James DiEugenio’s excellent two part series posted on LRC focusing upon former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee is one of the finest examples of power elite analysis I have ever read. DiEugenio begins his fascinating character study by delving into the nexus of power and privilege found in the aristocratic backgrounds of Bradlee’s ancestral forebearers (as well as long-time colleagues such as CIA director Richard Helms). He then brilliantly outlines how the ambitious careerist Bradlee expanded upon this ever widening circle of familial ties, networking into the interconnected worlds of intelligence and elite journalism, becoming one of the major gatekeepers of the Establishment mainstream media. I particularly enjoyed his frank and open discussion of the background of the major players in the backstory of the Washington Post – Eugene Meyer and Phil and Katharine Graham. (His outing of power-broker Meyer’s covert linkage to the clandestine entity of Zionist agents of influence, the Parushim, was particularly bold and revealing – see Alison Weir, Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel). Here are superb follow-up volumes LRC readers will want to read which flesh out even more of this behind-the-curtain expose’: On Ben Bradlee and the Georgetown Set, see Gregg Herken, The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington; on the Kennedy assassination, see James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters; and Peter Janney, Mary’s Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace; on Lyndon Johnson; on Nixon and Watergate, see Roger Stone, Nixon’s Secrets: The Rise, Fall, and Untold Truth about the President, Watergate, and the Pardon; and Phil Stanford, White House Call Girl: The Real Watergate Story (both volumes tell a considerably different story regarding the role of R. Spenser Oliver in the Watergate affair than that of Robert Parry and DiEugenio).

The Best of Charles Burris