Barry & 'the Boys' : The CIA, the Mob and America's Secret History

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Ever in its Genre
Review: "Barry & 'the Boys': the CIA, the Mob, and America's Secret History" is a book that will expand the audience for parapolitical literature. "Barry and the Boys" is written to appeal to the serious student of Deep Political arrangements as well as the "casual interest" reader looking for something to help him or her understand today's news while simultaneously being entertained.

This journalistic tour de force presents the story of Barry Seal's career in intelligence and drug and gun running - from its inception as a teenager working along side Lee Oswalld in the New Orleans CAP under David Ferrie, to its conclusion, "in a hail of bullets, with George Bush's private phone number in his wallet."

It is rare these days for a single work to offer more than a few minor details of new information to add to our overall understanding of cold war crimes of State. It is even more rare to find a book in this category that satisfies both the intellect's need for new information and the heart's desire for human interest and style. Hopsicker's work - the result of two and a half years of full-time field investigation, living out of suitcases and pushing the limits of his own personal safety in his quest for "the story" - delivers all of this by the planeload.

Hopsicker ultimately got his story, and oh, what a story! Though he obviously did an enormous amount of research on the body of work already available, the details are all Mr. Hopsicker's - hence, no footnotes. But what his work lacks in scholarly annotations, he more than makes up for in old-fashioned sweat and shoeleather. The book is filled with the product of interviews with the principle participants from both sides of the Barry Seal saga. And through the judicious use of primary documents (available in a 58-page appendix), many of which have never been made publically available until now, Hosicker provides corroboration and authentication for his human sources. Among those primary documents, the one on the cover is a doozey: a group portrait of Operation 40 members at a January 22, 1963 meeting in Mexico City. (I wonder what they could be talking about?)

"Barry and 'the Boys'" presents all of this material in a fascinating tapestry of new information and established facts stitched together with incisive wit. The result is an entertaining and illumitating whole, documenting 30 years of a man's life and a nation's peril.

In a perfect world, "Barry and 'the Boys'" would be a best seller. In this world, it is still going to do very well.

Rating:
Summary: It Brings It All Together
Review: An amazing story. Barry Seal was just a kid who flew well, That talent lead him straight into the arms of the shadowy world of "clandestine services." Daniel Hopsicker has really brought an amazing story to the American public. This book exposes the underbelly of corruption and assassination that has run rampant in our republic. This book has much to tell about the JFK assasination major players. Seal met Lee Harvey Oswald at Civil Air Patrol summer camp—along with David Ferrie. Hopsicker's revelations about Ferrie's involvement with intel agencies and extracircular activities are astounding. The whole book breaks much new ground. Barry Seals's photos and documents tell a story all in themselves.

It seems that Barry Seal was getting ready to talk and through Barry and 'the boys', Barry gets his wish.

Barry and 'the boys' lets the chips fall where they may. Hopsicker takes swings and lands on corruption no matter what party.

A must read!!!

Rating:
Summary: Truth
Review: For those with no experience with the whole conspiracy outlook on the Kennedy assasination etc., this book will give you an overview that cannot be beat. From here you will be able to navigate into the depths of information as you desire.
For those with considerable background in the whole conspiracy outlook, Barry and the Boys has the latest updated information which is not yet available anywhere else.
You will not be disappointed. You need this book for your library now.

Rating:
Summary: An important read
Review: Hopsicker brings out facts that will change the minds of even the most partisan of readers. This is not amount Republicans or Democrats but about agencies outside the control of presidents and congress.

Rating:
Summary: Good try, but...
Review: I commend Hopsicker for a game try at turning up new research on this topic. There are a few interviews here that are new and informative. But that having been said, I have a few problems with it.

I've done a bundle of research on one of Hopsicker's main characters, David William Ferrie, and I can often guage a JFK book's accuracy by the degree of accuracy in dealing with Ferrie. "Barry and the Boys" falls short in this regard. Some of the Ferrie material is just plain wrong, provably wrong. (Not to get off on minutiae, but he has the "Falcon Squadron", a group created by Ferrie AFTER he was kicked out the Civil Air Patrol, as an official part of the CAP; and he once again refers to Ferrie being fired by Eastern Air Lines for on-the-job homosexual activities, when in fact EAL fired Ferrie for publicity over off-the-job activities.)He repeats unproven assertions from other books, without any additonal attempt to support them with proof. Without proving that they ever met, Hopsicker uses Barry Seal's attendance at a 1955 Civil Air Patrol encampment to build an elaborate theory that Ferrie, Oswald and Seal all worked together later in life.

Good research is not finding a hundred disparate facts or factoids and stringing them together with dark rhetoric; good research is finding and presenting proof of what the writer asserts. David Ferrie was a real person who has been maligned again and again in assassination books. If Hopsicker's level of accuracy with regard to Ferrie is any indicator, I'm not sure I can trust the rest of the material in the book.

Rating:
Summary: much fiction and hard to follow
Review: This book purports to be a true account of Barry's exploits. Hopsicker uses rumors and half-truths and tries to stick Seal into the middle of the Kennedy assassination: the mother lode for conspiracy aficionados. He quotes the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper librarian as telling him, "My ex-husband, who was 'connected,' told me that too." Hopsicker had just told the woman his big news that Seal was supposed to fly Oswald's getaway plane out of Dallas after JFK was killed. This is a snippet of the "evidence" gathered by Hopsicker to prove that Barry was part and parcel of the Kennedy assassination. The Advocate librarian is (name withheld)and she was not pleased when she learned of the quotes attributed to her by Hopsicker. "I was totally misquoted and I never met him," she said. The quotations attributed to her by Hopsicker are "lies and a bunch of baloney." said the lady. "I never used the word 'connected' with him." Hopsicker said that Barry Seal worked for the CIA and he named Dave Dixon, a prominent New Orleans French Quarter antique dealer, as Seal's long-time CIA handler. Mr. Dixon said he has never worked for the CIA and has never met Barry Seal. Hopsicker never talked to him, he said.
Hopsicker describes me as the "Special Agent in Charge of the Middle District of Louisiana Organized Crime Drug Task Force investigation into the Barry Seal drug smuggling organization." Flattering though it may be, I was one FBI agent assigned to the task force along with an IRS agent and a DEA agent. My role was was discussed fully during several personal meetings in 1998. Hopsicker theorizes that Barry was associated with Lee Harvey Oswald when both were members of the Louisiana Civil Air Patrol and came under the tutelage of David Ferrie who is apparently one of "the Boys." Barry Seal's brother, Ben Seal, has said publicly that it was he, not Barry, who was a member of the Civil Air Patrol and was once acquainted with David Ferrie.
Hopsicker claims that David Ferrie was once an FBI agent who spent most of World War II working undercover in South America. This is a totally false. Hopsicker has confused David Ferrie with retired FBI agent Warren C. De Brueys who was assigned to the New Orleans and was actively involved in the investigation of the Kennedy assassination. He also spent some time working in South America during World War II. In an effort to give credibility to his wild story about Ferrie, Hopsicker quoted this writer as "grudgingly admitting" that he saw Dave Ferrie's name on a list of "disowned agents." More poppycock. No such conversation ever took place. The alleged "disowned agents" list is a figment of Hopsicker's imagination and David Ferrie was never a Special Agent of the FBI agent.
Hopsicker makes other errors such as continually referring to "Partners in Power" as being written by Sally Denton and Roger Morris. Sally Denton didn't have a thing to do with the book. Hopsicker, has the book confused with a Penthouse article, "The Crimes of Mena", co-authored by Denton and Morris.
The book is full of flawed logic, quantum leaps and sensationalism.
Further attesting to the falsehoods, errors and slander that are found in the book is the fact that Chapter 35 was pulled in settlement of a law suit filed by a corporation that was maligned in the missing chapter.

Rating:
Summary: The Real Story
Review: This outstanding work may be considered fiction by some and ridiculous by others. Those that DO think that have never examined in depth the JFK assassination, the CIA's secret teams, bank scandals, drug and weapons smuggling, or the overt and covert efforts by our government to control the governments of Central and South American countries. Daniel Hopsicker names names, and uses sources where possible. Even the named sources feared for their lives, as they were actively involved in the government sponsored scandals of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. I have found through independent research, verification of many instances that are related here. This book takes us full circle, from the 1955 introduction of Barry Seal to David Ferrie, to the Mena Arkansas cocaine and weapons smuggling base that was still operating just a few short years ago. It explores in depth the story of CIA affiliated heroin and cocaine smuggling to pay for other covert activites, including political assassinations. It has been suspected for years that some of those named in this book, who are current politicians(and one cable TV news talk show host), were involved in more than arming the Contras. Mr Hopsicker has revealed those who were involved in activities contrary to the law and the Constitution, and should be in prison for life instead of being in high government positions or hosting news shows. The literary style of this book makes it an easy read, although there are some instances where further editing could have been done(ie, spelling and grammar mistakes). If you are concerned over the past and current actions of our government and its covert agencies, when you finish Barry and the Boys, you will be outraged, and rightfully so.