Stop! If you have already read Kessler's "The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI" then DON'T buy this one! It completely revisits the same material - spying on Martin Luther King, the source of the false rumor that J. Edgar Hoover was a cross dresser, the ruminations over whether Hoover and his deputy were lovers, etc. etc. etc. This is at best a second edition of The Bureau and at worst a full-stop ripoff of readers. If there was a way for me to demand my money back for falsely advertising this book as original material, I would. As it is, I feel so cheated I may never pay money for a Ronald Kessler book again.

His first chapter is new material - a highly entertaining look at the FBI section that wires up locations for eavesdropping - but one chapter does not justify a new book. It's pretty revealing that most reviews on Amazon single out chapter 1, as that's the only new material worth praising. The only other new material I saw was an I-told-you-so that Kessler had pegged Mark Felt as Deep Throat. But he doesn't even pause to re-tell the story of Deep Throat very well...and news articles at the time interviewed Kessler about Felt when Vanity Fair unmasked him, so close readers of Woodward, Felt, Deep Throat and the FBI learn nothing new here.

My recommendation: Read chapter one in the book store and then put it down and walk away!!! ( )