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The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
September 2012
On Sale: August 21, 2012
752 pages
ISBN: 0374257000
EAN: 9780374257002
Kindle: B0051OAS0M
Hardcover / e-Book
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Paperback (September 2013)
Non-Fiction Political | Non-Fiction History
Subversives traces the FBIβs secret involvement with three iconic figures at Berkeley during the 1960s: the ambitious neophyte politician Ronald Reagan, the fierce but fragile radical Mario Savio, and the liberal university president Clark Kerr. Through these converging narratives, the award-winning investigative reporter Seth Rosenfeld tells a dramatic and disturbing story of FBI surveillance, illegal break-ins, infiltration, planted news stories, poison-pen letters, and secret detention lists. He reveals how the FBIβs covert operationsβled by Reaganβs friend J. Edgar Hooverβhelped ignite an era of protest, undermine the Democrats, and benefit Reagan personally and politically. At the same time, he vividly evokes the life of Berkeley in the early sixtiesβand shows how the university community, a site of the forward-looking idealism of the period, became a battleground in an epic struggle between the government and free citizens. The FBI spent more than $1 million trying to block the release of the secret files on which Subversives is based, but Rosenfeld compelled the bureau to release more than 250,000 pages, providing an extraordinary view of what the government was up to during a turning point in our nationβs history. Part history, part biography, and part police procedural, Subversives reads like a true-crime mystery as it provides a fresh look at the legacy of the sixties, sheds new light on one of Americaβs most popular presidents, and tells a cautionary tale about the dangers of secrecy and unchecked power.
 Media BuzzOn The Media - September 29, 2012
Fresh Air - NPR - August 21, 2012
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