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"In this formidable narrative, the prize-winning and super honest reporter, Patrick Sloyan, adds the depth of a scholar's context to produce a gripping reminder of why we should never forget history. He makes readers feel like they were eye witnesses." -- Ralph NaderFrom a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who reported on the events as it happened, an action-packed account of Reagan's failures in the 1983 Marines barracks bombing in Beirut. On October 23, 1983, a truck bomb destroyed the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut. 241 Americans were killed in the worst terrorist attack our nation would suffer until 9/11. We're still feeling the repercussions today.When Reagan Sent In the Marines tells why the Marines were there, how their mission became confused and compromised, and how President Ronald Reagan used another misguided military venture to distract America from the attack and his many mistakes leading up to it.Pulitzer Prize-winning author Patrick J. Sloyan uses his own contemporaneous reporting, his close relationships with the Marines in Beirut, recently declassified documents, and interviews with key players, including Reagan's top advisers, to shine a new light on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and Reagan's doomed ceasefire in Beirut. Sloyan draws on interviews with key players to explore the actions of Kissinger and Haig, while revealing the courage of Marine Colonel Timothy Geraghty, who foresaw the disaster in Beirut, but whom Reagan would later blame for it.More than thirty-five years later, America continues to wrestle with Lebanon, the Marines with the legacy of the Beirut bombing, and all of us with the threat of Mideast terror that the attack furthered. When Reagan Sent In The Marines is about a historical moment, but one that remains all too present today.
About the Author
Patrick J. Sloyan Patrick Joseph Sloyan has covered national and international affairs since 1960 and has been awarded journalism most distinguished prizes for domestic and foreign reporting. His latest work is a non-fiction book, The Politics of Deception: JFK's Secret Decisions on Vietnam, Civil Rights and Cuba. Sloyan became Washington Bureau Chief of Newsday, the Long Island Newspaper, in 1986. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his 1990 coverage of Desert Storm, the Persian Gulf War and its aftermath. In the same year, he was also given the George Polk Award for War Reporting. His disclosure of Friendly Fire deaths and injuries led to U.S. Army changes in tank crew training. In 1996, he was given the Raymond Clapper Award for investigative reporting that revealed windfall payments by Clinton Administration to defense contractors. The American Society of Newspaper Editors awarded Sloyan the Deadline Writing prize for his coverage of the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Those dispatches were included in the college textbook, " Best Newspaper Writing-1982." At UPI, he was the first wire service reporter to reveal General Motors' investigation of Ralph Nader and the debates leading to legislation for auto safety, air and water standards designed to improve public health. It was the start of a public health revolution that saved countless lives around the globe.In 1997, one of Sloyan's dispatches was selected for republication in the college textbook, "Masterpieces of Journalism: The Greatest Stories American Newspapers have ever produced." Sloyan was a member of a Newsday team that won 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting on the crash of TWA 800 off the coast of Long Island. His career has spanned nine presidents, 20 Congresses and 12 presidential campaigns. He was involved in the coverage of the 1962 Cuban missile crises that had the United States and the Soviet Union on the brink of nuclear warfare; the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy; the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights struggle and the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals involving Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan. As a foreign correspondent based in London, he covered Europe, the Mideast during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; the British invasion of the Falkland Islands and the transformation of the Soviet Union during the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev. Sloyan began his career in Washington in 1960 at United Press International. He covered the U.S. Senate, the Pentagon and the White House. At Hearst News Service, he covered the Nixon and Ford Administrations before joining Newsday in 1974 as White House correspondent and chief political reporter. The income taxes of all U.S. presidents are now routinely audited by the Internal Revenue Service because of Sloyan's reporting on White House tax returns. In addition to daily journalism, he has written extensively for a var
