Parry, Robert. Fooling America: How Washington Insiders Twist the Truth and Manufacture the Conventional Wisdom. New York: William Morrow, 1992. 336 pages.

Robert Parry was an Associated Press reporter who, with Brian Barger, broke the story of contra drug-smuggling in 1985. Getting the facts for the story was considerably easier than getting it on the AP wire, which left Parry a bit disillusioned. So in 1987 he left AP and joined Newsweek. Forget you ever saw "All the President's Men." It's time for your reality check.

One month later, Parry is at a dinner, replete with tuxedoed waiter, at the elegant home of Newsweek's Washington bureau chief Evan Thomas. This was a regular affair where the magazine's socially-conscious reporters dined pleasantly with Washington insiders. The Tower Commission had just completed their work, and commissioner Brent Scowcroft and Dick Cheney were there to deliver the Conventional Wisdom. Scowcroft volunteered that even if Poindexter HAD told Reagan about the diversion of funds, he would advise him to say that he hadn't. Parry, naive and incredulous, his fork halfway through the asparagus that was cooked just right, asks a question: "General, you're not suggesting that the admiral should commit perjury, are you?" But before Scowcroft could answer, Newsweek's editor from New York cut in. "Sometimes," Maynard Parker reminded Parry, "you have to do what's good for the country."

Parry left Newsweek in 1990 and currently lives in Arlington, Virginia.
ISBN 0-688-10927-6

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