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Oct. 18 - Who said government bureaucrats can't do anything right? After all, a bunch of federal paper pushers—the 9/11 Commission—proved that truism wrong last week by earning a nomination for a National Book Award.
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Full disclosure: I never actually read the 9/11 Commission report. Nobody did (though it's sold more than one million copies). It's the book everyone knows he needs to read, the book everyone intends to read, the book everyone has on his shelf so that it appears that it has been read, but in the end, it's "Moby Dick," the book no one finishes. That's not entirely fair, of course. The first 46 pages of Moby Dick are so weighty with detail that they are painfully dull. You don't put that book down because you have to. You put it down because you want to. But the first 46 pages of "The 9/11 Commission Report" are filled with such gripping details about the terror attack that you don't put this book down because you want to; you put it down because you have to. So, yes, the Commission's report deserved its nomination—you just wish it was being nominated for fiction, not non-fiction. (Fuller disclosure: "The 9/11 Commission Report" will probably win the award next month, but it really should go to Jennifer Gonnerman's "Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett." No, I haven't read that book yet, either, but I once met Gonnerman at a party and she was so smart that I actually left and went straight home to read the encyclopedia, which I also didn't finish. If Gonnerman had a staff of 80 and a $15-million advance, she would catch Osama, and write a great book about it.)
Unlike Gonnerman's book, the 9/11 Commission's report was a team effort. After the nomination was announced on October 13, there was a flurry of interest in determining who "wrote" this classic. This makes sense. Journalists wanted to find a scoop. Publishers wanted to find their next best-selling author. I just wanted some advice on how to write a damn book in the first place. There's a lot of secrecy behind the project, but a great reporter (for now, you'll have to settle for me) knows how to lift the veil and get the story, regardless of the obstacles.
I called Alice Falk, who is listed as the "editor" of the report, but she dodged me like a candidate dodges a moderator. "Though it's flattering ... I'm afraid I won't be able to help you," she wrote me. "It would be unprofessional of me to comment on the process." Damn her! There's nothing great journalists (or even I) hate more than a silent source. Clearly, Falk would not be my Deep Throat (Sore Throat was more like it).
I kept digging, calling Ernest May, who is listed as the "senior adviser." I knew May would talk because he's a professor at Harvard and you don't become a professor at Harvard by disdaining attention. (Fullest disclosure: I gave a talk at the Harvard Club this week and bombed worse than an Iraqi Scud. One piece of advice: Don't use your Friar's Club material at the Harvard Club. And never, never imply that the president of the university is using Viagra. Sure, you and I can laugh about the Harvard president's erectile dysfunction, but it's no joking matter to the alums I addressed.)
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It was fun to talk to May, you know, writer to writer (Editor's note: The presumption! I'll remind you, Kuntzman, Ernest May has written many books on very momentous topics of American history, while you've written one slim volume on the social history of baldness. I just had to get that off my chest. You may continue with your story). May was surprisingly forthcoming about the ink-stained wretches behind the scenes of the 9/11 Commission, whose public face consisted of Tom Kean hectoring the Bush administration with stentorian tones and $10 words while Richard Ben-Veniste sharpened knives in the corner.
"About 40 people were involved in the serious drafting of the report," May said. "Most of the writers were lawyers and intelligence officers. It was tough, because lawyers want to write arguments, intelligence officers want to lay out the facts, and writers want to tell a story. In the end, they all became writers."
May credited Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, as the man who really pulled the story together. And May gave me the scoop of the week: Zelikow didn't even want the 9/11 Commission job in the first place.
"And I wasn't encouraging at all," said May, who co-wrote a book with Zelikow about John F. Kennedy 's years in the White House. "We decided that the only way he should take the job is if he would really be able to tell the story, to write the definitive history of this pivotal event. After that, he went to Tom Kean and Tom said that's exactly what he wanted, too."
The result was a great book, but another book was put on hold. Zelikow and May were in the middle of their definitive history of the Cold War. (You remember the Cold War? It was the most important struggle in the history of the world—until Saddam Hussein came along, that is). Now, May isn't sure if they can get back on track.
"It really was nice having an 80-person staff," he said. "But the most important thing was the ability to put people under oath and have them testify at hearings. That would really come in handy."
I asked for May's Cold War wish list, thinking he'd tick off a dozen or so KGB agents whom he love to come in from the cold, but the man on the top of his list was Henry Kissinger.
"I'd really like to have him under oath!" May said.
Who needs subpoena power? Just put him in a room with Jennifer Gonnerman for 15 minutes. You'll have all the answers you need.
Gersh Kuntzman is also a reporter for The New York Post. Check out his rudimentary website at http://www.gersh.tv
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