I received this book yesterday and I have dipped into it a bit and checked the index for some items. I would say it is a very good book for any of us to have - but not because it is the simple truth. Using Francis Bacon's categories, that some books are to be tasted, and others to be swallowed, and some to be chewed and digested, this one needs to be chewed and digested - but mainly because it is not the simple truth. Were it a simple account it could then be simply swallowed (read once instead of having its words pondered over) It is a little hard to get my stray thoughts put together quickly, but I will try to give some of my thinking about this book. With more time, and also a little more scanning of the book, I could write a good essay , but I should say right now, this is a resource. It is extremely useful as a frame of reference too. This book contains some facts I didn't know, and it is missing some important facts I do know, and it contains some assertions of fact I find extremely doubtful and others that are just plain wrong and there are some things in here that I had heard vaguely about where details are filled in (and makes the thing make sense) And there are a few places where I have a strong suspicion that she knows she is covering some things up (unless she wrote what some people wanted her to write without understanding why they wanted it) It contains some facts I didn't know: Some details about the airport delay are in this category or some claims of responsibility. It is missing facts I do know: The conversation about mistaken failure to match passengers and bags (there is a extra detail here about why - something about a tag but it is not cleart. Now for some specifics. Ian Goddard is mentioned 3 times in the index Two of those mentions simply link him with Pierre Salinger and the third is about Kallstrom saying that he had backed off from his theories. She calls Goddard a private investigator which I think he is not, since he never said anything like that. That claim might be a simple error as I cannot figure out how it would hep the FBI or diminish Goddard's credibility to say that. Perhaps she read somewhere about him being an "investigator" and misunderstood. While many erros in here probably have a purpose it could also be there are other errors i here soimply because the FBI and Kallstrom or the cover up people in general needed or referred someone who did not know too much - who didn't know much more than she was told and did not have a lot of curiousity that was not job-related. Victoria Cummock is not mentioned in the index and neither is Michael Forbes. PETN and explosive residue is not mentionbed in the index although it is in the book a lot. Traficant is mentioned and treated as an honest person. Questions he asked Kallstrom et al are quoted - and Kallstrom did not have good answers for them, a fact that does not seem to bother her. Traficant's reversal is not mentioned although it does indicate he stopped pursuing the TWA Flight 800 issue after one year. he date of the discovery of the PETN is put as August 7 when everything I read before was July 22. But hinking about this I realized that appearently the FBI must have staged its own "discovery" of this at Calverton. No other PETN disovery is mentioned nr the pressure washing. The location is changed from what I heard and the ETN and RDX put in the same location. The word Mafia appears a lot in the index but alost all the rreferences are to kallstrom's gight (and alleged successs) in the war against them. There are several full pages maybe on this. The world TradeCenter bombing gets a lot of space. Thurman of the FVBI crime lab is mentioned once. he gets only praise. The criticiosm of the FBI crime lab or what happened to him later is not mentioned. The story about Clinton ordering the reconstruction over the objections of the NTSB comes from this book. Panetta is mentioned in that connection. There are many things you can learn from the patterns of lying.
