A Note from the Author
The people and incidents in this book are real. I have made every effort to present them as accurately as personal records, notes, letters, e-mails, memories, and published documents permit. In some cases I have changed names and details for the sake of anonymity - an important condition for many of the people I interviewed - or combined dialogs to facilitate the flow of the narrative, but only where this does not threaten the book's integrity. Whenever I duscss historical events, I am guided by an obligation to provide as accurate a record as possible, sometimes augmenting a speaker's words with source materials referenced in the endnotes. However, this does not include altering or verifying details behind personal stories; when individuals describe thier roles in highjacking a commercial airliner, invading a country to assassinate its president, bribing heads of state, profiteering from natural disasters, seducing and extorting democratically elected officials, and conducting other clandestine activities, I feel that I forfeit my rights to interpret their observations. I do want to emphasize that every major event I participated in has been documented by other authors, historians, and journalists, or within the archives of organizations like the World Bank; the story may be mine, but the episodes are a matter of record.
No comments:
Post a Comment