Colodny Collection Bookstore

Silent Coup - Paperback and E-Book Edition

the silent coup bookThis is the true story of betrayal at the nation's highest level. Unfolding with the suspenseful pace of a le Carre spy thriller, it reveals the personal motives and secret political goals that combined to cause the Watergate break-in and destroy Richard Nixon. Investigator Len Colodny and journalist Robert Gettlin relentlessly pursued the people who brought down the president. Their revelations shocked the world and forever changed our understanding of politics, of journalism, and of Washington behind closed doors. Dismantling decades of lies, Silent Coup tells the truth.

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The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons, from Nixon to Obama

forty years war bookIn this groundbreaking book, renowned investigative writers Len Colodny and Tom Shachtman chronicle the little-understood evolution of the neoconservative movement—from its birth as a rogue insurgency in the Nixon White House through its ascent to full and controversial control of America's foreign policy in the Bush years, to its repudiation with the election of Barack Obama in 2008. In eye-opening detail, The Forty Years War documents the neocons' four-decade campaign to seize the reins of American foreign policy: the undermining of Richard Nixon's outreach to the Communist bloc nations; the success at halting dÉtente during the Ford and Carter years; the uneasy but effectual alliance with Ronald Reagan; and the determined, and ultimately successful, campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein—no matter the cost.


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Nixon's Gamble: How a President's Own Secret Government Destroyed His Administration

nixons gamble bookAfter being sworn in as president, Richard Nixon told the assembled crowd that “government will listen. ... Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.” But that same day, he obliterated those pledges of greater citizen control of government by signing National Security Decision Memorandum 2, a document that made sweeping changes to the national security power structure. Nixon’s signature erased the influence that the departments of State and Defense, as well as the CIA, had over Vietnam and the course of the Cold War. The new structure put Nixon at the center, surrounded by loyal aides and a new national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, who coordinated policy through the National Security Council under Nixon’s command. Using years of research and revelations from newly released documents, USA Today reporter Ray Locker upends much of the conventional wisdom about the Nixon administration and its impact and shows how the creation of this secret, unprecedented, extra-constitutional government undermined U.S. policy and values. In doing so, Nixon sowed the seeds of his own destruction by creating a climate of secrecy, paranoia, and reprisal that still affects Washington today.


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Haig's Coup: How Richard Nixon's Closest Aide Forced Him From Office

haigs coup bookIn Haig’s Coup, Ray Locker uses recently declassified documents to tell the true story of how Haig orchestrated Nixon’s demise, resignation, and subsequent pardon. A story of intrigues, cover-ups, and treachery, this incisive history shows how Haig engineered the “soft coup” that ended our long national nightmare and brought Watergate to an end.

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The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate Kindle Edition

the strong man bookThe Strong Man is the first full-scale biography of John N. Mitchell, the central figure in the rise and ruin of Richard Nixon and the highest-ranking American official ever convicted on criminal charges.

As U.S. attorney general from 1969 to 1972, John Mitchell stood at the center of the upheavals of the late sixties. The most powerful man in the Nixon cabinet, a confident troubleshooter, Mitchell championed law and order against the bomb-throwers of the antiwar movement, desegregated the South’s public schools, restored calm after the killings at Kent State, and steered the commander-in-chief through the Pentagon Papers and Joint Chiefs spying crises. After leaving office, Mitchell survived the ITT and Vesco scandals—but was ultimately destroyed by Watergate.


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White House Call Girl: The Real Watergate Story

white house call girl bookEx-stripper Heidi Rikan was working for the mob in Washington, DC. White House Call Girl tells how a call girl operation she was running at the time led to the Watergate break-in, which brought down Tricky Dick Nixon himself.

Needless to say, this is not part of the usual Watergate story that has come down to us over the decades. It is also only fair to point out that this version of the story might be dismissed out of hand as being dangerous "revisionist" history. If you're not careful, you might end up being called a conspiracy theorist.

You can also be called crazy—which is what happened to a young lawyer named Phillip Bailley, one of the principal witnesses to this ignored bit of American history. When he was foolish enough to blow the whistle on Rikan and her call girl ring, he was locked up at St. Elizabeth's, the District of Columbia's mental hospital, in the ward for the criminally insane.


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Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate, and Began Today’s Partisan Advocacy Journalism

postgateDeep Throat’s lawyer discovers the Washington Post betrayed his client—while covering up the real truth about the Watergate scandal. This book reveals that the Post did not uncover Watergate as much as it covered it up. The Nixon Administration, itself involved in a coverup, was the victim of a journalistic smoke-screen that prevented mitigation of its criminal guilt. As a result of the paper’s successful misdirection, today’s strikingly deceptive partisan journalism can be laid at the doorstep of the Washington Post.

After Deep Throat’s lawyer, author John O’Connor, discovered that the Post had betrayed his client while covering up the truth about Watergate, his indefatigable research resulted in Postgate, a profoundly shocking tale of journalistic deceit.


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Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat, and the CIA

secret agenda bookFive men were arrested in the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Wearing business suits and surgical gloves, they were in possession of bugging devices and photographic equip ment. The book reveals that accounts of the break in have been deliberately falsified by a CIA cover story. One of the most important political events in American history, the Watergate affair, came to a dramatic end in 1974 with the resignation in disgrace of President Richard M. Nixon. Ten years later, investigative journalist Jim Hougan, relying upon thousands of pages formerly secret FBI and CIA documents, police vice squad reports and interviews with White House officials, Cabinet members, landladies, secretaries, security guards - at least a hundred in all - has come to startling conclusions about what really happened at the Watergate and asks questions never before posed.


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In Nixon's Web: A Year in the Crosshairs of Watergate

in nixons web bookL.Patrick Gray III was the man caught in the middle of the Watergate scandal. He was a lifelong Republican, but Richard Nixon considered him a threat. Closing in on the conspiracy, Gray became the target of one of Watergate's most shocking acts—Nixon's "smoking gun" attempt to have the CIA stop the FBI investigation. And when the U.S. Senate focused its attention on Gray in April 1973, the White House threw him to the wolves; John Ehrlichman famously advised that he be left to "twist slowly, slowly in the wind."

This book is Gray's firsthand account of what really happened during his crucial year as acting director of the FBI, based on a never-before-published first-person account and previously secret documents. He reveals the witches' brew of intrigue and perfidy that permeated Washington, and he tells the unknown story of his complex relationship with his top deputy, Mark Felt, raising disturbing questions about the methods and motives of the man purported to be Deep Throat.


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Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee

yours in truth book“I hope we’re as good friends when you finish your book as we are now,” Ben Bradlee, the legendary former executive editor of The Washington Post, told Jeff Himmelman in March 2010. “But I don’t give a [expletive deleted] what you write about me.”

So begins Yours in Truth, an intimate portrait of a fixture on the American scene for nearly half a century—a close friend to John F. Kennedy; the center of D.C. social life; and a crusty, charismatic editor whose decisions at the helm of the Post during Watergate changed the course of history. Granted unprecedented access to Bradlee and his colleagues, friends, and private files, Himmelman draws on never-before-seen internal Post memos, correspondence, personal photographs, and private interviews to trace the full arc of Bradlee’s forty-five-year career—from his early days as a press attaché in postwar Paris through the Pentagon Papers, Richard Nixon’s resignation, the Janet Cooke fabrication scandal, and beyond. Along the way, Himmelman also unearths a series of surprises—about Watergate, and about Bradlee’s private relationships with Post owner Katharine Graham and President Kennedy and his wife, Jackie.


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The Nixon Tapes: 1971-1972

the nixon tapes bookThe famous -- and infamous -- Nixon White House tapes that reveal for the first time President Richard Nixon uncensored, unfiltered, and in his own words.

President Nixon's voice-activated taping system captured every word spoken in the Oval Office, Cabinet Room, and other key locations in the White House, and at Camp David -- 3,700 hours of recordings between 1971 and 1973. Yet less than 5 percent of those conversations have ever been transcribed and published. Now, thanks to professor Luke Nichter's massive effort to digitize and transcribe the tapes, the world can finally read an unprecedented account of one of the most important and controversial presidencies in U.S. history.


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The Nixon Tapes: 1973

nixon tapes 1973 bookWhen The Nixon Tapes: 1971–1972 was published in August of 2014, it jumped immediately onto the New York Times bestseller list and captivated media attention for its many revelations. Douglas Brinkley and Luke Nichter’s heroic efforts to transcribe and annotate the highlights of more than 3,700 hours of recorded conversations provided an unprecedented and fascinating window into the inner workings of a momentous presidency. Now, with a concluding volume to cover the final year of the Nixon taping system, Brinkley and Nichter tell the rest of the story — once again with revelations on every page, including:

  • how Nixon and Kissinger knew privately that the January 1973 Vietnam peace agreement would not hold, even as the ink was still drying
  • how Nixon and Kissinger anticipated the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East
  • Nixon’s threat to send a “division” of tanks to kill Native Americans at the Wounded Knee standoff
  • and more...

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The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968

The Year That Broke Politics

The unknown story of the election that set the tone for today’s fractured politics

The 1968 presidential race was a contentious battle between vice president Hubert Humphrey, Republican Richard Nixon, and former Alabama governor George Wallace. The United States was reeling from the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy and was bitterly divided on the Vietnam War and domestic issues, including civil rights and rising crime. Drawing on previously unexamined archives and numerous interviews, Luke A. Nichter upends the conventional understanding of the campaign.

“The book is a delightful demolition of the many political myths that continue to muddy our understanding of that election year. . . . Nichter’s book stands out for its clear, direct prose and the scrupulous research on which it’s based.”
—Barton Swaim, Wall Street Journal


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By Russ Baker Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House (1st Edition)

family of secrets bookAfter eight disastrous years, George W. Bush leaves office as one of the most unpopular presidents in American history. Russ Baker asks the question that lingers even as this benighted administration winds down: Who really wanted this man at the helm of the country, and why did his backers promote him despite his obvious liabilities and limitations? This book goes deep behind the scenes to deliver an arresting new look at George W. Bush, his father George H. W. Bush, their family, and the network of figures in intelligence, the military, finance, and oil who enabled the family's rise to power.

Baker's exhaustive investigation reveals a remarkable clan whose hermetic secrecy and code of absolute loyalty have concealed a far-reaching role in recent history that transcends the Bush presidencies. Baker offers new insights into lingering mysteries―from the death of John F. Kennedy to Richard Nixon's downfall in Watergate. Here, too, are insider accounts of the backroom strategizing, and outright deception, that resulted in George W. Bush's electoral success.


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Nixon Reconsidered

nixon reconsidered bookAn eye-opening look at the man whose notoriety over Watergate and whose accomplishments in foreign policy have made us foget that he was one of our most innovative modern presidents on matters of domestic policy. Hoff shows that Nixon’s reforms in welfare, civil rights, economic and environmental policy, and reorganization of the federal bureaucracy all greatly outweigh those things for which we tend to remember him.


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Richard Milhous Nixon - The Rise Of An American Politician

rise of american politician bookThis mesmerizing chronicle of Nixon's rise to power and the events he shaped that changed forever America's political history took seven years to prepare and is the work of an award-winning historian, scholar, and journalist.

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“A G-Man’s Life: The FBI Being 'Deep Throat’ and the Struggle for Honor in Washington”

a Gmans life bookMark Felt's role in history was secured when he decided to share his views on the Watergate break-in with a young reporter on the Washington Post named Bob Woodward. He made sure that the greatest political scandal in the twentieth century, which would besmirch an entire administration and bring down a presidency, was revealed in an unchallengeable way. This absorbing account of Felt's FBI career, from the end of the great American crime wave through World War II, the culture wars of the 1960s, and his conviction for his role in penetrating the Weather Underground, provides a rich historical and personal context to the "Deep Throat" chapter of his life. It also provides Felt's personal recollections of the Watergate scandal, which he wrote in 1982 and kept secret, in which he explains how he came to feel that the FBI needed a "Lone Ranger" to protect it from White House corruption. Much more than a Watergate procedural, A G-Man's Life is about life as a spy, the culture of the FBI, and the internal political struggles of mid-20th century America.

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The Real Watergate Scandal: Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot That Brought Nixon Down

real watergate scandal bookAn aging judge about to step down. Aggressive prosecutors friendly with the judge. A disgraced president. A nation that had already made up its mind. The Watergate trials were a legal mess—and now, with the discovery of new documents that reveal shocking misconduct by prosecutors and judges alike, former Nixon staffer Geoff Shepard has a convincing case that the wrongdoing of these history-making trials was actually a bigger scandal than the Watergate scandal itself.

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God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican

gods bankers bookA deeply reported, fast-paced exposé of the money and the cardinals-turned-financiers at the heart of the Vatican—the world’s biggest, most powerful religious institution—from an acclaimed journalist with “exhaustive research techniques” (The New York Times).

From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, this book traces the political intrigue and inner workings of the Catholic Church. Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this book is about the church’s accumulation of wealth and its byzantine entanglements with financial markets across the world. Told through 200 years of prelates, bishops, cardinals, and the Popes who oversee it all, Gerald Posner uncovers an eyebrow-raising account of money and power in perhaps the most influential organization in the history of the world.

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The Spy's Son: The True Story of the Highest-Ranking CIA Officer Ever Convicted of Espionage and the Son He Trained to Spy for Russia

the spys son bookInvestigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Bryan Denson tells the riveting story of the Nicholsons—father and son co-conspirators who deceived their country by selling national secrets to Russia.

Jim Nicholson was one of the CIA's top veteran case officers. By day, he taught spycraft at the CIA's clandestine training center, The Farm. By night, he was a minivan-driving single father racing home to have dinner with his kids. But Nicholson led a double life. For more than two years, he had met covertly with agents of Russia's foreign intelligence service and turned over troves of classified documents. In 1997, Nicholson became the highest ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage. But his duplicity didn’t stop there. While behind the bars of a federal prison, the former mole systematically groomed the one person he trusted most to serve as his stand-in: his youngest son, Nathan. When asked to smuggle messages out of prison to Russian contacts, Nathan saw an opportunity to be heroic and to make his father proud.

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The Pharmacist of Auschwitz

pharmacist of auschwitz bookThe Pharmacist of Auschwitz is the little known story of Victor Capesius, a Bayer pharmaceutical salesman from Romania who, at the age of 35, joined the Nazi SS in 1943 and quickly became the chief pharmacist at the largest death camp, Auschwitz.

Based in part on previously classified documents, Patricia Posner exposes Capesius’s reign of terror at the camp, his escape from justice, fueled in part by his theft of gold ripped from the mouths of corpses, and how a handful of courageous survivors and a single brave prosecutor finally brought him to trial for murder twenty years after the end of the war.

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Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters

presidential puppetry bookPresidential Puppetry documents what many millions have long suspected: secretive elites guide our government leaders. The first book to analyze the Obama second term is also one of the first to examine the 2012 elections. Puppetry reveals scandals and shows why Congress, courts, and other watchdog institutions fail to report key facts about even the biggest news makers. Puppetry unfolds like a mystery extending over decades to the present. By the end, this compelling narrative documented with 1,200 endnotes shows hidden links between puppet masters, political leaders, spy agencies, and the economic austerity now being imposed on a hapless public. By exposing key secrets, it provides a roadmap for reform.

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Spiked: How Chain Management Corrupted America's Oldest Newspaper

spiked bookWritten with the wisdom on an insider, this book tells the account of the arrival and departure of the LA Beach Boys, who tried to make the Courant into something its readers didn't want and what follows.

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"ZUMWALT: The Life and Times of Admiral Elmo Russell “Bud” Zumwalt, Jr.

spiked book Fairly or not, few of the top military brass emerged from the Vietnam era with their reputations enhanced. Perhaps the most notable exception was the late Elmo Bud Zumwalt. Berman, professor emeritus at the University of California–Davis, is an unabashed admirer of Zumwalt, and this detailed, complimentary but fair biography shows his subject worthy of that esteem. Zumwalt commanded all U.S. naval forces in Vietnam from 1970 to 1974. Although he harbored serious doubts about the feasibility of military victory in the war, he showed remarkably innovative skills, especially in shifting responsibility to South Vietnamese naval forces as part of the Vietnamization policy. He also earned the admiration of both superiors and subordinates for his constant concern for the welfare of ordinary seamen. Then, as chief of naval operations, Zumwalt carried out dramatic reforms that helped the U.S. meet new Soviet challenges as well as confront embedded racism in the navy. This is a fine tribute to a man of high achievement and character. --Jay Freeman

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The Watergate Burglars

The Watergate Burglars Book Cover The victory of Richard Nixon in the US presidential election of 1968 swung on an “October Sur-prise”—a treasonous plot engineered by Anna Chennault and key figures in the Republican Party to keep the South Vietnamese government away from peace talks in Paris, costing thousands of American lives. The Nixon campaign got away with election “dirty tricks” in 1968, but four years later, they were caught.

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Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House

Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House Book CoverMark Felt's role in history was secured when he decided to share his views on the Watergate break-in with a young reporter on the Washington Post named Bob Woodward. He made sure that the greatest political scandal in the twentieth century, which would besmirch an entire administration and bring down a presidency, was revealed in an unchallengeable way.

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The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened

The Mysteries of Watergate Book CoverWatergate, our “great national nightmare” in the words of President Gerald Ford, was the most impactful scandal in American—and perhaps world—history. Yet even those who believe they have studied Watergate fully could never understand the purpose of this puzzling burglary of DNC headquarters, with no meaningful information to gain, and Nixon far ahead in the polls. In easily accessible vignettes, The Mysteries of Watergate will unpack factual narratives and solid inferences that will astound the reader.

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