From Library Journal
This book tells three stories: the federal intelligence agencies' undercover and perhaps illegal war with the press organs of left-wing domestic political organizations, the author's efforts to track down and publish information on these programs, and the government's efforts to enforce and increase its secrecy restrictions. It is an expansion of Mackenzie's earlier Sabotaging the Dissident Press (Ctr. for Investigative Reporting, 1983), which makes the title somewhat misleading because other agencies are also involved. There is much recounting of how the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), at which Mackenzie became an expert, can be used to access information. The book ends with a list of political organizations and a sketch of the FBI's responses to their FOIA requests for information regarding FBI files on them. This story of government paranoia and heavy-handedness is at once interesting and worrisome. It complements James K. Davis's Spying on America (LJ 5/15/92) and covers some of the same ground as Athan G. Theoharis's Spying on Americans (LJ 2/1/79). The author, who died of brain cancer in 1994, taught journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. For all libraries. (Notes, index, bibliography, and illustrations not seen.)?Daniel K. Blewett, Loyola Univ. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Tim Weiner, New York Times Book Review
"This old-fashioned broadside . . . grabs you by the lapels and holds on."
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
See all Editorial Reviews