Posner, Gerald
9-15-03
Interview with Gerald Posner: Why America Slept
HNN: Let’s start with the end of the book. I was surprised not to find a chapter in which you summed up your conclusions. What is your main conclusion? Why did America sleep?
Posner: I want the readers to draw their own conclusions. We slept for so many different reasons, and they all combined to create an atmosphere in which a 9.11 type attack was inevitable. The fighting and rivalry between the CIA and FBI that made both less effective. The tendency by law enforcement, and political administrations, to view each pre 9.11 terror attack as individual criminal justice problems and not part of an overall campaign against the west - the infidels - by Islamic extremists. A country in the U.S. that was more interested in OJ Simpson and Jon Benet than in the trial of the blind Sheik Rahman and his fellow terrorists for trying to blow up NY city landmarks and bridges. We slept as a nation from the Reagan years when he withdrew from Lebanon after the Marine barracks truck bombing to the Clinton years when we pulled out of Somalia after the downing of a Blackhawk down to the Bush the Younger administration when we thought we had the luxury of time in dealing with fundamentalism.
HNN: Was Bill Clinton MIA in the war on terrorism? Did he fail to do his duty to protect the United States? Could he have taken steps that would have prevented 9-11?
Posner: Clinton was more energized by domestic issues, and when it came to foreign policy, he was consumed with the 'big' issues, Russia, Middle East peace, human rights, and the Eastern Bloc. Nafta took up a lot of his time. But terrorism was not high on his priority list. After the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, Clinton never visited the site, and did not meet with the CIA director about it, and never requested a single briefing on it. Clinton also had a great concern about getting the U.S. involved in any military action where we might incur substantial casualties, there could be significant civilian injuries and deaths, or the action might prompt further reprisals. Combined with his tendency to rely on public opinion polls to gauge the public's sentiment following a terror strike, his response was often tough talk but subdued action. The latter - a weak military response - only emboldened the terrorists to believe that America had become weak and that it could be intimidated - with something like a 9.11 attack - to buckle under and stop "meddling" in Muslim affairs worldwide I am not sure a Republican administration would have been remarkably different than the Clinton years prior to 9.11. There is no president who can hold his head up high prior to 9.11 for adequately addressing the real threat of the Islamic fundamentalist movement.
HNN: You indicate that officials at many levels of government blew it. But you also go after the media, as well. What did the media do wrong?
Posner: When the trial of Sheik Rahman, the blind cleric who was convicted for seditious conspiracy in the Day of Terror took place over nine months during 1995, no one paid attention because the media was broadcasting OJ Simpson's trial around the clock. People watched, and that insured that terror stayed off the front pages and the television screens. The media was much more enthusiastic chasing the domestic terror angle after the 1995 Murrah building bombing in Oklahoma City because there was an American nexus. That was only fueled with Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the Olympic Park bombing. Islamic fundamentalism and their terror war involved a much more complicated story, with Arabic names that are difficult for the public to keep separate, and characters that are hard to describe. The story is a tough one. Given the nature of our soft news and media today, it shouldn't be surprising that most of the media failed to aggressively follow the real terror story over the years leading up to 9.11
HNN: In the last chapter in the book you lay out an extraordinary tale. You explain that when the man allegedly behind the bombing of the USS Cole was captured he was tricked into thinking he was being interrogated by Saudi investigators. CIA officials were then astonished to hear him explain that 3 high Saudi officials could vouch for him. He then provided their numbers. Were these Saudi officials freelancing or were they acting on behalf of the royal family?
Posner: Great question that is still not known. I can't prove even if what the terrorist - Abu Zubaydah - has said, is true, whether the people he names were doing it at the request of the government and the leadership of the royal family. Granted, one of those named, is the King's nephew. But we also know in the U.S. from the Carter and Clinton administrations, that even brothers of presidents may not carry much sway in the corridors of power. So this question - a key one - still requires further investigation.
HNN: Why hasn’t the Bush administration told this story on the record?
Posner: The Bush administration is doing what every American administration has done since FDR - treat the Saudis with kid gloves. They keep world oil prices low, and the Bush administration, does not want to embarrass it's "ally," even though Saudi Arabia has only half-heartedly joined the war on terror since a spate of bombings inside the Kingdom this past May. The Bush administration will not even release the 28 pages of the Congressional Report on 9.11 that might be embarrassing to the Saudis, so it's little wonder they don't want my story - filled with sensational charges - public.
HNN: Why did your sources talk?
Posner: I believe there is a split in the administration. The majority believe that Saudi Arabia is an important strategic ally, who while being a latecomer to the war on terror, is nevertheless critical to US interests in the Middle East. They do not believe that information like this in my last chapter should be made public. A minority believe that Saudi Arabia assisted al Qaeda for years with money, and that they should have to answer for their actions in public. I was the beneficiary of one of those officials who believes the Saudis should be held publicly accountable. When President Bush withheld the 28 pages from the Congressional Report, the Saudis asked that he release them so they could answer the charges in public. But since the release of my charges in Why America Slept, they have not conducted any investigation, nor have they answered them, but instead have launched on a personal broadside to vilify me and to denigrate my story as "rubbish."
HNN: Are we ever likely to receive confirmation of your story from official sources?
Posner: I would hope so. I would also hope to live so long.
HNN:. Early in the book you report that Saudi Arabia struck a cynical deal with Osama bin Laden after he began denouncing the kingdom for allowing the stationing of U.S. troops on Saudi soil. Bin Laden agreed to leave the kingdom and never come back if the Saudis agreed to finance his terrorist training camps. As part of the arrangement bin Laden agreed never to turn his fighters against the kingdom. How do you know there was such a deal?
Posner: This account comes directly from Abu Zubaydah, in an interrogation he gave to US investigators after his capture in March 2002, an interrogation I recount with some detail in the book's last chapter.
HNN: Are you holding back any information that would add to the story but which you couldn't confirm and therefore left out?
Posner: No, I put in everything I could get that was credible - anything that didn't make it, fell out because it either turned out to be untrue, or could not be confirmed.
HNN: Finally: In many ways this book is a real departure from your books about the deaths of King and Kennedy. While all 3 books involve conspiracies, in the case of Kennedy and King the conspiracies turned out to be illusory. In the case of al Qaeda, there’s no question of the existence of a conspiracy. Comment?
Posner: Yes, it feels quite odd to be on the other side of the equation. In Case Closed, my JFK book, I had an appendix titled "The Non Mystery Mysterious Deaths," in which I set about to debunk that there were any mystery deaths in the JFK case, despite conspiracy theorists who claimed 103 such people had died. Now, in Why America Slept, I am opening the door to conspiracy speculation with my own group of mystery deaths - 3 of the Saudi princes named by Zubaydah died within days of each other only four months after his interrogation (one at 43 from a blood clot while recovering in a hospital in Riyadh from intestinal surgery, one the next day in a single car accident, and the last, a 25-year-old Prince, a few days later "of thirst" in the middle of the Saudi summer. The Pakistani chief of the country's air force, Mushaf Ali Mir, died when his plane, recently inspected, went down in clear weather killing him, his wife, and most of his top aides). These deaths may be a coincidence, but I am very doubtful that there is not some foul play here. I may have found, as an editor at Time magazine told me, my own "sandy knoll" at long last.
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Posner, like other 9/11 Truth Deniers, is a plagiarist
Gerald Posner Plagiarized Several Passages in Miami Babylon, Author Says
By Tim Elfrink in Media Watch, NewsTue., Mar. 16 2010 @ 4:59PMLast month, when Miami Beach journalist Gerald Posner got caught lifting from the Miami Herald in stories he wrote for the Daily Beast, he blamed the "warp speed" of the Internet.
Photo by Bill Cooke
Gerald Posner
?So what's his excuse for plagiarizing at the presumably snail pace of book writing?
Because it sure looks like his bestseller "Miami Babylon" stole liberally from author Frank Owen's 2003 book Clubland: The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club Culture.
Owen has provided me with eight examples of passages taken from his book with only one or two superficial words changed, and five quotes taken from Clubland that weren't properly cited.
"Gerald Posner is a journalistic vampire and should be ashamed of himself," Owen says.
Consider the following two passages:
This is from page 323 in Posner's Miami Babylon:
'You know Sammy the Bull?' Paciello told Dohler, working himself up into a full-tilt rage. 'They should kill him and his whole family.' According to the Feds, not long after that conversation with Dohler, Paciello paid $10,000 to a Mafia enforcer to threaten a family member of someone Paciello suspected was snitching about him to the FBI. If the witness cooperated, the family was told, "Everybody is dead."'
Compare that to Owen's Clubland, page 277:
'You know Sammy the Bull?' Paciello continued, working himself up into a full-tilt rage. 'They should kill him and his whole family.' According to the feds, not long after this conversation with Dohler, Paciello paid $10,000 to a Mafia leg-breaker to threaten a family member of an unnamed source who Paciello presumed was snitching on him to the FBI. If the witness continued to cooperate, the family member was told, "Everybody is dead.'"
Or check out these two passages. The first comes from Miami Babylon, page 322:
By the early summer of 1999, Chris Paciello wanted an extra edge to crush his nightclub rivals.
Here's a nearly identical paragraph from Clubland, page 276:
By the early summer of 1999, Chris Paciello was convinced that he needed an extra edge to crush his rivals.
Posner reviewed all the passages highlighted by Owen late this afternoon and sent me a lengthy reply, which I've posted in it's entirety after all of Owen's evidence.
Posner admits that a new system of footnoting may have led him to miss credit for Clubland in the work, writing that after "a first glance at your cut and paste, there's little doubt that Clubland would have been cited more often, I have no doubt, in that chapter."
But Posner stops short of admitting that he plagiarized from the book.
"I never intentionally copied text from any other book or publication. That is absolutely key," he says.
Intentional or not, though, it's tough to look at the evidence compiled by Owen and conclude that Posner didn't commit plagiarism in this case.
Here are the rest of the passages:
Miami Babylon, page 322
Dohler fed Paciello confidential information about other club owners as well as tipping him off if the police were planning a raid looking for underage drinkers or drug dealers, but Paciello had no idea that his new hire was undercover.
And Clubland, page 276-77
...the supposedly corrupt policeman supplied Paciello with what looked like classified and confidential deep dish about competing club owners. Dohler also tipped him off about upcoming law enforcement actions to catch underage drinkers and drug dealers...He had no idea that Dohler was a plant. Clubland, 276-7
Miami Babylon, page 322:
Paciello felt so comfortable that he opened up to Dohler in ways he did not with his other South Beach friends.
And Clubland, page 277:
Paciello opened up to Dohler in ways he would never have dreamed of talking to his celebrity chums.
Miami Babylon, page 325:
On November 23,1999, a federal grand jury in Brooklyn returned a sealed indictment against Paciello and eight other defendants, all connected to the Bonanno crime family, charging them with multiple counts of murder, robbery, and racketeering. Later that same evening, Bonanno captain Anthony Graziano telephoned Paciello
Clubland, page 284:
On November 23, 1999, a federal grand jury in Brooklyn returned a sealed indictment against Paciello and eight other defendants, all of them connected to the Bonanno crime family. They were charged with numerous murder, robbery, and racketeering counts. Later the same day, at around seven in the evening, Bonanno captain Anthony Graziano called Paciello
Miami Babylon, page 327:
The judge ruled that Paciello could be released on a $5 million cash bond. The prosecutor said he would appeal immediately and the judge agreed that the club owner should remain behind bars pending the appeal. Paciello has flown to New York and was locked up in the high -security Metropolitan Detention Center, a windowless complex tucked under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, not far from his old stomping grounds
And Clubland, page 294:
Finally, the judge ruled that Paciello could be released on $3 million bond. Walden said he would appeal immediately before another court in Brooklyn. The judge agreed that the club owner should remain behind bars until then. In the meantime, Paciello was flown to New York and locked up in the high-security Metropolitan Detention Center, a windowless complex located in an industrial neighborhood, tucked under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, not far from Paciello's old stomping ground
Miami Babylon, page 327:
To help finance Paciello's legal defense, both the Bar Room and Liquid in West Palm Beach were sold, along with his yacht and Flamingo Drive home. His empire was in tatters
And Clubland, page 299
To help finance Paciello's legal defense, both Bar Room and Liquid in Palm Beach were sold, along with his yacht and Flamingo Drive home. Paciello's empire was in tatters.
Miami Babylon, 327:
Out on bail, Paciello spent the summer under twenty-four-hour guard and house arrest at his mother's simple Brooklyn home
And Clubland, page 299:
Paciello spent the summer under strict house arrest, under twenty-four-hour guard at his mother's humble house
According to Owen, the following five quotes also weren't cited well enough in the story for readers to realize they were taken from his research, not from Posner's interviews. Here they are:
"Lord Michael visited [Gilbert] Stafford at The Spot. "We've heard you're the best doorman on the Beach. We're opening a new club and would like to hire you," Miami Babylon, page 281.
He [Lord Michael] told me [Gilbert Stafford], "We've heard you're the best doorman on the beach, we're opening a new club and we'd like to hire you." Clubland, page 102
"The first night was very mobster chic," recalls [Gilbert] Stafford. "Only later did I find out they really were gangsters." Miami Babylon, page 282
"The opening night was very mobster chic," recalled Gilbert Stafford. "I thought they were just dressed up like mobsters; it wasn't until later I found out they really were gangsters." Clubland, 101.
"You treacherous motherfucker," Paciello screamed at him [Lord Michael], pressing the barrel of the pistol into his forehead. "You're lucky I don't kill you" Miami Babylon, page 283.
"You treacherous motherfucker. You set me up. I ought to shoot you right now" Clubland, page 107.
Says [Gilbert] Stafford, "...As clubs went, Risk was eminently forgettable" Miami Babylon, page 283.
Said [Gilbert] Stafford, "... As clubs go, it [Risk] was eminently unforgettable" Clubland, page 103.
"Party people will forgive anything for a good time," said Capponi. Miami Babylon, page 328.
"But what does it say about South Beach, that someone like Paciello could rise to such a position of prominence?" Michael Capponi shrugged. "How about party people will forgive anything for a good time." Clubland, page 301.
Here's Gerald Posner's full response to my email, which included all the same passages above.
I'll relook at this chapter and try to determine from my own notes and archives how it was sourced and put together. I have to go back to interviews more than three years old in some instances, and the same for handwritten files.
In any case, as you know, Babylon is work of original reporting, relying on a couple of hundred fresh interviews and lots of primary document research.
In his NY Times review, Bryan Burroughs said "at times 'Miami Babylon' feels like oral history" - for me, that wasn't a criticism, but a mark of how much of the book was original first time interviews.
Babylon is the first book I did with trailing endnotes, in which a few words of text are taken and then a source is provided. In other books, I used the more traditional numbered source notes.
There just aren't as many trailing endnotes as there are numbered ones. For instance, Babylon is 385 pages and has 740 endnotes. In Case Closed, which is 472 pages, there are 2,175 endnotes. In Killing the Dream, a smaller book at 339 pages, there are 1,739 endnotes.
With much more extensive endnotes, from a first glance at your cut and paste, there's little doubt that Clubland would have been cited more often, I have no doubt, in that chapter. I've met Frank Owen, count him as a Facebook friend, and have told him that I thought his work was the best of that Paciello period.
Even though there wasn't a new story to tell about the Paciello era, I still conducted interviews (interesting that my notes from an email interview with a former police officer show him citing language from Clubland, which I can only imagine he read in response to some of my questions). It would have been a fresher chapter if Paciello himself had agreed to talk to me. But he refused, both a direct request, and one I placed through Shareef Malnik. And Ingrid was forthcoming about some of her past, but not on the matters around the club history.
I also research my books with my wife, Trisha, an author in her own right. And I had two researcher/volunteers for help on this book. But in the end, it's my byline on the book, so I am ultimately responsible for everything in it.
I'm proud of Babylon, but obviously it's made its share of enemies. I was told recently by a friend that two UofM students had been hired to do a line by line check of the book for just the type of issue you're raising. In any case, I never intentionally copied text from any other book or publication. That is absolutely key.
The explanation doesn't do much for Owen.
"If he'd come right out and admitted he'd plagiarized, I'd have probably let it drop. But all these excuses are flat-out absurd," he says. "The section of his book where he stole my work is only 18 pages in a 440-page book. I wonder how much else is stolen in there?"
Tags: Gerald Posner