Anyone read "The Mafia, CIA and George Bush"?

[Minstrel Boy]

That's Poppy Bush. It's written by Pete Brewton, published in '92 by Spi Books (apparently it had been signed up by Simon & Schuster but it refused to publish it), and it was an impulse purchase last week. Hadn't heard of it before, and I'm surprised, especially in light of, ahem, our current situation.

Haven't got to yet, but it pokes into some ugly truths about BCCI, the S&L "failure," CIA and Mafia money laundering in S&Ls, scamming from S&Ls to fund covert operations. Brings James Bath and Dubya into the picture, and there are stories implicating Jeb and Neil as well.

[efhmc]

1. My friend's son wrote that book. He was an investigative reporter in

Houston and lives in west Texas now. I bought the book for my sil but have not read it. I think she has some copies (A Mom, you know) if it is out of print. It's funny how those truths were thought of as fringe. Just had to edit this to say: another example of a "real Texan".

[grasswire]

3. I read it in 1993, and....

...I need to re-read it as some of the names would very likely be more meaningful now. Brewton went silent on the Bushes after that book, didn't he? I always assumed that he was made to understand a threat.

It's a must for any library on BFEE.

[efhmc]

4. Nope, he is still around and still writing. Here is a page with some

titles: http://www.namebase.org/main3/Pete-Brewton.html

[RichM]

2. Yes, I read it. There is some value in reading it, but it's not quite

as juicy as it sounds.

On the plus side, after you read it, you will not doubt that the CIA & the Mafia regularly do business together. You will gain added appreciation of what an enormously filthy thing the S&L looting really was. You'll realize that the magnitude of the crime & the extent of government knowledge of it has largely been covered up.

On the minus side, the links to Poppy Bush himself are not that striking. And the books is phenomenally detailed -- so much so that there's little narrative flow. It's kind of like reading a dictionary or phone book.