From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Plane in the Sky, the first definitive narrative history of Watergate, exploring the full scope of the scandal through the politicians, investigators, journalists, and informants who made it the most influential political event of our modern era.
“Watergate is one of the great tragic double-edged swords of modern American history: its crimes were swiftly exposed, the criminals punished, the rule of law restored—and it profoundly, permanently undermined American citizens’ trust in their government. Garrett M. Graff’s fresh chronicle of that inflection point is lucid, enlightening, and indispensable.”
—KURT ANDERSEN, bestselling author of Evil Geniuses and writer-host of the Nixon at War podcast
THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY
An Oral History of 9/11
The award-winning journalist and author of Raven Rock shares the first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001—a panoramic narrative woven from hundreds of interviews with government officials, first responders, survivors, friends, and family members.
Over the last eighteen years, much has been written and said about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the profound impact they had on America and the world. But those names, stories, and memories have never before been collected in one place to tell the full, 360-degree story of what happened that day, and in the days after.
RAVEN ROCK
The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die
A fresh window on American history: The eye-opening truth about the government’s secret plans to survive a catastrophic attack on US soil—even if the rest of us die—a roadmap that spans from the dawn of the nuclear age to today.
Every day in Washington, DC, the blue-and-gold 1st Helicopter Squadron, codenamed “MUSSEL,” flies over the Potomac River. As obvious as the Presidential motorcade, most people assume the squadron is a travel perk for VIPs. They’re only half right: while the helicopters do provide transport, the unit exists to evacuate high-ranking officials in the event of a terrorist or nuclear attack on the capital. In the event of an attack, select officials would be whisked by helicopters to a ring of secret bunkers around Washington, even as ordinary citizens were left to fend for themselves.
THE THREAT MATRIX
The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror
The Threat Matrix tells the inside story of the FBI’s war against terrorism, a story that begins a generation ago with the death of J. Edgar Hoover and winds its way through the mafia in Sicily, the rise of al Qaeda, 9/11, the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the myriad of threats facing the country today.
Granted access to never-before-seen task forces and FBI bases from Budapest, Hungary, to Quantico, Virginia, this book profiles the visionary agents who risked their lives to bring down criminals and terrorists both in the U.S. and abroad long before the rest of the country was paying attention to terrorism.
The Threat Matrix is the story of a small group of FBI agents who believed that they could confront a new generation of international terrorists like al Qaeda without sacrificing America’s moral high ground.
THE FIRST CAMPAIGN
Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House
Garrett M. Graff’s first book—written in anticipation of the 2008 presidential campaign—explores a pivotal moment of the digital revolution and how the candidates should respond to the first campaign in which the issues of globalization and technology dominate and are transforming the political landscape.
He asks: Will the two major parties seize the moment and run the first campaign of the new era, or will they run the last campaign all over again?
DRAGONFIRE
Four Days that [Almost] Changed America
Published as a Scribd Original and Garrett M. Graff’s first foray into “speculative nonfiction,” DRAGONFIRE is a fast-paced thriller about the little-known terrorist plot that upended the United States government just weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Drawing on his nearly two decades of reporting on U.S. intelligence, counterterrorism, homeland security, and the military, Graff delivers a story—based on a real-life incident—that puts readers in the mindset of our nation’s leaders, whose growing anxiety over a litany of threats led to the decisions they made in America’s War on Terror.
Barely a month after four planes were hijacked and directed at U.S. targets on September 11, a CIA source from Afghanistan—code name Dragonfire—reported an even more terrifying development: Terrorists linked to al-Qaeda had smuggled a nuclear device into New York City. As the U.S. government struggled to mount a response to the horrifying 9/11 attacks, this new threat came as a stunning blow. Was an American Hiroshima on the horizon?
ANGEL IS AIRBORNE
JFK’s Final Flight from Dallas
Aboard Air Force One on November 22, 1963—during one of America’s most searing, perilous moments—a government was formed and a presidency begun.
The 1,190-mile journey from Dallas to Washington on November 22, 1963, stands as the most famous Air Force One flight of all time. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson boarded the plane in secrecy, with few in the world aware that President Kennedy was dead, and then after taking the presidential oath, Johnson had 132 minutes to assemble his thoughts and a government before landing at Andrews Air Force Base and presenting himself to the cameras as the new leader of the free world.
While there are many individual recollections of the flight, there exist few comprehensive reconstructions of all that unfolded on the plane. Graff’s account of the flight—based on dozens of accounts of those on board plus more than 500 pages of archive documents as well as a recently discovered two-hour-and-22-minute audio recording of Air Force One’s radio traffic with Andrews on the day of the assassination—reveals that even amid one of the most dramatic presidential transitions in history there arose very human moments of envy, anger, bewilderment, and courage, as those aboard endured what would be for all of them the most difficult hours of their lives.
DAWN OF THE CODE WAR
America’s Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat
The inside story of how America’s enemies launched a cyber war against us-and how we’ve learned to fight back.
With each passing year, the internet-linked attacks on America’s interests have grown in both frequency and severity. Overmatched by our military, countries like North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia have found us vulnerable in cyberspace. The “Code War” is upon us.
In this dramatic book, former Assistant Attorney General John P. Carlin takes readers to the front lines of a global but little-understood fight as the Justice Department and the FBI chases down hackers, online terrorist recruiters, and spies. Today, as our entire economy goes digital, from banking to manufacturing to transportation, the potential targets for our enemies multiply. This firsthand account is both a remarkable untold story and a warning of dangers yet to come.
