The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country

by Laton McCartney, William Hughes (Narrated by)

Overview

The Teapot Dome scandal of the early 1920s was all about oil—hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of petroleum. When the scandal finally broke, the consequences were tremendous. President Harding's legacy was forever tarnished, while “Oil Cabinet” member Albert Fall was forced to resign and imprisoned for a year. Others implicated in the affair suffered prison terms, mental hospitals, suicide, and even murder.

The Republican Party and the oil company CEOs scrambled to cover their tracks and were mostly successful. Key documents mysteriously disappeared; important witnesses suffered sudden losses of memory. Though a special investigation was authorized, the scope of the wrongdoing was contained by administration stonewalling. But newly surfaced information indicates that the scandal was even bigger than originally thought.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433241925
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	02/05/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

About the Author

LATON MCCARTNEY is the author of the national bestseller Friends in High Places. He divides his time between Wyoming and New York City.

William Hughes is a professor of political science at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon. He received his doctorate in American Politics from the University of California, Davis.

Table of Contents

Author's Note XIII

Harding

1 A Reversal of Fortune 3

2 Breakfast of Champions 8

3 Convention 14

4 The Prize 27

5 A Star of a Fellow 31

6 The Front Porch Campaign 36

7 The Campaign Trail 45

8 Friends of Jake Hamon 52

9 Acquittal 57

10 Fatal Distractions 60

11 Trouble Ahead 65

12 The Ohio Gang 69

13 Rockefeller of the West 74

14 Back in the Day 78

15 Power Grab 84

16 Sure Thing 89

17 Black Bag 93

18 All Roads Lead to Three Rivers 100

19 Unfinished Business 105

20 A Dog's Breakfast 113

21 The Best-Laid Plans 119

22 Napoleon and the Dutchman 123

23 Summer of Their Discontent 130

24 Shakedown 135

25 The Unraveling 142

26 Departure 145

The Investigation

27 Coolidge 155

28 Getting Ready 160

29 Two Masters 164

30 Opening Rounds 169

31 The Crusader 177

32 The Crack-up 180

33 The Palm Beach Story 187

34 True Confessions 196

35 Damage Control 206

36 The Conspiracy 216

37 The Redhead, The Radical, and the Attorney General 229

38 State of Denial 237

Continental Trading

39 The Unseen Hand 259

40 A Bribe as Big as the Ritz 262

41 The Link 266

42 Above the Law 269

43 Dirty Bonds, Clean Cash 274

44 Andy 277

45 Forty-Eight Hours 281

46 Acquittal, Revelation 286

47 Rich Man's Justice 289

Reckonings

48 Robert Stewart 295

49 Harry Sinclair 300

50 Ned Doheny 304

51 Albert Fall 311

52 Edward L. Doheny 314

53 Thomas J. Walsh 316

Acknowledgments 321

Notes 323

Bibliography 335

Index 339

Editorial Reviews

Journalist McCartney (Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story) examines corruption and scandal at the highest levels of the federal government in his look at the scandal of Warren G. Harding's administration, Teapot Dome. The groundwork for the scandal was in fact in place even before Warren G. Harding had won the Republican nomination in his bid for the presidency. America's top oil companies had funneled money into the Harding campaign, providing the kind of monetary support needed for Harding to win the White House. In return, Harding appointed Albert Fall as his secretary of the interior, a position the oil interests believed would open up the Naval Oil Reserves in Wyoming (the teapot dome reserve) and California for their companies, something that Fall did accomplish. Once this quid pro quo became public, Congress pressed Harding to nullify the lease; the Supreme Court ruled that the authority Harding had given to Fall in the first place was illegal. McCartney's final section details what happened to the key individuals. The major conspirators received little or no jail time. The Teapot Dome scandal showed how monetary political contributions could lead to political corruption, something we now take for granted. Readers unfamiliar with this bit of history will find this work heavy in detail and light in general context. Recommended for informed readers in public and academic libraries.
—Michael LaMagna

Library Journal

A terrific tale that resonates nearly a century on, at a time when many people are still wondering about the connections between Big Oil and politicians at the highest levels.”
–Jon Meacham, author of Franklin and Winston

“This is a story that has it all–a Jazz Age background, a pleasure-loving president surrounded by booze and chorus girls, boomtown capitalists from the Wild West, [and] conniving politicians. . . . [Laton McCartney has] a certain zest for Teapot’s sordid comedy [and] delivers fresh, arresting portraits of the main players, some of them lovable rogues, others beady-eyed scoundrels.”
–The New York Times

“The most thorough treatment of the scandals to date.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Titillating, tantalizing . . . The book reads like a novel. McCartney’s cast of characters jumps off the page.”
–Baltimore Sun

“A cautionary tale of what happens when corrupt and indifferent public officials give an industry undue influence over public policy.”
–The Denver Post

“Fascinating reading.”
–St. Louis Post-Dispatch

From the Publisher