Circle William: A Novel

by Bill Harlow (Author)

• Used

  Mass Market Paperback
  2001

  $19.14

  Jim Schmidt is a master of spin. As White House press secretary, his job is to pursuade the nation's most powerful journalists to play a story the way the White House wants it played. Jim's younger brother, Bill, is equally skillful, but in a different realm. He's the charismatic captain of the USS Winston Churchill and has been disciplined for repeated international incidents involving the drunken sprees of his crew. Both brothers display irrcverence towards their respective careers, which is why they seem an unlikely team to run a delicate, high-risk operation to thwart a chemical weapons attack by Libya on Israel. But when the worlds of military intelligence, the White House, the Navy, and the media collide over a matter of vital national security, nothing is as it seems. How the brothers counter the Libyan threat and how they spin the story makes Circle William as much a story of international terrorism as a contemporary political thriller.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1999

  $21.49

  Jim Schmidt is a master of spin. As White House press secretary, his job is to cajole, sweet-talk, and otherwise persuade the nation's most powerful journalists to play a story the way the White House wants it played. Jim's younger brother, Bill, is equally skillful, but in a different realm. He's the charismatic captain of the USS Winston Churchill, and he leads an able but rambunctious crew with a penchant for causing well-publicized liberty incidents around the Mediterranean. Both men instinctively understand their jobs, but more important, they understand power and how it works: He who controls the facts controls the response. So when the United States learns of a Libyan plot to drop a planeload of chemical weapons on the Israeli Knesset, the brothers - thousands of miles apart - unexpectedly find themselves working together to defuse the plan. Their first step is to set Circle William, a Navy phrase meaning to prepare for chemical, germ, or nuclear attack. As Jim huddles with the country's top defense and intelligence officials to plot a viable strategy to prevent the strike, Bill, on the front lines of the crisis, prepares to implement the plan. Complicating their mission is the inconvenient presence of Sue O'Dell, a smart Washington Post Style reporter who wants to write a feature on the commander and his notorious ship.