The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill

Suskind, Ron

3.81

1,938 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 0743536517 ISBN 13: 9780743536516

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2004

A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter's explosive account of the inner workings of the George W. Bush administration, the most secretive White House of modern times.

This vivid, unfolding narrative includes the candid assessments of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, for two years the administration's top economic official, a principal of the National Security Council, and a tutor to the new President. He is the only member of Bush's innermost circle to leave and then to agree to speak frankly about what has really been happening inside the White House.

O'Neill's account is supported by Suskind's interviews, by transcripts of meetings and by voluminous documents that cover domestic and foreign policy. As listeners are taken to the very epicenter of government, The Price of Loyalty offers a definitive view of Bush and his closest advisers as they manage crucial domestic policies and global strategies at a time of life-and-death crises.

Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Christine Todd Whitman are seen in an intimate, "unmanaged" way -- as is Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, O'Neill's close friend and ally. The central conflicts of this administration's governance are starkly visible through the lens of recent events and the revelation of unseen intentions that underlie actions.

Suskind's unique access provides an astonishing account of a President so carefully managed in his public posture that he is unknown to most Americans. Now, he will be known.

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Review:

The George W. Bush White House, as described by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, is a world out of kilter. Policy decisions are determined not by careful weighing of an issue's complexities; rather, they're dictated by a cabal of ideologues and political advisors operating outside the view of top cabinet officials. The President is not a fully engaged administrator but an enigma who is, at best, guarded and poker-faced but at worst, uncurious, unintelligent, and a puppet of larger forces. O'Neill provided extensive documentation to journalist and author Suskind, including schedules with 7,630 entries and a set of 19,000 documents that featured memoranda to the President, thank-you notes, meeting minutes, and voluminous reports. The result, The Price of Loyalty, is a gripping look inside the meeting rooms, the in-boxes, and the minds of a famously guarded administration. Much of the book, as one might expect from the story of a Treasury Secretary, revolves around economics, but even those not normally enthused by tax code intricacies will be fascinated by the rapid-fire intellects of O'Neill and Fed chairman Alan Greenspan as they gather for regular power breakfasts. A good deal of the book is about the things that O'Neill never figures out. He knows there's something creepy going on with the administration's power structure, but he's never inside enough to know quite what it is. But while those sections are intriguing, other passages are simply revelatory: O'Neill asserts that Saddam Hussein was targeted for removal not in the 9/11 aftermath but soon after Bush took office. Paul O'Neill makes for an interesting protagonist. A vaunted economist from the days of Nixon and Ford, he returns to a Washington that's immeasurably more cutthroat. And while he appears almost na�vely academic initially, he emerges as someone determined to speak his mind even when it becomes apparent that such an approach spells his political doom. --John Moe

About the Author:

Ron Suskind was The Wall Street Journal's senior national affairs reporter from 1993 to 2000 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing while working there. He has recently attracted national attention with his groundbreaking articles about the Bush White House. Suskind, who writes for Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and other national publications, appears frequently as a correspondent on PBS and network news. He is the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed A Hope in the Unseen, and is a distinguished visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two sons.

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