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| The Strength of the Wolf
"This fascinating and engrossing account of early US efforts to control the illegal drug trade is also much more. Valentine deeply examines the practices of the CIA, carefully and skillfully making a connection between it and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN). The book exposes the close relationship between organized crime and those in intelligence. From the Cold War to the 1960s, FBN director Harry Anslinger, in a desperate bid to outflank the FBI, entered into a "suicidal" relationship with the CIA. In 1962, the FBN began "its descent into knave spookery and internecine warfare."
"Valentine also smartly examines the CIA's role in using drugs as a weapon to turn foreign agents and supply funds to anti-communist organizations. His account of MKULTRA--the CIA experiment with LSD--is fascinating and nicely documented. Exploring the deep politics defined by Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, CH, Mar. '94), Valentine deftly plumbs the hidden roots of the early war on narcotics and proves that foreign policy considerations always trumped public health." |
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"The author also makes some fascinating connections between the triumvirate of the FBI, CIA, and FBN around the time of President John F. Kennedy's assassination. Summing Up: Outstanding. All levels/libraries." --- D. R. Turner, Davis and Elkins College
"*Strength of the Wolf* is a ground-breaking work of investigative reporting that kept me up half the night, highlighting the names and black deeds of an outlandish cast of wayward narcs, killer-spooks and globe-trotting godfathers. An expose of the never-ending lap-dance between organized crime and the national security establishment, Doug Valentine's book is a torch held high in the labyrinths of America's secret history. Casting a cold eye on the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Valentine reveals the Bureau for what it was: a parapolitical lunatic asylum, swirling with intrigue, rife with corruption, and punch-drunk with good intentions gone bad." -- Jim Hougan, award-winning investigative reporter and the author of *Spooks* and *Secret Agenda*. Hougan's new thriller,*The Murder Artist* (written under the pen name "John Case( will be published by Ballantine in November.)
"*The Strength of the Wolf* is a remarkable early history of America's war on drugs, as well as the Federal Bureau of Narcotics' war against the Mafia--long before J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI even acknowledged its existence. This early assault on the drug trade stands in revealing contrast to the phony wars on drugs perpetrated by the federal government ever since, especially the "anti-drug" charades during the Reagan and Bush I administrations. Doug Valentine has performed an admirable and important public service by pulling all of this information together." -- Dan Moldea, author of *The Hoffa Wars*
"A rollercoaster ride of a read! Douglas Valentine carries us from a brutal murder in a New York hotel room to a squalid CIA power grab forty years later by way of Lucky Luciano, Dallas, the jungles of Vietnam, and the apprenticeship of the Watergate burglars. A Herculean exploration of the dark world of drugs and law enforcement." -- Anthony Summers, author of *The Arrogance of Power*
"A thoroughly engrossing, thoroughly researched and thoroughly appalling look at what's really behind our ill-fated 'War on Drugs.' If the history presented here is any model for the future, our grandchildren (and theirs) will be locked into the same hopeless position in which we find ourselves today: war without end." -- Gary Webb, author of *Dark Alliance: the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion*
The book costs $29 and is available at VersoBooks.com. |
| The Hotel Tacloban
In this extraordinary story of World War Two, the author's father, who enlisted in the army at the age of sixteen, describes the terrible experiences that affected the course of his life. Captured by the Japanese while on patrol in the fetid jungles of New Guinea, he was sent to a prison camp in the Philippines, where he was interned with Australian and British soldiers. A celebration of camaraderie, and a testament to "the soldier's faith", this is a story of murder, mutiny, and an incredible military cover-up.
"This is a very true book and story well told...chilling in its accumulation."
-- James Kaufmann, The Los Angeles Times
"A soldier's fascinating story of wartime survival and betrayal...a shocking denouement." -- Paul Back, literary critic
"Compelling..." -- Alison Knopf, The New York Times
"A vivid and compelling narrative..." -- Leslie Hanscom, Newsday |
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"This horrifying and unforgettable story is not just a searing picture of life in a terrible POW camp...(it) is also a significant historical document about a place that the U.S. military says never existed."
-- Publisher's Weekly Forecasts
The Kennedy Miller Film Company, makers of the Mel Gibson movies Mad Max and The Road Warrior, has purchased the motion picture film rights to The Hotel Tacloban. Mr. Valentine is hoping to turn those rights over to any other interested film producers.
The Hotel Tacloban was originally published by Lawrence Hill & Company, 1984, Angus & Robertson Publishers (in Australia and the United Kingdom) in 1985, and by Avon Books in 1986.
The book costs $12.95 and is available at iUniverse.com. |
| The Phoenix Program Created by the CIA in Saigon in 1967, Phoenix was a computer-driven program aimed at "neutralizing", through assassination, kidnapping, and systematic torture, the civilian infrastructure that supported the insurgency in South Vietnam. It was a terrifying "final solution" that violated the Geneva Conventions and traditional American ideas of human morality.
"This definitive account of the Phoenix program...remains sobering reading for all those trying to understand the Vietnam War and the moral ambiguities of America's Cold War victory. Though carefully documented, the book is written in an accessible style that makes it ideal for readers at all levels, from undergraduates to professional historians." -- Alfred W. McCoy, Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Valentine has shined a bright light into the darkest corner of the Vietnam War, and one of the darkest in American history." -- Nicholas Proffitt, author of Gardens of Stone |
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"An important book." -- John Prados, author of Presidents' Secret Wars
"No book to date conveys the hideousness of the Vietnam War as thoroughly as this one."
-- Publisher's Weekly
Ranked by CounterPunch magazine as "One of the Top 100 Nonfiction Works of the 20th Century."
The Phoenix Program was originally published by The William Morrow Company in 1990, and by Avon Books in 1992.
The book costs $ 26.95 and is available at iUniverse.com. |
| TDY Based on fact, TDY is an adventure story told by Pete, a young Air Force photojournalist who in 1967 volunteers for a secret mission in Southeast Asia. During the mission he learns the true meaning of good and evil while nearly losing his life in the process. Thirty years after the event that changed his life, Pete steps forward to describe the powerful forces that deceived him, and continue to deceive the American public. A crescendo of action and awakening, TDY reveals the harsh reality of the U.S. Government's complicity in international drug trafficking.
"A fantastic read." -- Mike Levine, author of The New York Times bestseller, Deep Cover
"This is a well-told, intriguing, unique tale that illuminates an aspect of the Vietnam War that is too often neglected, the not-so-secret "Secret War" in Laos." -- Marc Leepson, editor of The VVA Veteran, the periodical magazine of the Vietnam Veterans of America
The book costs $10.95 and is available at iUniverse.com. |
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