A dozen books for americans that tell it like it is
A DOZEN BOOKS FOR AMERICANS THAT TELL IT LIKE IT IS
by Sherwood Ross
If newspaper readership is plummeting, maybe it’s because readers have to turn elsewhere to catch a glimpse of the causes behind the official story. Recognizing this, some book publishers courageously are using their printing presses to get interpretive reporting to the reading public. Among those books that paint an unvarnished picture of how the U.S. government’s policies are causing widespread foreign and domestic suffering are:
"Legacy of Ashes: The History of The CIA" (Anchor) by New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winner Tim Weiner, contains some sweeping, but accurate, generalizations, such as this one: "By 1970, the CIA’s influence was felt in every nation in the Western Hemisphere, from the Texas border to Tierra del Fuego." Weiner spotlights how the spy agency’s operatives exerted more influence than the State Department. "In Mexico, the president dealt exclusively with the station chief, not the ambassador, and he received a personal New Year’s Day briefing at his home from the director of central intelligence. In Honduras, two successive station chiefs had privately pledged the support of the United States to the military junta, in defiance of the ambassadors they served." Weiner doesn’t mince words about how President Kennedy, who once said he was proud to be a liberal, "first approved a political-warfare program to subvert (Salvador Allende) more than two years before the September 1964 Chilean elections’ when the Agency pumped $3 million into the pockets of his political opponent.
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