Scorpions Dance, Jefferson Morley
Scorpions Dance, Jefferson Morley
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Scorpions' Dance
The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate

Author: Jefferson Morley

Narrator: John Pruden

Unabridged: 12 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/07/2022


Synopsis

For the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in: The untold story of President Richard Nixon, CIA Director Richard Helms, and their volatile shared secrets that ended a presidency.

Scorpions' Dance by intelligence expert and investigative journalist Jefferson Morley reveals the Watergate scandal in a completely new light: as the culmination of a concealed, deadly power struggle between President Richard Nixon and CIA Director Richard Helms.

Nixon and Helms went back decades; both were 1950s Cold Warriors, and both knew secrets about the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba as well as off-the-books American government and CIA plots to remove Fidel Castro and other leaders in Latin America. Both had enough information on each other to ruin their careers.

After the Watergate burglary on June 17, 1972, Nixon was desperate to shut down the FBI's investigation. He sought Helms' support and asked that the CIA intervene—knowing that most of the Watergate burglars were retired CIA agents, contractors, or long-term assets with deep knowledge of the Agency's most sensitive secrets. The two now circled each other like scorpions, defending themselves with the threat of lethal attack. The loser would resign his office in disgrace; the winner, however, would face consequences for the secrets he had kept.

Rigorously researched and dramatically told, Scorpions' Dance uses long-neglected evidence to reveal a new perspective on one of America's most notorious presidential scandals.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press.

About Jefferson Morley

JEFFERSON MORLEY is a journalist and editor who has worked in Washington journalism for over thirty years, fifteen of which were spent as an editor and reporter at The Washington Post. The author of Our Man in Mexico, a biography of the CIA’s Mexico City station chief Winston Scott, Morley has written about intelligence, military, and political subjects for Salon, The Atlantic, and The Intercept, among others. He is the editor of JFK Facts, a blog. He lives in Washington, DC.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nancy on May 13, 2022

June 17, 1972. For me, it was the day of my wedding. By my first anniversary, it was the day of the Watergate break-in. We watched the Senate hearings amazed to realize the significance of that day in history, personal and national. As I well know, its been fifty years since that day. It was time to......more

Goodreads review by Donna on August 23, 2022

The Watergate burglary’s fiftieth anniversary has passed, and Jefferson Morley, a longtime journalist and political biographer, has written a history of that event; the focus is Richard Helms, the man that ran the CIA and had to walk a tightrope between the demands of President Richard Nixon, and wh......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on October 27, 2022

Jefferson Morley's Scorpions' Dance relates the fateful relationship between Richard Nixon and CIA Director Richard Helms. Morley's book reads for much of its length as a dual biography, comparing and contrasting the well-heeled Helms, a frustrated journalist-turned-spymaster, with Nixon, the poor C......more

Goodreads review by Dan on April 08, 2022

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy of this new history on Watergate and the people involved. The cover- up is usually worse than the the crime. Well when the crime was the Watergate scandal and the cover- up involved CIA assassinations against world......more

Goodreads review by Zachary on August 09, 2022

The Scorpions' Dance worked as a biography of sorts on CIA Director Richard Helms, who ran the agency from 1966-1973. We get a behind the scenes look at the relationship between Helms and the Nixon White House throughout Watergate. The book is basically the story of Watergate but from the perspectiv......more