The Big Wedding: 9/11, the Whistle Blowers & the Cover-Up

Soft Skull Press founder and 9/11 Commission Report critic Hicks argues for a "high degree of 9/11 foreknowledge on the part of the military/ intelligence complex" in this exhortation to disbelieve the Bush administration's "web of lies." The book marshals a bewildering array of sources and testimony—all filtered through Hicks's outraged sensibility—in an effort to implicate the U.S. government in the 9/11 attacks. Hicks identifies a compromised relationship between the CIA, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, which, he asserts, has ties to al-Qaeda—thus the U.S. link to 9/11 and the government's relentless efforts to keep it concealed. Hicks relies on the research and testimony of numerous "rejected, truthful freelance mavericks," including Randy Glass, a jewelry con man and FBI informant who says he caught wind of threats to the World Trade Center in 1999; Daniel Hopsicker, an investigative journalist who argues that Mohammed Atta was a double agent; and Delmart Vreeland, a con man who claims he was a U.S. intelligence operative discredited for his 9/11 foreknowledge. Shocking exposé or gonzo conspiracy theory? This screed's credibility will depend on its readers' politics. (Sept.)