Customer Reviews

Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI

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The FBI's original mission was to investigate and prosecute only the most serious crimes against the U.S. - but it was a mission forsaken almost from the beginning, and its abandonment has been accompanied by a history of political pressures, divisiveness, and political intervention from a wide range of fronts. Richard Gid Powers is one of the country's leading historians of national security and law enforcement, and in Broken: The Troubled Past & Uncertain Future Of The FBI, he offers a compelling history of both the Bureau and the forces working within and outside of it. Broken is strongly recommended as a controversial, intriguing history that is certain to provoke spirited discussion.

then immediately read 1000 Years for Revenge by Peter Lance. Both books bear witness to the fact that FBI management is comprised of failed agents who hide behind desks because they can't make it as a Street Agent. They couldn't find a ham in a phone booth. They are wholly incapable of interviewing anybody;just read about NYC manager Carson Dunbar's treatment of an informant who knew plenty about both attacks on the WTC. Dunbar's incompetence is far worse than that of the military bosses at the time of the Pearl Harbor Attack. One point both authors omit is the high percentage of alcoholics in the management ranks of the FBI. Powers is a talented writer/historian whose earlier bio of Gay Edgar Hoover was truly monumental.