Synopses & Reviews
Chapter One On the Boardwalk
Thirteen-year-old John P. O'Neill took his usual spot on the living-room couch a few minutes before his favorite television program would begin. He didn't want to risk missing even one minute of the show. It was a Sunday evening in 1965, more than a decade before casinos and hotels would sprout up behind the O'Neills' modest walk-up on Atlantic Avenue, and transform Atlantic City. Finally, at 9 P.M., the screen on the family's small black-and-white showed the opening sequence of the hit ABC-TV series "The FBI, and O'Neill was transported to a world of polish, dedication, and skill, where dashing federal agents protected people like him from harm.
O'Neill was enthralled. He loved watching the way the calm agent Lewis Erskine, played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., methodically tracked down his quarry of murderers, racketeers, and saboteurs. O'Neill decided he wanted more than anything to become an agent. Millions of American kids dreamed of becoming a famous buttoned-down agent like the television character, but for John O'Neill this was a mission, not a fantasy. He began to count the days until he could leave Atlantic City and join J. Edgar Hoover's bureau.
"It was not 'This is what I'm thinking of doing.' It was 'This is what I'm going to do! I'm going to join the FBI!'" remembers Jack Caravelli, one of O'Neill's closest boyhood friends.
O'Neill's working-class Irish background helped instill in him both an outsized determination and a clear sense of purpose. He always knew he wanted out of Atlantic City, which was not the kind of place that could accommodate his dreams. For more than a century, well-heeled Northeasterners had carried on a love affairwith Atlantic City's world-famous herringbone boardwalk with its hotels, its quaint Steel Pier, and the kitschy Miss America pageant. In its heyday, Atlantic City was known as the "Queen of Resorts," bordered by gleaming fine white sand and dotted with nightclubs that attracted entertainers from W.C. Fields and Frank Sinatra to the Beatles.
But there was always an "us versus them" friction between the thirty-seven thousand locals and the outsiders -- the "Shoe-bees," as they were derisively called -- who descended on the beach for the day carrying shoe boxes packed with sandwiches. Atlantic City was like a small Middle American city where young people either coveted the cocoon of family and friends or hungered for broader horizons. "There were those in Atlantic City who could not get the sand out of their shoes, and others who could not help but leave," said Caravelli.
By 1952, when O'Neill was born, the city was already losing its allure. Elegant neighborhoods were giving way to vacant lots, and racial strife and crime were increasing. Resorts sprang up nearby, siphoning off tourists from Atlantic City and forcing its grand hotels into disrepair. The boardwalk became deserted much of the year, except for a season-ending rush for the Miss America pageant. The Democratic National Convention in 1964 may have represented Atlantic City's last hoorah.
Life was a struggle for O'Neill's parents. The family of three lived in a working-class neighborhood on a section of Atlantic Avenue where shops today sell "All Items 69 Cents," if they are open at all. The Atlantic City Expressway emptied onto the boardwalk only a few blocks away, the Atlantic City Hospital was down the street, andGreen's Army/Navy Store and the city newspaper's offices were nearby. The family's small fourth-floor walk-up had a modest kitchen, a living room, and two bedrooms that shared a bathroom.
Starting in the late 1950s, the O'Neills owned a taxi medallion and operated the Dial-a-Cab company out of their apartment. Most of the time, it dispatched one car -- theirs -- but at its height in the early 1960s, the operation dispatched a fleet of fifteen taxis, according to Murray Rosenberg, owner of the rival Yellow Cab Company in Atlantic City. "It was the high point of their life," he said. "They were unique in that they purchased new cabs, which helped attract business." O'Neill's mother would drive the cab during the day -- and still does -- and his father drove at night.
"Like most drivers, when he finished his shift and the workday ended, he had a couple and played the ponies," Rosenberg said. "He liked to drink a bit, but he was a helluva guy and that did not make him a bad guy. John was a nice guy, the kind of guy to shoot the breeze with. I have nothing to say except they are solid, honorable people."
More than a dozen taxi companies went out of business in those years, he said. "It was a tough business. There was no gold in the streets." O'Neill's father's taxi gamble, and the decline in the economy, eventually cost the O'Neills their fleet of taxis, but they stayed in business, driving their one cab eighteen hours a day and barely making ends meet even at the height of tourism season. O'Neill's mother would do what she could to pinch pennies, even darning socks for the family, and also worked shifts as a waitress when times were tough.
"It was a wonderful time moral-wise,but a difficult time financial-wise," she has said.
Even after the passage of the 1976 Casino Gambling Referendum, which brought in big-money developers who erected high-rise casino hotels along the famed but fading boardwalk, there was little change in their circumstances. The boom that local politicians had preached never materialized for area merchants and residents.
Unlike Las Vegas, which attracted guests who arrived by jet, Atlantic City gamblers were mostly day-trippers who came by car or bus from New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C...
Synopsis
On September 11, 2001, counterterror expert and FBI veteran John O'Neill perished at the World Trade Center. Ironically, O'Neill's lifelong mission had been to protect Americans from harm and to force his colleagues to face the possibility of an attack on American soil. Nearly three years later, the 9/11 commission hearings shed new light on the foresight he showed in his dogged pursuit of terrorist networks, and in his embattled efforts to foster communication between the woefully underprepared FBI and CIA. In 1995, O'Neill became the first agent to recognize al Qaeda as the greatest terrorist threat to America, and he determinedly fought for drastic changes in the intelligence agencies' outdated approaches to an ever-evolving breed of international terrorism.
An innovative leader in the FBI's highest national security positions, O'Neill permanently changed the face of counterterrorism. During every major investigation of the 1990s, from the capture of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef to the USS Cole attack, O'Neill's charisma, larger-than-life personality, and hard-charging style won him many powerful admirers -- and some bitter enemies.
Over time, O'Neill began to feel the strain of juggling his all-consuming work and a secret, complex web of romantic relationships. Disillusioned by the FBI's resistance to change, he ultimately resigned. Just days later, O'Neill was killed while at his new job as director of security at the World Trade Center. In this groundbreaking book, Murray Weiss weaves insider insight and hundreds of interviews into a hard-hitting look at intelligence before 9/11, and a masterful tale of John O'Neill's quest to save America.
Synopsis
The first comprehensive inside look at the investigation into Al Qaeda, and at John O፥ill, the FBI counter–terrorism agent who warned that an attack like September 11 was imminent. For many people, September 11 was the day ೨e unimaginableߨappened. But one FBI agent, John O፥ill, had repeatedly warned the US Government that such an attack was possible. Ironically, O፥ill lost his own life on September 11, just days after beginning a new job as head of security for the World Trade Center.
As one of the FBI's foremost counter–terrorism experts, John O፥ill played a leading role in almost every major investigation of terrorism against Americans in the past decade. O፥ill was a dashing, larger–than–life character who irritated many members of US and foreign governments with his aggressive, hands–on tactics and his insistent, repeated warnings about the possibility of an attack on US soil.
Disillusioned by his experiences with the FBI, O፥ill left governmental service to assume the position of chief of security for the Twin Towers in August 2001. Full of twists and turns, John O፥ill's tragic story reveals how one man's unheeded warnings came back to haunt the country he worked so hard to defend.
Synopsis
The first comprehensive inside look at the investigation into Al Qaeda, and at John O፥ill, the FBI counter–terrorism agent who warned that an attack like September 11 was imminent. For many people, September 11 was the day ೨e unimaginableߨappened. But one FBI agent, John O፥ill, had repeatedly warned the US Government that such an attack was possible. Ironically, O፥ill lost his own life on September 11, just days after beginning a new job as head of security for the World Trade Center.
As one of the FBI's foremost counter–terrorism experts, John O፥ill played a leading role in almost every major investigation of terrorism against Americans in the past decade. O፥ill was a dashing, larger–than–life character who irritated many members of US and foreign governments with his aggressive, hands–on tactics and his insistent, repeated warnings about the possibility of an attack on US soil.
Disillusioned by his experiences with the FBI, O፥ill left governmental service to assume the position of chief of security for the Twin Towers in August 2001. Full of twists and turns, John O፥ill's tragic story reveals how one man's unheeded warnings came back to haunt the country he worked so hard to defend.
About the Author
Murray Weiss, an award-winning investigative journalist and author, is the Criminal Justice Editor at the New York Post. During more than three decades with the Post and the New York Daily News, he has written extensively on law enforcement, organized crime, terrorism, criminal justice, and politics. He has appeared frequently on radio and television, including "Larry King Live" and "The O'Reilly Factor" and is co-author of Palm Beach Babylon. He lives in New York.