The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country

The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country

by Laton McCartney

Narrated by William Hughes

Unabridged — 10 hours, 8 minutes

The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country

The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country

by Laton McCartney

Narrated by William Hughes

Unabridged — 10 hours, 8 minutes

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Overview

The Teapot Dome scandal of the early 1920s was all about oil-hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of petroleum. When the scandal finally broke, the consequences were tremendous. President Harding's legacy was forever tarnished, while “Oil Cabinet” member Albert Fall was forced to resign and was imprisoned for a year. Others implicated in the affair suffered prison terms, commitment to mental hospitals, suicide, and even murder.

The Republican Party and the oil-company CEOs scrambled to cover their tracks and were mostly successful. Key documents mysteriously disappeared; important witnesses suffered sudden losses of memory. Though a special investigation was authorized, the scope of the wrongdoing was contained by administration stonewalling. But newly surfaced information indicates that the scandal was even bigger than originally thought.


Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

Journalist McCartney (Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story) examines corruption and scandal at the highest levels of the federal government in his look at the scandal of Warren G. Harding's administration, Teapot Dome. The groundwork for the scandal was in fact in place even before Warren G. Harding had won the Republican nomination in his bid for the presidency. America's top oil companies had funneled money into the Harding campaign, providing the kind of monetary support needed for Harding to win the White House. In return, Harding appointed Albert Fall as his secretary of the interior, a position the oil interests believed would open up the Naval Oil Reserves in Wyoming (the teapot dome reserve) and California for their companies, something that Fall did accomplish. Once this quid pro quo became public, Congress pressed Harding to nullify the lease; the Supreme Court ruled that the authority Harding had given to Fall in the first place was illegal. McCartney's final section details what happened to the key individuals. The major conspirators received little or no jail time. The Teapot Dome scandal showed how monetary political contributions could lead to political corruption, something we now take for granted. Readers unfamiliar with this bit of history will find this work heavy in detail and light in general context. Recommended for informed readers in public and academic libraries.
—Michael LaMagna

From the Publisher

A terrific tale that resonates nearly a century on, at a time when many people are still wondering about the connections between Big Oil and politicians at the highest levels.”
–Jon Meacham, author of Franklin and Winston

“This is a story that has it all–a Jazz Age background, a pleasure-loving president surrounded by booze and chorus girls, boomtown capitalists from the Wild West, [and] conniving politicians. . . . [Laton McCartney has] a certain zest for Teapot’s sordid comedy [and] delivers fresh, arresting portraits of the main players, some of them lovable rogues, others beady-eyed scoundrels.”
–The New York Times

“The most thorough treatment of the scandals to date.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Titillating, tantalizing . . . The book reads like a novel. McCartney’s cast of characters jumps off the page.”
–Baltimore Sun

“A cautionary tale of what happens when corrupt and indifferent public officials give an industry undue influence over public policy.”
–The Denver Post

“Fascinating reading.”
–St. Louis Post-Dispatch

JUN/JUL 08 - AudioFile

In the greatest story of government scandal ever told, Warren Harding's Secretary of the Interior was "giving away oil leases like kisses at a wedding." Oil magnates of the 1920s then tapped into the public's petroleum reserves, realizing hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, all quid pro quo. Narrator William Hughes races through the details of the devilish deals like he's just finished 20 grande lattes. His caffeinated style mixed with a conspiracy as complicated as an Agatha Christie novel will leave many listeners' heads spinning—and grateful there won't be a test at the end. Hughes has a laudable knack with the numerous quotes, using subtle changes in his word stress to set them apart without employing annoying pauses or hundreds of characterizations. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID: 2940169900729
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date: 02/05/2008
Edition description: Unabridged

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1 A Reversal of Fortune
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Excerpted from "The Teapot Dome Scandal"
by .
Copyright © 2009 Laton McCartney.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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