Agency-securities Books

It did bring me back "...to those thrilling day's of yesteryear." I was 18 and in the Army in 1972. I have forgoten most of the events unfolding that year, and this book brought back those scene's, as well as the THEN famous people who are just "faded memories" now. John and Yoko, Abby and Jerry, The other Chicago seven members, all of them are here and live again in these declassified FBI files. You would think some of the printed report's on the coming's and going's of the counter-culture leaders were written by old busy-bodies. Most documents are just plain nonsense and gossip. Why the Government tried to supress these for so long is a wonder. I would like to know what the British sent over to the FBI in the way of documents. These are shown to the reader as still being blacked out, and some dated beyond the date the FBI stopped watching Lennon's movements. A well done book by the Prof. and well worth the time if you like to read book's of a more political theme. Not for the four mop top's type of Beatle's fan. If you lived through the Day's of rage and wish to take a walk down those paranoid paths of the Hippie era then buy this book (I did not say "Steal This Book.")

Did the government have something to do with the assassination of John Lennon? Click yes if you think so or no if you don't.

Well I just woke up from a long nap after trying yet again to *yawn* read a chapter of this *yawn* book. Definitely not nearly enough bananas or geese in it for me. If you want to hear long drawn-out stories about getting files from government agencies....well all I'm saying is I guess my primary interest in Lennon has always been his music and I just don't give a hoot about this stuff-- not enough entertainment value. I thought the book "The day Elvis Met Nixon" was much better. Oh go ahead write me a negative response.

First a simple test. To whom was FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover referring when he wrote to President Nixon's Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, "[He is]...a paradox because he is difficult to judge by the normal standards of civilized life....His main reason for being is to destroy, blindly and indiscriminately, to tear down and provoke chaos...."? Adolf Hitler maybe, or some seminal Osama bin-Laden? Of course not, as you already know it was none other than our friendly, pudgy-faced, mop-headed, evil genius, that heinous John Lennon, composer of such bellicose anthems as "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance." Reason enough to warrant the FBI's surveillance of the man for 24 hours a day, for years on end? Well, not really, but they did it anyway. This book details the efforts by the author, Jon Wiener, and two ACLU attorneys, Mark Rosenbaum and Dan Marmalefsky, to obtain the 200 odd pages of documents held by the FBI on Mr. Lennon, that the agency had refused to release, (typically on grounds of either national security or ostensibly to protect confidential sources). To this end the attorneys employed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as their basis to obtain these documents. The run-around that they were given by the government should be nothing new to students of previous such encounters, and the fact that it took 15 years to achieve it should not prove too surprising either. But without doubt the central point of this book, and one that cannot be overemphasized, is that it was the FBI (acting outside of its own charter and the explicit instructions contained in the FOIA) that violated the law, while finding no criminal activity on the part of Mr. Lennon. Possibly I'm too old, too jaded or just plain too cynical to be surprised to find out that the government, or its representatives, are capable of lying, placing illegal wire-taps, harassment, obfuscation and underhandedness. Certainly all of that happened here, and it is hats off to Rosenbaum and Marmalefsky for uncovering much of the skullduggery. Although most of the information on Mr. Lennon that was unearthed as a result of this effort was largely already known to any diligent reader of, for example, "Rolling Stone" magazine, following the trail of the hearings and legal arguments is a fascinating and worthwhile one, and the book's final chapter was (for me, at least) an eye-opener.

No Backup: A Female Agent's Life
in the FBI©
by
Rosemary N. Dew and Pat Pape

A fascinating read which combines the personal experiences of Special Agent Rosemary Dew who spent thirteen years with the FBI. She was in a unique position to gain insight and has produced a detailed analysis of the culture of the FBI and has delved into the reasons behind some of it's more infamous failures. The overall thrust of the book suggests that the FBI's problems reside within the culture of the organization. Rosemary Dew contends that the FBI will continue to be plagued by embarassing episodes,e.g., the mole in its counter intelligence section who was able to escape detection for decades. Approximately half of the book covers one embarassing episode after another which calls into question the ability of the FBI to learn from its own mistakes. In the world described by the author...the agents who warned of suspicious events before 9-11 might have been taken more seriously if they had been working out of a higher status office like New York City. The book is not just a critical analysis of the Bureau but cites specific episodes from the author's life as an agent. She uses these illustrations as a backdrop to suggest why many of the recent problems within the Bureau are the result of long standing practices and norms where the preservation of one's own job within the organization takes priority and common sense seems to be in rather short supply. She describes in painful detail... blatant examples of racism, sexism and harassment which would not be tolerated in modern law enforcement agencies. The FBI is portrayed as a bureacracy which has lost its moral compass while at the same time trying to occupy a higher moral position through a masterful public relations campaign. Rosemary Dew has gone to great lengths to open up her own life and will probably take some heat from those who are sure that the Bureau can do `No' wrong. Definitely, worth the read but disturbing. There have been other books which have exposed the FBI but this one is unique.

Dr. Peter Kassebaum

Dew does share some interesting insights about the FBI bureaucracy but when you get about halfway through the book, you start to get tired of listening to her endless whining and complaining about the organization. It it was that bad, why did she continue to stay there? It would have been more interesting if she gave more details about some of the arrests and what ultimately happened to those high profile people, i.e. the Maryland congressman Robert Bauman who was arrested for child prostitution, and some of the other lowlifes she encountered through the years.

Readers' reactions to this book will be influenced by their expectations. It's not a book about shoot-em-ups and cloak-and-dagger. For me, it's a book about how the FBI institution and individual FBI agents influence each other, and the results. The author argues that the negative behavior and negative attitudes that she experienced in her small part of the FBI world are the same behavior and attitudes that led to major consequences for the entire FBI and the country. I give the book five stars for this insight alone.

Throughout the book, the author reminds the reader of the many outstanding agents she worked with and the outstanding work that the FBI accomplishes. This is not emphasized, because this is not what the book is about. Rather, it's an attempt to analyze what's wrong with the FBI, and how to fix it.

A well-written insider's expose of the immature, "locker-room" mentality that has existed far too long without accountability in what is supposed to be the nation's premier law enforcement and domestic intelligence organization. Dew's first-hand account of her 13 years of enduring illegal, unconscionable treatment from subordinates, peers and superiors saddens me.
The country and those women and minorities who suffered this treatment deserved - and deserve - better from the FBI. We can only hope that this book is read and taken to heart by a new generation of leaders at the FBI.

Once the depression struck many elitist students (such as Miss Bentley at Vassar) seemed to begin to feel guilty of their privileged position in society. For those who had not religious grounding this opened up the possibility for other faiths to explain the crisis of history that they perceived themselves to be living through. Paul Johnson, in his book "The Quest for God" makes the point that people long for a faith to believe in and when conventional religion fails to satisfy they seek a substitute. Environmentalism, nuclear dis-armament, anti-globalism and other such "movements" attract such folk. For Elizabeth Bentley it was fascism, then communism, that served this purpose. She associated herself with the CPUSA (Communist Party of the USA) and through this met Jacob Golos, a soviet agent. With this individual she became romantically involved, even though Golos had a wife back in the USSR. Eventually Golos gets caught in a passport fraud scheme which effectively blows his anonymity vis-a-vis the FBI, forcing him to utilize his mistress Bentley as a front. So she gets involved and covers Golos before the onset of the Nazi-Soviet pact which leads the FBI to begin paying more attention to communists within the USA. In time Golos gets ill and Bentley progressively takes on more responsibility, including running an underground network of Americans who were spying for Soviet intelligence. I don't want to detail the whole book so I'll just conclude by saying why Bentley was significant and why you ought to read this slim book. Elizabeth Bentley testified later that all communists were potential spies for the USSR. Communism wasn't just an intellectual proclivity ala liberalism or conservatism. She was the one who detailed how the head of the CPUSA, for instance, took direction straight from Moscow. The party's rank and file, moreover, was similarly loyal to the USSR, she testified. She was, in other words, the missing link connecting the CPUSA with the USSR and soviet intelligence. The fascinating part of this great story (well told by the book's author) is that her most damning accusations of espionage couldn't be proved by the FBI, as her contacts were all tipped off soon after she came "in from the cold", so to speak, once she turned herself in to American authorities. She had her sceptics. It just was hard to believe what she claimed could be true; that many senior American officials could be passing intelligence to the USSR. The US Army began to break some coded cables of the Soviets beginning in 1948 which confirmed Miss Bentley's accusations, but the public wasn't privy to this development, of course. Miss Bentley, consequently, continued to be portrayed as a crackpot by many in government and especially in the media. The fortunate appearance of Whittaker Chambers on the public scene, making similar accusations as Bentley...but eventually providing some proof to back it up, in the end, saved the day....and Miss Bentley's reputation. These individuals thus proved the case that the USSR was trying to undermine the USA even while we were allied to one another during WW2; that Stalin was gearing up for a cold war years before liberals accused FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower of choosing hostility over cooperation with the USSR. Read this book before Witness by Whittaker Chambers for a great 1-2 punch against political naivete. Thanks for reading my opinion.

I was amazed that this book would be such a delight to read. Initially, the historical research is well narrated, maintaining the suspense, danger, and the confusion behind the real life espionage of Elizabeth Bentley. Kathryn Olmsted displays an enjoyable interest in the vocabulary of the time, and is not shy to weave a moral into the story, as lasciviousness trumps cleverness. This book is a great resource on the fascinating history of the puzzle called the "Red Scare". As the Russians open their archives, the truth can be sought from a new light. Kathryn Olmsted pieces together Elizabeth Bentley's life, exaggerations, and manipulations in the sordid web of spies testifying against spies amidst political ambition and posturing of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Honestly, I couldn’t put the book down.

This is a well written and informative book on Elizabeth Bentley and the ex-communist witnesses of the Red Scare period of the 1940s (and 1950s). Based on a rather narrow base of primary sources, while Olmsted appears to believe most of Bentley's fingering of communists, spies or otherwise, there is much still problematic in her story. She does not make the case that the "spies" posed any real threat to the security and stability of the country in the 1930s or during World War II, although some certainly existed and shared information, nuclear and otherwise, with the Soviety Union. Olmsted describes a most unstable woman, whose veracity is certainly questionable. And she underscores that spying ended with Bentley's public revelations at the end of World War II, long before the "McCarthy" Red Scare period of the early 1950s, as other historians have recently argued.

Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley
By Kathryn S. Olmsted
University of North Carolina Press, 2002

Reviewed by Kenneth R. Kahn

"Either the government attacks you or they put you on the payroll" Chris Warnock

The long trail of bread crumbs leading to American communists acting as Soviet agents inside the U.S. government and the beginnings of the red scare in the 1950s leads to one woman--Elizabeth Bentley.

Long before the revelations of the Venona cables, Elizabeth Bentley, variously described as a spinster, neurotic, alcoholic, sexual adventuress, communist spy and FBI informant, was transmitting secrets to the Soviet Union on everything imaginable.

Elizabeth Bentley, born of New England parents, was a historic anomaly, a footnote in the history of the cold war and American communism. She brought her American character and applied it to her dealings with both Soviet agents and fellow American communists. She was one of those figures whose lifestyle intertwined with her actions and how she is portrayed by history is a direct result of this interaction.

Bentley, having followed a long, tortured and circuitous route to the FBI's field office in New Haven, Connecticut in 1945, remade American politics and led to the exposure of the top communists in America.

One of the primary themes, and intriguing concepts behind this book, is that it exposes a heretofore, seemingly unimportant person in early cold war history. Bentley�s life and roller coaster like adventures stand in stark contrast to her personal appearance. Deemed by the press, �the blond spy queen� she hardly seems to me a seductress. She seems a plain, ordinary woman by today's standards. Yet, her appearance and demeanor were pivotal to her story as a Soviet agent.

Elizabeth told her story of communist espionage activity before various congressional committees and testified as a government witness in the Rosenberg case. She managed to talk "McCall's" magazine into serializing her autobiography titled, "Out of Bondage." At first, they were leery of the former communist turned FBI informant until they spoke to FBI P.R. man Lou Nichols who gave the Bureau's approval. Amongst the lies she purported to McCalls was her self-description characterized in the headline of the June 1951 installment, "I Joined the Red Underground with the Man I Loved." In the article, she described herself as an ingenuous "college girl" despite the fact she was thirty when she met him.

In the curious case of Elizabeth Bentley, where twists and turns are the norm, as a government witness, Bentley had access to the protection of the government. In a little-known incident, the 20th century's prime mover and fixer, the infamous, gay, red-baiting Roy Cohn, came to her assistance after a beating by her live-in lover, John Wright. According to Olmsted, documented by Nicholas Von Hoffman in his seminal work, "Citizen Cohn" and an FBI memorandum dated May 13, 1952 contained in the FBI's file on Gregory Silvermaster, 65-14603-4417, Cohn told the FBI that Bentley's beating was, "the most serious problem he had faced since coming into the United States Attorney's office." As a chief witness in the William Remington case, the beating could, "ruin her career as a lecturer" (FBI memorandum from Agent Cleveland to SAC Alan Belmont, May 8, 1952, Bentley file, 134-135, no. serial), and could, "endanger the Brothman and Rosenberg convictions." The author writes, "Cohn told Elizabeth to entice Wright to New York under false pretenses. When he arrived, he was hit with the full force of the U.S. government. FBI agents whisked him to a meeting with two prosecutors and Special Agent John Danahy. U.S. Attorney Myles Lane told Wright "to get out of Bentley's life or else." He left Bentley alone.

On May 29, 1952, Elizabeth appeared before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee investigating Owen Lattimore and the Institute of Pacific Relations. McCarthy accused Lattimore of being a "top Russian spy." The Institute of Pacific Relations was accused of front activities, particularly aiding and abetting the "fall" of China.

As the anti-communist spotlight faded, so did Elizabeth's fortunes. In her later life, she taught classes at a reform school, publishing the school newspaper and avoiding the public spotlight. On November 18, 1963, at the age of fifty-five, she entered Grace New Haven Community Hospital. She was officially diagnosed with abdominal cancer but actually suffered from chronic alcoholism from years of self-abuse.

"Red Spy Queen" is an interesting, sad, twisted tale of one woman's political journey from fascism to communism to anti-communism and the human toll of political activism. It is an excellent read, an important story of a sad footnote in the history of the early cold war and that uniquely American obsession---anti-communism.

the book Bay of Pigs Declassifieied is very good it don't have quit all the facts in that it don't say one word about the small unit of guerrillas that I was in charge of we worked behind the lines to clear and hold a landing spot for troops that never came. the hole unite was captured and all but my self was killed including my interpter a young Cuban girl code name Louise she died so bravely she saved many lives by not telling where some of them were. I have tried to find some of her family and friends. but being short on money and not realy knowing where to look makes it all most imposable. she also saved my life and I would like to see her name in some of the books about the BAY OF PIGS INVASION

A fascinating post-mortem on the Bay of Pigs operation and all the more so because it was done internally by the CIA Inspector General. Suppressed for three decades because of its remarkably blunt honesty this book will have you shaking your head. A perfect example of why the 'best and the brightest' are not always so. I found it enlightening and humorous at the same time. Not one of the best run CIA operations by any means.

this is my second report on the book bay of pigs declassified as I don't think my first was quite fair I found fault in that he didn't say any thing about my unit of 45 people I think we were the only ones know one knew about. every one else had been given away. but that didn't help we were caught and killed any how all but myself that is. to get back to mister Peter Kornbluh's book it was a very fine piece of work and he must have done much work to get so much info and to get it right. thanks for the chance to tell what I think about this very good book.

This book dedicates itself entirely to fixing the underlying process of intelligence. The authors place intelligence in the larger context of information, and draw a plethora of useful comparisons with emerging private sector capabilities and standards. They place strong emphasis on the emerging issues (not necessarily threats) related to ethnic, religious, and geopolitical confrontation, and are acutely sensitive to the new power of non-governmental organizations and non-state actors. The heart of their book is captured in three guidelines for the new process: focus on understanding the consumer's priorities; minimize the investment in fixed hardware and personnel; and create a system that can draw freely on commercial capabilities where applicable (as they often will be). Their chapter on the failure of the bureaucratic model for intelligence, and the need to adopt the virtual model-one that permits analysts to draw at will on diverse open sources-is well presented and compelling. Their concluding three chapters on analysis, covert action, and secrecy are solid professional-level discussions of where we must go in the future.

I enjoyed the broad overview of the generation and use of intelligence information. I found the suggestions of how to change the intelligence system too vague, driven by the management technique of the hour and unworkable. The authors suggestion that agencies drop specialized groups and pulls special teams together when needed. This may be workable in the short run, but in the long run there will be no deep experts as there are today. It takes time and money to develop these experts and only the government can plan to develop these experts, that may or may not ever be fully utilized. The authors site NASA's faster, better, cheaper management, a style that in my opinion is none of these, as something the intelligence community should adopt. It would be alright for someone to site this, but you must also site the numerous failures of the method. I got the feeling that if the book had been written ten years ago, Japanese management methods would have been sited as useful, they have of course fallen from favor. Cold fusion and the work that was done by innumerable physics to at the time of the first announcement as the way the intelligence community should attach important new questions that are time sensitive. Have hundreds of experts across the intelligence community bear upon a question as a way to get a quick, high quality answer. What the authors don't understand is all those physicists were working for free or on someone else's dime. All those hundreds of people will need to charge against this new effort, enough to break any budget, not to mention the poor chance of getting a high quality answer. So, the book is a good airing of the issues, but not much at solving the problems.

The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) continues to be mired in the past despite the so-called reforms implemented internally since the end of the Cold War or imposed from without by Congress in the wake of the 9/11 catastrophe. Here is a book that offers a path to real reform based not so much on structural changes as changes in the intelligence production process. It makes a strong case for decentralization of intelligence production and the use by the IC of outside experts to assist in the analysis of specific intelligence subjects. The type of reforms that Berkowitz and Goodman advocate would give the members of the IC that elusive, but vitally important, attribute of flexibility to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. Unfortunately, the kind of reformation these authors argue for would require a major change in the internal culture of the primary agencies of the IC.

For example, members of the IC now make extensive use of private, commercial contractors even for core missions such as intelligence analysis, but only within an elaborate bureaucratic framework designed to fill vacancies, not improve the analytic processes. The use of outside subject matter experts from academia and the business world hired for specific analytic projects on an ad hoc basis as advocated in this book really goes against the basic culture of the intelligence bureaucracy. It is true that the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and some National Intelligence Officers (NIO) within the NIC have resorted to outside experts, but this is scarcely representative of the IC as a whole. Indeed in this reviewer's experience, outside experts of any sort are about as welcome in the IC as women are in the monasteries of Mount Athos. So clearly this and the other elements of the reformation program offered in this book would require profound cultural changes within the IC.

Robert D. Steele in a series of books such as "The New Craft of Intelligence" has attempted to develop some of the ideas presented in this book into specific practical changes affecting the way the U.S. produces intelligence. Steele's work would be a good follow on to this book.

I need to note one caveat before my review: I believe (I am not alone) that the presidency of George Bush - our not so beloved 'W' - will go down as one of the most tragic in history.

Therefore, I find the writing of Walter Brasch to be an enjoyable read. It is not so much a book in it's own write (HA! couldn't resist) but a collection of newspaper columns from the beginning of the Bush presidency. Whereas this can be viewed (and is factually correct) as yesterday's news, what I found to be interesting was the history of abuse, the cavalier attitude towards the constitution and individual rights, the cronyism, the outright illegal, immoral and offensive behavior that has been going on for 8 years with W at the helm.

All of which brings us to the sad state of affairs we now see with Bush occasionally popping out of the White House like a ground hog afraid to see his shadow, wanting to let everyone know he cares about our pain. A world weary and totally irrelevant president fumbling to figure out what to do about an economic crisis of biblical proportion, much of the seeds of which were sown by himself and those in his administration. We can read back through the history and origins of much of the current mess and see that, in general, Walter Brasch was right.

There is a reason Laura Bush got the book deal for her memoirs before her husband (people who want to actually sell Books By Bush have suggested he may want to wait...for awhile).

Some articles certainly work better (are more interesting) than others and most have updates where subsequent developments to the topic in question were available. His penchant for reminding us of Bush's many malaprops come as welcome comic relief. They must be of some solace to Dan Quayle who can now step down as the most inarticulate person to hang his hat within a heart beat of the oval office.

This is not light summer beach reading but is well written and researched. The article format works well for a short read after which we can take a break to contemplate how we could have possibly voted this guy into office for a second term.

Shame on us.

Genre: Non-fiction/Political

Title: Sinking the Ship of State

Author: Walter M. Brasch

The disastrous Bush administration is only slightly ameliorated by the humor found in the President's many verbal gaffes.
"I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah," said President George W. Bush. This is just one of the Bushisms peppering the book. These bits serve to lighten up what becomes a bit tedious. The book is mostly a collection of newspaper columns, with occasional updating. It has been said that there is nothing so deadly as yesterday's news.
Brasch, a journalism prof and syndicated newspaper columnist, covers the Bush years from 2000, with newspaper columns dealing with the usual complaints about his administration. We read of the smear campaign against John McCain (after all, his campaign manager was a Jew, and McCain was seeking the gay vote), the illegal invasion of Iraq and the inept conduct of that war, the systematic measures consistently used by the president to harass peaceful protesters at his public appearances, torture at Guantanamo and mistreatment of suspects shipped off to overseas secret prisons, corporate welfare, and on and on.
I found Brasch's description of the massive entertainment budgets of certain corporations for delegates to the conventions enlightening. But while Brasch found Clinton's years something to crow about, his welfare "reform" measures targeting the poor, lead me more to Michael Moore's view, which Brasch quotes--that Clinton was perhaps the greatest Republican president.
In 440 pages, Brasch could have produced a solid book on Bush, rather than just a collection of warmed-over newspaper clippings. The stuff is all largely there. Annoyingly, the book lacks an index.
How can we evaluate Brasch's book? In terms of what it tells us, it is very solid. In the format, it stumbles. Reviewer: Reuel S. Amdur, Allbooks Reviews

Quoting from the back cover:

"Sinking the Ship of State traces the arc of the Bush presidency from its humble beginnings in the slime of the South Carolina primary to its zenith on a carrier deck beneath a "Mission Accomplished" banner and down to its sorry demise in proposed impeachment proceedings. Brasch lays the whip to the indolent press, "cash register patriots," and a corrupt Congress. It is an exhilarating ride." - Don Kaul, syndicated columnist; retired Washington columnist, Des Moines Register

"When most Americans and the mainstream media were accepting whatever they were told by the Bush Administration, Walter Brasch was meticulously peeling away the incompetence, deceit, corruption and, most of all, their cavalier attitude to the Constitution." - Jim Hightower, syndicated columnist

"Walter Brasch shines a merciless light on the moral hypocrites and constitutional villains who act as the self-appointed protectors of the nation. His writing is propelled by a lively sense of humor and an acute sensitivity to the darker ironies of our times." - Jeffrey St. Clair, co-editor, CounterPunch

"Brasch is one of the first and most consistent columnists to warn about George W. Bush and his neo-conservative administration's plans for a pre-emptive attack on Iraq and the drummed up evidence of WMD. Brasch is an articulate and entertaining writer exposing constitutional and human right violations." - Regina Huelman, Editor, Liberal Opinion Week."

Walter Brasch has used past writings from his social issues column, Wanderings, as the basis for this book. The columns have been presented in a chronological order, starting in 2000, making the book historical, informative, and easily digestible. If you're interested in politics, this book should be on the table beside your bed.

Walter Brasch is a master at weeding through the political lies, deceit, corruption, rhetoric, and hyperbole to help us find the truth. He is a man we need very much in today's complex society. If you want to know the truth, buy this book and help support his efforts.

Kaye Trout
Reviewer

Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush by journalist, editor, author and journalism professor Walter M. Brasch is a collection of his social issues column 'Wanderings' in addition to a few new columns written specifically for this book.

His is a critical, compelling, in-depth analysis of the Bush Presidency from the Republican primaries in February 2000 through April 2007 and the new Democratic majority in Congress. Under Brasch's unflinching eye, insightful wisdom and scalpel sharp wit the Bush Administration is dissected and laid bare upon the autopsy table of Free Speech. But he doesn't stop there, also slicing and dicing Congress and the mainstream media as enablers of the President and his Cabinet. His columns are real-time snapshots, honest and brutal in their reporting, and do not suffer through the prism of hindsight, where the view is often colored and skewed to fit a preconceived agenda or ideal.

Brasch was ahead of the curve of popular opinion about George W. Bush and many of his policies. In October 2001 he was warning about the perils to civil liberties of the newly passed Patriot Act when the majority of people were cheering its passage and the media largely stood silent. He was criticizing the Administration on it's global warming stance long before it became the Al Gore fueled hot-button issue it is today.

Brasch's commentary is ardent and passionate while always remaining clear-eyed and focused, seeking accountability and responsibility from an Administration notorious for being insular and never admitting to any mistakes. My only quibble is when the author uses personal attacks or insults to make or illustrate a point, whether the target be President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Senator Clinton or Senator Kerry. This serves only to cheapen the discourse while adding nothing of substance, and Walter M. Brasch is better than this. So, for a lively, forthright, witty, comprehensive and intellectual commentary of the Bush Presidency from day one to the present, this is the book.

Michael
Alternative-Read.com
October 2007

This book excites conflicting emotions and thoughts in me. On one hand, I have little use for the UN as a force for security in the world. Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Iraq, and Darfur have convinced me that if I ever was told that my life was in the hands of the UN, I should start writing out my last will and testament.

On the other hand, I spent six months in the former Yugoslavia in 1994 in the American contingent to the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). I was located up in Zagreb, Croatia and only got into Sarajevo once.

But I feel that I had a pretty good handle on what was going on down there, and I don't totally agree with the author's take on it. LeBor pretty much scoffs at the "ancient hatreds" theory of the conflict, laying virtually all the blame at the door of Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, and many other infamous Serbs. But while I am willing to say that Milosevic and his murderous little helpers bear the main share of the blame for what happened in Croatia, Bosnia, and later Kosovo, they couldn't have done what they did without some historical factors giving them material to work with.

Let's talk about the "ancient hatreds" problem first. LeBor doesn't explore why the Serbs would have been so susceptible to a leader like Milosevic. You don't have to go back to the medieval era to know why. You just have to go back to World War II. In that conflict, the Serbs suffered greatly at the hands of the Nazis' minions in Yugoslavia, the Ustasha (fascist Croats) and worthies from the "Handschar Division" (a Bosniak division of the Waffen SS). It's too complicated to get into here, but with that sort of "not so ancient history," one can understand why the Serbs might be a little unhappy at being minorities in a Croatian state or in a Bosnian state dominated by Croats and Muslims.

Now, I stress, this in no way whatsoever excuses the conduct of the Serbs, but it does better explain it than the "monster plot" theory of the Balkan Wars (i.e. "but for the machinations of Slobodan Milosevic, everything would be right as rain in the Balkans").

`Complicity With Evil', the title of this interesting and important work, is derived from the U.N's self-critique of its operations in the 1990s. In short this is LeBor's thesis, the U.N has paved a road to hell with good intentions in the Balkans, Rwanda and lately in Sudan. Many readers may find it troublesome that half the book is devoted to the Bosnian-Serb war, and principally to the massacre at Srbrenica in 1995. LeBor notes that he hopes to "provide a detailed template for understanding why the U.N has not stopped genocide in Darfur." This is a worthy endeavor, but it sheds light on the most significant problem with this book, it is far too detailed on the subject LeBor is most familiar with: Bosnia, and ignores the really massive genocides of the last thirty years, from Cambodia to Rwanda and Darfur, where millions of have died, rather than thousands, where whole peoples have been almost whiped off the earth.
The greatest contribution of this book is the analysis of the inner-workings of the U.N, its slow incompetence and competing interests that time and again frustrated any efforts by any parts of it to do anything in the conflicts discussed. However LeBor's claim to offer a new insight into the Balkan wars and the ethnic-cleansing(page 7) is inaccurate when it comes to framing the Bosnian-Serb conflict. LeBor's bias against the Serbs is shown again and again: "The Bosnian-Serbs killed their prisoners...many of the killers enjoyed their work" and "the killings of Srbrenica were not carried out by battle-enraged soldiers."(pages 117-118) "The Bosnian-Serbs proved less efficient in fighting proper soldiers than in shelling women and children.(page 129)"

The author asks rhetorically "where did this come from, this hatred of Bosnian Muslims." Perhaps LeBor should have asked the same questions to the Croats who elected Tudjman and admired their Nazi ancestors, the Ustasha, or the Bosnians who also ethnically cleansed all the Serbs from the Muslim parts of Bosnia. Unlike in the Holocaust, the hate in the Balkans never went one way. Boutros-Ghali was also correct in 1992 when he noted that there were "ten other places all over the world"(page 29) that had more problems than Sarajevo. One of those places was Sudan, another would soon be Rwanda.

Chapter 6 is devoted to Sudan and the following chapters detial the hypocrisy of the Arab member states of the U.N and the Islamic blocs support of the Sudanese genocide as well as the African blocs ignoring of the Rwandan genocide.

The book insinuates that the U.S has frustrated the U.N in its ability to confront genocide. However the fact is that there are more than 180 other member states of the U.N who ignored genocide in the last thirty years and two security council members, France and China, collaborated in the Rwandan and Sudanese genocides respectively.

The book's conclusion that "arguably the world is more, not less in need of the United Nations(page 265)" is hard to swallow in light of litany of evil that the book has described.

However the wealth of information provided by Lebor on obscure massacres, such as those carried out by Robert Mugabe in Operation Murambatsvina in 2005, the Egyptian massacre of Sudanese, and the thousands of Arab mujahadin that came to fight in Bosnia is important. But these interesting asides also illustrate the general lack of organization in the second part of the book. Unlike the first section on Bosnia, which is lucid, well written, and brilliantly told(if biased), the second seems to be a little cobbled together. In the final analysis, any book which takes the U.N to task for its failures is important and this book makes significant steps in the right direction.

Seth J. Frantzman

Professor Paul Diehl has written a very informative work on the complex task confronting International Peacekeeping. Previously the sole responsibility of the United Nations, peacekeeping operations are now also being undertaken by the African Union.

Peacekeeping operations have become the United Nations' biggest commitment in an ever-changing and complex world; especially after the end of the Cold War era.

Although now some fourteen years old, the book provides in-depth information into the development of peacekeeping operations since UNEF 1 (1956)and the challenges confronting the UN in attempting to resolve conflicts and maintain world peace.

Prof. Diehl gives an insight into the predecessor of the UN, the failed League of Nations and the reasons for its eventual demise. I found it interesting to note the League did achieve some measure of success prior to the Second World War.

Six detailed case studies allow the reader to follow the complexity of peacekeeping operations and analyse the various challenges confronting the Missions during the terms of their mandates. These detailed studies are very well documented and permit good comparative analysis. Professor Diehl writes with the authority of one well-versed in this difficult subject.

In summary, I found the book exteremly helpful as a reference; my one lament is that fourteen years have elapsed since its publication and I would very much welcome an updated edition to bring this very interesting subject up to date. Well done, Professor Diehl.

This book explains the difference between peacekeepers and multinational intervention. It highlights the shortcomings and advantages of peacekeeping (PK). While the book's material is particularly relevant to Cold War-era studies of the UN, the analysis is still applicable. Diehl provides an excellent overview of 6 UN PK missions. He explains why these missions failed and suceeded for different reasons. He also provides several viable alternatives, both institutional and functional options. He brings up several ideas and explains why they won't work, while explaining clearly why some ideas would be a good policy alternative. Furthermore, this edition of Int PK includes an epilogue concerning Somalia, Cambodia, and the former Yugoslovia. Overall, this book should be read by anyone who is interested in: peace in the post-cold war world, peace in a new inter-dependent world, forming a safe world order that can effectively deal with violator states, and the history of UN PK missions. As a third-year international politics student, I would recommend this material to someone who has a fundamental understanding of the UN. This book can be read with meticulous detail or it can be read lightly for overall impressions. The book is well-balanced between honest criticism (compared to cynical insults) and thought-out alternatives (as opposed to flowerly save-the-world recommendations).

It was exciting to see a book in political science about the bond markets, and even more interesting to see one attempting to fit into the constructivist international relations literature. At first glance, it seems ripe for such a theoretical exploration - analysis focuses on an ontological justification for focusing on the bond rating agencies and Sinclair offers theoretical tidbits from economic sociology to explain the political organization of markets in contrast with the Hayekian spontaneity view. Sinclair offers interesting arguments about bond rating agencies, the basis of their power, the structure of their authority, and the implications of their behavior for other actors including but not limited to sovereigns. The argument focuses on the social nature of finance which zeros the analyst on matters of uncertainty and risk. Interestingly, this provides a parallel to more recent rationalist approaches to economic life. Overall, the topic of the book intrigued me, particularly since the author discusses the process of disintermediation* - the larger structural economic change that opens up the space to be filled by bond rating behaviors in sovereign, municipal, and corporate fixed income markets.

Theoretically the author offers a discussion of what he considers "embedded knowledge networks" slightly similar to Haas-like epistemic communities but lacking the normative commitments to notions of the public good. Sinclair suggests that bond rating agencies need to construct their image as an "embedded knowledge network" and the growth of their role in financial markets as "endogenous" to integration of world markets. If these private authorities are not viewed by financial markets and debtors as legitimate, markets will not function in the manner typically desired - since what these social actors do according to Sinclair is socially embed the financial markets. Implicit in the argument is a Polayni double movement - however I did not find it easy to tease out from Sinclair's logic or language. As financial markets integrate across the world, there is some amount of disembedding of the market from its social base which can be reduced via the construction of private legitimated authority and the centralization of market processes by the bond rating agencies. The bond agencies utilize this legitimacy to structure the ground rules of the financial markets themselves. In a sense their is a coordination effect, which narrows the maneuvering room for current and potential market actors, and this "common understanding" of the norms within bond market practice stem from the rating standards and the very political decisions made by bond rating agencies. Therefore bond rating agencies survive on maintaining their reputation both for sound analysis and objectivity but legitmation crises sometimes occur and are particularly pronounced when their behavior expands into previously uncovered territory. This is all very interesting, but once we move beyond this basic argument Sinclair loses me a bit mainly because I think his case studies could be much tighter and directly intertwined with the arguments themselves. I wish the book spent more time cultivating and working with this side of the argument itself. I got the sense that Sinclair was rushed once he finished up the theoretical analysis.

My basic suggestion to those interested in the politics of bond markets is that you should take this to scrutinize the early theoretical arguments. The first three chapters are a treasure trove of interesting arguments that deserve to be taken in extension past where Sinclair goes, and possibly restated without some of the cumbersome post-modern jargon. Sinclair's detailed empirical research also will be a great starting point for anyone interested in following up in this research agenda. Some of the empirical findings support the arguments of the book, but fail Lakatosian notions of what makes good theory - there doesn't seem to be the focus on uncovering "new facts" the interesting type of dynamics that those familiar with the financial sector would not expect, particularly in regard to politics. The cases seem on occasion to be historical stand alones, and the methodology of "counter-factual" does not appear to be taken very seriously. On a number of occasions there are only short paragraphs at the end of sections posing the counter-factual, this is hardly rigorous in the manner we might expect if this is really a methodological approach. I would have been perfectly content without the almost silly homage paying to positivist concerns about lack of variation on the dependent variable, etc as long as the author is willing to express clearly what the implications of his methodological choices are. In fact the book would have probably been more convincing. As for the Lakotosian problem by way of example, it is not particularly enlightening to read the argument that short-term oriented thinking is spread by the bond-rating agencies in a process akin to market socialization. In fact it made me think of the Schumpeterian critique of capitalism and democracy as larger social processes so the argument could have been further tied into non-Sorel based literature bodies. While it is interesting in the context of the larger processes raised by Sinclair, alone it seems almost trivial. It might just be the case that I totally misunderstood Sinclair, especially since the language was more vague as this side of the argument cropped up. One other factor that disappointed me greatly was how little time was focused on the exclusive issue of sovereign bonds. This bias reflects my own research agenda, but for a piece on International Political Economy I expected more weight on the international side and less on say municipal government policy even though the arguments that Sinclair makes about state-market relations within the confines of so-called "state decline" and other globalization arguments were fascinating particularly at the sub-national level. Read it, but do not expect to be swept away by the empirical and theoretical conclusions. Nevertheless, Sinclair should be applauded for attempting a very difficult feet - applying sociological constructivist theory to financial markets. Surprisingly even though the logic of financial behavior begs for this kind of approach, especially given concerns about risk and reputation, I have not seen anyone come close to what Sinclair tried to do here, whether he was successful is a separate story, but at least we have a place to start. While logically the arguments seem to fit rather well, this is not something that scholars have been very willing to pay attention to, and the novelty of the project alone deservers credit.

* Disintermediation refers to the process by which the market has become increasingly saturated non bank oriented securities. For the case of sovereign debt, the most interesting phenomenon is the rise of the bond market and associated credit derivatives trade.

Few writers have closely examined the work of bond rating agencies - even though their decisions can move markets, open or close the doors to capital, and even bring down governments. Timothy J. Sinclair manages to keep his prose relatively accessible, despite his many references to research that could only appeal to academics. Although his detailed analysis of various sociological characterizations of agency power may be of little interest to the general reader, we believe that his main point - rating agencies exercise power and influence well beyond the bond markets - deserves careful consideration by anyone interested in economics, finance, politics or the issue of globalization.

The definitive work on the cold-war era NSA. Mandatory reading for anyone interested in the intelligence game. Contrary to what another reviewer wrote, this book is NOT out of circulation. In fact, it is most definitely still in print, in a new edition.

The author has attempted to expand on his knowledge of cryptology in the Navy with a lot of imagination to round out the intreging subject. The book was removed from circulation for a while by a government agency due to some of the information contained in the book.