Secrecy and Privilege: Rise Of The Bush Dynasty From Watergate To Iraq [Paperback]

Robert Parry is more than a chronicler of events in "Secrecy & Privilege"; he is a player as well, and in one of the most significant dramas of the post-World War Two era. It was Parry who uncovered significant evidence pertaining to the October Surprise incident. His efforts ultimately reached the nation's viewers with a heralded Public Broadcasting System documentary produced by his organization, Consortium News, which has emerged as one of the Internet's leading sources of information not generally available from mainstream media sources.

Parry covers the emergence of the Bush dynasty from a different perspective than those previously traversed. Parry stresses the necessity of George H. W. Bush, the first of two Bushes to sit in the White House, in clearing away potential mine fields of disaster to his son and the Republican Party in general. Parry reveals how Bush the Elder's concerted efforts resulted in the dodging of a political bullet in the form of the October Surprise allegations that could have seriously undercut Republican influence in the future and cost them dearly at the polls.

In addition to Bush the Elder's efforts, Republicans were bolstered by the fact that influential Democrats such as Congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana agreed to scuttle the October Surprise investigation after earlier hearings had been held. Parry cites this result as comparable to the termination of efforts to learn more about the Watergate tragedy after Robert Strauss, the closest friend of Democrat-turned-Republican and Nixon Cabinet member John Connally. When Strauss became Chairman of the Democratic National Committee following Senator George McGovern's loss to Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential election, he used his influence to ultimately tamp down the flames of Watergate, as did George H. W. Bush, who had been appointed Chairman of the Republican National Committee by Nixon.

Crack researcher Parry covers the pivotal Iran-Contra period with insightful diligence. Once more Congressman Lee Hamilton was there to coalesce with Republicans to blunt the efforts to learn the basics of the Iran-Contra scandal. Bush insisted that he was "out of the loop" and uninvolved in the grimy details of the arms for hostages swap culminating in arms for the rebel Nicaraguan Contras. It was eventually learned that Bush was lying, but the truth did not come out until after he defeated Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.

Much of this informative work provides vital information on how the CIA has become a major political tool in providing cover-ups for Republicans while destroying those who seek to uncover corruption. By the time the Republicans resorted to dirty tricks to secure victory for George W. Bush in 2000 after he had lost the presidential popular vote to Al Gore, cronies of the elder Bush, spearheaded by his former Secretary of State James Baker, were in place to perform duties.

It was also interesting to observe how son emulated father in keeping a lid on information that could prove damaging to the administrations of Bush the Elder and Ronald Reagan. George W. Bush issued an executive order denying the National Archives from continuing its traditional function of placing information from past presidential administrations in the public domain.

A central thesis of Parry's book is that these cover-up efforts by the CIA, which the elder Bush once headed, could not have been successful without the tacit cooperation of a national media that has become submissive to Republican authority. He demonstrates how tremendously one-sided the mainstream media was in the 2000 election in leveling repeated charges at Al Gore for failing to tell the truth, using statements taken out of context to achieve this purpose, while essentially looking the other way in the face of evidence of corruption and deception by George W. Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney.

This is a superb personal effort by the author, and it does a tremendous job of harvesting both news media stories and key books. It is however a bit anrrow, and I recommend other references.

A simple example: he speaks of the narrow Bush victory in Florida without reference to Greg Palast's PRE-ELECTION reporting, subsequently summarized in the book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy or any understanding of the fact that over a year in advance of the election Jeb Bush stole the election by disenfranchizing over 35,000 black voters whose names were remotely--very remotely--linked to the names of felons from other states (only Florida felons cannot vote, but Jeb Bush wanted this so bad he paid ten times the going rate to a "friendly" company that used Texas felon lists to "disqualify" voters who only found out they were disqualified on election day.

Another example: he has a great (but dated) appendix on CIA and who it has funded as intermediaries and end recipients of CIA cash all over the world, but he completely misses the same necessary information for Wall Street, the 40,000 non-profits created to hide wealth and manage perceptions (as well as lure people off land with gold, see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man).

There are many other books on the Nazi, mafia, and Saudi corruption ties of the Bush family, and there are also other books that are more comprehensive and current on the problems we face today because of young Bush II and his war criminal vice President. See for example, "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil; Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids and my personal favority, Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency.

Robert Parry is a gifted investigative reporter. His first book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' remains among my favorites. In this book, what may be his most important message is this: the extremists Republicans (I am an estranged moderate Republican disgusted with Karl Rove's hijacking of the party) have combined secrecy, lies, and "perception management" to completely confuse and mislead the public, while carrying out high crimes and misdimeanors against the government, the treasury, the military, and the people.

From Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and the young (and rather stupid) George Bush II, this book paints a very ugly and accurate picture of the pathological abuse of power and of the public purse by these people. Most of them need to be tried, convicted, and jailed. None of them are fit for public office in a moral informed democracy, but then, as the author makes clear, we do not live in a moral, informed democracy. We live in a The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead where most Americans cannot identify all the states around their own, much less other countries. We have gotten the government we deserve.

One final observation: this book is super but in isolation. I am increasingly persauded that Amazon should digitize ALL books, so that customers can "buy" composite renditions of information that honor copyright at the paragraph and page level, while creating unique original visualizations and summarizations that are free of copyright and can be bought on their own. I would pay $1,000 for a visualization--a poster--of all of the criminal, dictator, and immoral connections of George Bush II and his evil former master, Dick Cheney (whose Secret Service nickname is "Edgar," for the guy that managed the puppet). Bush has finally figured out, way too late, that Cheney hijacked and destroyed the first six years.

See also:
Bush's Brain
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy

Robert Parry gives us insight into why everything has seemed so odd for so long. No matter which side of the aisle you sit, it helps fill in the history that the mainstream press failed to give us.