Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years

by Russ Baker, Oliver Wyman (Read by)

Overview

Was the rise of the disastrous George W. Bush just a matter of family connections and sly, cynical operatives such as Karl Rove? Or was something more at work—something that endures beyond Bush’s departure from Washington?

Award-winning investigative journalist Russ Baker provides the astonishing answers in Family of Secrets, a groundbreaking inquiry into the Bush dynasty and the shadowy elite that has quietly steered the American republic for the past half century and more. Baker shows how this network of figures in intelligence, the military, oil, and finance enabled—and in turn benefited handsomely from—the Bushes’ perch at the highest levels of government. This deeply entrenched elite remains in power regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.

Family of Secrets punctures the conventional wisdom on both presidents Bush. It exposes the hidden truth behind W.’s purported religious conversion and the debacle of Hurricane Katrina, and reveals his secret motive for invading Iraq. It probes the murky history of “Poppy” Bush and his lifelong service to the intelligence apparatus. Ultimately, Family of Secrets is about much more than just the Bushes. It changes the way we comprehend postwar history—from the JFK assassination to Watergate—and compels us to take a new look at events now unfolding.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469252049
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	10/30/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	653,577
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 5.50(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Russ Baker is an award-winning investigative journalist who has written for the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the New York Times, the Nation, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Village Voice, and Esquire, and has served as a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review. He is the founder of www.whowhatwhy.com, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news Web site.

Table of Contents

Foreword James Moore ix

1 How Did Bush Happen? 1

2 Poppy's Secret 7

3 Viva Zapata 22

4 Where Was Poppy? 44

5 Oswald's Friend 67

6 The Hit 85

7 After Camelot 119

8 Wings for W. 134

9 The Nixonian Bushes 159

10 Downing Nixon, Part I: The Setup 175

11 Downing Nixon, Part II: The Execution 220

12 In from the Cold 253

13 Poppy's Proxy and the Saudis 280

14 Poppy's Web 299

15 The Handoff 319

16 The Quacking Duck 336

17 Playing Hardball 358

18 Meet the Help 370

19 The Conversion 390

20 The Skeleton in W.'s Closet 407

21 Shock and... Oil? 423

22 Deflection for Reelection 441

23 Domestic Disturbance 466

24 Conclusion 491

Afterword 495

Author's Note 497

Acknowledgments 498

Notes 501

Index 561

Editorial Reviews

One of the most important books of the past ten years.” —Gore Vidal

“A tour de force … Family of Secrets has made me rethink even those events I witnessed with my own eyes.” —Dan Rather

“Shocking in its disclosures, elegantly crafted, and faultlessly measured in its judgments, Family of Secrets is nothing less than a first historic portrait in full of the Bush dynasty and the era it shaped. From revelation to revelation, insight to insight—from the Kennedy assassination to Watergate to the oil and financial intrigues that lie behind today's headlines—this is a sweeping drama of money and power, unseen forces, and the emblematic triumph of a lineage that sowed national tragedy. Russ Baker's Family of Secrets is sure to take its place as one of the most startling and influential works of American history and journalism.” —Roger Morris, former senior staff member, National Security Council, and author of Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician and Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America

“Left-wing paranoia? Baker, a solid investigative journalist, works hard to back up his claims – a reader could choke on the complex, interwoven details in Family of Secrets. He's a man on a mission, desperate to stop the "methods of stealth and manipulation that ... reflect a deeper ill: the American public's increasingly tenuous hold upon the levers of its own democracy.” —San Diego Union-Tribune

“Prodigiously industrious investigative journalist Russ Baker…. connects the dots between the Bushes and Watergate.” —Lev Grossman, Time Magazine

From the Publisher