Blind over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis
In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, questions persisted about how the potential cataclysm had been allowed to develop. A subsequent congressional investigation focused on what came to be known as the “photo gap”: five weeks during which intelligence-gathering flights over Cuba had been attenuated.
In Blind over Cuba, David M. Barrett and Max Holland challenge the popular perception of the Kennedy administration’s handling of the Soviet Union’s surreptitious deployment of missiles in the Western Hemisphere. Rather than epitomizing it as a masterpiece of crisis management by policy makers and the administration, Barrett and Holland make the case that the affair was, in fact, a close call stemming directly from decisions made in a climate of deep distrust between key administration officials and the intelligence community.
Because of White House and State Department fears of “another U-2 incident” (the infamous 1960 Soviet downing of an American U-2 spy plane), the CIA was not permitted to send surveillance aircraft on prolonged flights over Cuban airspace for many weeks, from late August through early October. Events proved that this was precisely the time when the Soviets were secretly deploying missiles in Cuba. When Director of Central Intelligence John McCone forcefully pointed out that this decision had led to a dangerous void in intelligence collection, the president authorized one U-2 flight directly over western Cuba—thereby averting disaster, as the surveillance detected the Soviet missiles shortly before they became operational.
The Kennedy administration recognized that their failure to gather intelligence was politically explosive, and their subsequent efforts to influence the perception of events form the focus for this study. Using recently declassified documents, secondary materials, and interviews with several key participants, Barrett and Holland weave a story of intra-agency conflict, suspicion, and discord that undermined intelligence-gathering, adversely affected internal postmortems conducted after the crisis peaked, and resulted in keeping Congress and the public in the dark about what really happened.
Fifty years after the crisis that brought the superpowers to the brink, Blind over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis offers a new chapter in our understanding of that pivotal event, the tensions inside the US government during the cold war, and the obstacles Congress faces when conducting an investigation of the executive branch.
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Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat
Through the shadowy persona of “Deep Throat,” FBI official Mark Felt became as famous as the Watergate scandal his “leaks” helped uncover. Best known through Hal Holbrook’s portrayal in the film version of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s All the President’s Men, Felt was regarded for decades as a conscientious but highly secretive whistleblower who shunned the limelight. Yet even after he finally revealed his identity in 2005, questions about his true motivations persisted.
Max Holland has found the missing piece of that Deep Throat puzzle—one that’s been hidden in plain sight all along. He reveals for the first time in detail what truly motivated the FBI’s number-two executive to become the most fabled secret source in American history. In the process, he directly challenges Felt’s own explanations while also demolishing the legend fostered by Woodward and Bernstein’s bestselling account.
Holland critiques all the theories of Felt’s motivation that have circulated over the years, including notions that Felt had been genuinely upset by White House law-breaking or had tried to defend and insulate the FBI from the machinations of President Nixon and his Watergate henchmen. And, while acknowledging that Woodward finally disowned the “principled whistleblower” image of Felt in The Secret Man, Holland shows why that famed journalist’s latest explanation still falls short of the truth.
Holland showcases the many twists and turns to Felt’s story that are not widely known, revealing not a selfless official acting out of altruistic patriotism, but rather a career bureaucrat with his own very private agenda. Drawing on new interviews and oral histories, old and just-released FBI Watergate files, papers of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, presidential tape recordings, and Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate-related papers, he sheds important new light on both Felt’s motivations and the complex and often problematic relationship between the press and government officials.
Fast-paced and scrupulously fact-checked, Leak resolves the mystery residing at the heart of Mark Felt’s actions. By doing so, it radically revises our understanding of America’s most famous presidential scandal.
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The Kennedy Assassination Tapes
A major work of documentary history—the brilliantly edited and annotated transcripts, most of them never before published, of the presidential conversations of Lyndon B. Johnson regarding the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath.
The transition from John F. Kennedy to Johnson was arguably the most wrenching and, ultimately, one of the most bitter in the nation's history. As Johnson himself said later, "I took the oath, I became president. But for millions of Americans I was still illegitimate, a naked man with no presidential covering, a pretender to the throne . . . . The whole thing was almost unbearable."
In this book, Max Holland, a leading authority on the assassination and longtime Washington journalist, presents the momentous telephone calls President Johnson made and received as he sought to stabilize the country and keep the government functioning in the wake of November 22, 1963. The transcript begin on the day of the assassination and reveal the often chaotic activity behind the scenes as a nation in shock struggled to come to terms with the momentous events. The transcripts illuminate Johnson's relationship with Robert F. Kennedy, which flared instantly into animosity; the genuine warmth of his dealings with Jacqueline Kennedy; his contact with the FBI and CIA directors; and the advice he sought from friends and mentors as he wrestled with the painful transition.
We eavesdrop on all the conversations—including those with leading journalists—that persuaded Johnson to abandon his initial plan to let Texas authorities investigate the assassination. Instead, we observe how he abruptly established a federal commission headed by a very reluctant chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren. We also learn how Johnson cajoled and drafted other prominent men—among them Senator Richard Russell (who detested Warren), Allen Dulles, John McCloy, and Gerald Ford—into serving.
We see a sudden president under unimaginable pressure, contending with media frenzy and speculation on a worldwide scale. We witness the flow of inaccurate information—some of it from J. Edgar Hoover—amid rumors and theories about foreign involvement. And we glimpse Johnson addressing the mounting criticism of the Warren Commission after it released its still-controversial report in September 1964.
The conversations rendered here are nearly verbatim, and have never been explained so thoroughly. No passages have been deleted except when they veered from the subject. Brought together with Holland's commentaries, they make for riveting, hugely revelatory reading.
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From Industry to Alchemy
I found it hard to put down. It is one of the most important and well-written sagas of an American industrial enterprise that I have read for a long time and about the only one that tells such a story in detail for an enterprise in the post-World War II years.
This history includes almost every aspect of the opportunities, and challenges facing, and the inadequacies of American industry since 1956, and of the institutional arrangements within which smaller industrial enterprises had to operate. It has a most dramatic cast of characters—both individuals and enterprises. . . . The author handles each set of events, in detail, with great clarity and in an even-handed manner. . . . [I]t is journalism of the highest order.
—Review of the original manuscript by Alfred C. Chandler,
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Invisible Hand
From the machine stop floor to the frenzied world of high finance to the intricacies of a bitter trade dispute, this is the story of the life and death of a good company. Max Holland brilliantly intertwines descriptions of large events with intimate sketches of people, inventions, and machines to deliver a jolting account of how Washington plays trade politics and Wall Street engineers short-term gains while once-healthy companies fail and disappear.
Burgmaster's first two decades read like the quintessential American success story. Begun in a garage in 1944 by an immigrant Czechoslovakian investor named Fred Burg, Burgmaster was, bythe mid-1960s, the largest builder of machine tools west of the Mississippi. Burgmaster's success grew from its genius for technological innovation, the entrepreneurial abilities of its family owners, the dedication of its work force, and an economic climate that encouraged investment and risk.
In 1965, Burgmaster underwent a friendly takeover by Houdaille Industries, a Buffalo, New York-based conglomerate. But the sale did not achieve its hoped-for outcome: instead, Burgmaster went into a long, slow decline. Distant corporate executives replaced hands-on managers and
Burgmaster lost both its inventive drive and the dedication of its workers—all at a time when it was forced to compete in an increasingly unfavorable economic environment. Just as the Japanese began penetrating Burgmaster's market, Houdaille in 1979 became the first large industrial concern to undergo a leveraged buyout. When a deep recession began in 1981, Houdaille found itself caught in a triple bind of an unmanageable debt, recession, and fierce competition, leaving Burgmaster unable to focus on its internal problems in production and innovation. Houdaille then petitioned Washington—in what became one of the most controversial trade cases ever filed—charging unfair collusion between Japanese government and industry. A pitched battle ensured between protectionists and free traders in the Reagan administration, ultimately ending in defeat for Houdaille and the death of Burgmaster.
How did Burgmaster, at one time renowned for superior quality and service, come to is dismal end under the auctioneer's gavel in 1986? One might ask similar questions about American manufacturing in general, and Max Holland does just that. From Industry to Alchemy steers the reader from Fred Burg's turret drill to the Japanese trade ministry, from the careful craftsmanship of machine tools to the ingenious crafting of a leveraged buyout, and inexorably to the conclusion that "the American blueprint for a sound and equitable economy is fading fast."
From Industry to Alchemy was originally published under the title When the Machine Stopped. Buy it at amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com
When the Machine Stopped
From the machine stop floor to the frenzied world of high finance to the intricacies of a bitter trade dispute, this is the story of the life and death of a good company. Max Holland brilliantly intertwines descriptions of large events with intimate sketches of people, inventions, and machines to deliver a jolting account of how Washington plays trade politics and Wall Street engineers short-term gains while once-healthy companies fail and disappear.
Burgmaster's first two decades read like the quintessential American success story. Begun in a garage in 1944 by an immigrant Czechoslovakian investor named Fred Burg, Burgmaster was, bythe mid-1960s, the largest builder of machine tools west of the Mississippi. Burgmaster's success grew from its genius for technological innovation, the entrepreneurial abilities of its family owners, the dedication of its work force, and an economic climate that encouraged investment and risk.
In 1965, Burgmaster underwent a friendly takeover by Houdaille Industries, a Buffalo, New York-based conglomerate. But the sale did not achieve its hoped-for outcome: instead, Burgmaster went into a long, slow decline. Distant corporate executives replaced hands-on managers and Burgmaster lost both its inventive drive and the dedication of its workers—all at a time when it was forced to compete in an increasingly unfavorable economic environment. Just as the Japanese began penetrating Burgmaster's market, Houdaille in 1979 became the first large industrial concern to undergo a leveraged buyout. When a deep recession began in 1981, Houdaille found itself caught in a triple bind of an unmanageable debt, recession, and fierce competition, leaving Burgmaster unable to focus on its internal problems in production and innovation. Houdaille then petitioned Washington—in what became one of the most controversial trade cases ever filed—charging unfair collusion between Japanese government and industry. A pitched battle ensured between protectionists and free traders in the Reagan administration, ultimately ending in defeat for Houdaille and the death of Burgmaster.
How did Burgmaster, at one time renowned for superior quality and service, come to is dismal end under the auctioneer's gavel in 1986? One might ask similar questions about American manufacturing in general, and Max Holland does just that. When the Machine Stopped steers the reader from Fred Burg's turret drill to the Japanese trade ministry, from the careful craftsmanship of machine tools to the ingenious crafting of a leveraged buyout, and inexorably to the conclusion that "the American blueprint for a sound and equitable economy is fading fast."
When the Machine Stopped is now being reprinted under the title From Industry to Alchemy. Buy it at amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com