The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country
Laton McCartney. Blackstone Audiobooks, $32.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-4332-0931-4
McCartney (""Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story"") does an efficient job of narrating 20th-century Americas first great federal corruption scandal. Petroleum preserves (or domes) were set aside on public lands in California and Wyoming, to be kept until needed by the navy. During 1921, President Hardings secretary of the interior, Albert Fall, took control of the lands from Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby and leased two domesTeapot Dome in Wyoming and Californias Elk Hillsto Harry Sinclairs Mammoth Oil Co. and Edward Dohenys Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Co., respectively. Concurrently, Fall received personal payments from the two men totaling $404,000, some of which he distributed to underlings who helped with the transactions. Scandal ensued, continuing through the presidency of Hardings successor, Calvin Coolidge. Congressional investigations were held; Coolidge appointed special prosecutors, and in 1929 a federal court found Fall guilty of bribery, fining him $100,000 and sentencing him to a year in prison. Though McCartney adds nothing new to the story, he has a solid grasp of it in this retelling. ""(Feb. 5)"" .
Details
Reviewed on: 02/04/2008
Genre: Nonfiction
Analog Audio Cassette - 978-1-4332-0928-4
Analog Audio Cassette - 978-1-4332-0930-7
Compact Disc - 978-1-4332-0929-1
Downloadable Audio - 978-1-4332-4192-5
Hardcover - 351 pages - 978-1-4000-6316-1
MP3 CD - 978-1-4332-0932-1
Paperback - 384 pages - 978-0-8129-7337-2
Pre-Recorded Audio Player - 978-1-4332-7465-7
