5 comments about The Company She Keeps.

1. Having lived in Rochester all my life, I recognized a lot of the names that Georgia wrote about, even remember her as the Kodak Summer Girl.
   Excellent read



2. The author keeps you turning pages with an incredible life, as fast as the company she keeps. I enjoyed this read, the author's no nonsense delivery, the woman's perspective, and the story told straight and true. If there are embellishments, you wouldn't know it as it's told. An excellent memoir.



3. I was determined to finish this book just to count the number of times Georgia Durante mentioned how beautiful she was. It was a million plus. You get the drift. This little lady couldn't get over herself. Her poor daughter Toni took the brunt of her mother's bad, bad choices and paid the price. There was claptrap galore, from her inane, juvenile musings to the stupefying way she portrayed herself as a hapless victim. And the verbatim dialog? How could anyone possibly remember exact conversations from three decades ago? Come on!!
   
   Georgia Durante should just have named her book, "All About Me". At least it would have been an honest if not vacuous biography by just another celebretard who managed to sleep her way to the top of the heap.



4. Georgia Durante's story of real life adventure and real life survival offers lessons for everyone who reads it. Her escape from her abusive Mobster husband teaches all abused women that they too have the power of survival within themselves. The challenges she overcame being a parent reminds all parents about their role in their children's lives. The steps Georgia Durante took to build a successful stunt driving business in what had previously been a "man's world" teaches everyone that the only limits a life has are the one's we place on ourselves. Buy The Company She Keeps for two big reasons. You get a thrilling story. You also get inspiration and motivation that will fuel your life.



5. This intriguing novel was recommended to me by a friend and I am so glad he did. Georgia Durante's life was full of excitement and challenges. Her strength and determination are to be admired. Her story is unique
   and would be enjoyed by both men and women. It's amazing that Georgia
   lived to tell this gripping story. The book is a real page turner.
   Our book club read, discussed and thoroughly enjoyed this book. We are hoping for a movie version.

2 comments about The Best American Crime Writing 2006 (Best American Crime Reporting).

1. This year's edition of Otto Penzler's and Thomas H. Cook's BEST AMERICAN CRIME WRITING hasn't a whole lot to recommend it, and most of these stories are pretty blah. I don't know if good crime writing needs space to expand, and suffer with the enforced brevity of a newspaper article or magazine piece, but these tales seem like they were fished out of ancient copies of READERS DIGEST.
   
   Despite the jacket copy, the NEW YORKER piece by Jeffrey Toobin is far from sensational, and as for the Texas woman who became a mild-mannered and successful bank robber, hello? It's like the very definition of "tell us more," for after the whole article was over, I felt that Skip Hollandsworth had just begun to scratch the surface.
   
   Again, the jacket copy says this book is "controversial," without suggesting how. I suppose in any genre a particular year may go by without anything of note being published in it, and for true crime, 2005 might have been the nadir. "GQ" and "Texas Monthly" sure publish a lot of crime articles, don't they, with trusty old "New York" magazine coming in strong as well. There's the talk of Jack Whittaker, the man who won a West Virginia Powerball lottery and then let it go to his head, so that everything in his life dissolved to utter misery. That was sort of compelling, but only vaguely related to crime. Mary Battiata's article about "good fences making good neighbors" was eye-opening only to the extent that who knew that in some states, like Virginia apparently, if your neighbor wants to erect a fence, you've got to pay for it! is that controversial or merely absurd? We have states rights for this?
   
   Deanne Stillman, get out of the Mojave, you have mined it enough. Now you're just repeating yourself like an old carbon copy that makes lighter impressions each time. Give yourself a reboost of energy by a move east, south or north, because you're a great writer with the touch of an angel!



2. The Best American Crime Writing 2006 rocks! I have enjoyed this series since the first one came out in 2002. If you enjoy short true crime pieces this series is for you. This is the best one in the series since the first volume came out. The stories range from tales of the mob to tales of high prices prostitution and murder.
   
   My favorites include:
   
   Skip Hollandsworth's "The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob," in which he discusses a Texas case of an older woman who cross dresses to rob banks just for fun....
   
   "Altar Ego" by Robert Nelson, where the author describes a decades old case in which a suspect has seemingly been allowed to get away with murder due to a prosecutor being unwilling to prosecute...
   
   "Dr. Evil," by S.C. Gwynne that discusses the case of Dr. Eric Scheffey, a Doctor who preyed on the uneducated and gullable to do surgeries that no rational human being would want or ever need just for insurance/workers compensation money...
   
   and "Blood Feud," by Mary Battiata, about a deadly battle between neighbors and arch nemesis Perry Brooks and John Ames.
   
   All of the stories are great, I just do not have time to mention them all. This book is well worth your time and money.

4 comments about I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century.

1. First don't be mislead Foucault has a paper in this work, but acts as editor not author. Having said that, it is another great work by Foucault.



2. The story of the young Frenchman who murdered his family is a fascinating piece of documentary work by Foucault and his student assistants. However, I would have liked to know much more about how they interpret this "unusual" behavior.



3. Okay, the reason why Foucault did not interpet the reasoning behind the crime was because the issue of guilt or innocence was not his topic. He was more interested in how people treat crimes and approach the issue of criminality.

   It is not Riviere who is at trial *again* in Foucault's book, but rather it is a trial described, which could be any trial. A crime after the fact is a story, a memory for those who were involved, but we all become involved in an event as if it were a story we have heard before. What other way to approach a murder that is to us words and the heaving bosom of a witness, the placid tension of the accused? We confront a forced performance with confused or feigned characterizations.

   Yet even said, this is not Foucault, nor what Foucault was reaching for. All Foucault does is show how people act in response to crime and reveal the obvious ploys that repeat themselves throughout history, because the story that composes our lives has not died.

   And if a man approached you with a mark on him, and claimed to have killed his brother, and the soil did cry out to you, would you raise your hand against him?

   This book is a good accompanyment to his work Discipline and Punish.




4. The reason Foucault is not attempting to interpret Riviere's deeds is NOT to show simply how "people respond to a crime", as a previous reviewer put it. By publishing this collection of texts, Foucault was attempting to recover the struggles and plays of forces between juridical and psychiatric discourses in their attempt to make sense of the murders and the murderer. The legal and psychiatric discourses attempt to envelop Riviere's own account of his deeds in various power relations (mainly by marginalizing Riviere's voice as either that of a parricide or that of a madman). Had Foucault interpreted Riviere's deeds, he would have subjected them to strategies similar to those employed by the medical and legal experts.
   
   This is a fascinating collection (don't skip Foucault's introduction though!), but a reader would definitely appreciate it more after reading Discipline and Punish or "Two Lectures" in Foucault's Power/Knowledge.

5 comments about Las Vegas Babylon: True Tales of Glitter, Glamour, and Greed.

1. I found the book very intersting and a quick read since it was split into many short chapters of all sorts of interesting characters and events. Not sure who, if anyone, proof read it though. There are numerous grammatical errors and several incidents where it seems little mistakes were overlooked. For instance it said Tony Spilotro started his fifteen year Vegas career in 1986 (thats when it ended) and said Wynn Las Vegas was the most expensive casino ever built at the time (2.7 million? Maybe billion!?) Overlooking the minor details it is a good book with lots of interesting stories for the novice Vegas reader. Recommend it. Good one for the flight to Vegas.



2. While not the worse book on Sin City, the glaring omission of Vegas' most famous resident is unforgiveable. Reduced to little more than a footnote by the author, its unfathomable that Howard R. Hughes, Jr. would not have at least 2 chapters devoted to his Vegas footprint.
   
   Rather than move out of the Desert Inn, Hughes bought it! Hughes didn't even want to move down one floor with no charge for 6 months (ask the author why). With more than a half billion dollars in windfall cash from the TWA judgement, Hughes treated the Vegas Strip like his own personal monopoly board. Even beyond the feat of personally owning more casinos (5 or 6) than any other human on earth, the man NEVER, I repeat, NEVER appeared before the Nevada Gaming Commission (a requirement by law for everbody else but him?). Never mind that he tried to derail the Atomic Energy Commission from testing bombs 90 miles outside Vegas'! He swore out he could feel the earth shaking. Of course, when $100,000 of your money finds its way to 1600 Penn Ave., wouldn't you ask a favor, too?
   
   Hughes never set foot in his casinos - he never even set foot on Las Vegas Blvd. In fact, Howard R. Hughes, Jr. never set foot on Nevada soil. He rolled into, and out of, town by private railcar; his Mormon aides carried him by stretcher into, and out of, the Desert Inn penthouse. Howard R. Hughes bought numerous casinos from known mobsters (Big Bob Maheu was the face of HRH), all from the 'comfort' of the blacked-out penthouse he occupied the years he was in Vegas'. The man NEVER saw the Vegas sun.
   
   The fact that Mr. Burbank omits each and every one of these 'minor details' is appalling in a book entitled Las Vegas Babylon. It's like leaving Al Capone out of 'Windy City Babylon', or leaving Alfred P. Sloan out of a book on GM. This major omission is a cardinal sin for someone supposedly a journalist. Glad I only paid...



3. The stories presented in this cynical, hasty book could have happened anywhere--what does this have to do with Las Vegas? So the mob was involved in Las Vegas--so what? That topic is covered thoroughly in other, better-written books. So casino execs care more about the bottom line than about their customers--is that news? Also, how many times can the author describe casino partons as "losers" and "suckers"? The author then shares bawdy stories of unruly celebs, their sexual obscurities, etc. The author relishes sharing the naughty side of celebrities and politicians but then adopts a high-road attitude as if he's disgusted by them (and by Las Vegas as a whole). Tabloid journalism just to sell some books? Well, whatever sells, I suppose.
   
   Many of the vingettes the author includes in this mess have nothing to do with Las Vegas except that the city is where the story happened to take place. The casinos, desert, history, etc. of Las Vegas has nothing to do with many of the chapters.
   
   As if the negative tone wasn't enough to prevent people from trodding through this sensationalized tripe, there's roughly 90 typos, grammatical errors, broken sentences, etc. in this book. Maybe next time some of the money spent on the dust jacket design could be diverted to hiring a proof-reader? I'm not exaggerating, by the way. During certain chapters the errors can be found as frequently as every other page.
   
   What a waste of time. There's only about 20 other books on Las Vegas that I would recommend before this. Then again if you're hard up for mean, amateurish, and irrelevant writing, this book might be just what you're looking for.



4. EXCELLENT BOOK WRITTEN ABOUT LAS VEGAS AND THE EARLY PIONEERS. WAS VERY VERY FASCINATING IN THE BEGINNING. THEN WENT TO THE POLITICAL SCENE WHICH BECAME VERY BORING AND UN-INTERESTING. THEN IT PICKS UP AGAIN TO TALK ABOUT THE STARS. THE CONCLUSION WAS ALMOST LIKE AN AD FOR THE NEWSPAPERS. HOWEVER, WITH ALL THIS SAID, WAS VERY INTERESTING, INFOMATIVE BOOK. A GOOD READ. I ONLY WISH THE AUTHOR WOULD HAVE GONE MORE IN DEPTH ABOUT THE EARLY AND LATER PERSONALITIES RATHER THAN THE POLITICAL FORUM THAT HE WROTE.COULD HAVE BEEN AN EASY 5 STAR. BUT I WOULD BUY IT AGAIN.



5. Las Vegas Babylon is an excellent peek at the "real" Vegas. It is loaded with fun stories that you won't find anywhere else. What's amazing is the horrible editing job done by the publisher. There are factual, grammatical and spelling errors that should have been caught before publication. Jeff Burbank has done a fine job here, but has been let down by his publisher.

No comments about Criminal Justice: A Collection of True Crime Cases, Prentice Hall's Reality Reading Series.

1 comments about Tragic Beauty: The Lost 1914 Memoirs of Evelyn Nesbit.

1. Evelyn was New York's first "It" girl back at the beginning of the 20th century. Her wacko husband, Harry K. Thaw of Pittsburgh murdered famed architect Stanford White in 1906. Tragic Beauty is her autobiography of the events that led up to and following the murder. This book tells Evelyn's side of the story that was called "The Crime of the Century" back in 1906. Anyone interested in the Gilded Age should give this book a read. I really enjoyed reading the story from Evelyn's perspective.

5 comments about Before He Wakes: A True Story of Money, Marriage, Sex and Murder.

1. Good true crime book about a female psychopath. In order to get spending money and get rid of pesky husbands, Barbara killed them in their sleep for their insurance benefits. This book was well-written, descriptive, and in depth. Barbara was apparently an amazing employee and spotless housekeeper, she just couldn't stop competing with the Joneses or stop cheating on her husbands. There was something going on with the relationship with her mother that just wasn't quite right - of course her mother always stuck up for her just like Pat's mother in "Everything She Wanted", by Ann Rule. It's amazing how similar these psychopaths are when you've read as many of these books as I have.

   I keep remembering how one of her former friends saw her driving around in her convertible, a big grin on her face, just out enjoying herself, right after her second husband's death (before she was arrested). I wonder if her two boys ever realized that she deliberately lied about and kept them from seeing their paternal grandparents. In my opinion, the death penalty should have been carried out on Barbara. She is breathing up other people's air.




2. I read this wonderful book a few years ago and it was truly riveting. i saw the movie this morning and at the end of the movie, which i think was made in the early 90's, that Barbara will be up for parole in 2006- how in the heck did she avoid life in prison without parole?



3. Barbara Stager got away with killing her first husband, even though there were those (including her in-laws) who suspected the shooting was not accidental. When she shot her second husband, Russ Stager, while he slept, there were too many people who suspected her, and who knew Russ had feared what Barbara might do to him.
   
   I also agree with another reviewer that Barbara is evil for how she brain-washed her two young sons against their paternal grandparents. Not only did she murder their father, she wanted to deprive his parents access to their biological grandchildren. The fact that the Fords handled it as well as they did shows what truly decent, moral people they were/are.
   
   Barbara was originally given a death sentence - and rightly so. Later, she was re-sentenced to life by a new jury. A woman who could plan and commit the murder of two husbands should never see the light of day again. Because she was given a new sentence of life, she will be eligible for parole.
   
   I wish I could give this book 4.5 stars. The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is that I feel the book got bogged down in one small section after Barbara's arrest, and during her trial for killing her second husband, Russ Stager. Its the part about Barbara's creative check writing, hot checks, forged checks, etc. Other than that, I give the book 5 stars.



4. "Before He Wakes" is a frightening tale of sleeping with a monster and a bit of a cautionary tale.
   Barbara Stager - - devoted wife, loving mother, churchgoer, obedient daughter or cold blooded murderer? If you believe this book, not to mention the State of North Carolina and good, basic common sense, she is nothing more than a cold blooded murderer, masquerading as the devoted wife, loving mother, churchgoer and obedient daughter.
   This book is an in-depth profile of a female sociopath. There are many true crime books on the market disecting the male sociopath but female sociopaths are more fascinating, perhaps, because there are fewer of them.
   Jerry Bledsoe's writing is strong, the story is too bizare for fiction and the characters come to life.
   In reading this tale, my heart bleeds for both Larry Ford's and Russ Stager's families, just as much victims of Barbara's as her husbands were. So self-absorbed, indulged and without conscience was she that she thought nothing of putting bullets in her husbands' sleeping bodies so that she might collect the insurance money. Pure evil.
   Definitely a good read - - and will make you think twice about the person you sleep next to!



5. Barbara Terry Ford Stager can take care of herself. When her first husband, Larry Ford, and father of her two sons, Bryan and Jason, got int he way of her affairs and manic spending, she shot him the chest as he slept. The end result: she was able to claim insurance funds when political disputes resulted in Ford's death being declared "an accident."
   
   Forward a few husband-hunting months later, Barbara marries Russ Stager. It doesn't take long for her adultry and spending habits to surface. While a spender himself, Russ Stager has enough sense to realize when he's in over his head and attempts to, with the help of his parents, curtail their financially frivilous lifestyle; but, as is expected, this doesn't stop Barbara from spending freely and living the high life.
   
   But when Russ discovers that his wife is even willing to steal from his personal accounts, something has to be done. And once again Barbara is widowed from an "accidental shooting" that she claims occured when she accidentally fired a pistol under Russ' pillow, shooting him in the back of the head while he slept.
   
   I don't believe in coincidences and neither did the Durham County law enforcement officials who investigated this case. At first response, they believed Barbara's story but when Russ Stager's ex wife, JoAnn Snow, brings to light the circumstances surrounding the death of Barbara's first husband, the Stagers' financial dillema, and conversations between her and Russ, detectives derive a new theory on why Russ Stager died.
   
   Barbara is arrested this time for murdering her husband, much to the relief of Stagers' parents and Larry Ford's parents, who have longed for justice for their slain son. In true sociopathic form, however, Barbara truly believes that a jury will not find her guilty of murdering Russ because , she just isn't capable of such an act.
   
   Yet the jury does believe she is indeed capable and finds her guilty of First Degree Murder; a capital offense. Subsequently, they declare the penalty of death. With a bit of legal wrangling this sentence is converted to life in prison on appeal. As we all know, however, life in prison does not necessarily mean "life" and Barbara is eligible for parole in 2006.
   
   I found this book to be extremely well written and thoroughly researched. Unfortunately, I had watched the Lifetime television movie about this story before reading this book. The book greatly outdoes the movie. The movie freely used creative licensing to fictionalize a lot of details. So be sure to read the book first!

5 comments about Nightmare in Wichita: The Hunt for the BTK Strangler.

1. This book started off fine. It was easy to read and there was enough to hold my interest. There were many syntactical errors which weighed down the flow of the book. The author lost me and then annoyed me about two-thirds of the way through. Suddenly, this seemd to become an autobiography! Wow, what an ego trip Beattie went off on. I didn't know whether to puke or stop reading; I actually skipped over the useless "me, me, me" nonsense and that is what I would recommend to readers. Beattie actually spouted-off about someone who showed up at his home as he was being taped for a television segment; this person supposedly told the broadcast staff that the author was the greatest authority on BTK but this person would not say so on camera. Skip over all that silliness and you will have a decent read. The author just loved to list all of the people who were clamoring to interview him and/or have him on their show. I really found his perpective distasteful--I did not buy a book about HIM; I guess he figured he would take advantage of a somewhat captive audience. Even one of the photos had to include him--the photo and his self-congratulatory references added absolutely nothing to the book. So, I would recommend the book if you are not bothered by having to read a bit judiciously.



2. It would be difficult for a book on this subject to be uninteresting, but the author almost succeeds. The facts of the case are brought out very well, and initially held my interest intently. However, toward the middle of the book I became bored with details not direcctly related to the case, and I became increasingly turned off by the author's devoting page after page to himself rather than to the case. He apparently was indeed largely responsible for the resurfacing of the BTK strangler, but modesty would dictate that he allow the public to come to this conclusion without his pointing them in this direction. Furthermore I am puzzled by the timing of the book....it was written before the BTK strangler was even brought to trial!! Why not wait until the trial was over so that the results could be included?? One suspects that the author was in a hurry to publish before anyone else did, or was in a hurry for the profits.



3. Wichita attorney Robert Beattie had puzzled like many over the years about the identity of the BTK killer. After an apparent lull of a decade in the serial killings, Beattie attempted to rekindle interest in this madman with a book outlining the nightmarish times of Wichitans living in fear.
   
   Likely, as much of a surprise to Beattie, as to others, the book was the tool which caused BTK to resurface. Taunting the Wichita Police department once again, BTK stumbles and is caught due to his ignorance of the technology involved in a simple computer floppy disk.
   
   All Wichitans owe "Nightmare in Wichita" and its author a debt of gratitude. It is unlikely that they would have ever heard from Dennis Rader (aka BTK) again if not for this book.
   
   While not a great read .... and with some factual errors, the book is nevertheless quite interesting and worth your time.
   
   If you can't find the time to read it, then drop a line to it's author. And just say thank you.
   
   Densel Myers
   Yukon, Oklahoma



4. Saw an interview with the author on Science Channel, and ordered from Amazon. The book came in days. It was very a riveting story, and as a matter of fact I read the book in one night. Amazon is great, when you hear or read about any book, you can get it immediately.



5. This man neither "assisted the police" nor "was instrumental in the...arrest." He's just another opportunist who inserted himself into this tragedy in an almost laughable way, then cobbled together a true crime book for a quick buck. If you want the real inside story, read "Blind, Torture, Kill, The Inside Story of the Serial killer Next Door" by the reporters who covered the story from the beginning, and who had the cooperation of the lead investigator in writing their fascinating and through account.

5 comments about Blind Passion: A True Story of Seduction, Obsession, and Murder (St. Martin's True Crime Library).

1. You will not be able to put this book down. Blind Passion is the perfect title for the life of Julie Scully, a half Native American incredibly sexy woman, who was many things in life. First she was a daughter. She grew up very fast, and matured quickly into a woman, starting at age 11. She first then began to realize the power that her natural good loooks, and flirtacious personality had upon men. It was also then that she discovered alcohol. Then she was a mother. She was the consumate "Party-Girl", who never made curfew, always drank too much, and was never without the good times, or the many boyfriends. Julie loved a good party, as much as she loved good looking guys, and pretty soon, she found herself young, still beautiful and a little pregnant. She married way too young, and divorced quickly. Then she became a fashion model. She posed for very sexy pictures for a local newspaper, and became a bit of a local celebrity. Her contacts led her to meeting her second husband, a stable entrepeneur, and soon she was married yet again, getting rich fast, and becoming bored with her gorgeous child,lavish lifestyle, and her millionaire husband. It seems that Julie was not happy, unless she was partying, and her complacent hubby did not seem to mind her still being a flirt, and continuing to hit the club scene after the vows were exchanged. Julie Scully seemed to have it all. But she was still unhappy, as the passion seemed to subside with her husband. So on a cruise that was meant to bring a little spark back into their troubled marriage, Julie instead flirts with a deckhand aboard the ship. 24 year old George Skidapoulous, a skinny, particularly bland looking balding young man was the object of her lust?!..After the cruise was over, Julie managed to give her phone number to the little Greek man, and he called her home!? and Tim Scully even found a picture of Skidapoulous, barechested, in Julie's possession, and does nothing!!! (I'm sorry, at that point, as Julie's husband, I would have told "loverboy" not to ever call back if he valued his job on the cruise ship, and torn up the picture. AND, I would have given Julie the divorce she so craved, unless she decided to start acting like a married 32 yr old woman, instead of a lovestruck teenager.) But Tim does nothing, not even when Julie wants to go on the exact cruise 3 weeks later. He begins to see the light, when Julie "innocently" wants to go to the ship's disco with her "freind" George, and a couple of other girls. It goes strictly downhill from there, as the ridiculous looking George is only to happy to be the object of desire to this stunning American woman. The sex is passionate, and seems to revitalize the constantly depressed Julie, and she goes through with the divorce, and makes plans to move to Greece!? She soon finds out why America is so beautiful, how much she really loves her too often neglected daughter, and how much she had it made with her loving millionaire husband. It slowly, and then all too sudden hits her, that she had it all, and lost it to move to a strange country where she knew no one, nor the language, and to be with a stupid looking, dirt poor [guy], whom she incredibly had to buy a hair transplant for! The story turns into a bloody tragedy, in which there was no bright side, only ugly darkness. Any couple out there, who is having marital problems should read this, as it exposes the danger of flirting with others inside a relationship, and shows that sometimes stability should be chosen over life in the fast lane. I'm sure if Julie had it all to do over again, she would have never taken that damn cruise, been a good wife to Tim, and chosen stability.



2. You will not be able to put this book down. Blind Passion is the perfect title for the life of Julie Scully, a half Native American incredibly sexy woman, who was many things in life. First she was a daughter. She grew up very fast, and matured quickly into a woman, starting at age 11. She first then began to realize the power that her natural good loooks, and flirtacious personality had upon men. It was also then that she discovered alcohol. Then she was a mother. She was the consumate "Party-Girl", who never made curfew, always drank too much, and was never without the good times, or the many boyfriends. Julie loved a good party, as much as she loved good looking guys, and pretty soon, she found herself young, still beautiful and a little pregnant. She married way too young, and divorced quickly. Then she became a fashion model. She posed for very sexy pictures for a local newspaper, and became a bit of a local celebrity. Her contacts led her to meeting her second husband, a stable entrepeneur, and soon she was married yet again, getting rich fast, and becoming bored with her gorgeous child,lavish lifestyle, and her millionaire husband. It seems that Julie was not happy, unless she was partying, and her complacent hubby did not seem to mind her still being a flirt, and continuing to hit the club scene after the vows were exchanged. Julie Scully seemed to have it all. But she was still unhappy, as the passion seemed to subside with her husband. So on a cruise that was meant to bring a little spark back into their troubled marriage, Julie instead flirts with a deckhand aboard the ship. 24 year old George Skidapoulous, a skinny, particularly bland looking balding young man was the object of her lust?!..After the cruise was over, Julie managed to give her phone number to the little Greek man, and he called her home!? and Tim Scully even found a picture of Skidapoulous, barechested, in Julie's possession, and does nothing!!! (I'm sorry, at that point, as Julie's husband, I would have told "loverboy" not to ever call back if he valued his job on the cruise ship, and torn up the picture. AND, I would have given Julie the divorce she so craved, unless she decided to start acting like a married 32 yr old woman, instead of a lovestruck teenager.) But Tim does nothing, not even when Julie wants to go on the exact cruise 3 weeks later...The story turns into a bloody tragedy, in which there was no bright side, only ugly darkness. Any couple out there, who is having marital problems should read this, as it exposes the danger of flirting with others inside a relationship, and shows that sometimes stability should be chosen over life in the fast lane. I'm sure if Julie had it all to do over again, she would have never taken that damn cruise, been a good wife to Tim, and chosen stability.



3. Good book...but it would've been alot better if John Glatt also focused on the troubled life of Skiadopoulos, prior to his relationship with Julie.

   As for the curent status of Skiadopoulos, last year his life sentence was dropped to 23 years. And could be eligable for parole in only 7 years! Could you believe that?




4. This book was excellent reading. Had a hard time putting it down!



5. I really like John Glatt . This book is a great read and a fast red.
   
   I cannot believe tis women left her husband and child for this man!!!

4 comments about Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat, and the CIA.

1. This is an important book, but mainly because it inspired the book SILENT COUP: THE REMOVAL OF A PRESIDENT. SILENT COUP expands to a great degree what this book establishes.



2. For an education on the Watergate scandal, I recommend you read (in order): 1) Will by Liddy; 2) Silent Coup by Colodny & Gettlin; and then 3) this book. Forget Woodward and Bernstein entirely. These first two books are OUTSTANDING. This last one will fill in a few details, though I would not regard it as the final word. I suspect you're here because of Silent Coup, anyway. Hougan makes a few egregious left-wing points in his book that are real howlers, but they are off to the side of the story, and he is primarily concerned with establishing the facts.

   Who knows what the 4th book should be? Or the 5th? Maybe it has yet to be written. I suppose in continuing the education, it might be fair to turn next to a conventional account of the history, perhaps to Stanley Kutler; or to the perspectives of Dean or Magruder or Haldeman.




3. This was an interesting book. There are a lot of details in here that you did not get from All The Presidents Men. I would recommend reading the book for the extra information. The book was adequately written but did not drag. I think the better book is Silent Coup, but this book is still worth reading.



4. SECRET AGENDA was the first thorough argument, and perhaps remains the best, for the thesis that the Watergate break-in team was guided chiefly by the CIA.
   
   All the men on the team -- aside from its supposed leader, goofy (pawn?) G. Gordon Liddy -- were CIA officers (Hunt and McCord) or contract agents (Sturgis, Barker and the three other anti-Castro Cubans, all Hunt's people going back to Bay of Pigs).
   
   Hunt and McCord each "retired" (early) from CIA, within months of each other, in 1970. Hunt was soon hired by Chuck Colson in the Nixon White House, where he was first tasked with forging State Department cables to indicate that JFK had ordered the assasination (rather than removal) of President Diem of Vietnam in 1963. Hunt then hired McCord to help the Plumbers plant bugs.
   
   But one of Hougan's accomplishments is to document the fact that McCord was not (as typically stated in the press even today) a lowly CIA electrician. He was high in the Office of Security -- the "internal affairs" unit of the CIA, rising to head of OS for Europe in 1961, during the height of the Cold War. As such he reported directly to the Director.
   
   Hougan's book remains a must read on the subject. It argues well the case that Nixon was helped in a big way out of office by DCI Richard Helms employing officers Hunt and McCord.
   
   (One might argue that Helms & co. did the country a favor. That would be another book.)
   
   (OR: Read John Ehrlichman's novel THE COMPANY, a roman a clef that paints the Nixon-Helms relationship with care.)
   
   As for SILENT COUP, which came out in 1991, seven years after SECRET AGENDA, and which several reviewers here are recommending rather than Hougan's book ...
   
   Be clear: SILENT COUP is NOT an elaboration of Hougan's thesis, but rather an attempt to eviscerate it (and I imagine the CIA had something to do with its publication). The attempt largely fails.
   
   Which is not to say there's nothing of value in SC. Just that the overall package is a truth-bender clearly designed to accord with CIA public relations.
   
   SILENT COUP details something Hougan had touched on: the late-Vietnam Beltway struggle between the National Security apparat, on the one hand, and Nixon and Kissinger, on other.
   
   The latter were trying, in their way, to bring the Vietnam war to an end with "back channel" diplomacy that cut the Pentagon and CIA out of the loop. But the generals and spymasters were by then accustomed to controlling foreign policy. Nixon and Kissinger (like JFK a decade before) were getting in the way.
   
   SILENT COUP nails this: Nixon's "paranoia" and Ehrlichman's Plumbers were first provoked to active life not by "Leftist" spies/leaks, but by a Pentagon intelligence operation active inside the White House, intent on finding out what the hell Nixon and Kissinger were saying to the Chinese and Hanoi about shutting down the war.
   
   Ehrlichman & co finally stumbled across the spy, a Navy ensign (if memory serves) named Radford, revoked his White House pass -- and acquired signed confessions from the brass running the op in the Pentagon. Shades of SEVEN DAYS IN MAY.
   
   Nixon then decided not to publicize the matter. Nor to even cashier the guilty brass.
   
   Then the Pentagon Papers hit ... And "paranoia" blossomed.
   
   Thus, this chapter of SILENT COUP makes the book worth the coin. But its overarching aim is to clear CIA of Hougan's charge that it was running an anti-Nixon op thru Hunt and McCord -- to some extent by blaming the Pentagon instead (an old pattern, an old Beltway rivalry -- see Fletcher Prouty's THE SECRET TEAM). Hougan seems much closer to the truth.
   
   But wasn't all that stuff already mere history? Why would Langley bother to publish SILENT COUP in 1991?
   
   Answer maybe: Former CIA director (late 70s) and contract agent (early 60s) George HW Bush was still president when SC was published, and hoping for re-election the following year.
   
   Bush pere's ne'er do well oil company, Zapata, had been involved to some degree in the Bay of Pigs affair, rubbing elbows then and there with shady people who later popped up in JFK's murder, Watergate and Iran-Contra (of which Bush as Reagan's VP was a principal manager).
   
   People used to joke in 1988 that if you attend a Bush campaign meeting you should wear a trenchcoat (like everybody else in the room).
   
   That is: a lot of CIA officers/goons were fired during the house-cleaning of the 70s (Rockefeller Commission, Church Committe, House Select Committe on Assassinations). They wanted Bush to win in 1988, to get back some of their own, and they staffed his campaign -- and, lo, the first major failure of exit polls to forecast election results occurred in the 1988 presidential race. Then the polls worked fine. Until 2000. And 2004 ...)
   
   SILENT COUP, then, seems motivated in 1991 by Langley desire to not only defuse Hougan's thesis on its own behalf, but to "clear brush" for longtime Company man Bush's re-election.
   
   The same desire helps explain why the astounding Kennedy books of 1992 -- JFK AND VIETNAM, by John Newman, PLAUSIBLE DENIAL by Mark Lane, and JFK by Fletcher Prouty -- all must reads -- were trashed or (worse) ignored by the press. (Search Operation Mockingbird). And why, the same year, Oliver Stone's film JFK, which drew on Prouty, Lane et al. for support, was attacked with such vigor. The Company was both defending itself and doing its best to keep certain skeletons from tumbling from the closet during Bush's re-election campaign.
   
   The national press was co-opted by its mass participation in the JFK cover up, and has not yet recovered its "freedom." The First Amendment can't protect something that died. Hougan's SECRET AGENDA was a blow for that freedom. SILENT COUP was mostly The Company Strikes Back.
   
   Finally: One of the best conversations about American politics since the end of the war (1945) is a book that tries to make sense of the domestic terrorism the US experienced from the murder of JFK thru Watergate: THE YANKEE AND COWBOY WARS by Carl Oglesby. It also happens to be wonderfully written -- a rare grace in the genre.