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"AMBUSH AT RUBY RIDGE" (ALAN BOCK) & "SELLOUT: ALDRICH AMES & THE CORRUPTION OF THE CIA" (J. ADAMS)   Term Paper ID:25981 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Reviews books on failure of govt. agencies and/or their members to fulfill their responsibilities & avoid corruption & abuse of power.... More...

5 Pages / 1125 Words 2 sources, 2 Citations, APA Format $20.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Reviews books on failure of govt. agencies and/or their members to fulfill their responsibilities & avoid corruption & abuse of power. Paper Introduction: When people get together to complain about the governments, the maladies they bring up take predictable forms. Taxes are too high. The government is too bureaucratic. And  as George Orwell so powerfully showed us in Animal Farm  power corrupts. The idea that government officials are corrupt is particularly troubling a democracy when the government is nothing more nor less than we ourselves, which is why there is something of a cottage industry in exposing government corruption. Such exposes have long been one of the main courses of American journalism, but book-length discussions of corruption also abound. These books have a number of different purposes, although nearly all of them seek to make people angry about a wrong that the writer perceives. Some writers are openly partisan  Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. References Brock, A. The idea that governmentofficials are corrupt is particularly troubling a democracy when thegovernment is nothing more nor less than we ourselves, which is why thereis something of a cottage industry in exposing government corruption. Both examine elements of thefederal government and particularly of the federal intelligence system.However, despite these similarities, the politics, style and philosophiesof the different authors produce dramatically different books. In the meantime, Ames's laxperformance and breaches of security regulations earned not even areprimand. It is oneof the trickiest elements of any democracy that sometimes to keep peoplesafe they must be kept in ignorance -- a concept that is easy to understandin some ways but very hard to square with the basic principles ofdemocracy. (1995). Of the two books examined in this paper, one pursues the formerstrategy while the other takes the second. Bock's book, like the historical incidents that he describes, suggestvarious policy changes, some of which in fact were implemented. Suchexposes have long been one of the main courses of American journalism, butbook-length discussions of corruption also abound. Americans wantcriminals caught and enemies spied upon and treasonous conspiracies stoppedin their tracks. Adams describes to the reader in fairly unstinting detail how most ofthese agents were executed, and how for nine years the CIA could notidentify the culprit within their own ranks. Still,Bock does make an attempt to include different perspectives in the book,and one does have the feeling that even a supporter of the role of thefederal government as it is currently constituted would find thegovernment's actions at Ruby Ridge unacceptable. Taxes are too high. Otherwriters are more temperate in their approaches, assuming that once a wronghas been made public then the public will know how to act to right thatinjustice. Adams is more clearly interested in getting the factsright than in ensuring that such an occurrence does not happen again --although clearly he feels the deepest sympathy for the American agents whowere executed as a result of Ames's spying. According to Bock, after a governmentstooge baited Weaver into an illegal gun sale, U.S. Meanwhile, during the course of the trial, defense attorneys exposeda series of actions that Bock characterizes as evidence of rampantgovernment misconduct and arrogance. Weaver was awhite separatist (not a white supremacist) living with his family on RubyRidge in remote northern Idaho. And -- as George Orwell so powerfullyshowed us in Animal Farm -- power corrupts. Adams, J. Viking Press. marshals and the FBIlaid siege to his home and shot his 14-year-old son and his wife to death.A marshal died too, but at trial, the jury acquitted Weaver and familyfriend David Harris of murder. Alan Bock's Ambush at Ruby Ridge : How Government Agents Set RandyWeaver Up and Took His Family Down (Dickens Press, 1995) examines what wasbefore Waco the cause celebre for those people who feel that the U.S.government is far worse than the criminals that it pursues. We know that intelligence agencies from the CIA to the FBI tolocal undercover police stings to military intelligence must be kept secretat least for some period of time to make them effective. But even as governments hid behind the excuse of nationalsecurity, citizens were all too happy to waive their responsibilities withthe same excuse. And yetAdams's book -- along with Bock's -- does remind us that the waydemocracy's ensure their security will always be fraught with dangers bothfor workers in the intelligence community and for the average citizen.Both books make it quite clear that in some ways both tragedies could nothave occurred had more ordinary citizens been more deeply involved in theirown governments. Dickens Press. The book examines the events that led up to Ruby Ridge, thegovernment's and major news media's characterizations of the affair, thetrial, and its aftermath. Adams is a British journalist, and thefact that he is in some measure telling a story about a different culture(although obviously Great Britain was also deeply involved in the politicsof the Cold War) lends to his book a very different tenure and tone thanthat of Bock's book. The book recounts Ames's sellout to the Russians,setting Ames's actions within the context of a byzantine CIA culture thatallegedly abetted this treason. Sellout: Aldrich Ames and the Corruption of theCIA. Much of the value of Bock's work is his abilityto create an intelligent portrayal of the distrust of the government amongmany individuals in modern society. He recounts how the agency'sinitial mole hunt stalled and revived only after another agent toldsuperiors that the rumor that attributed the source of Ames's materialextravagance to his "wealthy" wife was false. It would be hard for aconservative activist such as Bock not to make hay of the events. When people get together to complain about the governments, themaladies they bring up take predictable forms. Adams's work is partly a biography of Ames, partly an investigationinto his personality. Bock does not like the government(as his writing in The Orange County Register shows) and so one wonders howfair he has been in describing this incident. It was the agencies' attempt to ameliorate the latter, ironically, thatgave Ames his opportunity: Ames was the CIA's representative in a jointoperation to recruit Soviet diplomats in Washington, and he used that coverinstead to sell the Soviets the names of all CIA moles inside Sovietintelligence. The implications for policy made by Adams's book in many ways now emwoefully out of date, for his story is one that has its roots planted verydeeply in the particularities of the Cold War paranoia and hate thatcrumbled (at least in large measure) along with the Berlin Wall. Thegovernment is too bureaucratic. Bock's book, under its layers ofpartisanship, shows just how very difficult this balancing act can be. (1995). But mostly it is a finely limned portrait of themanagerial context of his career, the details of the daily life of CIAorganizational culture, including some very perceptive descriptions of thechronic CIA/FBI turf war that shed some interesting light onto Bock's work. Bock tells a classic tale of howpowers corrupts: Armed with the force majeur of the federal governmentalong with the latest in actual weaponry, the federal agents who went toRuby Ridge were perfect symbols of a government drunk on its own power. While Bock sounds as if hewere writing a political stump speech, Adams at times sounds almost like ananthropologist writing an ethnographic account of a distant tribe. These books have a number of different purposes, although nearly allof them seek to make people angry about a wrong that the writer perceives.Some writers are openly partisan -- hoping not only to convince the readerthat a particular wrong has taken place but also that the particular courseof action advocated by the writer is the only possible recourse. James Adams's Sellout: Aldrich Ames and the Corruption of the CIA(Viking Press, 1995) is both more novelistic and at least seemingly moreseemingly impartial. Ambush at Ruby Ridge: How Government Agents SetRandy Weaver Up and Took His Family Down. It should be noted that his portraitof the government is not a neutral one, for while Bock is a journalist thisbook is clearly more an act of partisanship than an act of straightreporting, and while Bock may clothe his intent in presenting his versionof Weaver's story as unbiased truth, his descriptions and interpretationsmust be taken with significant caution. But at the same time Americans want to know what theirelected government officials are doing. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.