William C. Chasey
ProMotion Publishing, 3368 F Governor Drive, Suite 144, San Diego, CA 92122, $19.95.
ISBN 1-887314-01-6
Chasey was the foreign agent 4221, that is a lobbyist registered with the US Department of Justice, who took a PR contract from the government of Libya to try and help normalise relations with the U.S. after the Lockerbie bombing and the subsequent scapegoating of Libya. (The rationality of this project is not discussed by Mr Chasey.) This is the story of his attempts to earn his vast fee, their consequences for him, and his dawning realisation that his government was the bad guy in the story and the Libyans might be telling the truth.
There is, it should be noted at the outset, nothing new here on the bombing. There are, however, thirty or so photographs of Chasey skiing at Vail, Colorado, shaking hands with Senators, foreign leaders, Presidents etc.; and the opening chapters are a blizzard of names dropped by Chasey. This is presumably intended to reassure American readers that Chasey is an OK guy – rich, successful, connected; and thus trust-worthy. There is, indeed, almost incidental to Chasey’s intended narrative, quite an interesting portrait of life as a major Washington lobbyist. (Short hours, long weekends, big bucks; but much exposure to politicians.) The meat of the book – about 100 of its 350 pages – describes naive Mr Chasey meeting and signing up with the Libyans, going to Libya, meeting Colonel Qadhafi, and then being harassed by the US government; phone-taps, an FBI attempt to entrap him involving a US Congressman, threats, and (illegal) legal actions against him and his firm. Yes folks, this is another in the long line of books in which naive patriots discover…. that they were being naive patriots. Quite an interesting read, just don’t expect any revelations about Lockerbie.
The air mail postage on my copy from the US was $8.95 over and above the book’s cover price.