Thomas Powers
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Thomas Powers (born December 12, 1940, in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
) is an American author and intelligence expert. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1971 together with Lucinda Franks for his articles on Weatherman member Diana Oughton (1942-1970). He was also the recipient of the Olive Branch award in 1984 for a cover story on the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
that appeared in ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...
'', a 2007 Berlin Prize, and for his 2010 book on
Crazy Horse Crazy Horse ( , ; – September 5, 1877) was a Lakota people, Lakota war leader of the Oglala band. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by White Americans, White American settlers on Nativ ...
the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History.


Life and works

Born in New York City in 1940, he was a 1958 graduate of Tabor Academy. Powers later attended
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
, where he graduated in 1964 with a degree in English. At first he worked for the ''Rome Daily American'' in Italy, later for
United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ce ...
. In 1970 he became a freelance writer.Powers, ''Heisenberg's War'' (Penguin 1993) at ii, "About the Author". Powers is the author of six works of non-fiction and one novel. His ''The Man who Kept Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA'' (1979) is "widely regarded as one of the best books ever written on the subject of intelligence." His work on
Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg (; ; 5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist, one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics and a principal scientist in the German nuclear program during World War II. He pub ...
tracks secret developments in nuclear physics during the 1930s and early 1940s. The revised edition of his ''Intelligence Wars'' contains twenty-eight articles previously published in the ''New York Review of Books'' and the ''New York Times Book Review'' from 1983 to 2004. His most recent book follows the life of
Crazy Horse Crazy Horse ( , ; – September 5, 1877) was a Lakota people, Lakota war leader of the Oglala band. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by White Americans, White American settlers on Nativ ...
(died Nebraska 1877). Evan Thomas in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', while reviewing this book, also commented broadly on Powers as an author and a previous work on Richard Helms:
Powers is "a great journalistic anthropologist. In possibly the best book ever written about the C.I.A, ''The Man Who Kept the Secrets'', Powers took the reader on a fascinating journey into the world of secret intelligence gathering and covert action. The C.I.A. was, at least in the early years of the cold war, a tribe as mysterious and exotic as the Great Plains Sioux of the 1870s. And Powers tells us much that is revealing and often moving about the Sioux in their last days as free warriors".
Powers has been a contributor to ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...
'', ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...
'', '' The Los Angeles Times'', '' The New York Times Book Review'', '' Harper's'', ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'', '' Commonweal'', and ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
''. Besides writing, Powers joined a partnership to found in 1993 a publishing company
Steerforth Press
Originally located in South Royalton, Vermont, it is now located in Hanover, New Hampshire. Its website self describes as a "small independent house" with a "range of titles on a variety of topics". Powers and his wife Candace live in Vermont. In 1979 he was living with his wife and three daughters in New York City.Back flap of ''The Man who Kept the Secrets'' (Knopf 1979). "He is currently writing a memoir of his father, who once told him that the last time he met Clare Boothe Luce was in the office of Allen Dulles."


Bibliography

* ''Diana: The Making of a Terrorist'', Houghton Mifflin, 1971, * ''The War at Home'', Grossman, 1973 * ''The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA'', Knopf, 1979, * ''Thinking About the Next War'', Knopf, 1982, * * ''The Confirmation'', Knopf, 2000, , a novel * **revised and expanded edition, 2004. * * * "Getting Sacagawea Right" (review of ''Our Story of Eagle Woman: Sacagawea: They Got It Wrong'', by the Sacagawea Project Board of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, Paragon Agency, 2021, 342 pp.), ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...
'', vol. LXX, no. 10 (8 June 2023), pp. 39–42.


References


External links


Powers archive
from ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...
''
Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield review ''The Killing of Crazy Horse''American Academy per Thomas Powers
(no longer current) {{DEFAULTSORT:Powers, Thomas 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American reporters and correspondents Non-fiction espionage writers Historians of the Central Intelligence Agency The Atlantic (magazine) people Berlin Prize recipients Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting winners Tabor Academy (Massachusetts) alumni Yale University alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society 1940 births Living people