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Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship Hardcover – September 23, 2008

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 7 ratings

“As I have often said, I would represent the devil himself for the right price–it’s not personal, just business.”
–a Washington, D.C., lobbyist

For nearly as long as there have been politicians in the United States, there have been lobbyists haunting the halls of Congress–shaking hands, bearing gifts, and brandishing agendas. Everyone knows how the back-scratching game of money, power, and PR is played. For a good enough offer, there are those who will gladly dive into the dirtiest political waters. The real question is: Just how low will they sink? Veteran investigative journalist Ken Silverstein made it his mission to find out–and “Turkmeniscam” was born.

On assignment for
Harper’s magazine, and armed with a fistful of fake business cards, Silverstein went deep undercover as a corporate henchman with money to burn and a problem to solve: transforming the former Soviet-bloc nation Turkmenistan–branded “one of the worst totalitarian systems in the world”–into a Capitol Hill-friendly commodity. Even in the notoriously ethics-challenged world of Washington’s professional lobbying industry, could “Kenneth Case” (Silverstein’s fat-cat alter ego) find a team of D.C. spin doctors willing to whitewash the regime of a megalomaniac dictator with an unpronounceable name and an unspeakable reputation? Would the Beltway’s best and brightest image-mongers shill for a country condemned for its mind-boggling history of corruption, brutality, and civil rights abuse?

Who would dare tread in the ignoble footsteps of Ivy Lee, the pioneering PR guru who sought to make the Nazis look nice? And who would stoop to unprecedented new lows to conquer Congress and compromise the red, white, and blue for the sake of the almighty green? As Ken Silverstein discovers in this mordantly funny, disturbingly enlightening, jaw-dropping exploration of the dark side, the real question is: Who wouldn’t?


Praise for The Radioactive Boy Scout

“Alarming . . . The story fascinates from start to finish.”
–Outside

“An astounding story . . . [Silverstein] has a novelist’s eye for meaningful detail and a historian’s touch for context.”
–The San Diego Union-Tribune

“[Silverstein] does a fabulous job of letting David [Hahn’s] surrealistic story tell itself. . . . But what’s truly amazing is how far Hahn actually got in the construction of his crude nuclear reactor.”
–The Columbus Dispatch

“Enthralling . . . [
The Radioactive Boy Scout] has the quirky pleasures of a Don DeLillo novel or an Errol Morris documentary. . . . An engaging portrait of a person whose life on America’s fringe also says something about mainstream America.”
–Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Amazing . . . unsettling . . . should come with a warning: Don’t buy [this book] for any obsessive kids in the family. It might give them ideas.”
–Rocky Mountain News
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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
7 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2011
I found the behind the scenes view of lobbying to be intriguing - the story was told very well and I was amazed at the lack of information lobbying corporations needed to move forward. However, I wish the author had at least recognized the fact that lobbying is a business - they get paid to tell and market a story - just like advertisers - in government. Hopefully another story can be done on domestic lobbying, especially in these fiscally austere times.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2016
Great book by a top investigative journalist.
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2009
This is a good and quick read, an expose of the casual way in which foreign governments can buy influence in Washington DC, and correspondingly the extent to which what passes for policy debate in DC is bought and paid for. However, the book does not substantially add to the material that the author already published in Harpers.
3 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2009
This book is based largely on what the author reported in Harper's, concerning his attempts to procure lobbyist/p.r. representation for the Stalinist government in Turkmenistan (through an obscure investment group). It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one remotely familiar with Washington that ANY individual, business, government, etc., no matter how egregious their conduct, could find lobbyists to represent them in Washington for the right price. What is unique, informative, and entertaining about the book is the author's use of undercover journalism to expose just how far lobbyists would stoop to represent an oppressive dictatorship, with all the relevant details. Indeed, firms literally were fighting to representing Turkemnistan.

The book is well-written, and at around 200 pages, is a quick read. The book, besides being informative about the world of lobbyists, is also an indictment of journalism. The author rightly discussed the death of undercover/investigative journalism in the mainstream, national print newsmedia. He also discussed the incestuous relationships between politicians, the media, and lobbyists/p.r. types. If you're interested in politics, lobbying, or journalism, this book is for you.
5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

NK
4.0 out of 5 stars How journalism should be
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 26, 2012
Investigative journalism! This book proves that you get your story by investigating, not by sitting in a studio talking and arguing endlessly. And yet the facts are presented in a way that is easy to understand, entertaining even, as are in all of Silverstein's books. Perhaps the outcome was predictable, it is even written in the jacket: "How Washington lobbyists fought to flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship", yet it is the "how" that is the interesting part.