Ronald Kessler
Ronald Borek Kessler is an American journalist and author of 21 non-fiction books about the White House, U.S. Secret Service, FBI, and CIA.
Early life and education
Kessler was born in The Bronx, New York City, the son of microbiologist Ernest Borek and concert pianist Minuetta Kessler, and grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts. After his parents divorced and his mother remarried, he adopted his step-father's last name. He attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1962 to 1964, where he was a student reporter for the campus newspaper The Scarlet and exposed racial housing discrimination in a report that prompted state anti-discrimination regulations.Career
Kessler began his career in 1964 as a reporter with the Worcester Telegram, followed by three years as an investigative reporter and editorial writer with the Boston Herald. A series he wrote while there was instrumental in the installation of a better plaque commemorating the location of Boston's Pre-Revolutionary-War Liberty Tree. During these years, his reporting won awards from the American Political Science Association, United Press International and the Associated Press. In 1968, he joined The Wall Street Journal as an investigative reporter in the New York bureau.From 1970 to 1985, Kessler was an investigative reporter for The Washington Post. In 1972, he won a George Polk Memorial award for Community Service because of two series of articles he wrote—one on conflicts of interest and mismanagement at Washington area non-profit hospitals, and a second series exposing kickbacks among lawyers, title insurance companies, realtors, and lenders in connection with real estate settlements, inflating the cost of buying homes. That series resulted in congressional passage in 1974 of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, which outlaws kickbacks for referral of settlement services in connection with real estate closings. Kessler was named a Washingtonian of the Year for 1972 by Washingtonian magazine. In 1979, Kessler won a second Polk Award for National Reporting for a series of articles exposing corruption in the General Services Administration; he won even though his editor, Ben Bradlee, had not submitted his stories for consideration. Kessler's Washington Post stories reporting that Lena Ferguson had been denied membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution because she is black led to her acceptance by the DAR, appointment to head the DAR Scholarship Committee, and widespread changes in the organization's policies to increase membership by blacks.
In 2006, Kessler became chief Washington correspondent for conservative cable news company Newsmax, where he became a leading promoter of Donald Trump. He left his position at Newsmax in 2012 citing "editorial changes", but has continued to write articles for the site. In 2014, Franklin Pierce University awarded Kessler the Marlin Fitzwater Medallion for excellence as a prolific author, journalist, and communicator.
Author
Kessler has authored 21 nonfiction books on intelligence and current affairs. Seven of these, Inside the White House, The Season: Inside Palm Beach and America's Richest Society, A Matter of Character, Laura Bush, In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect, The Secrets of the FBI, and The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents have reached The New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover non-fiction.Kessler's 1993 book, The FBI: Inside the World's Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency, led to the dismissal by President Clinton of William S. Sessions as FBI director over his abuses. According to The Washington Post, "A Justice Department official... noted that the original charges against Sessions came not from FBI agents but from a journalist, Ronald Kessler ..." The New York Times said Kessler's FBI book "did indeed trigger bureau and Justice Department investigations into alleged travel and expense abuses ..., but also noted that the hastily published book included a claim it called "Sensational but unexplained, the assertion borders on the irresponsible."
Kessler's 1996 book The Sins of the Father about Joseph P. Kennedy received negative reviews. The Washington Post called it "relentlessly uncharitable", a "sour and mean-spirited book", noting that "the author frequently resorts to speculation, guesswork and innuendo. This has the effect of making many of his attacks seem underhanded." New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani called it a "meanspirited, speculation-filled biography... a determinedly poisonous portrait of the man." Despite reaching the New York times bestseller list, Kessler's 1999 book The Season: Inside Palm Beach and America's Richest Society received "tepid, if not stinging, reviews" and received criticism from some Palm Beach locals that it did not portray their town accurately.
In his 2002 book The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI, Kessler presented the first credible evidence that Bob Woodward's and Carl Bernstein's Watergate source dubbed Deep Throat was FBI official W. Mark Felt. The book said that Woodward paid a secret visit to Felt in California and had his limousine park ten blocks away from Felt's home and walked to it so as not to attract attention. The New York Times said the book offers an "understanding of the institution's history, as well as an account of what it is like to be on the inside... Kessler investigates the relationship between FBI directors and sitting presidents and also includes exclusive interviews with Robert Mueller, who led the FBI in the period immediately after 9/11." Jon Stewart of The Daily Show said Kessler's 2007 book The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack is a "very interesting look inside the FBI and CIA, which I think is unprecedented." The Washington Times said of the book, "Ronald Kessler is a veteran Washington-based investigative journalist on national security. His unparalleled access to top players in America's counterterrorism campaign allowed him a rare glimpse into their tradecraft, making The Terrorist Watch a riveting account."
Kessler's 2009 book, In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect, was described by USA Today as a "fascinating exposé... high-energy read... amusing, saucy, often disturbing anecdotes about the VIPs the Secret Service has protected and still protects... directly from current and retired agents ... Balancing the sordid tales are the kinder stories of presidential humanity..." Newsweek said of the book, "Kessler's such a skilled storyteller, you almost forget this is dead-serious nonfiction... The behind-the-scenes anecdotes are delightful, but Kessler has a bigger point to make, one concerning why the under-appreciated Secret Service deserves better leadership." However, the Washington Post review called its revelations "boring and familiar", noting "What is truly dangerous is the kind of National Enquirer-style gossip in Kessler's book" as "the author simply milked the agents for the juiciest gossip he could get and mixed it with a rambling list of their complaints."
Kessler's 2011 book The Secrets of the FBI presents revelations about the Russian spy swap, Marilyn Monroe's death, Vince Foster's suicide, the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, and J. Edgar Hoover's sexual orientation. It tells how the FBI caught spy Robert Hanssen in its midst and how secret teams of FBI agents break into homes, offices, and embassies to plant bugging devices without getting caught and shot as burglars. However, The Washington Post review said "There are tidbits here that probably do qualify as 'secrets'. But there's a lot of padding too:... None of this is to say that Secrets of the FBI is not a gossipy, easy-to-gobble book; it is. In places it almost reads like 'The FBI for Dummies'."
Kessler's 2014 book The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents debuted at No. 4 on the hardcover nonfiction New York Times Best Seller list. In the book Kessler reports that Vice President Joe Biden enjoys skinny dipping, which offends female agents, and that being assigned to his detail is considered to be the second worst protective assignment in the Secret Service after Hillary Clinton's detail. The book also reveals that the Secret Service covered up the fact that President Ronald Reagan's White House staff overruled the Secret Service to let unscreened spectators get close to Reagan as he left the Washington Hilton, allowing John W. Hinckley Jr. to shoot the president. However, Marc Ambinder's review in The Week called the book's details "salacious" and "cringe-worthy", noting a "surprising number of weird inaccuracies" that led him to believe "Kessler seems to have listened to his sources, written their words down, and then simply printed as fact their allegations or observations without checking on them."
Kessler's 2018 book was The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game. The Washington Post's review, by Hugh Hewitt, called the book "trustworthy, and, in an unusual twist these days, it's favorable to the president.... Kessler also got Trump to sit down for an interview on New Year's Eve at Mar-a-Lago, a conversation that shows the president confident and comfortable in his role.... Kessler conveys Trump's world in coherent, readable fashion, and provides the players' assessments of one another."
Articles
Kessler has written The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, The Washington Times, and Politico opinion pieces, including "Surveillance: An American Success Story" on Politico, "Reform the Secret Service" in The Washington Post, and "The Real Joe McCarthy," which attacked efforts by some conservative writers to vindicate the late Senator Joseph McCarthy, and in The Wall Street Journal. Kessler's op-ed "Time to Rename the J. Edgar Hoover Building" detailed Hoover's "massive abuses and violations of Americans' rights" as FBI director for nearly 50 years.In a Time magazine opinion piece, Kessler wrote "The Secret Service Thinks We Are Fools" after the White House intrusion based on his book The First Family Detail.
On January 4, 2010, Kessler wrote a Newsmax article revealing that the Secret Service allowed a third uninvited guest to attend President Obama's state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh besides party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi on November 24, 2009. The Washington Post said, "Kessler reported that the agency discovered the third crasher after examining surveillance video of arriving guests and found one tuxedoed man who did not match any name on the guest list."
In an article for Newsmax, on March 16, 2008, Kessler incorrectly reported that Senator Barack Obama attended a service at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ on July 22, 2007, during which Jeremiah Wright gave a sermon that blamed world suffering on "white arrogance". The Obama campaign denied that Obama had attended the church on the day that sermon was delivered and other reporters discovered that Obama was in fact in transit to Miami, Florida on that day. Shortly after the controversy broke, Kessler confirmed to Talking Points Memo that he attempted to remove information documenting it from his English Wikipedia biography.
In "A Roadmap to Trump's Washington," Kessler described the carrot-and-stick approach Trump used to get his Mar-a-Lago estate approved as a club by Palm Beach Town Council members and predicted he would operate in the same manner as president to win over support for his agenda. In "The Anatomy of a Trump Decision," Kessler depicted how Trump makes decisions by focusing on his decision to turn his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach into a private club.