 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||||
Best Value
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower by Zbigniew Brzezinski  (47)
$8.79
|
On the Brink: An Insider's Account of How the White House Compromised American Intelligence by Tyler Drumheller  (12)
$4.99
|
Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek (29)
$12.89
|
The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace by Ali A. Allawi (33)
$12.00
|
Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush by Robert Draper (50)
$9.99
|
Former CIA director Tenet leaves the main vocal duties for this audio in the capable hands of Conger (who also recently narrated The Reagan Diaries). Yet in reading both the brief introduction and lengthy-but highly compelling-afterword, Tenet demonstrates a command of the spoken word that makes one wonder why he did not handle his own narration. However, the two men project a compatible style and tone, conveying deeply personal emotion within the boundaries of professionalism and decorum. Tenet does not shy away from acknowledging his own responsibility in controversies involving terrorism and the Iraq War, but he also takes several key political leaders to task for scapegoating the intelligence community in the wake of unpopular policy. The musical interludes at the start and end of each CD serve to maintain the cloak and dagger ambience. Those who prefer to skim the surface of news events may find the length taxing, but listeners ready to move beyond the headlines and into a wider world of nuanced complexity will be more than satisfied.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Reviewed by Bob Woodward
In his remarkable, important and often unintentionally damning memoir, George Tenet, the former CIA chief, describes a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, two months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In much more vivid and emotional detail than previously reported, Tenet writes that he had received intelligence that day, July 10, 2001, about the threat from al-Qaeda that "literally made my hair stand on end."
According to At the Center of the Storm, Tenet picked up the phone, insisted on meeting with Rice about the threat from Al Qaeda, and raced to the White House with his counterterrorism deputy, Cofer Black, and a briefer known only as "Rich B."
"There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months," Rich B. told Rice, and the attack will be "spectacular." Black added , "This country needs to go on a war footing now." He said that President Bush should give the CIA new covert action authorities to go after Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization. After the meeting, Tenet's briefer and deputy "congratulated each other," Tenet writes. "At last, they felt, we had gotten the full attention of the administration."
Though Tenet was meeting almost daily with President Bush to give him an intelligence briefing and an update on threat reports -- "extraordinary access," he labels it -- by his own account he did not take the request for action "now" directly to the president.
During a CBS "60 Minutes" television interview that aired April 29, correspondent Scott Pelley nailed the crucial question that Tenet leaves unanswered in his book "Why aren't you telling the president, 'Mr. President, this is terrifying. We have to do this now'? " Pelley asked Tenet.
"Becaus