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WORK TITLE: The Brink
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1978
WEBSITE: https://marcambinder.wordpress.com/
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
Phone: (323) 886-0740 on Signal
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2013048376
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2013048376
HEADING: Ambinder, Marc
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PERSONAL
Born 1978; married Michael Park (a corporate strategy consultant).
EDUCATION:Harvard University, A.B., 2001.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Atlantic, associate editor and politics editor, 2006-10; National Journal, White House correspondent, 2010-11; freelance writer and independent consultant, between 2012 and 2016; University of Southern California, Los Angeles, leadership fellow at Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism, 2016-17, adjunct professor of journalism, 2018–. University of Pennsylvania, fellow of Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, 2017–. Television work includes consulting producer and on-air expert for documentaries; guest on television news programs in the United States and abroad; CBS News, chief political consultant, 2008-11; also worked for ABC News.
AVOCATIONS:Improvisational comedy, motion graphics design.
WRITINGS
Former author of the Hotline. Contributor to magazines and newspapers, including New Yorker, USA Today, Vice, and Washington Post. Editor at large of the Week, 2012; contributing editor, Atlantic, 2010-12, and GQ, 2012-15.
SIDELIGHTS
Marc Ambinder is a journalist and political correspondent with a special interest in secrets. He has reported on intelligence and national security topics for magazines like the Atlantic and GQ. During the Barack Obama administration he was the White House correspondent for the National Journal, and he has served as a political consultant to major broadcast television networks. Now an independent consultant and freelance writer, Ambinder maintains a daily blog at the website of the Week.
Upon completion of his White House assignment, Ambinder collaborated with national security specialist and former army paratrooper D.B. Grady to publish The Command: Deep inside the President’s Secret Army. Together they delve into the activities of the Joint Special Operations Command: the coordinator of secret missions to defend America against terrorism. The Command was created in 1980 to oversee military missions of the Army Delta Force detachment, Navy SEAL teams, Army Ranger regiments, and Air Force Special Tactics Squadron, among other highly classified reconnaissance and penetration forces. The authors disclose the gradual migration of the Command from the periphery to the heart of military operations. They address the extent to which some Command-driven activities may have exceeded or bypassed the parameters of their lawful mandates. Ambinder and Grady analyze secret missions from the focused raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011 to more widespread Command operations against insurgency in Iraq earlier in the century.
Deep State
Ambinder and Grady expand the scope of their research in Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry, which incorporates several chapters from The Command. The term “deep state” carries varied connotations depending on the user. During the candidacy and administration of President Donald Trump, the “deep state” was invoked to denote a secretive assemblage of national security and intelligence agencies, justice department officials, and leaders of finance and industry whose shared (not necessarily coordinated) mission is to work against the presidential agenda. In an interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro for the National Public Radio program Weekend Edition, Ambinder defined deep state more “simply” as “the national security and intelligence bureaucracy,” the professional “secret-keepers” whose careers span multiple administrations.
The book Deep State is marketed as an exposé of the hidden world in which the secret-keepers operate. The authors speak of a privately shared vocabulary of codes and acronyms, classified rules and regulations, and built-in defenses against infiltration or oversight. Ambinder and Grady posit that the deep state is under great pressure to preserve its mandate to protect American values, and secrecy is essential to its success.
The authors discuss certain aspects of the National Security Agency surveillance net that secretly captured data on U.S. citizens at home and abroad, particularly through the use of social media and the cell phone records of telecommunications providers. They claim that outsiders have leveraged similar tools to expose the deep state’s acquisition and application of private information, ostensibly for the public good. Ambinder and Grady express concern that political manipulation and strategic leaks of classified information have compromised the deep state in ways that can affect every branch of government and every intelligence agency in one way or another.
While the book is tagged as an exposé and a call for reform in the name of national security, some critics saw instead a defense of secrecy at almost any cost. Joe Wolverton II reported on the New American website: “The accommodating and aggrandizing tone of the book is off-putting.” A Publishers Weekly contributor noticed the authors’ “unabashed enthusiasm for the machinery of shadows” and dubbed their thesis “an Orwellian feat of circular logic.”
The Brink
In November of 1983 the world teetered on the brink of war. In The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983 Ambinder records his thoughts on a series of flaws, misunderstandings, and suspicions that, he believes, nearly triggered a nuclear holocaust. According to Ambinder, the early 1980s were marked by vulnerabilities in the U.S. state of military readiness. Newly elected president Ronald Reagan believed that the best defense against Cold War aggression was to instill fear in the minds of potential aggressors. Early in 1983 he issued his “evil empire” speech, in which he depicted the Cold War as the ultimate war between good and evil and the Soviet Union as the embodiment of evil. Reagan called for a strengthening of nuclear preparedness, including the Star Wars Strategic Defense Initiative, a multi-pronged missile defense system that could range from space-based missiles and satellites to ground combat centers scattered around the globe.
Ambinder suggests that Soviet leader Yuri Andropov and his colleagues were, in fact, intimidated by Reagan’s rhetoric. Then Korean Airlines commercial flight 007 ventured too close to Soviet airspace and was shot from the sky as a suspected U.S. spy plane. Soon afterward, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization launched Able Archer 83, a joint military exercise that coincided with the appearance of Pershing II missiles in Western Europe. The stage was set for war.
Andropov deployed Soviet military units to Eastern Europe and placed nuclear launch facilities on high alert. At the last moment, Ambinder writes, Reagan recognized that the Soviet reaction was based primarily on fear, and the two leaders were able to defuse the crisis and return to a fragile state of detente. A Publishers Weekly contributor observed that “Ambinder illuminates the fragility of existing safeguards against an unintentional launch, a timely topic given concerns about Iran and North Korea.” In Kirkus Reviews, a writer hinted that readers could be frustrated by “an extensive cast of characters and a plethora of acronyms,” but concluded that, writing “in the appealing style of Tom Clancy,” Ambinder has produced “an informative and often enthralling book.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2018, review of The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983.
Library Journal, June, 2018, Frederick J. Augustyn, Jr., review of The Brink, p. 102.
Publishers Weekly, January 28, 2013, review of Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry, p. 162; May 28, 2018, review of The Brink, p. 87.
ONLINE
Marc Ambinder website, https://marcambinder.wordpress.com (July 26, 2018).
National Public Radio website, https://www.npr.org/ (February 19, 2017), transcript of Weekend Edition interview by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro.
New American, https://www.thenewamerican.com/ (May 21, 2013), Joe A. Wilverton II, review of Deep State.
Slate, http://www.slate.com/ (February 28, 2013), Ryan Gallagher, “Details Revealed on U.S. ‘Ragtime’ Domestic Surveillance Program.”
Hello, curious people.
I'm a Los Angeles-based writer and television producer.
I blog daily at The Week, Tweet @marcambinder and I write about politics, intelligence and national security for GQ and The Atlantic.
I've also been a consultant for several documentaries, including America's Doomsday Plans, which premiered on the Discovery Channel.
My first book, "The Command," is a concise but comprehensive recent history of the Joint Special Operations Command.
My second book, Deep State, focuses on national security secrets and how they're defined, protected and influence policy.
Through 2011, I was the White House correspondent at National Journal. I've also been chief political consultant to CBS News, politics editor at the Atlantic, and a producer for ABC News.
ABOUT ME
Based in Los Angeles, I’m an adjunct professor of journalism at USC, where I teach national security reporting. I write for USA Today, The Week, and I sketch out ideas on Medium. My third book, The Brink: President Reagan and the 1983 Nuclear War Scare, will be published by Simon and Schuster. I’m also a fellow at the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
I spent 12 years in Washington, D.C. covering politics, policy and the White House for ABC News, CBS News, The Atlantic, National Journal and The Hotline.
I enjoy improv comedy, I dabble in motion graphics design, and my two favorite magazines are Nature and Aviation Week and Space Technology. My Wikipedia page is (mostly) accurate.
I’ve also consulted in the private sector, helping people and companies large and small, for-and-non-profit, tell compelling, accurate, persuasive stories. I collaborate with film and television producers, corporate executives, writers, and students.
NATIONAL SECURITY
With Intelligence Leaks, The 'Deep State' Resurfaces
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February 19, 20177:58 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
The term "deep state" has come back into vogue after a gush of leaks from the intelligence community. Journalist Marc Ambinder explains what it means to NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
This past week, an old term has migrated from spy novels to cable news. The deep state theory is enjoying a new popularity after leaked communications between national security adviser Michael Flynn and Russia's ambassador to the U.S. precipitated Flynn's resignation. Marc Ambinder is a longtime journalist who's covered both the White House and national security. He's the co-author of a book called "Deep State." He joins us now from Los Angeles via Skype.
Thanks for being with us.
MARC AMBINDER: Good to be here.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So how do you define the deep state?
AMBINDER: Well, I try to define it <
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So when we're hearing about this term this week to do with Michael Flynn, what do we - what are people making that connection with potentially a huge group of people and this particular case?
AMBINDER: They're essentially alleging that the national security state, this metastate that exists and, again, traffics totally in secret - used its collective power in order to bring down a duly chosen national security adviser because they disagreed with him or they disagreed with his president or they disagreed with his policies. It is a term of derision, a term that suggests people are using their power for ill-begotten ends. And that, if true, sets up a crisis.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So what is it in your view? I mean, what people are saying is that possibly this deep state, these entrenched intelligence and security apparatus, is basically trying to commit some sort of soft coup, that they are basically trying to at least compromise a legitimately elected leader through his national security adviser. Do you think that's what's going on?
AMBINDER: I don't. The type of information that we're talking about here is information that circulates mostly among policymakers in the former administration, Obama's administration, and in the current administration. The number of actual members of the, quote, unquote, "deep state" who have access to the raw FISA intercepts of a conversation between Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador to the United States is very, very small. It just seems to me that a lot of this information is coming from people who are inside Trump's own administration.
It does not strike me as a conspiracy of the deep state elite. But again, posing it as a conspiracy is a very easy way to delegitimize what we now know to be true, which was that the president deliberately withheld information from his vice president once he learned about it, information that would have revealed his vice president to have gone out and said something untrue in public. That's a very, very important piece of information that the public ought to have.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'd like to talk a little bit about the reaction to this idea of the deep state. There have always been concerns expressed - by the left primarily - about the vast powers acquired by the U.S. government security apparatus. I'm thinking here about the Edward Snowden case and others. Here, though, we're seeing the leakers being celebrated by liberals. Can you have it both ways, in your view?
AMBINDER: You shouldn't have it both ways. There are always consequences for anything. And indiscriminate leaking of classified information is going to have significant consequences. And if, indeed, the intelligence bureaucracy is, for example, withholding information from President Trump and people are leaking that fact, there's going to be blowback. We want the intelligence community - we want the deep state and the president to get along on some level. It is, in one sense, good to have them as a check on executive power because they are very powerful.
But Donald Trump is the president, and he has (inaudible) significant degree of power. The deep state - the intelligence bureaucracy, the national security apparatus - has to get along with him. They have to be able to provide him with information that lets him make better decisions. So we really are dealing with a very sharp double-edged sword here, two different institutions with enormous power sharing power over us. We want them to cooperate for our benefit. We don't want them to be at war with each other. That does not help the American people. It certainly doesn't further the cause of national security.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Marc Ambinder - his book is called the "Deep State: Inside The Government Secrecy Industry" (ph).
Thanks so much for being with us.
AMBINDER: You're welcome.
Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Details Revealed on Secret U.S. “Ragtime” Domestic Surveillance Program
By Ryan Gallagher
71099451
The National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Mead, MD.
Photo by PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court ruled that Americans didn’t have standing to challenge secret surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency. Now, new details about the eavesdropping have surfaced—which will likely fuel fresh concerns about the scale and accountability of the agency’s spy programs.
Ryan Gallagher
RYAN GALLAGHER
Ryan Gallagher is a journalist who reports on surveillance, security, and civil liberties.
A book published earlier this month, Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry, contains revelations about the NSA’s snooping efforts, based on information gleaned from NSA sources. According to a detailed summary by Shane Harris at the Washingtonian yesterday, the book discloses that a codename for a controversial NSA surveillance program is “Ragtime”—and that as many as 50 companies have apparently participated, by providing data as part of a domestic collection initiative.
Deep State, which was authored by Marc Ambinder and D.B. Grady, also offers insight into how the NSA deems individuals a potential threat. The agency uses an automated data-mining process based on “a computerized analysis that assigns probability scores to each potential target,” as Harris puts it in his summary. The domestic version of the program, dubbed “Ragtime-P,” can process as many as 50 different data sets at one time, focusing on international communications from or to the United States. Intercepted metadata, such as email headers showing “to” and “from” fields, is stored in a database called “Marina,” where it generally stays for five years.
About three dozen NSA officials have access to Ragtime's intercepted data on domestic counter-terrorism, the book claims, though outside the agency some 1000 people “are privy to the full details of the program." Internally, the NSA apparently only employs four or five individuals as "compliance staff” to make sure the snooping is falling in line with laws and regulations. Another section of the Ragtime program, “Ragtime-A,” is said to involve U.S.-based interception of foreign counterterrorism data, while “Ragtime-B” collects data from foreign governments that transits through the U.S., and “Ragtime-C” monitors counter proliferation activity.
Only very rarely do details of this nature surface, mainly due to the extreme secrecy that shrouds the NSA. In 2006, a whistleblower from AT&T made a sworn declaration in which he stated that the NSA was routing AT&T communications through a secret "secure room" where they could be intercepted. A former NSA employee said last year in his own sworn declaration, made as part of an ongoing legal case, that the spying described by the AT&T whistleblower involved the use of a "Semantic Traffic Analyser," which would allow the NSA to mine "addresses, locations, countries, and phone numbers, as well as watch-listed names, keywords, and phrases" from within the data flowing through communication networks. Other previously disclosed NSA spy programs have been codenamed “ThinThread” and “Trailblazer.”
On Tuesday, a group of civil rights groups, journalists, and lawyers lost the right to challenge the constitutionality of a so-called “warrantless wiretapping” law that allows the NSA to conduct eavesdropping on international communications. The plaintiffs’ argument failed largely on the grounds that they could not conclusively prove that they had been subject to surveillance. The Supreme Court, in a split 5-4 opinion, said that “it is highly speculative whether the government will imminently target communications to which respondents are parties.”
Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.
Marc Ambinder
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I love telling hard, complicated, and important stories. I'm a highly-regarded print and digital journalist, a DuPont award-winning television producer, an author, an editor, and now, a teacher. I've been the top White House correspondent for National Journal, the politics editor of the Atlantic, and chief political consultant for CBS News. I have deep, execution-level knowledge of cutting-edge visual storytelling technologies, have years of experience managing teams of reporters, students and consultants, have cultivated an influential voice in the worlds of politics, the press and national security, and I'm fortunate to be a trusted, prominent presence on TV, radio and across social media. I've written speeches for corporate CEOs and advised large and small companies ahead of major product roll-outs. I've authored two books and will publish my third, a non-fiction history of nuclear brinksmanship in the Cold War, in July of 2018.
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Experience
University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
Adjunct Professor
Company NameUniversity of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
Dates EmployedJan 2018 – Present Employment Duration7 mos
LocationGreater Los Angeles Area
Recruited by the director of the journalism school to develop and a teach a new course on national security reporting. I secured significant funding from an outside institution to pay for students to travel to Washington, D.C. for a week of in-depth study. I also taught modules on cyber hygiene. In the fall of 2018, I will work with students in the Annenberg Media Center to develop new storytelling techniques for political coverage.
University of Pennsylvania
Journalist in Residence
Company NameUniversity of Pennsylvania
Dates EmployedSep 2017 – Present Employment Duration11 mos
LocationGreater Philadelphia Area
I'm co-editing a volume on national security, journalism and ethics for Oxford University Press. In residence, during the fall of 2017, I studied the intersection of national security and and communication. It's a heck of crossroads. There are a lot of crashes. Pedestrians get injured. New rules of the roads of are needed. We are working to develop them.
The Week
Editor At Large
Company NameThe Week
Dates EmployedSep 2012 – Present Employment Duration5 yrs 11 mos
Analyze and explain the news for an audience of millions, providing reported insights on the world
USA Today
Board of Contributors
Company NameUSA Today
Dates EmployedJul 2016 – Present Employment Duration2 yrs 1 mo
I'm a regular columnist in the nation's newspaper.
Marc Ambinder, Inc.
Consultant
Company NameMarc Ambinder, Inc.
Dates EmployedMay 2013 – Present Employment Duration5 yrs 3 mos
LocationGreater Los Angeles Area
WALT DISNEY COMPANY
Writing and consulting on speeches for the President of Disney/ABC Television Group, including his keynote address to the MIPCOM convention in Cannes.
WORKPOP, INC.
I created the branded content strategy for this innovative, growing and well-regarded startup in the people-hiring-and-managing space and currently manage several content projects, including talent recruitment and quality control of editorial products
-In concert with the co-CEOs, the communications team and company lawyers, Marc helped devise and execute the global public relations and communication strategy for WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption roll-out.
-Wrote media talking points and public-facing language for executives and media team.
-Ensured that WhatsApp’s brand was protected and multiple sensitive corporate equities were well tended-to.
REINVENT.ORG/AIRBNB
Helped AirBNB become a thought leader in a challenging market (Los Angeles) by reporting, editing and publishing an in-depth essay on housing shortages; this became a launch pad for their strategic engagement efforts with political and community stakeholders in LA.
COGNITIO
Successfully rewrote and reformulated biz dev pitches for a cyber security firm with clients in the national security space
RYOT.ORG
Worked with the founders to help orient them in the direction of VR projects, which have become the mainstay of their company
PALANTIR
Contracted for a law-enforcement-related internal communications project subject to a non-disclosure agreement
University of Southern California
Fellow, Annenberg School of Journalism
Company NameUniversity of Southern California
Dates EmployedAug 2016 – Aug 2017 Employment Duration1 yr 1 mo
LocationLos Angeles, CA
Recruited to set and execute the strategic vision for a multi-million-dollar news and education operation run by USC students, managing teams of undergraduate and graduate students as they produce high-quality journalism and content for broadcast and digital platforms.
-Worked with school partners, faculty and staff to develop, and then teach cutting-edge curricula for spot news, crime coverage, Facebook Live, distributed digital products, virtual reality, motion graphics and media literacy
-Directed, and then published an in-depth study of Facebook’s news feeds
-Developed, and then managed and taught the post-election curriculum for truth in news coverage
-Directly supervised and edited the journalism produced by dozens of students each week
GQ
Contributing Editor
Company NameGQ
Dates EmployedJan 2012 – Feb 2015 Employment Duration3 yrs 2 mos
wrote long-form articles for magazine and contributed regularly for GQ's website
The Atlantic
Contributing Editor
Company NameThe Atlantic
Dates EmployedDec 2010 – Nov 2012 Employment Duration2 yrs
National Journal
White House correspondent
Company NameNational Journal
Dates EmployedNov 2010 – Dec 2011 Employment Duration1 yr 2 mos
Anchored White House coverage for one of DC’s most respected and influential publications, breaking numerous stories with worldwide impact.
The Atlantic
Associate Editor / Politics Editor
Company NameThe Atlantic
Dates EmployedJan 2006 – Nov 2010 Employment Duration4 yrs 11 mos
Created and stood up new Atlantic Politics website, part of that historic magazine’s award-winning, industry-pathbreaking digital relaunch; created the first online-only political news blog, “Hotline On Call;” reported, wrote and edited cover stories for the magazine.
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Education
Harvard University
Harvard University
Degree NameBachelor's degree Field Of StudyAmerican history
Dates attended or expected graduation 1998 – 2001
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Ambinder, Marc: THE BRINK
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 15, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Ambinder, Marc THE BRINK Simon & Schuster (Adult Nonfiction) $27.00 7, 10 ISBN: 978-1-4767-6037-
7
An account of the tense relations between the United States and the Soviet Union during Ronald Reagan's
first presidential term.
On Nov. 7, 1983, NATO commenced a five-day military exercise called Able Archer 83. In simulating a
Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe and a NATO nuclear response, Able Archer scared the Soviet
Union into believing that an actual U.S.-led attack was imminent. Thus the Russians readied their nuclear
forces and placed military units in Eastern Europe on alert, bringing the two superpowers to the edge of war.
Ambinder (co-author: Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry, 2013), a former White House
correspondent and TV producer, chronicles the road to this near catastrophe. In relating incidents such as
Reagan's "evil empire" speech, the Soviet Union's shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, and the
installation of Pershing II missiles in Western Europe, the author skillfully places the Able Archer exercise
within the context of the fraught Cold War atmosphere of the early 1980s. He also persuasively argues that a
key to the easing of this tension was Reagan's belated understanding that Russian distrust was rooted in the
fact that, as the president noted in his diary, "many people at the top of the Soviet hierarchy were genuinely
afraid of America and Americans." The book features interviews with government officials and spies who
were on the scene, and Ambinder writes<< in the appealing style of Tom Clancy>>. Yet he compromises the
narrative with short chapters that bounce from place to place and a frustrating tendency to omit dates.
Moreover, the author employs <
provide lists for both). The fulcrum of the book--the Able Archer exercise and the Soviet reaction to it--is
somewhat anticlimactic.
<
they get lost in the story.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Ambinder, Marc: THE BRINK." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534375029/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1b83d343.
Accessed 1 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534375029
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The Brink: President Reagan and the
Nuclear War Scare of 1983
Publishers Weekly.
265.22 (May 28, 2018): p87.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983
Marc Ambinder. Simon & Schuster, $27 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4767-6037-7
Journalist Ambinder's account of a serious threat of global annihilation--stemming from a 1983 NATO war
exercise--is spellbinding. Ambinder lays out the grave weaknesses in America's nuclear command-andcontrol
structure in the early 1980s: the process the president was supposed to use to make decisions about
whether to launch nuclear missiles was much too long, and the U.S.'s early warning system was unreliable.
Those problems informed the Reagan administration's approach to the Soviets; in order to mask the U.S.'s
vulnerability to a first strike, Reagan sought to add to America's nuclear arsenal (feeling that "the best way
to reduce the threat to the U.S. would be to increase the threat to the Soviet Union"). The practical
implications of this dysfunction manifested during Able Archer 83, "an annual dry run" of the transfer of
NATO's nuclear warheads from American control to European custodians, when a change in
communication methods and patterns gave the Soviets the mistaken impression that the exercise might be a
cover for an American first strike on the Soviet Union, which readied troops and nuclear weaponry to
respond. While disaster was averted, <
through the Reagan administration's and the Soviet government's respective internal debates about
diplomatic and military strategy. This is a masterpiece of recent history. Agent: Eric Lupfer, Fletcher & Co.
(July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983." Publishers Weekly, 28 May 2018, p. 87.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A541638849/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a8b47881. Accessed 1 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A541638849
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HISTORY
Library Journal.
143.10 (June 2018): p102+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Ambinder, Marc. The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983. S. & S. Jul. 2018. 384p.
notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781476760377. $27; ebk. ISBN 9781476760391. HIST
Former White House correspondent Ambinder (Deep State; The Command) presents a study of the 1983
nuclear war scare, referred to by the code name Able Archer 83, involving NATO and the Soviet Union.
Using firsthand interviews, declassified documents, and secondary literature, Ambinder recounts events of
that year, such as Reagan's March 8 "Evil Empire" speech before a group of evangelicals; his March 23
proposal for a "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative; and the September 1 downing of the South Korean
KAL 007 civilian plane, misconstrued as an American spy craft. Listing major participants and a guide to
acronyms, the work demystifies a complex Western alliance that was misinterpreted by newly installed
Kremlin leader Yuri Andropov. The author reveals how, through discrete decisions to deescalate tensions,
the closest the world came to nuclear war since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis resulted instead in renewed
detente, which President Reagan's campaign had opposed. VERDICT Those seeking to build
comprehensive collections on national security will want to acquire Ambinder's work. Libraries should also
consider Nate Jones's Able Archer 83.--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC
DeFelice, Jim. West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express. HarperCollins. May
2018. 320p. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780062496768. $27.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062496799. HIST
DeFelice (American Sniper) describes how both sides of the North American continent were connected by a
ten-day horseback mail delivery system prior to transcontinental railroads and telegraphs. Taking a broad
contextual approach, he places the mail delivery system firmly in an America on the eve of the Civil War
and the presidential election of 1860. New information is provided, garnered from local archives and
museums during his own retracing of the historic route from St. Joseph, MO, and on through Nebraska,
Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada to Sacramento, CA. There are many stories of the riders and their
backgrounds, including Nick Wilson, Pony Bob Haslam, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Wild Bill Hickock.
Dangerous journeys through Paiute territory during the Pyramid Lake War are told with consideration for
the Paiute point of view. VERDICT This wonderfully vivid, accessible, and documented account of the
Pony Express is a legendary American adventure story. Highly recommended.--Nathan Bender, Albany Cty.
P.L., Laramie, WY
Gibler, John. Torn from the World: A Guerrilla's Escape from a Secret Prison in Mexico. City Lights. Jul.
2018. 180p. notes. ISBN 9780872867529. pap. $16.95; ebk. ISBN 9780872867833. HIST
The story of Andres Tzompaxtle Tecpile will be familiar to those who study Latin American history--an
indigenous man kidnapped by government soldiers and tortured for months. A member of the insurgent
group called EPR (Popular Revolutionary Army), his nom de guerre is "Rafael." Though it sounds like
something from the distant past, Rafael was abducted in 1996. Journalist and author Gibler (Mexico Unconquered:
Chronicles of Power and Revolt) interviewed Tecpile, who is still living in Mexico following his
escape. Gibler also includes historical and political context to help illustrate how Mexican society has
evolved into one of violent resistance and conflict. The firsthand account given by Tecpile is at times
difficult to read because of the abuse he experienced, but it is an important story that needs to be told.
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VERDICT Gibler does Tecpile justice in sharing his experience eloquently and truthfully. This work will
hold wide appeal for anyone interested in social activism, civil rights, and Mexican history.--Susan E.
Montgomery, Rollins Coll., Winter Park, FL
Jones, Seth G. A Covert Action: Reagan, the Cia, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland. Norton. Jul. 2018.
320p. illus. maps. notes. index. ISBN 9780393247008. $27.95; ebk. ISBN 9780393247015. HIST
In 2007, former first lady Nancy Reagan accepted the Order of the White Eagle from the Polish government
posthumously for her husband. Ronald Reagan appropriated the terms Starwars (Strategic Missile Defense)
and Evil Empire (Soviet Union) to bolster his psychological and material support of Polish politician Lech
Walesa and the Polish Solidarity movement. Jones (chair & director, Transnational Threats Project, Center
for Strategic and International Studies; In the Graveyard of Empires) chronicles Reagan's covert action to
prop up and stabilize Walesa and his movement. This is the complete story of Reagan's black-and-white
view of the failure of Yalta after World War II that created a USSR-dominated Eastern Europe. As Soviet
leaders threatened to invade Poland in an attempt to help former leader Wojciech Jaruezlski suppress the
democratic solidarity movement, Reagan and his cabinet officials delivered prosolidarity propaganda and
money to shore up the campaign. Jones also explains the connections between Reagan's covert actions,
called QRHELPFUL, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. VERDICT This fast-paced book fills in gaps
in Reagan's Cold War strategy that historians and Russian history buffs will enjoy.--Harry Willems, Great
Bend, KS
Lehman, John. Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea. Norton. Jun. 2018. 352p. illus. notes.
bibliog. index. ISBN 9780393254259. $27.95; ebk. ISBN 9780393254266. HIST
Lehman (On Seas of Glory) seeks to explain how Ronald Reagan and his officials changed defense strategy
to win the Cold War. There is some brief history of post-World War II diplomacy, but the bulk of the text is
a chronological retelling of 1980s diplomacy and naval operations. Lehman's work reads more like personal
memoirs of his time as secretary of the navy during the Reagan years. Based on his former position, his
latest work has a bias in favor of 1980s Republicans and the Reagan administration. Lehman dismisses
Democrats and "leftists" while praising favored colleagues. He ultimately blames the reduction of the U.S.
Navy for several global challenges facing America today, making a persuasive argument. There are frequent
acronyms and detailed descriptions of military exercises and operations; abundant photos assist in learning
about the various individuals, ships, and aircraft mentioned throughout. VERDICT For anyone studying the
late Cold War, although the favoritism can be a turn-off for anyone who isn't a staunch Reagan supporter.--
Matthew Wayman, Pennsylvania State Univ. Lib., Schuylkill Haven
Meacham, Jon. The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels.
Random. May 2018. 416p. illus. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780399589812. $30; ebk. ISBN
9780399589836. HIST
History does not actually repeat itself, but studying how countries have worked through trying times can be
reassuring. This is the message that Pulitzer Prize-winning Meacham (political science, Vanderbilt Univ.;
American Lion) provides in his exceptional new book. Here, Meacham recalls the struggles the United
States has faced, including issues of racism, sexism, war, and pestilence. The author describes how, through
what Lincoln famously called "the better angels of our nature," the country has prevailed and tried to move
forward in the fervent belief that all Americans deserve guarantees of equality and justice. Using examples
of challenging periods in U.S. history, such as Reconstruction, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the
1920s, and the anti-Communist witch hunts led by Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, Meacham helps readers
understand that the country has experienced difficulties before and will endure them again. VERDICT An
excellent work by a skilled historian and worthy of all library collections.--Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ.
Lib., Ames
Mulloy, Darren J. Enemies of the State: The Radical Right in America from FDR to Trump. Rowman &
Littlefield. Jul. 2018. 208p. illus. notes, index. ISBN 9781442276512. $34. HIST
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The subtitle captures the essence of this volume on the "radical right," which first emerged from backlash to
the New Deal in the 1930s to its contemporary manifestation in the Trump presidency. Mulloy (history,
Wilfrid Laurier Univ., Ont.) is well qualified to undertake this broader topic. The first chapter of this newest
work deals with the emergence of the American Liberty League and related organizations during the Great
Depression. From there, the narrative covers the anticommunist movement during the Cold War and the
evolution of the John Birch Society, opposition to the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and the rise of
Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Later chapters detail the Republican Party's move further to the right and the
prominence of the Tea Party. A final brief summary situates President Trump into this overall history.
VERDICT Though specialists in modern political history know this story, its highly readable and concise
presentation will appeal for use in history and political science classrooms, as well as to general readers
wondering how Trumpism has developed into a political ideology.--William D. Pederson, Louisiana State
Univ., Shreveport
Taylor, Cory. How Hitler Was Made: Germany and the Rise of the Perfect Nazi.
Prometheus. Jun. 2018. 295p. illus. maps. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781633884359. $25; ebk. ISBN
9781633884366. HIST
This efficient book details Adolf Hitler's dominance then control of the small National Socialist Party in
Germany. It ends in 1924, with Hitler recently released from prison for his role in the failed Beer Hall
Putsch and having written Mein Kampf. "Unser Fuehrer" is more popular than ever; ready to start his nineyear
ascent to power. Separated from the story of the rest of Hitler's career, this disturbing tale has impact.
In measured prose, documentary filmmaker Taylor (JFK: A President Betrayed) details the conditions
paving the way for Hitler's increasing influence: Germany's defeat in the Great War and the quest for
scapegoats; the growth of the radical right and the sweep of violence across Germany; and the men and
groups who facilitated, encouraged, and financed Hitler's agenda. But why Hitler? What were the conditions
favoring his rise? And what was he thinking during this transformative period in his life? Taylor seeks to
answer these questions throughout. VERDICT The story isn't new, but Taylor makes good sense of a
turbulent and confusing period in German history.--David Keymer, Cleveland
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"HISTORY." Library Journal, June 2018, p. 102+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A540851148/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=f5d0ddc6.
Accessed 1 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A540851148
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The Deep State: Inside the Government
Secrecy Industry
Publishers Weekly.
260.4 (Jan. 28, 2013): p162.
COPYRIGHT 2013 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry Marc Ambinder and D.B Grady. Wiley, $27.95
(336p) ISBN 978-1-118-14668-2
Journalists Ambinder and Grady provide a rendering of the U.S. government's secrecy apparatus in both
international and domestic affairs, offering an acronym-laden fest for fans of the NSA, CIA, and
Department of Defense while providing few revelations. The authors display<< unabashed enthusiasm for the
machinery of shadows>>, particularly the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) profiled in
Ambinder and Grady's earlier book The Command, entire chapters of which are reprinted here. A
congratulatory account of the coordinated spying activities conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the
operations that resulted from them, are labeled as unprecedented successes. Meanwhile, the authors are
blithely dismissive of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Admiration of JSOC and others, and a subtle contempt
directed at those who would question "official stories," trickles through, forming two overarching themes.
The first is an Orwellian feat of circular logic that states that no secrets really exist, because if they did, we
would already know about them. The second defensively posits that neither the government nor American
citizens can stomach the truth about what it really takes to keep us safe. Despite some insights in a chapter
on the NSA's controversial wiretapping program, the majority of the book details the players, rationalizes
their actions, and, ironically, keeps their secrets. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry." Publishers Weekly, 28 Jan. 2013, p. 162.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A317202745/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1aef64f6. Accessed 1 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A317202745
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
Book Review: Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry
Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
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Book Review: Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry
“There is a hidden country within the United States. It was formed from the astonishing number of secrets held by the government and the growing ranks of secret-keepers given charge over them.” So begins a synopsis of Deep State, a new book by Marc Ambinder and D.B. Grady.
While the book certainly delivers on dishing some of the stories surrounding past and present activities carried on in secret by the federal government, it does so in the form of a book that reads like an encomium rather than an indictment.
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From the first page, the authors seem smitten with the notion of painting with broad strokes the picture that there are “certain secrets necessary to defend the republic.”
Some of the hidden history laid out in Deep State includes the story of the surveillance program established by the National Security Agency (NSA) in the days after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Ambinder and Grady describe this warrantless wiretapping as “controversial” rather than with the word it deserves: unconstitutional.
The Fourth Amendment protects “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Any attempt by the NSA to monitor the electronic communication of an American without probable cause and without a warrant is a direct violation of that constitutional protection for a fundamental right.
Although this program is practically praised by the authors of Deep State, The New American interviewed Thomas Drake, an eyewitness to the NSA’s assault on the Constitution.
Drake was a senior executive at the NSA who made the “mistake” of revealing to the Baltimore Sun that the NSA’s Trailblazer Project — intended to analyze data carried on in the United States and elsewhere through the Internet, cellphones, and e-mails — not only violated the Fourth Amendment’s proscription against unwarranted searches and seizures, but it was a “billion-dollar computer boondoggle.”
Other similar revelations found in Deep State include “how the increased exposure of secrets affects everything from Congressional budgets to Area 51, from Seal Team Six and Delta Force to the FBI, CIA, and NSA.”
While it is certainly human nature to want to hear secrets and the more exclusive the club of those in the know the better, the authors of Deep State seem to take that natural inclination to new heights of hagiography.
Although much of what the authors write is fodder for the hype machine, there is one paragraph that is perhaps the most accurate and the most chilling of all the book’s reported revelations. Regarding Facebook, Ambinder and Grady write:
Mark Zuckerberg runs a giant spy machine in Palo Alto, California. He wasn’t the first to build one, but his was the best, and every day hundreds of thousands of people upload the most intimate details of their lives to the Internet. The real coup wasn’t hoodwinking the public into revealing their thoughts, closest associates, and exact geographic coordinates at any given time. Rather, it was getting the public to volunteer that information. Then he turned off the privacy settings.
From such statements, the authors move on to praising behavior that should be condemned. Consider, for example, the description of the despicable practice of torture (the authors use the convenient “enhanced interrogation” euphemism) carried on by or on behalf of American officials. “Enhanced interrogation techniques provided a crucial dot connecting Osama bin Laden’s preferred method of communication (courier) to his whereabouts (Abbottabad).”
Then, they soft-pedal the torture, claiming, “The government was torturing people in our name for little apparent benefit.” That oblique criticism seems to indicate that if the interrogators could have derived a lot of benefit from the torture then it would have been acceptable.
Additionally, there is an air of omniscience in the book, with the authors demonstrating an apparent ability to read minds and know with surety the motivations of people involved in the society of secrecy. The government, they write, “tries to do what it says it will do,” and when it lies, “it almost invariably does so to further a redeeming interest.”
Can’t get much more congratulatory than that.
Consider the statement that “every president believes that the secret activities he orders or permits are both moral and in the interest of the nation.”
How can anyone — including award-winning journalists — possibly be privy to the private thoughts of a president? How can they be so certain that President Obama is genuinely convinced that he is acting morally when he orders a drone strike on a village in Yemen, Afghanistan, or Pakistan? In short, they cannot.
Another startling demonstration of the authors’ omniscience is their declaration regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy: “There was no cover up. There was no conspiracy.” Case closed.
Finally, with regard to the operation that reportedly resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, Ambinder and Grady brag that “no boundaries separated the intelligence community from the military or one military unit from another.”
While Americans should rightly be proud of the efficacy of our armed forces, they should be equally thankful for the incorporation of timeless principles of freedom enshrined in our Constitution. Many of these principles are regularly sacrificed by the secrecy apparatus on the altar of national safety.
The praise for the Osama bin Laden operation doesn’t stop there. On page 114, the authors describe the raid as “legal enough.”
Legal enough is not the standard that the people of the United States should apply to those elected and appointed officials acting in their name. We must not let our fears — legitimate or manufactured — trump our principles. When it comes to the president’s keeping of a kill list of America’s suspected enemies and his habit of sending drones to cull names from that list by way of state-sponsored assassination, Americans must demand that Congress exercise a check on such autocratic executive power.
In their book, Ambinder and Grady assert that Congress’ “silence provides the consent that the president seeks for the employment of his secret army.” And, as for the escalation of the drone war, they declare that this program “was greeted with some dismay, but was arguably a necessary development.”
Some dismay? What of the opinion of the “fiercest civil libertarians” the publisher claims will be addressed? Even those considered moderate libertarians look upon the drone war and the concomitant death of due process with a little more than “some dismay.”
Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is one of that brand of civil libertarian and he and several of his colleagues in the U.S. Senate were so angered by the president’s betrayal of core constitutional principles in his use of drones that they carried out a 13-hour filibuster in March. The point of the filibuster was to hold up the confirmation of the president’s nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA until the administration defined the boundaries of its power to kill enemies by drone.
Striking a similar tone, the authors of Deep State write that, “the missiles [launched by drone] began to go astray and invariably innocents were killed.”
That pretext misses the point entirely. The relevant constitutional consideration is that even when the “right target” is killed, that suspect is denied due process. Once the policy of summary execution is normalized, the only barrier to names on a presidential kill list being populated by political enemies is the classification of that person as a “terrorist” or “suspected militant.”
Finally, Deep State makes the familiar claim that President Obama spent his first few months in office putting out fires sparked by his predecessor.
Likewise, they predict that President Obama’s successor will suffer the same debilitating fate because of the “curse of the Twenty-Second Amendment.”
The Twenty-Second Amendment limits the president to two terms in office. Reading between the lines, it seems that the Ambinder and Grady believe that many of the mistakes made by increasingly omnipotent executives could be obviated if the Constitution could be amended allowing the president to serve three or more terms of office.
Given the very insignificant policy disagreements among presidential candidates put forward by the two major political parties, it is unlikely that the trend toward tyranny would change no matter who occupied the Oval Office or for how long.
Deep State is published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and is available now.
Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels frequently nationwide speaking on topics of nullification, the NDAA, and the surveillance state. He can be reached at: jwolverton@thenewamerican.com