...FAMILY OF SECRETS The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years RUSS BAKER Contents Foreword by James Moore 1. How Did Bush Happen? 2. Poppy’s Secret 3. Viva Zapata 4. Where Was Poppy? 5. Oswald’s Friend 6. The Hit 7. After Camelot 8. Wings for W. 9. The Nixonian Bushes 10. Downing Nixon, Part I: The Setup 11. Downing Nixon, Part II: The Execution 12. In from the Cold 13. Poppy’s Proxy and the Saudis 14. Poppy’s Web 15. The Handoff 16. The Quacking Duck 17. Playing Hardball 18. Meet the Help 19. The Conversion 20. The Skeleton in W.’s Closet 21. Shock and . . . Oil? 22. Deflection for Reelection 23. Domestic Disturbance 24. Conclusion Afterword Author’s Note Acknowledgments Notes Foreword When a governor or any state official seeks elective national office, his (or her) reputation and what the country knows about the candidate’s background is initially determined by the work of local and regional media. Generally, those journalists do a competent job of reporting on the prospect’s record. In the case of Governor George W. Bush, Texas reporters had written numerous stories about his failed businesses in the oil patch, the dubious land grab and questionable funding behind a new stadium for Bush’s baseball team, the Texas Rangers, and his various political contradictions and hypocrisies while serving in Austin. I was one of those Texas journalists. I spent about a decade...
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...Acknowledgments ix Acknowledgments This book owes a great deal to the mental energy of several generations of scholars. As an undergraduate at the University of Cape Town, Francis Wilson made me aware of the importance of migrant labour and Robin Hallett inspired me, and a generation of students, to study the African past. At the School of Oriental and African Studies in London I was fortunate enough to have David Birmingham as a thesis supervisor. I hope that some of his knowledge and understanding of Lusophone Africa has found its way into this book. I owe an equal debt to Shula Marks who, over the years, has provided me with criticism and inspiration. In the United States I learnt a great deal from ]eanne Penvenne, Marcia Wright and, especially, Leroy Vail. In Switzerland I benefitted from the friendship and assistance of Laurent Monier of the IUED in Geneva, Francois Iecquier of the University of Lausanne and Mariette Ouwerhand of the dépurtement évangélrlyue (the former Swiss Mission). In South Africa, Patricia Davison of the South African Museum introduced me to material culture and made me aware of the richness of difference; the late Monica Wilson taught me the fundamentals of anthropology and Andrew Spiegel and Robert Thornton struggled to keep me abreast of changes in the discipline; Sue Newton-King and Nigel Penn brought shafts of light from the eighteenthcentury to bear on early industrialism. Charles van Onselen laid a major part of the intellectual foundations on...
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