The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation by Philip Shenon

I'm back from San Francisco -- and under attack. Philip Zelikow is not happy with the book. But it appears he is not nearly as distressed by "The Commission" as a group of activists who believe that the 9/11 was an "inside job'' by the Bush administration and are angry that I do not argue that in my book.

I can measure their anger by the response to the book on Amazon.com, in which readers can offer their reviews to a global audience.

I'm gratified that so many Amazon.com customers seem to like the book. The majority of my reviews are five "stars,'' which is as good as it gets. I was nearly moved to tears by a couple of those reviews. But I now receiving two or three "stars'' from activists who believe that I have ignored the evidence that the government is somehow behind the 9/11 attacks.

It's odd to me that these same people don't see that I have given them a new opening to make their case. Instead, they denounce me -- and anyone else who does not support their larger theories -- to argue that I must be part of the conspiracy. Phil Shenon

Several of the senior investigators of the 9/11 commission joined in a statement today "in defense of Philip Zelikow.'' It's available here: http://hnn.us/articles/47634.html. It's an interesting document that repeats some of the material from a statement issued by 9 of the 10 commissioners two weeks ago. Both statements seem to rely on a misreading of the book -- or rather a misreading that spilled into the internet and blogosphere in the days before the book was released -- that I've tried to rebut, namely that executive director Philip Zelikow bullied the staff into making false statements in the commission's final report. That's not what the book says. In fact, much of the narrative of the book is of an independent staff -- a staff that, the book notes, Dr. Zelikow is credited with putting in place -- standing up to him to make sure the facts were told accurately. The book does identify several instances in which Dr. Zelikow's actions were perceived as attempting to skew the investigation or the final report to defend the Bush administration, especially with regard to possible links between Al Qaeda and Iraq, the portrayal of the disputes between Condoleezza Rice and Richard Clarke, the handling of potential false statements by NORAD generals, and the comparison of the public pronouncements of President Bush and President Clinton about terrorism threats. On that last point, the Bush-Clinton comparison was removed entirely at Dr. Zelikow's insistence, over the objections of the staff, because he felt it was "unfair'' to President Bush; had those passages remained in the report, they also certainly would have been seen as the commission's most direct criticism of President Bush. (Page 396-398.) Many of the accounts of those incidents were offered to me in interviews with some of the very same people who signed the statement today. Anyway, I welcome the debate. And again, all of Dr. Zelikow's answers to me on all of these issues are available on this website at the "Behind the Book'' clichthru from the homepage. Phil Shenon

Once upon a time, book authors were jetted across America, stopping off at every radio and tv station between Boston and Bakersfield. No more (mostly). Now, thanks to satellite technology and clear telephone landlines, the interviews can be done more simply -- and much more cheaply -- from one big media center. In my case, Washington D.C., with the occasional trip to New York. I spend part of the day on the telephone or in radio/tv studios here, conducting interviews all across America. And I've enjoyed it; some of the best conversations have been with conservative talk-show hosts who like to try to provoke me over my day job at that great liberal bastion The New York Times. (I had nothing to do with the NYT's big John McCain story this week. Promise.) One big exception to my mostly one-city book tour is this weekend, when my publisher has kindly agreed to send me home, to the San Francisco Bay area, for a talk at the city's World Affairs Council on Monday evening. Tickets available at www.itsyourworld.org. I have a live interview Monday morning with Forum, the popular public affairs show on KQED radio with host Michael Krasny. Phil Shenon

In posting my emails with Dr. Zelikow, I x'd out one name from our exchange, thinking there was no reason to violate that person's privacy -- specifically, the privacy of his email exchanges with Dr. Zelikow. Since Dr. Zelikow has released his own copy of the emails and revealed the name, I guess I should also, for the sake of transparency. (And since several of you have asked in emails.) The answer is Walter Pincus, the veteran national-security reporter at The Washington Post. Sorry Walter. I've also been asked when I decided to post all of the emails. The answer is -- months ago. In fact, I wrote in the "notes" section of the book that I intended to do this, if only to allow readers to see exactly how Dr. Zelikow addressed my questions and decide for themselves if I was fair. I welcome all questions: shenon.books@gmail.com. Phil Shenon

There are a couple of terrific, thoughful new reviews out today, one in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the other in the St. Petersburg Times. I'll post clickthrus of them both on Tuesday, when my webmaster is back at work. But I did want to point out one passage of the Post-Gazette review, written by its veteran book editor Bob Hoover, that makes a point I have tried to make in virtually every interview I've given since the book came out The review notes that the depiction of Philip Zelikow in the book is tough, but Mr. Hoover adds:

"Shenon is careful to include positive contributions by Zelikow, who could be relentless in pursuing documents, even angering the placid Gonzales and letting the historian, now back at the University of Virginia, offer his side of the story. (Zelikow would answer questions only by e-mail.)"

Again, all of those emails are posted at this site. From the home page, clickthru on "Behind the Book."

Phil Shenon

All my career in journalism, I've loved to be ''leaked'' to. But now I understand what happens from the other end -- to have your work leaked out, sometimes described accurately, sometimes not. My brilliant publisher, Twelve Books, put an embargo on release of "The Commission,'' barring bookstores from placing it up for sale until the publication date, Feb. 5. (Most books begin circulating long before their official publication date, allowing book reviewers to be ready to go.)

The embargo on the printed page held. But a couple of clever bloggers and reporters busted the embargo by finding a bookstore, apparently somewhere in New York City, that was selling copies of the audio book of "The Commission'' ahead of the publication date. The 7-hour audio book is a fine work, but it is an abridged work, and some of the nuance of the written page is lost.
And some of the initial blogging and internet reporting went beyond a lack of nuance to a make allegations that are not in the book -- specifically over its depiction of Philip Zelikow, the University of Virginia historian who was the executive director of the 9/11 commission, and his relationship with the commission's staff.

If all you read was some of the more extreme blogging about this book, you might be left with the following understanding of "The Commission'': that Zelikow was planted on the commission by the White House; that he handpicked timid staffers who were bullied into following a long list of partisan demands; that he intimidated the commission's staff into a top-to-bottom whitewash of the Bush administration. And some bloggers would also have you believe that Karl Rove dictated the commission's final report.

None of that is true. As I've said in an earlier blog post and in several interviews (and as the book makes clear), Zelikow was not planted on the commission by the White House; many in the White House did not want him there. To his credit and as the book makes clear, Zelikow put in place a tremendously talented staff -- many of them Democrats -- and much of the book's narrative is of staff members standing up to Zelikow to be sure that the truth was told as they saw it. That explains why much of the 9/11 commission's final report remains the definitive account of the Sept. 11 attacks.

As the book makes clear, I do believe that the 9/11 commission report is incomplete, especially with the discovery that so much may have been missed at the National Security Agency. And I do believe that certain passages in the commission's report do distort the record -- most importantly, perhaps, on the question of possible Saudi links to some of the 9/11 hijackers. The report is widely read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia when, in fact, many staffers feel that there is grave concern about the actions of some Saudi officials. On the question of Rove, I have written almost all I know -- there were phone contacts, Zelikow and White House officials insist they were innocent and involved Zelikow’s past work at the Miller Center, which specializes in presidential history.

The book also contains page after page of Dr. Zelikow explaining and defending his actions (taken often from our extended email conversation, which is available at this website). The book quotes Democrats on the commission, including Jamie Gorelick and Dan Marcus, the general counsel, saying that Zelikow did not pull his punches on sensitive issues, including the handling of the all-important Presidential Daily Briefs. Certainly Lee Hamilton, the commission's top Democrat, is a strong defender of Dr. Zelikow's.

So far, there have been exactly two reviews of the book in large national publications, both by journalists at Newsweek magazine; one of them says explicitly that no matter how hard conspiracy theorists might try to stretch evidence in my book to suggest the opposite, Dr. Zelikow was almost certainly not a White House mole. The other says that while my book is harsh on Zelikow, the book shows that I reached out to tell Zelikow's side of the story. (One of the reviews was in Newsweek. The other was written by a Newsweek editor, Evan Thomas, and published in my own newspaper. Books written by NYT journalists cannot be reviwed by in-house critics because of the obvious conflict of interest.)

If you only read some of the more partisan elements of the blogosphere, you would think that I treated Dr. Zelikow like a comic-book character and gave him no chance to defend himself. He is not a comic-book character; he is not presented as one in the book. His version of events is represented on page after page. I hope you'll read the book and see.

I've been pleased by a lot of the attention the book has received in the blogosphere. But not all of it. Some bloggers keep suggesting that Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, was placed on the 9/11 commission by the White House -- that my book shows he was "planted" on the commission by the WH. I think my book makes clear that was absolutely not the case, and that Dr. Zelikow was not a White House favorite at the beginning of the investigation, nor at the end. In fact, since the book was sent to the printers, I've been told something fascinating about Dr. Zelikow that he might wear as a badge of honor. Certainly many of the Bush administration's critics would see it as that. I'm been told by more than one authoritative source that the person who, more than anyone else, blocked Dr. Zelikow from getting a top job at the White House in 2001 was none other than David Addington, Vice President Cheney's powerful chief of staff. In the civil liberties community, there can be no higher praise than to be identified as an enemy of David Addington's. Phil Shenon

As a rule, I write daily newspaper articles that are between 500 and 1,000 words long. And before I go home at night, I print out my work and, with a black pen, cross out each paragraph after I've convinced myself that everything in it is accurate. That usually takes 10 minutes or so. I can go home after every word is blacked out. Even then, I sometimes make a mistake. I tried the same fact-checking technique with the manuscript for ''The Commission,'' a process that took every spare minute of my time last fall. I was blessed with the help of Christopher Mann, my genius research assistant. But unfortunately, a few mistakes still crept into the first edition of the book -- and it's my fault, not Christopher's -- and there's no corrections column for me to turn to. But I do have this website and this blog, and so let me point out a couple of dumb errors in the book that will be corrected in future editions.

Corrections:

Page 165: I got the date wrong for an unflattering quotation from Senator Bob Kerrey about former President Bill Clinton. I wrote that he said it 1992. It was actually first widely reported in 1996, in an interview with Esquire magazine. And Senator Kerrey reports that he actually first said it in 1994, and that it was a reference to a specific dispute with Clinton, not to his larger opinion of the former president. I cited the quotation in suggesting that Senator Kerrey did not like Bill Clinton. In an otherwise flattering review of my book this week (http://www.prairiefirenewspaper.com), Senator Kerrey corrected the record: "I do not want to nitpick Mr. Shenon's facts. Commissioners and staff will no doubt see many of things that he gets wrong. For example, in my case he states that it is well known I do not like former President Clinton. Just the opposite is the case. He cites a derogatory statement I made about the president but attributes it to our presidential primary campaign of 1992. I actually said it in December 1994 after the president told a wealthy Texas audience: 'It may surprise you to know that I didn’t want to raise your taxes; Congress made me do it.' Since the Democrats in the Senate had just gone from 57 to 47 in part because we voted for his tax increase, this speech upset me a little and produced the most famous quote of my life: a declaration that Bill Clinton is an 'unusually good liar.'''

Page 335: I wrote that Jamie Gorelick's husband was a pediatrician at Georgetown University Hospital. In fact, he is a famed pulmonary specialist. I caught this mistake before the book went on sale, but after it was printed, and wrote to Ms. Gorelick to apologize.

Amplification:

Page 354: I described the commission's May 2004 public hearing to take testimony from Rudy Giuliani as a ''Giuliani lovefest,'' in which the commission failed to ask tough questions of the former New York City mayor about the city's poor preparations for a terrorist attack. I quoted Richard Ben-Veniste as among the commissioners who offered effusive praise for Giuliani. In fairness to Mr. Ben-Veniste, I should note that he did ask Giuliani a series of probing questions about why the city's emergency radio system failed on 9/11, a key issue for the survivors of the firefighters who died that day. Mr. Ben-Veniste, whose portrayal in this book is very flattering, I believe, also suggests it is unfair to suggest he wanted Lee Hamilton, the commission's ranking Democrat, to lead the commission into ''combat with the Bush White House,'' as I wrote on page 376. The full sentence reads: "Like some of the other Democrats, he found it frustrating to work under Lee Hamilton, who had proved so unwilling to lead the Democrats into combat with the Bush White House.'' Mr. Ben-Veniste argues that he wanted aggressive fact-finding, not "combat.''

Bob Kerrey, the former 9/11 commission, has written a very flattering review of my book on "Prairie Fire," (http://www.prairiefirenewspaper.com/), which is edited in Senator Kerrey's home state of Nebraska. Senator Kerrey finds flaws in the book, but overall he describes it as a "well-researched and written account of the deliberations of the 9/11 Commission ... My hope is that Mr. Shenon's book becomes a bestseller and that enough individuals will reread the story of this conspiracy that we do not forget either the source of the danger or what we must do to defeat it." He offers an interesting perspective on Philip Zelikow, the commission's former executive director and a key figure in the book. I really do believe the book has a much, much more nuanced portrayal of Dr. Zelikow than many of the initial news accounts of the books suggest. I appreciate the fairness of the senator's review. I understand the reviews from some of the other commissioners of the book might not be so flattering.... Here's a link to the review: http://www.prairiefirenewspaper.com/2008/03/the-commission. By the way, my compliments to Prairie Fire, "The Progressive Voice of the Great Plains." which is well edited and aims to remind us all that "progressive thought" thrives in the heartland. Another blog shortly, with a couple of early corrections -- one of them about Senator Kerrey. Phil Shenon

Feb. 4, 2008: Welcome to the blog for my new book, "The Commission." My goal is to use this website to expand on the book -- to add value to it. So I'll start by sharing with readers an especially valuable bit of my research material: My lengthy email exchange dating back to January 2007 with Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the commission. Please clickthru to "Behind the Book" section of the website. Dr. Zelikow is entitled to a full airing of his response to the material about him in this book. Phil Shenon