they represent. In this sense i was taken aback somewhat by the amount of time these people put into public service - even in the face of what might be considered selfish motives, ambitions and ideals.
   
   I thought the authors managed to brilliantly adhere Her story to the quote by Bertrand Russell which opens Part I: "It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals."
   
   This is HRC. For as smart as people say she is, this book shows her faults and bad decision making. The experience she brags about is nothing more than her cunningness, and experience in how to maneuver her way through the congressional labyrinth of rules, laws and regulations. The power she wields comes from the ability to maintain a staggering network of extremely loyal staff, rich and influential friends.
   
   To quote the Book:
   "The strategy Hillary developed in college to restore her sense of confidence and balance by refusing to look within has helped sustain her through a life of incredible accomplishment and heartbreak. But it has also resulted in a forced, artificial demeanor, a reinforced tendency toward arrogance and a belief that she is immune to the rules, and a sense that anyone who disagrees must be an enemy."



2. Pulitzer Prize-Winning `New York Times' reporters Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, Jr. analyze Hillary Clinton's personal and public life. With their investigative background they delve into her years in Arkansas, the White House, the U.S. Senate and as a 2008 presidential candidate. The authors conducted interviews and researched documents in order to objectively portray Clinton's legislative career, faith-based social activism, and marriage. Though the book is powerfully written, there is not much new information shared if you have been keeping up with all the books released on the Clinton's. What makes this book different is that is written by two writers of mainstream press.



3. The prologue to Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr.'s book ends with two ominous-sounding sentences: "For decades, Hillary and Bill Clinton, along with a core group of friends and supporters, have told one story. Now it is time for another."
   
   Ouch! That tone of literary voice will certainly set off alarm bells among Hillary Rodham Clinton's legions of admirers. Gerth and Van Natta are both veteran hard-nosed journalistic hands. Jeff Gerth was the point man at the New York Times in stirring up the Whitewater controversy that caused the Clintons incredible trouble before it blew over with no charges against them. They know where and how to dig for facts and underlying documentation. In this book they may acknowledge Hillary's strengths and strong points, but they seem mainly intent on cutting her down to size as her bid for the presidency picks up steam.
   
   HER WAY is not intended as a comprehensive Hillary biography, though it does adequately cover the basics of her early years. It is more a study of her methods of political operation and an effort to probe her way of thinking about the world, about politics and about herself. The portrait that emerges is that of a powerful and ambitious woman who brooks no opposition, never admits a mistake, carefully constructs a public image that may or may not reflect her real views and tries to ignore or suppress inconvenient facts that may undermine that public persona. As the book ends, the authors wonder who the "authentic" Hillary Clinton may be. It is certainly a question worth asking. They don't seem to know the answer and neither does the reader.
   
   Gerth and Van Natta dutifully stir up the cold ashes of Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Foster's death, Hillary's commodities trading fortunes, her work for the Rose law firm in Arkansas and --- of course --- Monica Lewinsky. Their research is thorough, but there is a snide quality to their constant tendency to find some angle, fact or interpretation that reflects unfavorably on their subject. (Example: If Hillary sidesteps a reporter's question about support for improved auto fuel-efficiency standards, they add gratuitously, "Michigan is an important primary state, after all.")
   
   For purposes of the upcoming presidential campaign, the most relevant part of this book is its detailed account of how Hillary arrived at --- and subsequently tried to justify --- her vote for the Iraq war powers resolution. This will surely be the deciding factor for a large contingent of voters in 2008 if she is the nominee. Gerth and Van Natta show that when Iraq first became a contentious issue she seemed to side solidly with President Bush, only drifting off toward hardnosed opposition as the strength of antiwar sentiment began to build. This is a road traveled by a fair number of senators in recent years, but the authors are quick indeed to question Hillary's motives and paint her as opportunistic. They fault her for being one of 94 senators who did not read the full classified text of the famous National Intelligence Estimate that cast doubt on the administration's rationale for invading Iraq. Among those 94 members were several others who later became candidates for President.
   
   The overall impression created by this book is that two Hillary Clintons exist --- one a carefully airbushed and spin-doctored public woman, the other a real person driven by "raw political ambition" who will do or say anything, crush any opponent and seize upon any issue to get her where she wants to go.
   
   That may be true, but we just don't know yet. Well, we have 16 months to find out --- and I'm not sure that Gerth and Van Natta are the most neutral of guides for the journey. They demonstrate that they "know" Hillary Clinton better than you and I do, but their own motives are not much clearer than hers.
   
   [...]



4. This is the book to read if you want some straight reporting on Hillary's life and career. It covers everything from her youth through 2006 without ever become an attack piece or hagiography. A bit more than a third of the book is devoted to her work as a candidate and then as the junior Senator from New York.
   
   At first, I found the early portions of the book unsatisfactory because the authors seem to be giving her every benefit of the doubt. For example, on page 79 they try to say that Hillary's work at the notoriously leftist Legal Services Corporation doesn't mean Hillary holds leftist values. The evidence? A quote from the ultra-extreme leftist Mickey Kantor saying, "From my perspective, she was very moderate." OK. He admits he was a flamethrower, why does that necessarily make Hillary not a leftist? They also minimize the influence of Saul Alinsky on her career and manner of politics or even that Alinsky was much more than "a colorful Chicago community activist" (pg 33).
   
   The book also avoids the well known scandals almost completely. Oh, the authors go over Whitewater, the options trading, and so on, but Hillary always gets a pass. For example, the problem with the options trading wasn't the fantastic series of trades, but that she was allowed to be under margin. They got a certificate from someone who said that options can payoff big, so Hillary gets a pass. Right. More believable would have been showing a similarly fantastic series of trades by anyone else. Ever. In the history of trading options.
   
   But as I was getting worked up over the lack of discussion over the FBI files and so on, I finally realized what the I think the authors are doing. They don't want the book to get bogged down in the old muck. When they have solid and incontrovertible evidence about the Rose billing records, they present it. The case they slowly build is the fact that Hillary has a very poor track record in making good choices. Her instincts for secrecy and stonewalling, her willingness to misstate the facts, her tin ear for public relations, and sense of entitlement and arrogance all combine to demonstrate the kind of President she would be. In my mind, it adds up to a disqualification. However, the authors don't say that and others pre-disposed to praise her will likely conclude differently.
   
   The authors are exquisite on displaying Hillary's maneuvering on 9/11, the Iraq war, and the way her political needs of the moment cause her to talk falsely about facts that are on the record and how hard she works to keep other facts from ever getting on the record or from being brought to public attention. This is the book's strongest material. It is this material that is most relevant to her run for President and I finally came to agree with the authors' choice to emphasize it and leave the old stuff out.
   
   Whether you are for, against, or indifferent to Hillary, she is a major force in our present politics and you would do well to learn more about her. This book is among the best of the books written about her. I think it is the most relevant to her run for President.
   
   Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI



5. I couldn't believe that, Hillary in 1992 listened in on secretly-recorded phone conversations of political opponents.? But what is truly amazing is that, while she is eager and willing to listen in on political opponents, she has fought against giving our intelligence experts the tools they need to monitor terrorists who might be calling to activate their sleeper cells in the United States.? In 2006, she joined the far-left of her Party to claim that the Bush Administration was breaking the law by conducting surveillance on terrorists calling into and out of the United States.? A year later, when President Bush tried to meet Democrats halfway by proposing legislation to fix that loophole, she voted against it.
   
   It is a stunning stance.? Here is an individual who is willing to listen into conversations conducted by political opponents, and yet, as she vies to be our next President, she opposes conducting surveillance against terrorists as they plan to kill Americans.? Can she possibly be serious?
   
   I have read so many reports on the Clintons and their corruption, I can't believe she is running for President. there is so much evidence of wrong doing and law breaking on the part of this dynamic duo just slip by the lobotomies masses that I can't ever foresee them actually having to pay for their crimes. Nothing short of a murder committed in front of surveillance cameras will get either of these people so much as an indictment. Even then, I can see the Clinton spin machine on all the cable shows whining that the cameras were placed by Clinton bashers and we should all just put it behind us and move forward.
   
   God help us, if she is wins the democratic nomination for President.
   
   Those around the Clintons get killed, commit suicide, indicted and sent to jail. The Clintons themselves get elected to the Senate, and get $100,000 in speaking fees. History will lynch these two, but the law will never touch them.

No comments about Louisiana Governors: Rulers, Rascals, and Reformers.

5 comments about The STRANGE DEATH OF VINCENT FOSTER.

1. In this book Chritopher Ruddy provides many facts about the strange death of Vincent Foster. That death is historically significant whether it was suicide or homicide,after all it's not often that someone close to a sitting president succombs to a mysterious death. Mr. Ruddy shares information from discussions with homicide detectives,medical examiners,and staff from the Starr investigations.
   
   Here are some issues that the author touches on:
   
   The gun supposedly found in Vincent Foster's hand. It was a 1913 Colt that was basically a cobbled-up "drop piece" made from combining two guns with two differing serial numbers. Most disturbing is the fact that it wasn't his gun. Add to that witness statements that claimed the gun was a different color and was a semi-automatic rather than a revolver. A lot of conflicting witness statements about something as important as the gun used in a potential suicide.
   
   The different locations of the body. Mr.Ruddy clearly and logically explains where the corpse was discovered by those first on the scene.
   
   The "crime scene" was not the place of Mr.Foster's death. The body was moved,that much is very obvious from the blood evidence! Unless of course blood can run uphill.
   
   The problematic location of his glasses and the presence of gunpowder on them.
   
   There were conflicting reports regarding Foster's briefcase,and it's likely location in the Honda car at the park.
   
   The timeline within the White House and how soon they really knew about the death. The strange Secret Service memo that stated "Vince Foster shot himself in the White House parking lot". Helen Dickey repeated that before recanting later.
   
   The search and subsequent destruction of documents from Foster's White House office. Another mystery surrounding the case.
   
   The way that White House personnel obstructed or adversely affected investigations into the death. The long-standing relationships with investigators and the poor choice of some of the participants such as Fiske and Starr.
   
   The possible motivation for having the Park Police investigate the case is explained by their less than illustrious history with crimes and coverups.
   
   While this book doesn't prove a homicide or suicide,it does prove an obvious coverup. The body was definitely moved. Did Vincent Foster committ suicide in a White House parking lot? We'll probably never know the truth about the location and cause of death.
   Christopher Ruddy has written an excellent book and I recommend it!



2. On July 20, 1993, Deputy White House Counsel Vincent W. Foster, Jr. was found dead in Fort Marcy Park, Virginia. On January 27, 1994, Christopher Ruddy became the first American journalist to write anything about the death that was both based upon actual interviews of witnesses at the park and called into question the official suicide ruling. With this book he reached another milestone. More than four years after the death he became the first person to have a serious, critical book on the Foster death published by a "mainstream" publisher.
   
   The book, like his reporting on the case, first for the New York Post and later for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, is thick with facts that contradict the official version, a version which we have, up to now, only been given by the initial Special Prosecutor, Robert Fiske, in a sparse, double-spaced, 58-page report (We are not counting the numerous journalists, most notably James Stewart in the Simon and Schuster book, Blood Sport, who have also peddled the official suicide-from-depression story.).
   
   Here's an outline of some of the most important evidence that Ruddy reveals to us:
   
   The Body
   
   Foster was laid out as though ready for a coffin with his legs straight and his arms down by his side.
   
   He was neat and tidy. None of the gore that one would expect when a person has blown his brains out with a .38 caliber revolver was present. Only a trickle of blood was seen oozing from the nose and the corner of the mouth. No samples of skull, brain tissue, or hair were collected, or even reported seen, on the ground or vegetation. There was no large pool of blood. There was no blow-back on the barrel of the gun, his hand, or the sleeve of his shirt. His teeth were not chipped nor his mouth damaged from, as we were told, having held the pistol's barrel deep in his mouth when he fired it.
   
   None of the witnesses in the park reported seeing the large exit wound at the crown of the head that is in the autopsy report of Dr. James Beyer, a man with a record of serious mistakes on autopsies resulting in suicide rulings when murder was more likely. On his report, Dr. Beyer checked that he took X-rays and an attending policeman wrote on his report that Dr. Beyer had told him that the X-rays showed no bullet fragments in the head, yet Dr. Beyer later said, and Fiske reported, that no X-rays were taken because the machine was not working. Service records on the X-ray machine, however, belie the claim that it was not working.
   
   An emergency worker at the park has testified to having seen a small wound on the right side of the neck . Ruddy claims to have seen a photograph leaked to him from Kenneth Starr's office that shows a similar neck wound. Recently, a document was uncovered in the National Archives that indicates that medical examiner Dr. James Haut also reported seeing a neck wound. A good part of the Polaroid photographs taken of the scene have disappeared, and it has been claimed that the 35-mm photos taken by the principal police photographer were spoiled by under-exposure.
   
   The Gun
   
   Neither police nor FBI apparently ever showed the gun found in Foster's hand to immediate family members for identification. The gun was an old 1913-vintage Colt made up from parts of two or more guns. The preponderance of evidence suggests that it was not Foster's gun.
   
   The earliest witness said there was no gun in the hand when he saw the body. The next witness, a Park Policeman, also saw no gun, though he claims not to have looked very closely. One of the earliest emergency workers to arrive has given sworn expert testimony that the gun he saw was an automatic, not a revolver.
   
   No fingerprints from Foster were on the gun or the bullet shell casings.
   
   Powder markings on the webbing between thumb and forefinger of both hands indicate either that Foster held the gun in an impossibly awkward position, someone caused the markings to be there after the death, or Foster was trying to ward off a shot by grabbing the gun by the front cylinder gap.
   
   No matching bullets to the two shells (one spent) in the gun were found anywhere.
   
   The supposed fatal bullet was never found.
   
   The police ruled suicide before ever testing the gun to see if it was functional and had been fired. Originally, the Park Police gave erroneous information about the testing of the gun.
   
   The Note
   
   The note that has been liberally interpreted as a suicide note was reportedly found in a briefcase that had been emptied, searched, and inventoried in front of several investigating officials.
   
   Though torn into 28 pieces, none of Foster's fingerprints were on it.
   
   The Capitol Hill policeman to whom it was unaccountably sent for authentication is not a certified handwriting examiner, and he used only one document putatively written by Foster for comparison.
   
   A serious effort was made to keep a photocopy of the note out of the hands of the public.
   
   A trio of respected handwriting examiners, including the world's leading authenticator of literary manuscripts from Oxford University in England, has declared that the note is a forgery.
   
   Senator D'Amato's Whitewater Committee, seemingly forgetting about their subpoena power, refused to look into the authenticity question because "the family would not turn over the note."
   
   One could continue in this vein with equally strong sketches under "The Spurious `Depression'," "The Car and the Keys," "Doctored Statements and Intimidated Witnesses," "The Time of White House Notification," and several other categories, but space is limited and we would not want the reader to think that he now has no need to read the book. The book is well worth its price if only for the truly splendidly-rendered morality play described in Chapter 9 (The chapters, unfortunately, are not named; they are only numbered.). Ruddy seems to be the proverbial fly on the wall as "the hero of the story," federal attorney Miquel Rodriguez makes what looks like a serious attempt to get at the truth, grilling witnesses before the grand jury, only to be undercut at every turn by his superiors, Mark Tuohey and Kenneth Starr. Rodriguez eventually gives up and unceremoniously resigns. Properly executed, this chapter by itself would make a very powerful movie.
   
   The first thing that has to come to anyone's mind as he reads these shocking revelations is "Why haven't I heard any of this before? There is information here that would have sold newspapers by the ton and kept people glued to the TV screens. Whatever happened to the aggressive free press motivated, if not by a love of truth, at least by profit, and where are the sleuths of Watergate?" Ruddy has no answer. He doesn't even bother to ask the question. What terrible secret, incriminating to so many, must lie behind the Foster death? He also has no explanation as to why the supposed "opposition" Republicans have rolled over like trained seals. Again, he fails even to ask the question.
   
   Instead, with as powerful a case as he has, Ruddy gives up the moral high ground by choosing to have his book touted on the dust cover by William Sessions, the man who directed the FBI at the time of the Ruby Ridge and Waco outrages. The tone of the endorsement, the first thing that most readers will see, is so timid and defensive that it almost amounts to damning with faint praise: "Mr. Ruddy has carefully avoided drawing undue inferences about the death. It is legitimate to question the process employed by authorities to make their conclusions."
   
   Ruddy, seeming not to recognize the strength of his hand, echoes Sessions' tone near the book's end with a long, inadequate response to the patently spurious and insincere arguments that he has heard against his pursuing the case "not only from media colleagues, but from leading political and law-enforcement figures as well." Does he not realize that it is they, not he, who have the answering to do?
   
   Finally, I am troubled by Ruddy's omission of a number of crucial facts about the case. To cite the worst example, he does not tell us that well before his book went to the printers the witness, Patrick Knowlton, had filed suit for witness intimidation against a number of individuals working for the FBI. Rather, there is only mention in a chronology in an appendix that Knowlton "file(d) suit in federal court alleging the government violated his civil rights." From what we are told it sounds like no more than a trivial nuisance suit, but it is far more than that. After Starr had closed the case the Knowlton suit was the public's best chance of learning the truth, but Ruddy would seem to prefer that we know virtually nothing about it.
   
   The other major pressure point is with the Congress, and the Republicans there, particularly Chairman Dan Burton of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, once a lonesome Congressional champion of truth in the Foster case, completely escape censure by Ruddy. These omissions and others, sad to say, are more than enough to make one question Ruddy's motives. Does he, the outsider who started out at the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York tabloid and then fell to the tiny suburban Pittsburgh newspaper owned by that notable funder of conservative causes, Richard Mellon Scaife, want too badly to be accepted by the cozy, thoroughly discredited club of "media colleagues" and "leading political and law-enforcement figures?" Some things, he should recognize, are more important than that.



3. I picked up this book not knowing much about Vincent Foster, or the scandals that surrounded the Clinton's. I was younger then, and now that Hillary is running for President I thought I should know.
   
   Firstly, Ruddy should be commended for his exhaustive efforts in putting together an informative book. No doubt he has sifted through countless documents and interviews, and probably spent countless nights digesting all of it.
   
   Pretty much after the first ten pages I knew Foster did not kill himself, which left me to wonder what the remaining 300 pages would consist of. This book has a LOT of information and at times it can feel overwhelming. I thought it might have felt less so had Ruddy separated his book into chapters by points of concern or contradiction, followed by facts backing up each point. I realize this approach is difficult, for Foster's death is murky and had it been easy to discern the truth the case would be solved by now. Instead Ruddy's book goes back and forth with events discussed previously resurfacing later.
   
   One thing's for sure, you get more from Ruddy's book if you come in with some pre-knowledge of other key players: McDougals, Webster Hubbel, Craig Livingstone, Whitewater, Travelgate, even Bill and Hillary, to name a few! This book is like a piece of a puzzle that fits better when you have all the pieces. These people and cases are important and Ruddy doesn't necessarily fill you in with details, (it's a bit annoying at times, but it certainly cuts down on the length of his book). Ruddy does include a couple pages in the Appendix covering a bit about these people, as well as a few timelines that are helpful.
   
   Overall, this is no novel, it's an investigate study packed with facts and information and you'll certainly have your fill of it.



4. There are certain occurrences which come into play during the Clinton administration like so many deaths during his reign, Chinagate etc. Read this and look deeper than what is written.



5. A fascinating account of yet another bungled White House cover-up. The author is to be commended not only for writing a compelling book but also for his excellent research skills. It is obvious from reading some of the negative reader reviews that many people write reviews without reading anything but the flyleaf. Books like these only make me more grateful to be a Canadian!

1 comments about No Destination: An Autobiography.

1. Satish Kumar is one of my favourite scholars on ecological matters. He's the founder of Schumacher College in Devon, U.K. where you can participate in a wide variety of ecological courses. He's also editor of Resurgence, a magazine covering the latest developments in quantum sciences, ecological highlights and other heart matters. His book covers the amazing story of his life, including his peace walk from New Delhi (India) to Washington D.C. Instructed by his spiritual master to trust God for providing all he needed, he walked for over two years without a penny in his pocket. A must-read for everyone who is in search of some more trust in life.

5 comments about John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty.

1. The most critical period of American history actually occurred after the revolution. The instability of anarchy threatened to make the ideas expressed in Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and the heroic successes of Washington nothing more than a forgotten dream. Another hero, one who would be willing to chronicle all previous forms of government and guide the architects of the constitution in creating something entirely new was what was needed. He was more than just another name on the list of American presidents. That hero was John Adams.
   Thank you, C. Bradley Thompson, for this inspirational account of an often overlooked and undervalued intellectual giant among the American John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty by C. Bradley Thompson
   founders.



2. Enjoy one of the biographies of John Adams, then read this superb book to complete the story of this great man. Mr. Thompson is a fine writer and can be seen on an old CSPAN segment giving a lecture on Adams. His grasp of President Adams's work and his ability to explain it are unmatched.



3. 
   To return America to its original foundation of freedom and individual rights, it is vital that we know the ideas of the men who created that system. This important task will be easier thanks to this book by C. Bradley Thompson. Readers interested in the Founding period and its legacy for our own time will not want to miss this book.



4. I am floored! I started reading biographies of John Adams after the musical "1776" piqued my interest in him and have absorbed at least 20 of them since then. I don't know how this 1998 title flew underneath my radar until 2004 but it did ... and I think NOW, after the 2004 election, is the time when every American needs to know what he did for us ... or TRIED to ... including: pointing the way for those of us who CAN to start doing something about the mess we're in now. His insistence on basing our government structure on actual human nature instead of a fantasized ideal of how human nature ought to be may be the only reason we've lasted even this long. Communism went down because it flew in the face of this wisdom. We could be next. Thompson shows that Adams was not only a political theorist, he was a scientifically oriented psychologist. So am I. And I know that he had a handle on psychological reality that exceeds what most modern psychological theorists can lay claim to. He was an Adlerian more than a century before Adler was a gleam in his father's eye. May ALL the Gods bless C. B. Thompson for what he has done ... and may his publisher start doing a better job of getting this book before the public.



5. I just finished reading C. Bradley Thompson's "John Adams and The Spirit of Liberty," and am in awe; not only of John Adams but of Dr. Thompson's masterful explication of Adams' political thought.

   I had no idea what a debt of gratitude I owed to one man, John Adams, who more than any other Founding Father developed and provided the intellectual framework that became the Constitution of the United States. At the very least this book should be required reading for any person who is interested in pursuing a career in politics.

   To all of you who are interested in understanding the intellectual founding of this country I urge you to read this book. You won't be able to put it down.

   And to C. Bradley Thompson, I salute you and thank you for your efforts in resurrecting the reputation and honor of this great man.