WaPo review- Frmr CIA Robert (Syriana) Baer's new novel: 9/11 = CIA LIHOP

Excerpts from today's review in the Washington Post.

BLOW THE HOUSE DOWN
By Robert Baer


Robert Baer's audacious first novel is going to be controversial because of both who he is and what he says. He retired after 20 years with the CIA and wrote a memoir, "See No Evil," that inspired "Syriana," the murky Middle East spy flick starring George Clooney.

Now, in "Blow the House Down," Baer gives us a fictional version of the 9/11 attacks, suggesting that high-level CIA officials could have stopped the terrorists but had other priorities. It's fiction, of course, but in an interview with journalist Seymour Hersh that the publisher sent along with the novel, Baer says: "It's like 'Primary Colors.' There's a lot more truth in this book than is apparent."

The spy novel that "Blow the House Down" recalls more than any other is Charles McCarry's "The Tears of Autumn," an alternative scenario for the Kennedy assassination. The difference is that McCarry's take on Kennedy's death, while fascinating, didn't ruffle many feathers, while Baer's angry version of 9/11 makes you wonder if the "house" in his title is the CIA itself.

-snip-

What most of us want to know, of course, is how many of its insinuations are true -- or simply an ex-agent's sour grapes. It is worth noting that the book comes equipped with praise from leading journalists who've studied the CIA closely: Hersh, David Wise, Thomas Powers and David Ignatius among them. I don't take their comments to mean they endorse every plot twist, but they seem to be saying that Baer has the spirit of things right.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/04/AR2006060400823.html

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$16.34 for B&N members & $18.16 for non-members.

I'm definitely ordering this one!

with NYT editor

I haven't watch it all yet...

Frontline: The Man Who Knew

However Mr. Baer had better be careful. If he keeps baiting the bear like he is now, he's going to wind up being "suicided".