Curiosity led Edward Epstein to investigate some of the greatest political mysteries of our time, such as the JFK assassination in Dallas, the Vatican banking scandal in Rome, and the diamond cartel in South Africa. Seeking more information, he often found himself a fly on the wall at the highest reaches of the establishment, observing how presidents, tycoons, bankers, and media moguls secretly greased the wheels of power. This memoir recounts his life as a pursuer of lost truths.  Some accuse Epstein of being a conspiracist, but that is incorrect. He is a puzzle solver. Instead of accepting the received wisdom, he searches for the missing pieces of the picture, such as the autopsy photographs of President John F. Kennedy that were kept from the investigation conducted by the Warren Commission. Finding suppressed or overlooked evidence may result in overturning an established narrative, as happened with the publication of Inquest, Epstein’s book about the official probe into the JFK assassination. But that is very different from looking for a conspiracy.  Sometimes, Epstein’s work has in fact uncovered a deep conspiracy, as with the world diamond cartel. Other times, it has discredited belief in a conspiracy, as when he delved into the murders of numerous Black Panthers. After his findings were published in the New Yorker, newspapers including the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times issued editorial apologies for their own reporting on the murders, which had suggested that an FBI conspiracy was behind them. Epstein’s primary interest has never been to advance an agenda, but rather to spot gaps in the conventional narrative and fill them in. Assume Nothing is the story of a lifelong quest for missing puzzle pieces, and also a story of self-actualization. 

In his new biography of James Jesus Angleton, Edward Jay Epstein answers the question: was Angleton right after all about penetrations in the CIA? Angleton was the legendary head of CIA counterintelligence during most of the Cold War. In May 1987, in one of his last phone calls, he told Dick Cheney, who was then a member of the House Intelligence Committee, that he needed to tell him in person something of vital importance. Even though Angleton died before the scheduled meeting, taking this secret to the grave with him, his mystery lived on. John Le Carre could not have invented a character as intriguing as Angleton. He was ridiculed in the media, Congress, and in the CIA itself, when his mole hunt failed to find a spy in the CIA Investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein tells of his rise, fall, and the astounding revelations that emerged in the CIA after his death. Epstein spent hundreds of hours interviewing him to understand the mind of this unique mind warrior. He met with him in orchid greenhouses in Kensington, Maryland, dining clubs in Washington DC, and his home in Tucson, Arizona to follow the convoluted layers of his universe of deception. Epstein also was one of the few journalist to interview his arch nemesis: Yuri Nosenko. In this extraordinary book, he sets out to answer a single question: Was Angleton right that the CIA had been penetrated? Along the way we also learn much about the CIA and KGB during the cold war years, including: + Why KGB defector Yuri Nosenko was imprisoned by the CIA. + What was Angleton's role in the CIA assassination plots against Castro. + How the CIA allowed the KGB to disinform two Presidents. + What weaknesses KGB spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen exposed in the CIA Praise for Edward Jay Epstein "Edward Jay Epstein is the first journalist to have investigated the official accounts of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He remains the only one to have interviewed all the members of the Warren Commission, and would go on to be one of the great investigative journalists of the era. - Michael Wolff, USA Today "Epstein believes that conspiracies are more common than most journalists credit; for much of his career, he has reveled in the kind of tantalizing clues that could lead somewhere, or nowhere." - Joe Nocera, The New York Times "Epstein is a bulldog researcher." - Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post "A brilliant investigator." - Lou Dobbs

Edward Jay Epstein investigates the most brilliant illusion in modern history: the illusion that diamonds are so rare that they will maintain their value forever. He explains how the the De Beers cartel, backed by a syndicate of Jewish diamond dealers in London, created an artificial scarcity by controlling the worldwide supply and used modern advertising to establish it in the mind of the public. In this book, comprised of six essays, we also learn about the secret workings of the cartel over the past century, including: + Why you cannot always sell diamonds for the price you paid? + Why Russia is now taking over the cartel operation? + How De Beers now uses the concept of blood diamonds to control prices? + Why Nicky Oppenheimer exited De Beers in 2011? Praise for Edward Jay Epstein: "Brilliant Expose of the International diamond monopoly" --Telegraph (London) "Full of readable if somewhat garish descriptions of diamond mines, diamond traders, and the activities of governments. If Ian Fleming were alive, he would have found much rewarding material here." -Woodrow Wyatt, Sunday Times

In an age when the American public relies more on television for its news than any other medium, Edward Jay Epstein's detailed, probing analysis of the decision-making process in network news organizations has achieved the status of a classic. Mr. Epstein shows how internal corporate policy and budget requirements shape the direction of television news coverage. What we see on the network evening news, he demonstrates, does not mirror reality because TV's essential aim is not to inform but to excite viewers enough to induce them to "stay tuned." "The best book ever written about any aspect of television."-Richard Schickel. "The book is burnished with insights on virtually every page. Epstein's analysis seems to me incontestable, and is offered with great cogency, elegance, and sophistication."-Stephen J. Whitfield, Brandeis University. "A complex, fascinating book....Mr. Epstein shows that no educated citizen should rely exclusively or principally on TV news, but also that none should fail to watch it."-Wall Street Journal.

Investigative reporter Edward Jay Epstein defines the seldom seen universe of intelligence and counterintelligence.Set in the era of the Cold War, it explores the ultimate art of nations: Winning without fighting, or, in a single word, deception. It concerns, as James Jesus Angleton described it to the author, " a state of mind -and the mind of the state." With a new Preface (2014) Praise For Edward Jay Epstein "Epstein delves deep into the wheels-within-wheels of superpower intelligence and counterintelligence, showing ways in which the CIA and the KGB have been "provoked, seduced, lured into false trails, blinded, and turned into unwitting agents." Readers will find new information here on a multitude of subjects: programs involving CIA-written books published under defectors' names; the story of Yuri Nosenko, a KGB officer who defected in 1963 and was "at the heart of everything that happened at the CIA for a decade"; and the theories of James Angleton, the former CIA chief of counterintelligence, on the hidden motives of KGB super-mole Kim Philby. The book concludes with an ominously plausible argument that Gorbachev's glasnost is merely the sixth phase in a grand strategy of Soviet deception conceived soon after the Bolshevik Revolution. Highly recommended." ---Publishers Weekly "Epstein's account of the world of intelligence is fascinating, instructive, and, in parts, sensational." -Irving Kristol American Enterprise Institute "This is an important book that reflects an epoch in United States counterintelligence operations and philosophy." -William R. Harris The RAND Corporation "A brilliant investigator examines the fascinating history of glasnost and the unseen motives and machinery of the Soviet state." -Lou Dobbs, CNN

Six essays on the conspiracy theories and intrigues surrounding the JFK assassination by Edward Jay Epstein. Epstein, who Michael Wolff in USA Today describes as "one of the great investigative journalists of the era," was the only journalist to have interviewed the Warren Commission. These essays deal with 60 theories of the assassination, the death of George De Mohrenschildt (who was shot in the midst of a 4-day interview with Epstein), Oliver Stone's movie JFK, and a parallel CIA murder plot. PRAISE FOR EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN "Epstein believes that conspiracies are more common than most journalists credit; for much of his career, he has reveled in the kind of tantalizing clues that could lead somewhere, or nowhere." -Joe Nocera, The New York Times "Epstein is a bulldog researcher." -Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post "A brilliant investigator." - Lou Dobbs

President Bush has made the war against drugs the number one issue on the contemporary American political agenda. In this revised edition of his classic book, available for the first time in paperback, Edward Jay Epstein argues that the president has adopted the strategy of his forebear, Richard Nixon, in using the drugs war to blame foreigners for the crisis in America's cities, and to provide a smokescreen for unrelated political activity designed to bolster executive power. The drugs crackdown has seen an almost hundredfold increase in the federal budget for narco-politics in the fifteen years since Agency of Fear was first published, while statistics on drug-running have been massaged. Epstein points out that, despite the massive budgets and public relations brouhaha, drug importation, as measured against wholesale price, has in fact grown.

A behind-the-scenes odyssey into the world of the Hollywood motion picture industry. It examines the complex ways in which the major entertainment empires - Viacom, Time Warner, NBC/Universal, Fox, Sony and Disney - make their money, profiling the individuals who created these vast conglomerates.