Review by Booklist Review
Prior to Watergate, the greatest scandal to rock the U.S. government was the so-called Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s; history books tell us that it was the biggest failure of the not particularly successful Harding administration. The scandal was named for an oddly shaped Wyoming hill from which U.S. oil reserves were being secretly leased. The author has uncovered startling new evidence from recently declassified documents. A. B. Fall, Harding's secretary of the interior, was evidently just the fall guy (no pun intended); he was convicted on only one charge, that of taking a bribe from an oilman--who was acquitted of giving it to him. What the secret documents had suppressed for "security reasons" is that unbeknownst to the American public, the illegal oil leasing activities involved the Navy Department's attempt to get reserve oil supplies available for wartime. This book vindicates Fall and his cohorts, who emerge as farsighted individuals. ~--Fred Egloff
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
