Jefferson Morley
Autor von The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton
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Jefferson Morley is currently the national editorial director for the Center for Independent Media.
Werke von Jefferson Morley
Snow-Storm in August: Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835 (2012) 136 Exemplare
CIA & JFK: The Secret Assassination Files 6 Exemplare
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As I well know, its been fifty years since that day. It was time to revisit those events (Watergate, that is!) and discover new insights.
Scorpions’ Dance is about what Helms and Nixon had on each other, the secrets they kept and the secrets they shared.
from Scorpions’ Dance by Jefferson Morley
I was hooked from the Introduction. Morley argues that Watergate was the culmination of the relationship between Dick Helms, respected director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and President Richard M. Nixon. He narrates a history of CIA involvement in a plot to kill Fidel Castro and the murder of a nonpolitical general in Chile that Helms covered up. He connects CIA men and hired assassins and criminals to the Watergate break-in. He paints a picture of a uncontrite president and a CIA director who bent laws, and even lied, convinced it was for national security.
The story arc goes back to the assassination of President Kennedy and the order that the Warren Commission conclude that Oswald was a lone assassin, which Robert Kennedy never believed. Oswald said he was “a patsy”, then was (conveniently) killed by a man connected to the Mafia. Everyone wanted to wrap it up and move on. No one wanted the public to connect the dots, leading back to the plot to kill Castro. And, the CIA didn’t want anyone to realize that they had been tracking Oswald for years and had failed to protect the president.
The colorful cast of characters includes Howard Hunt, both a CIA spy and a novelist of spy novels. His CIA-produced film Animal Farm was a box office success; he had “tweaked” its anti-Communist message. Hunt was recruited to help overthrow the government of Guatemala whose plans upset the United Fruit Company. Along with Chuck Colson and G. Gordon Liddy, he became one of “The Plumbers” who were ordered to discover who a journalist obtained confidential information. There are the CIA’s “assassination program” hit men. Nixon’s faithful secretary and gatekeeper Rose Mary Woods who. oops, erased eighteen minutes of tape.
I want the break-in, Nixon stormed. Hell, they do that. You’re to break into that place, rifle the riles, and bring them in. Just go in and take it, period…
Richard Nixon quoted in Scorpions’ Dance by Jefferson Morley
Morley calls his book “a biography of power.” The personal power of two men, but also the power of the CIA which spied on Americans, including those involved with antiwar protests and civil rights activists. President Harry S. Truman was appalled by the CIA’s expansion into “peacetime cloak and dagger operations,” and pushed to end the organization he started. And the power of President Nixon, empowered by his landslide victory, who wanted dirt on his political foes.
The Watergate investigation did result in more oversight of the CIA. But the revelations in this book are disconcerting, and one has to wonder what else has been swept under the carpet.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.… (mehr)