The Last Honest Man: The Cia, the Fbi, the Mafia, and the Kennedys--And One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy Hardcover

Witnesses were mysteriously murdered. The FBI, NSA, CIA, and even the IRS were on the warpath. It was 1975, and one little-known Senator stood almost alone in the face of extraordinary abuses of power. For decades now, America’s national security state has grown ever bigger, ever more secretive and powerful, and ever more abusive. Only once did someone manage to put a stop to any of it. In The Last Honest Man , Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter James Risen tells the dramatic story of the unlikely hero who stood against the security state. Senator Frank Church of Idaho was a hardworking, upstanding Democrat who hadn’t made much of himself in Congress. But in the wake of Watergate, he was suddenly tasked with investigating abuses of power in the intelligence community. The truth that Church exposed—from government ties to the mafia, to covert coups in South America, to the surveillance of everyday Americans—would shake the nation at its core. Based on dozens of interviews and hundreds of newly declassified documents, The Last Honest Man tells the gripping, untold story of truth and integrity standing against unchecked power—and winning. AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In this “gripping . . . spectacular piece of reporting” (Ken Burns), a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist examines Senator Frank Church, the man at the center of numerous investigations into the abuses of power within the American government. For decades now, America’s national security state has grown ever bigger, ever more secretive and powerful, and ever more abusive. Only once did someone manage to put a stop to any of it. Senator Frank Church of Idaho was an unlikely hero. He led congressional opposition to the Vietnam War and had become a scathing, radical critic of what he saw as American imperialism around the world. But he was still politically ambitious, privately yearning for acceptance from the foreign policy establishment that he hated and eager to run for president. Despite his flaws, Church would show historic strength in his greatest moment, when in the wake of Watergate he was suddenly tasked with investigating abuses of power in the intelligence community. The dark truths that Church exposed—from assassination plots by the CIA, to links between the Kennedy dynasty and the mafia, to the surveillance of civil rights activists by the NSA and FBI—would shake the nation to its core, and forever change the way that Americans thought about not only their government but also their ability to hold it accountable. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and reams of unpublished letters, notes, and memoirs, some of which remain sensitive today, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter James Risen tells the gripping, untold story of truth and integrity standing against unchecked power—and winning—in The Last Honest Man. Witnesses were mysteriously murdered. The FBI, NSA, CIA, and even the IRS were on the warpath. It was 1975, and a senator named Frank Church stood almost alone in the face of extraordinary abuses of power. For decades now, Americas national security state has grown ever bigger, ever more secretive and powerful, and ever more abusive. Only once did someone manage to put a stop to any of it. Senator Frank Church of Idaho was an unlikely hero. He led congressional opposition to the Vietnam War and had become a scathing, radical critic of what he saw as American imperialism around the world. But he was still politically ambitious, privately yearning for acceptance from the foreign policy establishment that he hated and eager to run for president. Despite his flaws, Church would show historic strength in his greatest moment, when in the wake of Watergate he was suddenly tasked with investigating abuses of power in the intelligence community. The dark truths that Church exposedfrom assassination plots by the CIA, to links between the Kennedy dynasty and the mafia, to the surveillance of civil rights activists by the NSA and FBIwould shake the nation to its core, and forever change the way that Americans thought about not only their government but also their ability to hold it accountable. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and reams of unpublished letters, notes, and memoirs, some of which remain sensitive today, Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter James Risen tells the gripping, untold story of truth and integrity standing against unchecked powerand winningin The Last Honest Man . **Witnesses were mysteriously murdered. The FBI, NSA, CIA, and even the IRS were on the warpath. It was 1975, and one little-known Senator stood almost alone in the face of extraordinary abuses of power.**__The Last Honest Man____The Last Honest Man__