Wayne Barrett

A book is released that questions the conventional heroic image of then New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on 9/11. Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11 is by investigative reporters Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins. Barrett is a senior writer at the Village Voice, and Collins is a senior producer at CBSNews.com. [Los Angeles Times, 8/22/2006] For their book, they had exclusive access to never before seen 9/11 Commission interviews, and managed to get frank statements from some central figures, though Giuliani himself refused to be interviewed. [Barrett and Collins, 2006, pp. 363; Newsday, 8/23/2006] The New York Daily News calls the book an “exhaustively researched and unsentimental peek behind the mythology [that] strongly suggests that Giuliani and his top deputies committed many errors that did grave, even fatal, harm to citizens, emergency responders and recovery teams before, on and after that terrible day.” [New York Daily News, 8/22/2006] The book criticizes Giuliani’s claim that, after becoming mayor in 1994, he made preparing New York’s response to a future terrorist attack a priority. According to Barrett and Collins’ research, in the aftermath of the 1993 WTC bombing, he in fact failed to understand the importance of preparing the city for another attack. They write, “The facts—depressing but unavoidable—were that Giuliani had allowed the city to meet the disaster of September 11 unprepared in a myriad of ways.” [Los Angeles Times, 8/22/2006; Newsday, 8/23/2006] The book criticizes Giuliani’s decision to locate New York’s emergency command center on the 23rd floor of World Trade Center Building 7—across the street from an obvious terrorist target—despite the objections of senior fire and police officials. [New York Daily News, 8/22/2006; Newsweek, 9/11/2006; New York Times, 11/12/2006] The inadequacy of fire department radios on 9/11 is examined in detail. These same radios had failed when used at the 1993 WTC bombing. New radios were only provided in March 2001, but these failed in their first week of use and were withdrawn. Also, the fact that the police and fire departments were equipped with incompatible radios meant that many firefighters did not get the mayday call to evacuate the North Tower before it collapsed on 9/11. [Los Angeles Times, 8/22/2006; Newsweek, 9/11/2006; Democracy Now!, 1/3/2007] The book also criticizes the fact that, after 9/11, construction workers and firefighters were permitted to work at Ground Zero without protective respiratory gear. Subsequently, thousands of them became afflicted with upper respiratory illnesses. [New York Daily News, 8/22/2006] Grand Illusion receives much praise, though the New York Times criticizes its “relentlessly hostile tone,” which, it claims, “undermines the authors’ case.” [New York Times, 11/12/2006]