STEALING FROM AMERICA: A History of Corruption from Jamestown to Reagan

by Nathan Miller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1992

Miller (Spying for America, 1989, etc.) updates The Founding Finaglers (1976), his sharp-tongued, lively chronicle of the history of US governmental corruption from the nation's early days of embezzlement-happy colonial governors through the Teapot Dome Scandal of the Harding Administration. The new material covers the subsequent years, through 1988; only FDR's Administration keeps Miller's scandal-meter from clicking wildly, which he attributes to FDR having ""held office at a time when the nation was undergoing one of its periodic reform binges."" Though he finds fault with all subsequent administrations (stating, for instance, that LBJ's ""snake-oil salesman's manner made many American automatically pat their wallets for reassurance""), Miller saves his special wrath for Ronald Reagan: ""Under Reagan's somnolent eye, as many as 225 of his appointees faced allegations of ethical or criminal wrongdoing....Reagan's reaction [to Irangate] was similar to that of the piano player in the house of prostitution who maintained he didn't know what was going on upstairs."" Perfectly nasty reading, then, for election-year cynics.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1992

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Paragon House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992

Categories: NONFICTION