Parry's tenacity for following up stories - over decades - is not only awe inspiring but what is apparently needed to get to the bottom of stories the political class in D.C. wants permanently buried. The book starts with a look at some Supreme Court decisions where the conservative members of the bench (especially Scalia) use selected passages from the Federalist Papers to support their positions as "originalists." Parry skewers these arguments, many made in direct opposition to what the framers clearly intended. (This raises the larger question about the Court's decisions in recent years - is the body of common law any longer applicable to the Supremes' decisions or are they simply pulling examples of convenience out of the air to support their prejudices?) Next up is the 1968 election where Nixon allegedly killed the on going Paris Peace Conference about the Vietnam War, an "October Surprise" that gained him the election - and allowed the war to continue for four more years. The main part of the book deals with Reagan's sundry secret activities in Iran, starting with alleged meetings of his confidants (Bush, Casey among others) prior to the 1980 election that ensured the American captives would not be released prior to his gaining office, a story that had credence from the get-go as the hostages were released within minutes of Reagan's swearing in. Then we move on to Iran Contra, massive arms deals to Iran with Israel as the middle man, and then the peculiar shift of U.S. favoritism toward Saddam as the Iraq-Iran War progressed. A theme that flows though these and other nefarious acts by those in power in Washington is how successfully they manage not only to cover their tracks, but keep them covered -when Watergate first broke the FBI refused to investigate as one example. Much of the author's time (over decades on certain stories) was spent trying to pry out who was where at a critical juncture and what was said, and how planted press articles by what might loosely be called neocon operatives and their press outlets sallied forth to discredit anyone looking a bit too hard to unearth the truth. When government officials in power want a story mushroomed it stays that way, and the list of examples shown by Parry is the heart of the book - incriminating evidence is simply disregarded, requested documents slow in coming - or "lost" - and identities redacted with paint-roller enthusiasm. Parry spent years trying to track down the identity of one couple whose possible testimony might have proved lethal to Bush Sr's administration; he finally got the names from the Bush library in 2011 - years after the couple had died. The stories Parry focuses on are not trivial; if fully known at the time of occurrence charges of treason or the basis for impeachment were at hand; how these events were covered up - and how Parry tenaciously ensured these events would not go down the memory hole of history is quite a read. (Please excuse typos - I couldn't edit this thing.)
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corruption r us
The AP US History question goes like this: given our Constitution, should citizens expect better than the disgraceful presidential contempt, lies and deceptions which Parry believes began with Nixon? Read the critiques of the anti Federalists in reviewing the proposed Constitution in the fall of 1787. Parry is right on only he should have explored further what we can do [apart from the power to amend the federal or state constitutions. The Anti-Federalists faced the same questions. See what they said.
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2014
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2013
Surprisingly true and provable political information to disqualify deliberate misleading propaganda.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2014
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2013
Top reviews from other countries
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in Canada on August 6, 2016
Robert Parry, exposes the grand theft of all time.
- Gerald NelsonReviewed in Canada on February 1, 2014
An avid description of how America and the world was misled by so called "trusted" leaders.
