Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq

Rating:
Summary: The Lowdown on the Bush Junta
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Book on the Bushes
Review: Why is it the best? Because no author has taken the Bush "dynasty" rise the way Bob Parry has - - and no other author could. Parry has been looking under rocks and sneaking behind closed doors to find the truth for almost three decades. Only Parry has had the sources, found the documents, and cogently compiled the despicable history of how the Bush politicians have deliberately buried, under multiple layers of secrecy, the truth of some of the most significant events in recent history. He is the only author who followed the Bush footprints when they were still fresh, often before the impact of the truth was known and could be hidden. In a phrase - - Bob Parry was there.

For at least the past 25-30 years, Bob Parry has been the only journalist with the integrity to follow a story no matter where it went, and to report the truth no matter who it implicated. Of, course, as the saying goes, "No good deed goes unpunished." For his dedicated efforts - - with AP, Newsweek, Frontline and other news outlets - to tell the American people about the crimes, actual violations of federal criminal statutes, by members of the Reagan, Bush 1, and the current Bush administration, he became a pariah. But following a moral compass that knows only one direction, he never lost a beat. And to this day, with his sons, they issue of the some of the most insightful political views of this day on his blog, Consortium News.

Consider this: Parry covers the year, 1976, when George H.W. Bush was Director of Central Intgelligence, the head of the CIA. While few paid attention at the time, certain anti-Castro Cuban exiles, many with past and current ties to the CIA, were the only terrorists ever to export terrorism from the United States. In 1977, the CIA reported that these terrorists killed more people in 1976 than all of the Middle East terrorist groups combined. Yet when the FBI asked DCI Bush for help in quelling the Cuban exile attacks, he slammed down a brick wall on anything that might have come out of Miami. And those secrets are still sealed. That alone may give an unbiased observer a reason to understand the overwhelming support the Bush family receives from the Cuban-Americans in Miami.

If you want to know the real story about how and why the Bush family has achieved their astounding political success, given that none of them have ever succeeded in any profession, vocation or position outside of politics, you must read this book. When Bob Parry takes you behind the curtain from Watergate until Bush II, the images of deceit and deception are ugly -- but true.