Audiobooks by Ronald Kessler

The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded

From the New York Times bestselling author of 20 books about the Secret Service, FBI, and CIA comes the detailed account of the life and times of the ambitious, powerful, masterfully manipulative Joseph Patrick Kennedy. For all his wealth and power, Joe Kennedy was not a happy man. He also had no shame. What he cared about was having power. Through the political dynasty that he founded, he achieved that for generations to come. If he hurt and corrupted others in the process, no one had the courage to challenge him. The results are the myths that continue to enshrine the Kennedy family and maintain it as a national obsessions. This book explodes those myths. Utilizing extensive research and interviews with Kennedy family members and their intimates, speaking on record for the first time, Kessler reveals stunning details of Joseph Kennedy's enormous accomplishments and the terrible personal losses he suffered.

Ronald Kessler (Author), Frank Langella (Narrator)

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The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game

The unvarnished and unbiased inside story of President Donald Trump and his White House by New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler Based on exclusive interviews with the president and his staff, The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game tells the real story of what Donald Trump is like, who influences him, how he makes decisions, what he says about the people around him, and how he operates when the television lights go off, while portraying the inside story of the successes that have already brought solid results as well as the stumbles that have turned off even longtime supporters and undercut his agenda. The Trump White House reveals: • Trump aides Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have been responsible for Trump’s most disastrous decisions. Trump is aware that his daughter and son-in-law are problems and has hinted to them that they should go back to New York. Seeing Jared on TV, Trump said, “Look at Jared, he looks like a little boy, like a child.” • First Lady Melania Trump has a tremendous impact on policy and strategy. She sits in on meetings and is widely admired by aides for her judgment. • Kellyanne Conway is the No. 1 White House leaker. • Trump’s Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles proposed withdrawing protection from some Trump family members and aides to save money. Horrified White House staffers shot down the idea. • Trump has told friends that billionaires are constantly asking him to fix them up with longtime Communications Director Hope Hicks, a former model, but he says he refuses. • Trump calls certain reporters directly, feeding them stories attributed to “a senior White House official,” creating the impression that the White House leaks even more than it already does. Never before has an American president had so much impact on the country and the world in so short a time as Donald Trump. Yet no president has stirred so much controversy, dominating media coverage and conversation both pro and con. Months after Trump took office, consumer confidence hit a seventeen-year high, unemployment plummeted to the lowest level in seventeen years, and the stock market zoomed to repeated record highs. At the same time, ISIS was nearly defeated, Arab countries banded together to stop financing terrorists and promoting radical Islamic ideology, and Trump’s decision to send missiles into Syria because of its use of chemical weapons and his strident warnings to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made it clear to adversaries that they take on the United States at their peril. Yet for all the media coverage, Trump remains a cipher. Ronald Kessler has known Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for two decades and understands him better than any other journalist. The book includes an exclusive interview with Trump, the only interview he says he has given or will give for a book as president. Crammed with media-grabbing revelations. The Trump White House is the unvarnished and unbiased inside story that answers the question: Who is Donald Trump?

Ronald Kessler (Author), Jason Culp (Narrator)

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The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents

As in a play, presidents, vice presidents, and presidential candidates perform on stage for the public and the media. What the nation's leaders are really like and what goes on behind the scenes remains hidden. Secret Service agents have a front row seat on their private lives and those of their wives and children. Crammed with new, headline-making revelations,THE FIRST FAMILY DETAIL: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents by Ronald Kesslertells that eye-opening, uncensored story. Since publication of hisNew York Timesbestselling bookIn the President's Secret Service, award-winning investigative reporter Ronald Kessler has continued to penetrate the wall of secrecy that surrounds the U.S. Secret Service, breaking the story that Secret Service agents who were to protect President Obama hired prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia and revealing that the Secret Service allowed a third uninvited guest to crash a White House state dinner. Now Kessler presents far bigger and more consequential stories about our nation's leaders and the agency sworn to protect them. Kessler widens his scope to include presidential candidates, former presidents after they leave the White House, and the presidents' relationships to their first ladies and children. From observing Vice President Joe Biden's reckless behavior that jeopardizes the country's safety, to escorting Bill Clinton's mistress at Chappaqua, to overhearing First Lady Michelle Obama's admonitions to the president, to witnessing President Nixon's friends bring him a nude stripper, to seeing their own agency take risks that could result in an assassination, Secret Service agents know a secret world that Ronald Kessler exposes in breathtaking detail. THE FIRST FAMILY DETAILreveals: -Vice President Joe Biden regularly orders the Secret Service to keep his military aide with the nuclear football a mile behind his motorcade, potentially leaving the country unable to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack. -Secret Service agents discovered that former president Bill Clinton has a blond mistress. Within minutes of Hillary Clinton's leaving, the woman-codenamed Energizer by agents-shows up to be with Bill every day while the likely future presidential candidate is away. -The Secret Service covered up the fact that President Ronald Reagan's White House staff overruled the Secret Service to let unscreened spectators get close to Reagan as he left the Washington Hilton, allowing him to be shot by John W. Hinckley Jr. -Secret Service agents have been dismayed to overhear Michelle Obama push her husband to be more aggressive in attacking Republicans and to side with blacks in racial controversies. -Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan diverted agents from protecting President Obama and his family at the White House and ordered them instead to protect his assistant at her home and illegally retrieve confidential records as a favor to her. -Because Hillary Clinton is so nasty to agents, being assigned to her protective detail is considered a form of punishment and the worst assignment in the Secret Service. -Secret Service agents were ordered to ignore security rules and allow the SUV carrying actor Bradley Cooper to drive unscreened into a secure restricted area when President Obama was about to deliver his speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner. -Vice President Joe Biden spends millions of taxpayer dollars flying to and from his home in Delaware on Air Force Two. His office tried to cover up the costs of the personal trips. -Because the Secret Service refused to provide enough magnetometers at his campaign events, Mitt Romney regularly left himself open to assassination by giving speeches to unscreened crowds. -Vice President Joe Biden swims nude at the vice president's residence in Washington and at his home in Delaware, offending female agents. From the Hardcover edition.

Ronald Kessler (Author), Michael Bybee (Narrator)

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The Secrets of the FBI

The Secrets of the FBI by New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler reveals the FBI's most closely guarded secrets and the secrets of celebrities, politicians, and movie stars uncovered by agents during their investigations. Based on inside access, the book presents revelations about the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, the recent Russian spy swap, Marilyn Monroe's death, Vince Foster's suicide, and J. Edgar Hoover's sexual orientation. For the first time, it tells how the FBI caught spy Robert Hanssen in its midst and how the FBI breaks into homes, offices, and embassies to plant bugging devices without getting caught. From Watergate to Waco, from congressional scandals to the killing of bin Laden, The Secrets of the FBI presents headline-making disclosures about the most important figures and events of our time.

Ronald Kessler (Author), Michael Bybee (Narrator)

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In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Preside

Never before has a journalist penetrated the wall of secrecy that surrounds the U.S. Secret Service, that elite corps of agents who pledge to take a bullet to protect the president and his family. After conducting exclusive interviews with more than one hundred current and former Secret Service agents, bestselling author and award-winning reporter Ronald Kessler reveals their secrets for the first time.

Ronald Kessler (Author), Alan Sklar (Narrator)

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The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack

Although it has been over five years since the 9/11 attacks, Americans still do not have a clear sense of how our government is waging the war on terror. In The Terrorist Watch, bestselling author Ronald Kessler takes listeners behind the scenes to reveal exactly how our leaders, charged with protecting the American people, are stopping terrorists.

Ronald Kessler (Author), Alan Sklar (Narrator)

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The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI

The Bureau takes listeners behind the scenes of the FBI, from its creation in 1908 to the scandals of present day. Based on exclusive interviews, Kessler reveals the inside story surrounding the events of September 11 and the investigation into the anthrax mailings. The Bureau delves deep within the agency, presenting the organization in its historical context and answering questions concerning its somewhat checkered past. This incredible book includes the first definitive evidence that Hoover blackmailed Congress with information from his secret files; the source of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s bogus claims that there were 205 Communists in the State Department; the truth about J. Edgar Hoover’s sexual orientation; and the disastrous Freeh years, and Robert Mueller’s efforts to correct the problems created by Freeh. “Colorful and fascinating…Kessler’s sobering report…will come as a surprise to most readers—and possibly even Washington insiders…Chilling.”—Washington Post Book World

Ronald Kessler (Author), Raymond Todd (Narrator)

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Inside the CIA

Ronald Kessler's explosive bestseller, The FBI, brought down FBI Director William S. Sessions. Now, in this unparalleled work of investigative journalism, Kessler reveals the inner world of the CIA. Based on extensive research and hundreds of interviews, including two with active Directors of Central Intelligence William H. Webster and Robert M. Gates and with three former DCI's, Inside the CIA is the first in-depth, unbiased account of the Agency's core operations, its abject failures, and its resounding successes. Learn how the CIA spies on every country in the world except Great Britain, Australia, and Canada, undertaking covert action to influence or overthrow foreign governments or political parties. Discover how CIA analysts botched the job of foreseeing the Soviet economy's collapse. This is your extraordinary tour through the world's most successful house of spies.

Ronald Kessler (Author), Edward Lewis (Narrator)

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Laura Bush: An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady

When Laura Bush moved into the White House on January 20, 2001, everyone wanted to know what kind of first lady she would be. Would she be like Mamie Eisenhower? Would she follow in Barbara Bush's footsteps? Would she be another Hillary Clinton? I think I'll just be Laura Bush, she would say. On Saturday, April 30, 2005, the world got a glimpse of what that meant when she pushed aside the leader of the free world and stole the show at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Wearing a shimmering lime green Oscar de la Renta gown, Laura wisecracked that she was a desperate housewife married to a president who was always asleep at nine. Replayed constantly on the air, the stand-up routine with its impeccable comedic timing turned the first lady into a glittering star. But while the performance catapulted her to new status, it did not answer the question of who this former teacher and librarian really is and just what role she plays in influencing her husband and shaping his administration. The Bushes are more effective than the FBI or CIA at keeping secret what goes on behind the scenes at the White House, the ranch, or Camp David. Now, New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler draws back that curtain in the first biography of Laura Bush to be written with White House cooperation. Based on interviews with her closest friends and confidantes from childhood to the present, as well as family members and administration heavyweights like Condoleezza Rice and Andrew Card, Kessler paints a portrait of a woman who, even as she ascended to the heights of political fortune and power, never lost touch with the bedrock American values she absorbed in her youth. In this unprecedented account, Kessler reveals: How Laura's opinions have brought budget changes to a range of federal agencies and have affected her husband's policies, appointments, and worldview. Why Laura told her press secretary in May 2001 she did not want to do any more media interviews. What President Bush said to Laura at the dinner table after giving the go for the invasion of Iraq, and what his father, former President George H. W. Bush, wrote him the next day about the war. What Laura's own political opinions are and what her relationship with twin daughters Jenna and Barbara is really like. What Laura says in private about Hillary Clinton, media attacks on her husband, and his victory in the 2004 election. And why Laura, at the age of seventeen, missed a stop sign and caused a fatal accident that tragically left one of her best friends dead. LAURA BUSH offers a remarkable look at the private world of this famously reserved woman, as well as the beliefs and attitudes that shape it. The book will surprise readers whose knowledge of the first lady comes from cautious media interviews and speeches. Laura Bush's approval rating stands at 85 percent. Since opinion polls first began asking about them, no first lady has received a higher rating. This moving biography is the first to penetrate the secret world of the president's stealth counselor who is one of our most admired public figures.

Ronald Kessler (Author), Susan Denaker (Narrator)

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The FBI: Inside the World's Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency

No institution in American society generates as much curiosity, fear, and intrigue as the FBI. No institution can obtain so much information and penetrate so deeply into our private lives. And no institution plays a greater role in safeguarding our freedom-or potentially threatening it. In this groundbreaking book, award-winning journalist Ronald Kessler provides a firsthand look at the people who run the Bureau, the methods they use, the powers they wield, and the secrets they hold. Learn how the FBI solved some of the most highly publicized cases in history, including Watergate, the Pan Am 103 bombing, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, and the World Trade Center bombing. Learn also how and why the FBI fumbled such important cases as the David Koresh cult tragedy in Waco and the Rodney King beating. This revealing book will change the way America perceives the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Ronald Kessler (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

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Inside the White House

"If the general public knew what was going on inside the White House, they would scream." So states one Secret Service agent, just a small link in the chain of security that has guarded the public image of the presidency and the men who define it-until now.With unprecedented access to Secret Service agents, domestic servants, Air Force One stewards, and military aides, journalist Ronald Kessler has gone behind the scenes to uncover the inside story of the White House. From the hidden lives of the last seven presidents and first families to the intricate inner workings of this all-powerful institution, Kessler peels away the White House facade to reveal the fascinating and often scandalous reality behind the stately illusion. Exposing presidential misconduct, blunders, and cover-ups, this fascinating examination ensures that Americans will never view their chief executives the same way again.

Ronald Kessler (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

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