"You make a mistake, there are dead people."—FBI Special Agent Art Cummings, head of international counterterrorism operations
Drawing on unprecedented access to FBI and CIA counterterrorism operatives, New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler presents the chilling story of terrorists’ relentless efforts to mount another devastating attack on the United States and of the heroic efforts being made to stop those plots.
Kessler takes readers inside the war rooms of this battle—from the newly created National Counterterrorism Center to FBI headquarters, from the CIA to the National Security Agency, from the Pentagon to the Oval Office—to explain why we have gone so long since 9/11 without a successful attack and to reveal the many close calls we never hear about. The race to stop the terrorists, Kessler shows, is more desperate than ever.
Based on exclusive interviews with FBI Director Robert Mueller, CIA Director Michael Hayden, White House Counterterrorism Chief Fran Townsend, and dozens of key intelligence operatives at all levels, The Terrorist Watch:
• Reveals how the CIA and FBI have rolled up more than 5,000 terrorists worldwide since 9/11
• Tells the unreported story of how the U.S. helped thwart the 2006 London terrorist plot, broke up terrorist cells in Canada, and prevented numerous other attacks
• Provides a stunning insider’s account from George Piro, an FBI agent who spent seven months debriefing Saddam Hussein after his capture. From Saddam’s compulsive hand-washing and use of baby wipes to his strategy during the 2003 invasion, why no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, and his plans to develop nuclear weapons, the debriefings unravel mysteries and provide insights about one of the greatest mass murderers of our time.
• Pinpoints press leaks that have resulted in CIA agents’ deaths, caused foreign countries to stop cooperating on key investigations, and even tipped off Osama bin Laden to U.S. surveillance
• Destroys numerous media myths, such as the canard that the FBI and CIA still don’t cooperate on investigations
• Discloses the truth about the number of U.S. mosques where imams preach jihad and the Muslim community’s response to FBI efforts to enlist its cooperation
• Shows how the intelligence community has radically changed its mission—and how the media have misled the public about those changes
• Documents the efforts of those on Capitol Hill who would do their best to handcuff agents of U.S. law enforcement and prevent them from doing their job to protect us
Never before has a journalist gained such access to the FBI, the CIA, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the other agencies that are doing the unheralded work of finding and capturing terrorists.
Ronald Kessler’s you-are-there narrative tells the real story of the war on terror and will transform the way you view the greatest problem of our age.
Ron Kessler destroys myths about the war on terror and provides an unprecedented, inside look at how the FBI and CIA go about the tough task of defeating terrorism and preserving our freedom.
—William H. Webster, former director of Central Intelligence and former director of the FBI
A powerful and brave book. Kessler makes it clear that if we win this war, it will be because of the FBI and CIA professionals who have protected America since 9/11. If we lose the war, it will be because of distortions by the mainstream media, those who leak operational secrets to them, and politicians who undermine those who are trying to protect us.
—R. James Woolsey, former director of Central Intelligence
Ron Kessler is unique in his ability and willingness to tell the unvarnished truth about what it will take to protect America from the next major terrorist attack. This is a book which every informed and responsible American should read.
—Robert Grenier, former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center
Ronald Kessler vividly tells the important story of the extraordinary efforts of those Americans who stand on guard protecting our nation in the war against Islamist extremism.
—Sen. Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Media Interviews: To set up an interview with Ronald Kessler or to request a copy of the book for media purposes, please contact Melanie DeNardo at Crown Publishing Group 212 940-7866.
When Laura Bush moved into the White House on January 20, 2001, everyone wanted to know what kind of first lady she would be. Would she be like Mamie Eisenhower? Would she follow in Barbara Bush’s footsteps? Would she be another Hillary Clinton?
"I think I’ll just be Laura Bush," she would say.
On Saturday, April 30, 2005, the world got a glimpse of what that meant when she pushed aside the leader of the free world and stole the show at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. Wearing a shimmering lime green Oscar de la Renta gown, Laura wisecracked that she was a "desperate housewife" married to a president who was always asleep at 9.
Replayed constantly on the air, the stand-up routine with its impeccable comedic timing turned the first lady into a glittering star. But while the performance catapulted her to new status, it did not answer the question of who this former teacher and librarian really is and just what role she plays in influencing her husband and shaping his administration. The Bushes are more effective than the FBI or CIA at keeping secret what goes on behind the scenes at the White House, the ranch, or Camp David.
Now New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler draws back that curtain in the first biography of Laura Bush to be written with White House cooperation. Drawing on interviews with her closest friends and confidantes from childhood to the present, as well as family members and administration heavyweights like Condoleezza Rice and Andrew Card, Kessler paints a portrait of a woman who, even as she ascended to the heights of political fortune and power, never lost touch with the bedrock American values she absorbed in her youth.
In this unprecedented account, Kessler reveals:
How Laura’s opinions have brought budget changes to a range of federal agencies and have affected her husband’s policies, appointments, and world view.
Why Laura told her press secretary in May 2001 she did not want to do any more media interviews.
What President Bush said to Laura at the dinner table after giving the "go" for the invasion of Iraq, and what his father, former President George H.W. Bush, wrote him the next day about the war.
What Laura’s own political opinions are and what her relationship with twin daughters Jenna and Barbara is really like.
What advice Laura has asked of her mother-in-law Barbara Bush about her role as first lady and how the president's mother has responded.
What Laura says in private about Hillary Clinton, media attacks on her husband, and his victory in the 2004 election.
And how Laura, at the age of seventeen, missed a stop sign and caused a fatal accident that tragically left one of her best friends dead.
A New York Times bestseller, LAURA BUSH: An Intimate Portrait of the First Ladyoffers a remarkable look at the private world of this famously reserved woman, as well as the beliefs and attitudes that shape it. The book will surprise readers whose knowledge of the first lady comes from cautious media interviews and speeches.
Laura Bush’s approval rating stands at eighty-five percent. Since opinion polls first began asking about them, no first lady has received a higher rating. This moving biography is the first to penetrate the secret world of the president’s stealth counselor who is one of our most admired public figures.
"Laura Bush is a remarkable woman—a great mother, daughter and daughter-in-law, and, of course, first lady. The thing that makes this gentle, bright woman dearer than all of the above is that she makes the president, our son, happy. Ron Kessler does a great job of capturing the spirit of Laura Bush."—Former First Lady Barbara Bush
Media Interviews
To arrange media interviews, please contactRonald Kesslerdirectly. To request a copy of the book for media purposes, please contactNicole Dewey of Doubleday at 212-782-9784.
No White House has been more secretive than George W. Bush’s, and no president has generated more caricatures and myths. For the first time, A MATTER OF CHARACTER: Inside the White House of George W. Bush presents the truth about the man and his administration.
Based on extraordinary access to the Bush White House, A Matter of Character contains exclusive interviews with Bush’s close personal friends going back to Andover and Yale and the key players in his administration, from Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, and Andy Card to Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld. Interviews with Secret Service agents and other insiders round out the portrait. The book contrasts the nasty, imperious way previous White House occupants Bill and Hillary Clinton treated maids and butlers, Secret Service agents, and military aides with the respectful way George and Laura Bush treat them.
Most of what we know from the media about Bush and his administration is from second-hand and third-hand sources. Ronald Kessler is one of the few journalists allowed into the inner sanctum. If all you know of Bush is what you’ve heard from the media, prepare to be surprised.
“Ronald Kessler’s brilliant portrait of the White House years of George W. Bush is the gold standard by which all future biographies of this decent and principled president will be measured.”—Edward Klein, author of The Kennedy Curse and former editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine
“Ronald Kessler’s inside, authoritative account of how George W. Bush has applied principled leadership to the tough task of defeating terrorism and preserving freedom should be read by everyone who cares about our national security.”—William H. Webster, former director of Central Intelligence and former director of the FBI
“This eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look inside the Oval Office by one of the country’s best journalists is every bit as engrossing as reality television.”—Donald Trump, star of “The Apprentice” and author of Trump: How to Get Rich
Kessler was given “tremendous access, almost unprecedented access...”—Sean Hannity, Hannity & Colmes, Fox News
With the CIA at the core of the war on terror, no agency is as important to preserving America’s freedom. Yet the CIA is a closed and secretive world—impenetrable to generations of journalists—and few Americans know what really goes on among the spy masters who plot America’s worldwide campaign against terrorists.
Only Ronald Kessler, an award-winning former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, could have gained the unprecedented access to tell the story. Kessler interviewed fifty current CIA officers, including all the agency’s top officials, and toured areas of the CIA the media has never seen.
The CIA at War reveals:
How the CIA devised the plan to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan, rolled up half the senior leaders of al Qaeda, and sent commandoes to prepare the way for U.S. forces invading Iraq.
Which press report—that the U.S. was listening in on conversations of Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants—is believed to have led them to stop using the satellite phone that was being monitored.
How the CIA clandestinely uses mullahs to convey a more moderate message to the Arab world and to support the U.S. military intervention in Iraq.
How the CIA bugs or intercepts the communications of al Qaeda leaders, OPEC ministers, United Nations delegates, ambassadors, foreign leaders, and weapons inspectors.
The truth behind the charge that Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly visited the CIA as part of an effort to hype the agency’s intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
How a CIA officer in Iraq, who had been targeted for assassination or kidnapping by the Iraqi Intelligence Service, returned to Iraq after the war and captured his own pursuer.
How the CIA uses sensors to penetrate camouflage, determine if weapons of mass destruction are being manufactured, and pinpoint bombing targets.
How previous CIA Director John Deutch approved a hare-brained scheme to pay off a CIA operative, whose job had been to break into embassies overseas, to keep him from revealing to his targets that the CIA had stolen their communication codes.
How the Israelis break into CIA officers’ homes to gather intelligence.
Why the CIA shut out the FBI when interrogating Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden’s chief of operations.
How the CIA ignored failed polygraph results of 300 of its employees.
How President Clinton, over CIA protests, diverted satellites from finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
How the CIA obtains secret communication codes of friendly countries like France and South Korea.
The CIA at War discloses highly sensitive information about the CIA’s unorthodox methods and its stunning successes and shocking failures. The book explores whether the CIA can be trusted, whether its intelligence is politicized, and whether it is capable of winning the war on terror. In doing so, the book weaves in the history of the CIA and how it really works. It is the definitive account of the agency.
From the CIA’s intelligence failure of 9/11 to its critical role in preventing further attacks, The CIA at War tells a riveting, unique story about a secretive, powerful agency and its confrontation with global terrorism.
Contact Joe Rinaldi, publicity manager, St. Martin’s Press, 212 674-5151 ext. 710
With the FBI at the epicenter of the war on terrorism, no institution is as critically important to America. No American institution is as controversial. And, after the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court, no institution is as powerful. Yet until now, no book has presented the full story of the FBI from its beginnings in 1908 to the present.
The Bureau is the definitive account of the FBI, revealing its strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and blunders, methods and secrets. The book focuses on the directors who have run the bureau, from J. Edgar Hoover through Louis Freeh and Robert Mueller, and the agents who have made its cases. The book probes the relationship between the FBI and American presidents and the tension that exists between a free society and what amounts to a national police force.
The Bureau is based on exclusive interviews, including the first interview Robert Mueller gave as director. The book reveals for the first time the dramatic inside story of the FBI’s response to the attacks of September 11, including its investigation of the anthrax mailings. The book answers questions about the bureau’s role and performance, including: Why did the FBI know nothing useful about al-Qaeda before the attacks? What is really behind the FBI’s more aggressive investigative approaches that have raised civil liberties concerns? What does the FBI think of improvements in airline security? How safe does the FBI think America really is?
Only Ronald Kessler could have obtained such access to the FBI. In The Bureau, Kessler reveals:
Louis Freeh’s colossal mismanagement of the bureau, contributing to the problems at the FBI laboratory, the indictment of Wen Ho Lee, the fiasco involving Richard Jewell, the continued spying of Robert Hanssen, the failure to turn over documents relating to Timothy McVeigh, and the FBI’s counterterrorism failure before the attacks by al-Qaeda.
The first definitive evidence that J. Edgar Hoover blackmailed Congress with information from his secret files.
The source of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s bogus claim that there were 205 Communists in the State Department.
The FBI’s secret kidnapping of Soviets to try to get them to reveal KGB secrets.
Details of the FBI’s tapes of Martin Luther King’s sex orgies.
The truth about Hoover’s sexual orientation and his relationship with Clyde Tolson.
A clandestine meeting between Bob Woodward and W. Mark Felt presaging the disclosure that the former FBI official was Deep Throat.
The FBI’s routine discoveries of Israeli wiretaps on phone lines of foreign diplomatic establishments in New York.
Techniques used by the FBI to break in to embassies to plant electronic bugs.
Leaks by Freeh’s staff to enhance his image. Meanwhile, FBI agents could not use bureau cars because money to buy gasoline had run out. Computers were so antiquated that charities would not accept them as donations, and they slowed the FBI’s response to the attacks of September 11.
New Director Robert Mueller’s efforts to correct the problems created by Freeh.
From DNA analysis to profiling, from confirmation of Supreme Court justices to investigations of plane crashes and spies, the FBI is involved in almost every aspect of American life. Yet the bureau is adept at fashioning its own image. Kessler penetrates the secrecy and presents the richly detailed story of a uniquely powerful institution, its profound impact on American society, and how it has changed since September 11.
Contact Joe Rinaldi, publicity manager, St. Martin’s Press, 212 674-5151 ext. 710
