Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI (Paperback)

by Kathryn S. Olmsted (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Conventional wisdom would have it that, in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, the nation's press was emboldened to enter a new phase of investigative zeal. Olmsted, a lecturer in history at U.C.- Davis, provides an absorbing contrarian account of the extent to which, with a few singular exceptions, the press retreated from such zeal, in part intimidated by the discovery of their own potential power. Thus, four months after Nixon's resignation, when New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh launched a series charging that the CIA, "forbidden by law from operating in the U.S.," had engaged in massive domestic spying, his reports were greeted with skepticism and tentativeness in follow-ups by fellow journalists. (Hersh's vindication came from CIA Director William Colby's Senate testimony, in which he disputed only the characterization of wrongdoing as "massive.") Olmsted charts how Hersh's story, along with a cautious but competitive exploration of FBI abuses by the Washington Post, resulted in two congressional investigations that also had the potential to break the code of deference previously accorded to organizations responsible for national security by both Congress and the press. Particularly compelling is the author's account of how colleagues excoriated reporter Daniel Schorr when he went to the Village Voice with the confidential results of one of the investigations, after having been silenced by his own employers, CBS. This is a fascinating study of how, just months after Watergate, both press and Congress quietly retreated to the same silk-gloved handling of the CIA and FBI in the name of national security.

Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
Perceptive and gracefully written history.

Journal of American History

This is a fascinating study.

Publishers Weekly

Olmsted successfully confronts and refutes the heroic myths surrounding post-Watergate journalism.

Nation

Kathryn Olmsted has provided a useful summary of the Frank Church and Otis Pike investigations.

Nation

This important book is timely as the future of the CIA is debated in both the scholarly and government communities.

Choice

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; First Edition 5 4 3 2 1 edition (January 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807845620
• ISBN-13: 978-0807845622
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #210,705 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Not-So-Distant Mirror, April 9, 1999

By A Customer

If anyone still believes the mainstream press protects the interests of the average citizen, this book will disabuse you of that notion very quickly. Olmstead delivers a fascinating and lively expose of how the Washington press corps -- faced with a real opportunity in the 1970s to bring light and accountability into one of the darkest corners of our government -- turned tail and ran. Her book goes a long way towards explaining why media coverage of the so-called "intelligence community" is so lame and subservient, even to this day. Well-written, thoroughly enjoyable, and damned infuriating.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Understanding of the Facts, Spin-free, May 14, 1999

By A Customer

There have been so many books on this subject which have attempted to present one or another political party's point of view in a convincing manner that it is truly refreshing to read an author who gets her facts straight and lets the reader come to his or her own conclusions. Olmsted looks carefully at these investigations, and presents them honestly and with understanding. Good job!

1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good lesson in political history, not very revealing, October 6, 1999

By A Customer

Written from a typical partisan perspective, i.e. republicans, democrats, liberals, conservatives. No mention of participants' connections to Elite groups, i.e. Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergs. A good documentary, none the less.