Dirty Tricks: Nixon, Watergate, and the CIA

1968-President Lyndon Johnson is ordered to halt bombing in Vietnam. His possible successor and current Vice President Hubert Humphrey gain a jump in polling numbers as a potential breakthrough in peace talks with Vietnam. An October Surprise is on the horizon, and then South Vietnam backs out of the negotiations. Did Presidential Candidate Richard Nixon use influence to scuttle the negotiations? Did members of his campaign plot/collude with Anna Chennault, a key go-between for the South Vietnamese? A new wrinkle to the motive behind the Watergate burglary or leverage to Nixon’s eventual downfall? The June 17, 1972 break-in at Watergate has been hashed out over 40+ years, but with new information discovered, the narrative gets blurrier. The actions and motives of the burglars and the President’s men require re-examination and Dirty Tricks seeks to do so. The author has conducted interviews with key participants and found buried documents to unearth dormant secrets about a conspiracy that toppled a Presidency.

Dirty Tricks has the goods that rival a potboiler mystery. The cast of characters is immense, but Shane O’Sullivan deftly maneuvers through overt and covert actions while questioning rumored reasons for the botched “third rate” burglary. The book’s aims at clarity, but it excels at thought-provoking questions that bring on more questions. The door is opened for the ultimate truth. The author puts in grade A investigative work.