Ronald Kessler

You may need to take a shower after reading this book before you feel clean again.

I wasn't prepared for the TMZ-like nature of this crummy book. I was interested in the history and operations of the Secret Service, and to my knowledge I hadn't read a Kessler work before. He only has about 5 points in the entire book, and two of them are Democrats are evil and Republicans are saints. To give you a clue where Kessler is coming from, he complains in a chapter on the Clintons (he has several) show more that the biggest problem with Kenneth Starr is that he wasn't aggressive enough.

I probably could have overlooked the blatant partisanship and low-brow tone - but the dishonesty with which Kessler approaches the work makes it hard to take anything he says at face value. The number of misleading "facts" were piling up before I got to Chapter One.

Kessler spends a lot of time rehashing some of the worst of "journalistic" sleaze from the Clinton years, and cherry-picking his way through many other years of tawdry dirty laundry and political mud. Even for what it is - a partisan right-wing hack job of a look at First Family Secret Service details - it is lousy, thin, and rather poorly written.

I'm heading for that shower. show less

This book is a readable, if dry, account of how the CIA worked circa the late 1980s, which is far more exciting when read between the lines. Kessler is (was?) one of the preeminent intelligence journalists in Washington D.C., with a string of books about the FBI, spies in Moscow, and the Reagan White House. In 1990, Kessler approached the CIA public relations office about writing a book, and got a favorable response: hours of interviews with key officers, including then Director William H. show more Webster, large amounts of access to the buildings, and relative freedom to write whatever he wanted within the constraints of national security.

The picture he paints is one of dedicated professionals, hard at work within a sometimes opaque bureaucratic structure. Where the CIA has erred, it has done so because the world is inherently uncertain, or because their worst excesses were ordered by the White House. The idea of rogue agents and operations is part of the bad old days before the Church Committee. The new CIA, as reorganized by Director Webster, is an efficient team player, supplying fair intelligence to the President, in line with American values. Sure, the CIA operates everywhere except for the "Five Eyes" nations, but it's mostly precautionary, and a way to get sources in place to prevent surprise. The four Directorates are somewhat insular, but all good in their own way. Operations talks to foreigners and recruits them to be agents. Intelligence analyzes everything coming in, and synthesizes it down to intelligence assessments for the White House. Science & Technology runs spy satellites and a real life "Q-branch." Administration makes sure that everybody gets paid on time, and secures the agency overall. Webster gets a glowing report: former judge, FBI director, bringing the CIA into the modern era by reversing the politicized decisions made under Casey, the previous CIA director who was a Reagan campaigner staffer, and providing much needed support to the public relations office and the office of general counsel.

Reading between the lines, I got the sense that Kessler was brought on to help rehabilitate the CIA after the Iran-Contra affair, and justify its relevance after the fall of the Soviet Union. He wound up getting a little seduced by the agency, so the epilogue, which was written after the Aldrich Ames case broke, runs directly counter to the rest of the book. CIA compartmentalization is a joke. The security people are entirely incompetent. Deep philosophical cracks in the mission of the CIA need to be filled before it can be the intelligence agency America deserves.

My final verdict is that this book is a picture of a kind of business as usual that no longer exists. The post-9/11 CIA, an agency of drone strikes and extraordinary renditions, is very different from the gentlemen analysts and Operations great gamers Kessler writes about. There are a few illuminating anecdotes here, but far too little about the contemporary crisis of Iran-Contra. Kessler knows his stuff, but this book has not aged well. show less

The "Dysfunctional" First Family Detail truly should be the name of this book. From the moment I began reading this book, I was hooked and couldn't put it down until I finished all 270 pages. Due to the recent scandals of the United States Secret Service (USSS) in the news, I was, of course, curious to see what the agents had to say about the lives of the Presidents. What was causing all these problems within the USSS and how was it affecting the security of America. Page after page show more introduced me to details with the USSS that shocked me. No, I wasn't surprised that Uncle Joe comes off just as creepy in print as he does in the media or that, "The real Hillary Clinton hunger for power and bears little resemblance to the image she seeks to project", says one agents.
What I found interesting was the Presidents i.e. Johnson, Carter treatment of the USSS. The way the staff of the President, Vice President, and families will bypass suggestion for safety by agents simply by picking up a phone and complaining to USSS management. The lack of support the USSS agents receive in support, training and the hypocrisy of the administration of the USSS. And the biggest shocker is finding out that real changes are not made in the USSS until an assassination attempt is made, causing the incompetence of the USSS to be exposed, forcing them to address the issue. Kessler's brief section on the character & behavior of the a President stood out for me. He states, " In training new agents, the FBI Academy teaches that the best predictor of the future behavior comes from past actions. Over and over, voters have ignored warning signs of weak character and candidates' track records and focused instead on the promises, their celebrity, and their acting ability on television. It's a blindness that they would never extend to choosing a friend, a new employee, an electrician, or a plumber. In entrusting the country and their security to a president, they are making a far more important decision. Each time, voters have regretted disregarding those clues to character." For that reason I highly recommend all Americans reading this book, to truly open their eyes to the real nature of the Presidents past and present, looking beyond the over zealous view pushed precisely onto society to hide the truth. show less

The book I have in hand today is The First Family Detail by Ronald Kessler.

The title interested me but I must admit I didn't spend much time checking out the author or the book's description. That was a very poor judgment call on my part. In my mind's eye I thought I was getting a nice behind the scenes book about quirky habits of the first families and the presidents as viewed by their Secret Service agents; maybe something on the order of Caroline Kennedy catching butterflies in a paper show more bag or Lucy Johnson learning to drive.

When I tore open the delivery package and pulled out the book, I cringed when I saw the author name as Ronald Kessler. The author has a reputation to be factually inaccurate and often cites information received by second and third hand accounts without verification. But…I selected the book from Blogging for Books, so I will give an honest opinion. Not really fair to judge a book by its cover or the author's previous history, is it?

However, a few pages into the book I was already holding my nose.

One particular statement leapt out in the prologue, " [Secret Service Agents are] required to sign confidentiality agreements, they are sworn to secrecy, but they opened up for this book." Maybe I am full of horse feathers, but doesn't confidentially disclosed information sound like an oxymoron to you?

The book is 263 pages long, excluding the index and secret service chronology.

The chapters are short, caustic, gossipy and derogatory. When someone is praised or revered it is because his or her pious life is used to highlight the derogatory and dishonorable behavior of someone else. Lady Bird Johnson is depicted as Mother Theresa's first cousin to make LBJ look like Voldemort. Lady Bird could take care of herself! I lived in Texas for a while. I heard stories too.

I am going to admit I only completely read three chapters. I just couldn't finish the book. I felt soiled and nauseous and in need of a deep cleansing shower.

I will tell you about those three chapters in some detail. Just to be fair, I did thumb through the remaining chapters and looked at the pictures. It didn't look to me that things improved in quality and character.

The prologue opens in the Ozzie and Harriet world of the hamlet of Chappaqua, NY. Birds are chirping and Mr. Rogers, in his ubiquitous sweater, sits on the front porch of the general store waving. The scene is quickly ruined by the description of life in that hamlet as the Clintons move into the neighborhood in 1999.

If you hate the Clintons, you are going to love the prologue. If you are a Hillary supporter, you are going to view this as an opportunity to re-feed the same red meat to the haters.

Chapter 1 is named "Regular Joe Biden" and is about the author's perception that Joe Biden puts this country at risk caring "more about his image than carrying out the only significant responsibility required of him as vice-president: to launch retaliatory strikes in the event of a nuclear attack." His dereliction of duty centers on his desire for a more relaxed security detail around his own neighborhood.

After accusing Biden of being irresponsible, he charges that Joe and his wife are kind to the agents but his behavior is bizarre. The only example of bizarre behavior offered to justify this claim is that Biden likes to swim naked in his own pool. The horror of it was exposed in the press! US News and World Report reported on Aug 1, 2014 in big bold print, "Biden Swims Naked; Upsetting Female Secret Service Agents, Book Claims."

Chapter 2 returns to Hillary Clinton opening with this statement, "If Joe Biden is inconsiderate with Secret Service agents, Hillary Clinton can make Nixon look like Mahatma Gandhi."

Kessler supports this claim by pasting stories already in print from one of his other books. He reports "In the President's Secret Service" that Hillary fired a White House usher for taking a phone call from Barbara Bush and repeats that story in this book. Citing from the same page in this other book, a stormy story about Hillary, an electrician and a light bulb is repeated.

Hillary is by no means a saint. If she has no redeeming qualities and is completely horrendous as charged, surely there would be other salacious material to report. Why play the same tune on the harp over and over?

Kessler tosses in a few bits of nasty dialogue and insensitive comments reportedly made to agents by Hillary (not saying she didn't say them) before repeating yet another recycled story. This time the author admits to recycling from his book, The Secrets of the FBI. The unsubstantiated story suggests that Hillary's emasculating comments led to Vince Foster's suicide a week later. Her cruel taunts, not defended by me in any way, cannot be the precipitating factor in that poor man's demise.

Chapter 3 opens with LBJ shagging anything in a skirt; often openly in front of the staff. The graphic descriptions of LBJ running around Air Force One or the White House offices in the buff turned my stomach.

When Kessler shares the Secret Service nickname for LBJ as Bull's Balls, an affectionate name for his over-sized testicles I had rather unflattering pictures cluttering my mind. But I was finished off with the repeated stories of his pissing off a boat in front of God and everyone or dictating to his secretary while defecating. Some things are better off left to the imagination.

I don't read the National Enquirer and I certainly am not going to finish this book. I have much better ways to spend my time.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this honest review. show less