Product Description This publication represents a selection of the most dramatic and revealing computer communications that flowed through the national security offices of the Reagan/Bush White House. These are the secret E-mail messages behind the most scandalous policies of recent times - the E-mail that Oliver North and John Poindexter thought they had deleted from their computers before leaving the National Security Council in disgrace. -- Review Reagan tried to destroy them, Bush tried to steal them, and Clinton tried to hide them--but the White House e-mail messages survived. Here are the highest-level communications on the most secret national security affairs of the US during the 1980s -- shockingly candid electronic exchanges you were never meant to see! From Library Journal This unique book offers a pastiche of actual, unaltered E-mail messages drawn from various members of the White House staff from the mid-1980s until late 1994. Edited by the executive director of the National Security Archive (NSA), the messages, which were officially declassified as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the NSA, are arranged by topics (e.g., "Dancing with Dictators," "Spin Doctors") and then chronologically within the category. The book marks the organization's victory in establishing the principle of public access to govermental electronic communication. However, the text itself consists mainly of raw data that is difficult for a general reader to fit into the larger political context and that gives one a sense of voyeurism, intruding into private conversations not intended for a general audience. Despite the lack of coherence, the volume does provide an inside look at how the White House staff employed this new and less guarded means of communication. While somewhat of a novelty book, it may have a lasting impact on how the White House staff members use E-mail in the future, since their messages will now be accessible to the American people.?James Rhodes, Luther Coll., Decorah, Ia. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review A rich historical record--and a source of occasional high comedy. -- New York Magazine A stream of insights into past American policy, spiced with depictions of White House officials in poses they would never adopt in a formal portrait. -- The New York Times Explosive. . . Airs dirty laundry that the Reagan-Bush Administration thought was safely buried in history's ragbag. -- Newsweek Forget the Nixon tapes. We've graduated to e-mail eavesdropping. -- Publishers Weekly It's of vital importance for historians that such materials be retained. -- Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Never intended for public viewing, these explosive missives reveal the raw back-room energy that fueled the carefully polished public personas. . . If these unsettling wheelings, dealing, and power plays hadn't really happened, White House E-Mail would be the techno thriller of the year. -- Wired