Volume 24, Number 20 · December 8, 1977
Reflections on Political Scandal
By Renata Adler
Agency of Fear: Opiates and Political Power in America
by Edward Jay Epstein
Putnam's, 352 pp., $9.95
When too many scandals have gone on for too long, uninterrupted and inadequately investigated, they tend to merge. What began as isolated instances of corruption grow toward each other and finally interlock. The nursing home operators, and private garbage collectors, and parking lot owners, and film industry executives, and cable television interests, and vending machine distributors, and recording companies, and casino operators, the teamsters, the Mafia, and defense contractors, and finally the investigative agencies of government and elected officials up to the highest level begin to have in common not just a general corruption but joint ventures and even personnel.
Review, 9189 words
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