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How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country
Random House
February 2008
On Sale: February 5, 2008
368 pages
ISBN: 1400063167
EAN: 9781400063161
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Political
Mix hundreds of millions of dollars in petroleum reserves;
rapacious oil barons and crooked politicians;
under-the-table payoffs; murder, suicide, and blackmail;
White House cronyism; and the excesses of the Jazz Age. The
result: the granddaddy of all American political scandals,
Teapot Dome. In The Teapot Dome Scandal, acclaimed author Laton McCartney
tells the amazing, complex, and at times ribald story of how
Big Oil handpicked Warren G. Harding, an obscure Ohio
senator, to serve as our twenty-third president. Harding and
his so-called “oil cabinet” made it possible for the oilmen
to secure vast oil reserves that had been set aside for use
by the U.S. Navy. In exchange, the oilmen paid off senior
government officials, bribed newspaper publishers, and
covered the GOP campaign debt. When news of the scandal finally emerged, the consequences
were disastrous for the nation and for the principles in the
plot to bilk the taxpayers: Harding’s administration was
hamstrung; Americans’ confidence in their government
plummeted; Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was
indicted, convicted, and incarcerated; and others implicated
in the affair suffered similarly dire fates. Stonewalling by
members of Harding’s circle kept a lid on the
story–witnesses developed “faulty” memories or fled the
country, and important documents went missing–but
contemporary records newly made available to McCartney
reveal a shocking, revelatory picture of just how
far-reaching the affair was, how high the stakes, and how
powerful the conspirators. In giving us a gimlet-eyed but endlessly entertaining
portrait of the men and women who made a tempest of Teapot
Dome, Laton McCartney again displays his gift for faithfully
rendering history with the narrative touch of an
accomplished novelist.
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