Richard Gid Powers, author of Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI, will present a one-hour lecture on Wednesday, December 8 at 2:30 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Lecture Hall at the College of Staten Island.

“Powers presents a shocking and accurate picture of why the FBI developed an institutional culture that rendered it blind to the threat from international terror,” said John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy and member of the 9/11 Commission, as cited on the publisher’s Web site.

The lecture will be an informative and eye-opening overview of the book, which Publisher’s Weekly says “features an astonishing range of political abuses, misdirected investigations, skewed priorities, and sheer intelligence failures.” They call the book “a timely and nuanced history of the legendary agency that puts its current struggles in appropriate context.” The lecture will be followed by a book signing by the author.

WHO:
Richard Gid Powers

WHAT:
Lecture and book signing

WHERE:
CSI Center for the Arts
Lecture Hall
2800 Victory Blvd., Staten Island

WHEN:
Wednesday, December 8 at 2:30 p.m.
Free and open to the public.

Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI was published in October 2004 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. They can be found online at www.simonsays.com.

About the Author
Richard Gid Powers is a professor of history at CUNY Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island. He is the author of the definitive biography, Secrecy and Power. The Life of J. Edgar Hoover, and Not Without Honor: The History of American Anti- communism, among other books. He has written dozens of reviews and articles about the Bureau and has participated regularly in film documentaries on the FBI. He is the principal consultant for, and appears in, Tower Productions’ four-part documentary on the FBI for the History Channel. He was also the consultant for the PBS American Experience documentary G-Men: Hoover’s Rise to Power, which was based on his book G-Men. Powers has also written for The New York Times Book Review. He lives in Staten Island, New York.