Loss of Innocence

On two separate occasions during a six-month interval from November 1959 to May 1960, the American people became aware of what was, for that time, a shocking reality: to their disbelief, they learned that their institutions didn’t always tell them the truth.

The major scandals examined in this book were played out against the backdrop of the Cold War. Their immediate impact was to call into question some black-and-white assumptions: that Americans told the truth and trusted their government to always do the right thing.