rant · moment 4 of 25
The Blacklisted Journalists: Talbot, Baker, and Bryant
from Our Best Episode (Inside the CIA with John Kiriakou) · #136
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
4 minTim details guests David Talbot (Devil's Chessboard, Alan Dulles/JFK), Russ Baker (Family of Secrets), and Nick Bryant (pedophile network book) and how each paid a professional price for their controversial, deeply researched work.
- 9:26Tim describes bringing ignored writers onto the show—people whose credible books damaged their mainstream careers.
- 9:54David Talbot founded Salon.com and wrote Brothers about the Kennedy family, then The Devil's Chessboard implicating Alan Dulles in JFK's assassination.
- 10:44Talbot's books ruffled feathers in Washington and cost him invitations to Georgetown cocktail parties.
- 11:13Russ Baker, a Polk or Peabody Award-winning journalist for the New York Times and Vanity Fair, wrote Family of Secrets and drew troubling conclusions.
- 11:35Baker's friends warned him not to touch the third rail—CIA, Kennedy, and uncomfortable questions about the American government.
- 12:02Nick Bryant spent seven years investigating an interstate pedophile network in the 80s and 90s trafficking children to high-ranking Washington officials.
- 12:21Bryant lost his agent when he wrote the book; Tim has had lunch with him and doesn't believe he was fabricating.
- 12:35Russ Baker's book contains thousands of notes, Nick Bryant's includes sealed grand jury documents—both spent years researching.
- 13:03Their journalism resembles detective work: knocking on doors, sitting in libraries with microfiche, interviewing elderly witnesses from the events themselves.
- 13:19Tim finds these books credible and worthy of attention despite the authors' reputational costs for writing them.