Age of Secrets

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for this arc. The book was informative, interesting, and well written.

Definitely this was an interesting read. Very well documented book and insightful. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity.

My thanks to both NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for an advance copy of this book on Watergate, Howard Hughes and where the truth may lie.

There is the history that is taught, usually whitewashed to make children grow into ignorant, ill informed and easily fooled cogs to keep the perpetual machine of American exceptionalism going. There is history that is grudgingly accepted as true, that no one talks about the reason why counties are hated overseas, why wars are fought and people feel a little smarter knowing, but tend not to discuss nor think about, because it makes them feel uncomfortable. And there is the history that probably happened, but sounds too crazy to be real, to out there to be accepted, and yet there is a lot to be said, and a lot of evidence, maybe circumstantial, maybe coincidental that makes one hard to just wipe it away Sometimes the bodyguard of lies that makes truth so precious, as Winston Churchill was quoted as saying, muddies the water quite alot and makes knowing what it truth, what is fiction, and what is being feed to people like Soylent Green hard to digest and acknowledge. The 1970's were a dark time, with plenty of odd things, and many actions that even today are still not known, or understood, and probably never will be. This book tries to make sense of some of the chaos. Age of Secrets:The Conspiracy that Toppled Richard Nixon and the Hidden Death of Howard Hughes by journalist and writer Gerald Bellett offers a different view of the role of Howard Hughes in American politics, the reasons for the Watergate break in, and the dark paranoia of Richard Nixon.

John Meier was a simple guy with a gift for business, making money and getting people to like and trust him. And an ability to find himself in a lot of the dark history of the ending years of the twentieth century. Meier had made his name in the business world when Howard Hughes, inventor, aviator, dater of Hollywood startlets, and beginning reclusive millionaire approached him for a job. Proving himself and sharing a hatred with Hughes of atomic weapons, Hughes soon gave Meier more and more responsibility, leading to him approaching many a politician with a briefcases full of cash, with requests from Hughes on ending above ground testing of nuclear weapons, and other things. Hughes would eventually be sidelined by his advisors, and his own madness, and the fear of what could be revealed by Hughes, Meier and others began to infest the Nixon administration. Soon the forces of the American government, international forces, Hughes own group and other interested parties would be focused on Meier, all wanting to know what he knew, when he knew it, and how they could profit from his knowledge.

The book for all its revealing of secrets and ideas of what the true history of Hughes and Watergate really is is very well written, with a lot of sources and notes. Lacking the hyperbole and hysterical writing that many books of a conspiracy bent, or full of accusations of government overreach, the book's style is like a conversation, with footnotes. A very straight forward account, and quite compelling with many moments that make a reader go, hmm, that's odd, I wonder why they would do that. My doubt is that the real truth will never be known about many things. People can't even come to a consensus about the riot at the Capital almost 3 years ago. Too many people have too many things to loose, money, power, respect their self-esteem to ever tell the truth about anything. Was it a third- rate robbery, or was the secret even bigger.
An interesting account of what might have been, and what could be the truth. The book has a nice style and once the story starts rolling is very hard to put down. For Watergate and Nixon fans, especially readers of Secret Agenda and the classic Silent Coup.

Well researched and interesting. Reads like a novel. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

Age of Secrets by Gerald Bellett is one of those books that you choose because it looks quite interesting then you can't put it down as the revelations come thick and fast. The book is about John Meier who was Howard Hughes right hand man and as such saw how the Hughes Corporation was infiltrated and used by the CIA . He also played a part in Hughes exposing and taking on the American Government department conducting underground nuclear testing near Las Vegas and the lies they were telling about the safety of those tests. When Meire left the reclusive billionaire's company,though who was actually in charge of it by then is arguable, dark forces decided that he knew too much,force allied to President Richard Nixon, and concerted efforts were made to break him and destroy his reputation.

This is certainly an eye-opener and shows that Western security and intelligence gathering organisations are just as ruthless and immoral as their counterparts in Russia and so-called "rogue states". The book reads like something by John Le Carre but it's all true. Aside from the specific incidents involving Meier there's enough information in here to show who were the real enemies of democracy in America in the 60's and 70's ,and they were not from outside it's borders.

If this book had been published immediately after the events it tells about it would be written off as pure fantasy ,sadly these days we're all a lot more informed and not surprised that supposed Western democracies go to extreme measures to silence and vilify those who have the audacity to expose their unlawful and immoral behaviour while demonising other countries who do the same.

An excellent read,and a truly eye-opening one.

Interesting book…. During the Watergate hearings, one man wanted to tell a spellbound nation secrets about the Nixon White House, the CIA and Howard Hughes. He could have told them why the burglary happened but that was not what the Committee wanted to hear. To keep him from telling his secrets, he was persecuted, jailed and forced into exile in Canada. His name is John Meier; his employer was Howard Hughes; Age of Secrets is his story.