Books

Executive Privilege
The Fifth Horseman: A Novel of Biological Disaster
Sliver Moon (Chris Sinclair Thriller)
Victory
Domain
The Martyring
Lord of the Dark Lake
Dark Passage
The Night Bus
One Bad Thing
Pact of the Fathers
The Mosquito Warers
Eyes of the Virgin
Reed's Promise
Last Day
Dead Hand
Behold a Pale Horse
The Silence of the Lambs
Never Look Back
White Shark
Dark Tide
Mysterious Valley
Watch Me: They Said She Couldn't Catch a Serial Killer. She Said...
Felony Murder (Felony Murder)
Extinct

The Ceo Paradox: The Privilege and Accountability of Leadership

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Timeless Wisdom, Timely Messages

The Ceo Paradox: The Privilege and Accountability of Leadership
Thomas R. Horton
Manufacturer: Amacom Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0814450938

Customer Reviews:

Timeless Wisdom, Timely Messages.......1998-10-15

With this 1992 book, The CEO Paradox, Tom Horton, career IBM manager and longtime CEO of the American Management Association, wanted to reach not just any reader, but CEO readers. He wanted them to explore with him the paradox of their job--CEO "privilege" on the one hand, and "accountability" on the other. He asked them some hard questions, such as, "does the sedan-chair-like treatment of many top executives distance them too far from the reality of their customers and employees? And who is accountable for the demise of once profitable companies and whole industries?"

Horton made great headway in accomplishing this goal before the book was even printed. Rave reviews (to be reprinted on the book jacket) came in from CEOs or very senior executives of companies around the country, including leaders of Atlantic Mutual Companies, HASCO, MCI Communications, RJR Nabisco, and Rouse Company. Most impressively, J.W. Marriott, Jr., Chairman and CEO, Marriott International (who may be the single most admired CEO in the service industry), called Horton's book "a perceptive look at the challenges facing today's CEOs."

The problem is that some CEOs failed to read this book, which had messages that could have saved many leaders from the failures and scandals of the mid-to-late 1990s. Its 18 chapters cover the full range of potential CEO concerns, including a few wickets that proved to be very sticky in the latter part of our decade. In "Greed and More Greed," Horton counsels CEOs to avoid excessive compensation, an area that would lead to several CEO ousters in the mid-1990s. In "Controlling Those Twittering Hormones," he warns men and women alike to channel their urges into good deeds: "Instead of hitting on that object of your potential affection, you might consider holding out a helping hand. Inexperienced managers could benefit from your experience, and a mentoring relationship with younger people could help your organization as well as them." Again, wise words that were spoken before their time, which is clearly now.

In summary, a book with timeless-yet timely-wisdom. CEO Paradox may be out of print, but it will never go out of style.

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How to use 20/20 Hindsight To Prove You're Never Wrong
Eroding the open society
Extraordinary Contribution to National Sanity and Security
Supplementary book for American Politics Course
mediocre at best

Secrecy: The American Experience
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation
Miles to Go: A Personal History of Social Policy
Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age
The Gentleman From New York: Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- A Biography
The Morality of Consent

ASIN: 0300080794

Amazon.com

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) was one of the first members of the United States government openly to predict the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union--and, by extension, statist communism--as far back as the late '70s, as political historian Richard Gid Powers reminds readers in a lengthy introduction (comprising approximately one-fifth of Secrecy's total length). Had we spent less time trying to gather secret information about the Soviets and more time openly discussing rather easily interpretable data, Sen. Moynihan argues, we might have been far less paranoid about the supposed Red menace. The problem, he writes, lies in the essential nature of government secrecy: "Departments and agencies hoard information, and the government becomes a kind of market. Secrets become organizational assets, never to be shared save in exchange for another organization's assets.... The system costs can be enormous. In the void created by absent or withheld information, decisions are either made poorly or not at all."

Sen. Moynihan draws upon several incidents to make his point, from the Army's deliberate withholding from President Harry Truman of information about Soviet spy rings to the disastrous 1961 invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs to the Iran-Contra affair. The senator knows whereof he speaks; he was for eight years a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Secrecy ably combines hands-on experience and historical perspective, calling for the United States to take advantage of the new era in international relations to implement policies that once again encourage the open, uninhibited flow of information among government agencies and, whenever possible, the public. --Ron Hogan

Book Description

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan here presents a fascinating account of the development of secrecy as a mode of regulation in American government since World War I-how it was born, how world events shaped it, how it has adversely affected momentous political decisions and events, and how it has eluded efforts to curtail or end it.

Customer Reviews:

How to use 20/20 Hindsight To Prove You're Never Wrong.......2006-04-27

First, let me say that Patrick Moynihan is an intelligent man. However, this book is bunk. He states that the Cold War was completely unnecessary - that the USSR was going to collapse anyway. Therefore, all the money/effort spent on it was wasted. That's like saying that we would've won World War II anyway, so all that money spent on D-Day was a waste.

The USSR was in trouble BECAUSE of the Cold War pressure. According to Moynihan Russia was on the verge of collapse for years, but the FBI and CIA covered it all up. Here's what he's saying - Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter & Reagan - and maybe earlier Presidents as well - had no idea that the USSR was in trouble all those years. The FBI and CIA can cover up things, but not an entire economy on the brink of collapse. That's what Moynihan wants you to believe.

I would've thought it would be beneath Moynihan to engage in the now widespread practice saying that Reagan had nothing to do with the end of the Soviet Union.

For example, the premise that Truman had Russia on the ropes is ridiculous. How handing over all of Eastern Europe contributed to the defeat of Communism is beyond me. Carter's boycott of the 1980 Olympics, his idea of a blow to the Soviet machine, was purely a symbolic gesture. And a weak one at that.

That was the extent of Carter's efforts to contain Russia. Both of these men did some good things in office, pressuring the USSR was not one of them.

Moynihan is just another party liner, as intelligent as he is. He proved it by endorsing Hillary Clinton to take his place, despite catching her in a lie. In making her case to be his successor, she actually claimed to have been the originator of legislation that Moynihan himself had created (You can read about it in the Vanity Fair article). The fact that he called her on it and STILL endorsed her should tell you something. By doing that, and by writing this book, he proved to be all about toeing the party line.

Eroding the open society.......2005-03-28

This is an important documentation and history of the blight of screcy overtaking the American Government in the wake of the Second World War, especially in the context of the Cold War. Moynihan is especially critical of the way in which the gestation of classified information supporting fallacious conclusions (e.g. the Missile Gap)thwared proper open discussion and review of wrong policies. Moynihan makes a sound case for the excessive use of classification, to the point of absurdity. This erosion of the open society requires an active correction, although it is hard to see how this usurpation of power can be stopped in the short term. In any case, the threat to 'government by the people' is direct and ominous.

Extraordinary Contribution to National Sanity and Security.......2001-06-01

Senator Moynihan applies his intellect and his strong academic and historical bent to examine the U.S. experience with secrecy, beginning with its early distrust of ethnic minorities. He applies his social science frames of reference to discuss secrecy as a form of regulation and secrecy as a form of ritual, both ultimately resulting in a deepening of the inherent tendency of bureaucracy to create and keep secrets-secrecy as the cultural norm. His historical overview, current right up to 1998, is replete with documented examples of how secrecy may have facilitated selected national security decisions in the short-run, but in the long run these decisions were not only found to have been wrong for lack of accurate open information that was dismissed for being open, but also harmful to the democratic fabric, in that they tended to lead to conspiracy theories and other forms of public distancing from the federal government. He concludes: "The central fact is that we live today in an Information Age. Open sources give us the vast majority of what we need to know in order to make intelligent decisions. Decisions made by people at ease with disagreement and ambiguity and tentativeness. Decisions made by those who understand how to exploit the wealth and diversity of publicly available information, who no longer simply assume that clandestine collection-that is, 'stealing secrets'-equals greater intelligence. Analysis, far more than secrecy, is the key to security....Secrecy is for losers."

Supplementary book for American Politics Course.......2000-12-27

A very interesting account of governmental secrecy during various times of conflict. Would make a nice supplemental reading for professors teaching a American Politics course. I touches upons foreign policy and the relationship between the Executive, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Most of the material deals with the development of secrecy as a standard operating procedure during WWI and WWII. Vietnam and the Iran-Contra Affair are touched upon but could have been expanded.

mediocre at best.......2000-09-20

Moynihan presents an array of anecdotal evidence of instances where secrecy produced unintended, and unfortunate results, and draws that sweeping conclusion that secrecy is bad. A more modest conclusion, such as that the government designates too much stuff as secret might be supported, but Moynihan's generalization is too much. Also, the introduction to the book written by Richard Gid Powers far outshines the portion written by Moynihan. Moynihan's stuff is a dry as dust.

Executive Privilege: Presidential Power, Secrecy, and Accountability (Studies in Government and Public Policy)

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Executive Privilege: Presidential Power, Secrecy, and Accountability (Studies in Government and Public Policy)
Mark J. Rozell
Manufacturer: University Press of Kansas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Politics of Executive Privilege
Syndromes of Corruption: Wealth, Power, and Democracy
Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations
The PRICE of GOVERNMENT: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis
The Effective Public Manager: Achieving Success in a Changing Government (The Jossey-Bass Nonprofit and Public Management Series)

ASIN: 0700612106

Book Description

With the ghost of Watergate still haunting our political conscience, one might expect American presidents to hesitate before invoking executive privilege. But in the wake of the Clinton impeachment and with the onset of the Bush years, we are again confronted with the questionable exercise of presidential prerogatives.

Mark Rozell's Executive Privilege has provided for the past decade an in-depth review of the historical exercise of executive privilege and an analysis of the proper scope and limits of presidential power. Now Rozell has updated this important work to cover two new presidents and show how both have revived the national debate over executive privilege.

Rozell takes a balanced approach to a subject mired in controversy, providing both a historical overview of the doctrine and an explanation of its importance in the American political process. Exercised as far back as George Washington, executive privilege caught modern America's attention with Nixon's abuses of power. Although it is viewed by many as undemocratic-—or even a "constitutional myth"—-Rozell argues that executive privilege not only derives from the Constitution but, if prudently used, even supports the president's efforts in constructing and implementing policy.

This new edition features a substantial new chapter on the Clinton and Bush presidencies, as well as textual revisions throughout that reflect the author's latest analysis of the proper scope of executive privilege, given the numerous secrecy controversies of the past decade. Rozell reviews Bill Clinton's resistance to numerous congressional and grand jury investigations and he assesses George W. Bush's proclivity for secrecy. Rozell explains how each of these presidents has sparked controversy over attempts to revive executive privilege—-in the process doing significant damage to this constitutional principle. He also addresses the potential roles and influence of both the judiciary and Congress regarding executive privilege.

Rozell continues to stress the legitimate role of executive privilege and looks to the day when a president can use it without embarrassment. His book remains the most balanced treatment available of this concept, and allows readers to better understand the impact of the Clinton years and also assess the Bush administration in action.

This book is part of the Studies in Government and Public Policy series.

Secrecy Wars: National Security, Privacy, and the Public's Right to Know

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Knowing about what we don't know
How the Freedom of Information Act operates

Secrecy Wars: National Security, Privacy, and the Public's Right to Know
Philip H. Melanson
Manufacturer: Potomac Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age
Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency

ASIN: 1574883240

Book Description

The public and the media are fascinated by U.S. government secrets, real and imagined, yet very few people know how the process of obtaining formerly secret documents works. Secrecy Wars is a look inside the American secrecy system as it is accessed through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy Act. With its perspective that of a political legal drama, this important new book will not only entertain and inform but also influence the legal, journalism, and political communities.

Customer Reviews:

Knowing about what we don't know.......2006-05-26

One of the great ironies of American history is how a country built on the principle of freedom can have so many more secrets and ways of keeping secrets than just about any other country that has ever existed. This is the likely conclusion of any reader of this book. From political assasinations, covert military attacks, illegal trade deals, and exposing citizens to nuclear fallout and toxic chemicals, this book gives a first-hand history of cover-ups and secrets that the US government has aided in throughout modern history. The authors of the book are experts on this topic due to their relentless efforts in aiding those trying to expose these secrets. The book's subject matter is great, and the authors have done their homework, but the book is not the best written and could have benefitted from a better editorial process.

How the Freedom of Information Act operates.......2002-05-06

National security, privacy, and the public's right to knowledge are the major issues covered in Secrecy Wars, a view of the US government's secrecy system and how the Freedom of Information Act operates. Details from formerly classified files blend with surveys of government resistance to releasing public information to make for a thought-provoking presentation which is a highly recommended addition to American Political Science and Military Studies supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections.

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The Politics of Executive Privilege
Louis Fisher
Manufacturer: Carolina Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Executive Privilege: Presidential Power, Secrecy, and Accountability (Studies in Government and Public Policy)
Executive Privilege: The Dilemma of Secrecy and Democratic Accountability (Interpreting American Politics)

ASIN: 0890894167

Book Description

For over 200 years, Congress and the President have locked horns on an issue that will not, and cannot go away: legislative access to executive branch information. Presidents and their advisers often claim that the sought-for information is covered by the doctrine of executive privilege and other principles that protect confidentiality among presidential advisers. For its part, Congress will articulate persuasive reasons why legislative access is crucial. In terms of constitutional principles, these battles are largely a standoff, and court decisions in this area are interesting but hardly dispositive. What usually breaks the deadlock is a political decision: the determination of lawmakers to use the coercive tools available to them, and political calculations by the executive branch whether a continued standoff risks heavy and intolerable losses for the President.

Many useful and thoughtful standards have been developed to provide guidance for executive-legislative disputes over access to information. Those standards, constructive as they are, are set aside at times to achieve what both branches may decide has higher importance; settling differences and moving on. Legal and constitutional principles, finely-honed as they might be, are often overridden by the politics of the moment and practical considerations. Efforts to discover enduring and enforceable norms in this area invariably fall short.

Efforts to resolve interbranch disputes on purely legal grounds may have to give ground in the face of superior political muscle by a Congress determined to exercise the many coercive tools available to it. By the same token, a Congress that is internally divided or uncertain about its institutional powers, or unwilling to grind it out until the documents are delivered, will lose out in quest for information. Moreover, both branches are at the mercy of political developments that can come around the corner without warning and tilt the advantage decisively to one side.

It is tempting to see the executive-legislative clashes only as a confrontation between two branches, yielding a winner and a loser. It is more than that. Congressional access represents part of the framers' belief in representative government. When lawmakers are unable (or unwilling) to obtain executive branch information needed for congressional deliberations, the loss extends to the public, democracy, and constitutional government. The system of checks and balances and separation of powers are essential to protect individual rights and liberties.

In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power And the Reynolds Case

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In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power And the Reynolds Case
Louis Fisher
Manufacturer: University Press of Kansas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Military Tribunals And Presidential Power: American Revolution To The War On Terrorism
Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency (Inalienable Rights)
The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina
The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11
Presidential War Power

ASIN: 0700614648

Book Description

When a B-29 bomber exploded over Georgia in 1948, the victims' families were denied access to crucial information relating to the accident because the federal government claimed such access would endanger national security. When the Supreme Court upheld that claim in United States v. Reynolds (1953), a new precedent was established, allowing the executive branch to assert an all-encompassing "state secret privilege" as a basis for withholding information from public scrutiny.

For more than fifty years that decision has been viewed with apprehension by a great many scholars and citizens, who feel it has fostered a dangerous cult of secrecy and undermined accountability by declaring that only the executive branch can be trusted with sensitive material. Now Louis Fisher, America's leading authority on separation of powers, recounts the story of Reynolds to reassess its lasting impact on our society.

Taking us back to a time when Americans were preoccupied with protecting military secrets from the Red Menace, Fisher shows how this case produced fundamental distortions in the judicial process that have increased with each passing year. He critiques the government's arguments in Reynolds from district court to Supreme Court and dissects the landmark opinion authored by Chief Justice Fred Vinson. He also explains how Reynolds affected subsequent battles over executive-held information both within the courts-the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate tapes-and between Congress and the president, as exemplified by the Freedom of Information Act and the much-debated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Drawing upon declassified documents and interviews with surviving family members, he weaves a compelling story-one that took a new twist when it was finally discovered that the information originally withheld was not sensitive at all but rather revealed Air Force negligence.

Especially in light of the Bush administration's continued use of Reynolds to justify its post-9/11 claims to unilateral authority, Fisher's work could not be more timely. His book is essential reading for all who question presidential authority-and should be required reading for all who don't.

Executive Privilege: A Constitutional Myth (Studies in Legal History)

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Executive Privilege: A Constitutional Myth (Studies in Legal History)
Raoul Berger
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Executive Privilege: The Dilemma of Secrecy and Democratic Accountability (Interpreting American Politics)
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ASIN: 0674274253

Executive Privilege: The Dilemma of Secrecy and Democratic Accountability (Interpreting American Politics)

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Executive Privilege: The Dilemma of Secrecy and Democratic Accountability (Interpreting American Politics)
Mark J. Rozell
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Executive Privilege: A Constitutional Myth (Studies in Legal History)
The Politics of Executive Privilege

ASIN: 0801849004

Book Description

Drawing on White House and congressional documents as well as on personal interviews, Mark Rozell provides both a historical overview of executive privilege and an explanation of its importance in the political process. He argues for a return to a pre-Watergate understanding of the role of executive privilege.

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Presidential Secrecy and the Law
Robert M. Pallitto , and William G. Weaver
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power And the Reynolds Case

ASIN: 0801885833

Book Description

State secrets, warrantless investigations and wiretaps, signing statements, executive privilege -- the executive branch wields many tools for secrecy. Since the middle of the twentieth century, presidents have used myriad tactics to expand and maintain a level of executive branch power unprecedented in this nation's history.

Most people believe that some degree of governmental secrecy is necessary. But how much is too much? At what point does withholding information from Congress, the courts, and citizens abuse the public trust? How does the nation reclaim rights that have been controlled by one branch of government?

With Presidential Secrecy and the Law, Robert M. Pallitto and William G. Weaver attempt to answer these questions by examining the history of executive branch efforts to consolidate power through information control. They find the nation's democracy damaged and its Constitution corrupted by staunch information suppression, a process accelerated when "black sites," "enemy combatants," and "ghost detainees" were added to the vernacular following the September 11, 2001, terror strikes.

Tracing the current constitutional dilemma from the days of the imperial presidency to the unitary executive embraced by the administration of George W. Bush, Pallitto and Weaver reveal an alarming erosion of the balance of power. Presidential Secrecy and the Law will be the standard in presidential powers studies for years to come.

The executive privilege;: Presidential control over information

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The executive privilege;: Presidential control over information
Adam Carlyle Breckenridge
Manufacturer: University of Nebraska Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

State & Local Government | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Federal Jurisdiction | Administrative Law | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0803208359

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