Summary of Jane Mayer's The Dark Side

Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Vice President Dick Cheney had been practicing for doomsday scenarios for years before 9/11. In the 1980s, while serving as a Republican congressman from Wyoming and a rising power in the conservative leadership in Congress, he participated in one of the most highly classified, top-secret programs of the Reagan Administration. #2 On October 17, 2001, a white powder that had been sent through the mail to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s office in the Capitol was positively identified. It was an unusually difficult to obtain and lethally potent form of the bacterial poison anthrax. #3 During this time, threats of deadly attack were constant in the White House. On October 29, Cheney insisted on going to a secure undisclosed location to avoid being hit by the anthrax. #4 The sense of fear within the White House was understandable, as the administration had failed to predict the attacks, and had introduced a new intelligence tool that was supposed to help them understand threats, the Top Secret Codeword/Threat Matrix. But Al Qaeda’s attacks exposed a gaping shortcoming in the Vice President’s thinking.