Rodney Stich
Diablo, Western Press, 1998
(details of price below)
This is the third edition of Stich’s book. I reviewed the second edition in Lobster 31 (p. 38). Unfortunately I lent that copy and never got it back — don’t bother returning it now, Gerald — and so am unable to say with any certainty how much of this edition is new, improved, corrected and so on. However, at 746 pages, including index, this new, hard-back edition is at least 100 pages longer than the previous one, and has been beautifully bound: this won’t fall apart. The comments I made about it in Lobster 31 remain apposite: this is a fascinating piece of work, it lacks some crucial documentation which could and should have been added, and Stich still appears to be resisting the idea of letting someone else have a go at editing and designing the thing. So, read the review in Lobster 31, basically. To which I would add this: Stich has collected together many of the conspiracy theories, bits of research and allegations on the U.S. political and intelligence fringe since the arrival Ronald Reagan. Some of these fragments are more convincing than others; all are interesting. A better starting place for the study of the darker side of recent U.S. political history does not exist in one volume.
Defrauding America is available from the author at PO Box 5, Alamo, CA 94507, USA. It is $28 in the U.S. and in Europe it is $32 (surface mail) and $35 (priority mail). Stich can be reached at 510-944-1930; by fax at 510-295-1203; or at . on e-mail