Last Man Standing: The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt
Author: Jack Olsen
Jack Olsen's Last Man Standing is the gripping story of Geronimo Pratt, war hero and community leader, who was framed by the FBI in one of the greatest travesties of justice in American history.
Geronimo Pratt did not commit the murder for which he served twenty-seven nightmarish years. As a UCLA student, though, he had led the Los Angeles Chapter of the Black Panther Party, and became a target of the FBI. Here is the spellbinding saga of Pratt, his heroic lawyers, Johnnie Cochran and Stuart Hanlon, and the Reverend James McCloskey, who overcame all the odds to bring the truth to light and free Geronimo.
Black Issues Book Review
If you've ever had any doubt that the scales of justice are sometimes unbalanced, then you need to read Olsen's new biography. Subtitled The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt, Olsen tells the story of a classic frame-up in the corrupt Los Angeles and federal judicial systems of one of the 20th-century's most famous political prisoners. Readers will also find the parallel stories of a novice white lawyer (Stuart Hanlon) and a flashy veteran black attorney (Johnnie Cochran) who become allies to champion Pratt's cause. Together they lead a team of believers on a fight that lasted twenty-five years.
Publishers Weekly
One part Kafka and one part Orwell, the story of Geronimo Pratt's conviction and imprisonment, for a murder committed while he was 350 miles away from the crime scene and under FBI surveillance, is a textbook case of abuse of the American criminal justice system for political ends. Raised in small-town Louisiana, Pratt served two distinguished stints in Vietnam (earning a Purple Heart) before becoming a leader of the Black Panthers in Los Angeles. Visible and articulate, he was targeted by the FBI's counterintelligence program--and soon was set up and convicted for a highly publicized 1968 Santa Monica murder. At trial, where he was represented by the now-famous Johnnie Cochran, evidence was suppressed (and later destroyed), witnesses were intimidated and perjury was suborned. His case became an international cause c l bre--but the details of Pratt's struggles have not, until now, been readily available. Olsen tells Pratt's story with a compelling narrative grace. Drawing from a mountain of court records and other documentary evidence--as well as on the memories of Pratt, his family and his lawyers (both Cochran and his young colleague, Stuart Hanlon)--Olsen takes us from the early days of Pratt's imprisonment, through his appeals, and up to the day when his conviction was finally overturned and he went free. (By then, he'd served more than 26 years in prison, several of them in solitary confinement.) Rigorously researched, skillfully organized and passionately written, the book lays bare long-obscured facts about Pratt's case, as well as ugly truths about the conditions of prison and a grave miscarriage of justice. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Olsen is a journalist and prolific author who writes in the segmented style of a playwright as he chronicles the life and times of Geronimo Pratt, a former Black Panther Party leader who was spurned by his peers and framed by the authorities for a murder he did not commit. Pratt served 27 years behind bars until a persistent and determined coalition of clergy and lawyers (including the famed Johnnie L. Cochran) was able to dig up enough fresh evidence to spring him. The book focuses on aspects of the Pratt case that are common to the imprisoned innocent: the contamination of secondhand confession testimony and inflated eyewitness identifications, in this case extracted by bad cops and overzealous prosecutors. Added to this mix is the notorious status of the Black Panthers in 1968. As Olsen jumps from scene to scene, the egregious excesses and misinformation campaigns of the FBI, the LAPD, and the district attorney and the federal government's inter-agency effort to discredit the Black Panther movement become manifest. The book is a classic expos of how an innocent's rights can be swept under the rug of politics and power. Recommended for public and academic libraries.--Philip Y. Blue, NY State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Law Lib., New York Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Booknews
Olsen, the author of 31 books, is a former bureau chief for and has written for numerous magazines. Here he turns his energetic reporting skills to the story of Geronimo Pratt, a member of the Black Panther Party who was targeted by the FBI to be "neutralized" in 1968. Pratt was imprisoned for a murder he did not commit and spent eight years in solitary confinement before he saw justice through the efforts of defense attorney Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. and others. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Steve Weinberg
With Last Man Standing, Olsen returns to the wrongful-conviction theme, at a juncture when it has become accepted as the conventional wisdom. His return to the theme is welcome: Predator was a mighty good book, but Last Man Standing is a great book, as compelling and thorough as any wrongful-conviction book I have read - and I have read most of them...Olsen's book goes where no other journalist had gone. —Seattle Times
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Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents Series)
Author: John W Dean
President Nixon’s former counsel illuminates another presidency marked by scandalWarren G. Harding may be best known as America’s worst president. Scandals plagued him: the Teapot Dome affair, corruption in the Veterans Bureau and the Justice Department, and the posthumous revelation of an extramarital affair. Raised in Marion, Ohio, Harding took hold of the small town’s newspaper and turned it into a success. Showing a talent for local politics, he rose quickly to the U.S. Senate. His presidential campaign slogan, “America’s present need is not heroics but healing, not nostrums but normalcy,” gave voice to a public exhausted by the intense politics following World War I. Once elected, he pushed for legislation limiting the number of immigrants; set high tariffs to relieve the farm crisis after the war; persuaded Congress to adopt unified federal budget creation; and reduced income taxes and the national debt, before dying unexpectedly in 1923. In this wise and compelling biography, John W. Dean—no stranger to controversy himself—recovers the truths and explodes the myths surrounding our twenty-ninth president’s tarnished legacy.
Publishers Weekly
Dean-of Watergate fame and author of the memoirs Blind Ambition and Lost Honor-does his best to make Warren G. Harding's lethargic life and scandal-laced presidency sound interesting. Throughout his entire pre-presidential career-including stints in both the Ohio state senate and the U.S. Senate-Harding was, for the most part, nothing more than an amiable nonentity. No bill of any consequence bore his name nor did he champion any measure worth recalling. Elected the nation's 29th chief executive in 1920 by an overwhelming vote in a postwar reaction against Wilson's foreign policies, Harding was the first president born after the Civil War. He was destined to die in office in 1923, but even before his death, he allowed the infamous Teapot Dome fiasco (based largely on dubious dealings conducted by the most notorious of Harding's many mediocre appointees-the anticonservationist secretary of the interior, Albert B. Fall) to occur. In an attempt to give Harding his due, Dean points out that he did at least bring to an end President Wilson's longstanding practice of excluding blacks from federal appointments. As well, in a speech of rare passion and boldness delivered in Birmingham, Ala., he called for political, economic and educational equity between the races. His most permanent domestic accomplishment, however, was as dull as it was necessary: the creation of the Bureau of the Budget. Dean (and Arthur Schlesinger's American Presidents series) is not to be faulted for the fact that Harding's life is a yawn-but a yawn it is. (Jan. 7) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Foreign Affairs
In selecting John Dean, Richard Nixon's former White House counsel, to write the biography of Warren Harding, Arthur Schlesinger made an interesting and a fruitful choice. Dean turns out to be a good biographer, and his book is a serviceable introduction to the last member of the Ohio presidential dynasty. Dean makes a strong case that history has done wrong by Harding, and that his ranking as one of the worst U.S. presidents reflects more political bias than substantive judgment. The Teapot Dome and whiskey scandals were not nearly as serious as some of the scandals that have shaken Washington in recent decades (without inflicting much harm on the posthumous reputations of the presidents peripherally involved), and Harding neither participated in them nor tried to cover them up. He freed the antiwar protesters that Wilson had jailed — even pardoning Eugene Debs after an interview in the White House. Dean also argues that historians have erred by not giving Harding more credit for the diplomacy of his secretary of state, Charles Evans Hughes. Still, that only means that he was less slothful but more foolish than currently believed. As president, Harding failed to grasp the nature of the United States' new role and to give the country and the world the leadership they needed; it is this, not the financial improprieties of his cronies, that will keep the banks of the Potomac free of Harding memorials.
Library Journal
Dean (yes, that John Dean), former counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, the man who blew the lid off the Watergate scandal, and a former resident of President Harding's hometown of Marion, OH, argues that Harding has received a bum deal from historians, who rate him among the worst presidents in history (he served from 1921 to 1923). Dean attempts a revisionist view of Harding, arguing that his accomplishments have not received the credit they deserve. More advocacy effort than neutral biography, Dean credibly highlights Harding's successes. He is less effective, though, when skating very quickly over Harding's many flaws, especially the rampant corruption that took place under his unsuspecting nose. Dean does, however, get it about right when he writes that Harding "was a natural at being head of state, but not at the administrative side of the presidency, that of being head of government." This indictment alone undermines Dean's effort at a revival of the Harding reputation. Although the book is well written and a welcome addition to the sparse Harding literature, one is forced to conclude that while Harding may deserve more credit than currently granted, he remains near the bottom of the presidential pack. For large political collections.-Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Harding is perhaps the best-known president about whom we actually know very little. His administration is seen as marking a conservative reaction to the progressivism begun by one Roosevelt and setting up the conditions for the progressivism of another. More personally, he appears as the hapless front man for the gang of thieves whose crimes culminated in the Teapot Dome Scandal, the acme of political scandals until Watergate. Dean is from Harding's hometown in Ohio and learned about him from residents who knew him there. Taking full advantage of the president's papers, which generally have been unused by historians, the author set out to discern who Harding was. The man who emerges is far more nuanced and interesting than would be presumed. He comes across as an individual of skill and drive who was caught up in the issues of his day, such as international disarmament and industrial conflict, and at a time far more demanding and dangerous than tends to be conjured up by images of the 1920s. Some of his officials served him well and others behaved badly as Harding sought to carry the country into the future without losing touch with the past. Readers cannot deny that there is more to this figure than they ever assumed and Dean deserves a great deal of credit for making them aware of that.-Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Brief account of a failed, scandal-ridden presidency, seen through the eyes of someone quite familiar with such things. "Warren G. Harding is best known as America's worst president," admits Dean, himself best known as Richard Nixon's former counsel and a reluctant star of the Watergate hearings 30 years ago. In this volume of the American Presidents series, however, the author professes something of an affective claim on Harding, if only because they share the hometown of Marion, Ohio. Laboring valiantly to prove that the man infamous for his largely posthumous connection to the Teapot Dome scandal of 1923 does not quite merit the worst-president epithet, Dean credits Harding, who was inaugurated in 1921, for being unusually forward-thinking in his views on civil rights and social welfare. He was also, Dean writes, a highly effective practical politician who had few personal enemies (except for his wife's father, who in this account personifies everything bad about small-town capitalism) and valued consensus-building at all levels of government. The author credits Harding for braving unpopularity by taking a consistently conservative stand on fiscal matters, as when he risked damaging his career by refusing to pay a bonus to WWI veterans, though Dean overreaches by writing that this refusal "helped to usher in the booming economy of the roaring twenties." Whatever his merits, Harding unwisely surrounded himself with self-serving counselors, among them a treasury secretary who brokered tax breaks for the wealthy, an interior secretary who enriched himself by selling off favors and titles from the public domain, and a veteran's affairs administrator who looted his department's budget.Although Harding served only 882 days in office before dying of a stroke, his relationship with those men and assorted other wrongdoers has served to tarnish his reputation ever since, even if, as Dean insists, none of the associated criminal investigations "implicated Warren Harding in any corrupt activity or wrongdoing." Unlikely to rehabilitate Harding by itself, but a useful view of the long-forgotten leader.
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