The Informant (Movie Tie-in Edition): A True Story (Random House Movie Tie-In Books)
Selected Book Details
- Paperback
- Author: Kurt Eichenwald
- Publisher: Broadway
- Release Date: August 2009
- ISBN-10: 0767931254
- ISBN-13: 9780767931250
- List Price: $17.00
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
Summary"The FBI was ready to take down America's most politically powerful corporation. But there was one thing they didn't count on." So reads the cover of this high-powered true crime story, an accurate teaser to a bizarre financial scandal with more plot twists than a John Grisham novel. In 1992 the FBI stumbled upon Mark Whitacre, a top executive at the Archer Daniels Midland corporation who was willing to act as a government witness to a vast international price-fixing conspiracy. ADM, which advertises itself as "The Supermarket to the World," processes grains and other farm staples into oils, flours, and fibers for products that fill America's shelves, from Jell-O pudding to StarKist tuna. The company's chairman and chief executive, Dwayne Andreas, was so influential that he introduced Ronald Reagan to Mikhail Gorbachev, and it was his maneuvering that ensured that high fructose corn syrup would replace sugar in most foods (ever wondered why Coke and Pepsi don't taste quite like they used to?). There were two mottoes at ADM: "The competitors are our friends, and the customers are our enemies" and "We know when we're lying." And lie they did. With the help of Whitacre, the FBI made hundreds of tapes and videos of ADM executives making price-fixing deals with their corrivals from Japan, Korea, and Canada, all while drinking coffee and laughing about their crimes. The tapes should have cinched the case, but there was one problem: Their star witness was manipulative, deceitful, and unstable. Nothing was as it seemed, and the investigation into one of the most astounding white-collar crime cases in history had only just begun. Kurt Eichenwald, an investigative reporter, covered the story for The New York Times and interviewed more than 100 participants in the case. He methodically records the six-year investigation, leaving no plot twist or tape transcript unexplored. While his primary focus is on deconstructing the disturbed Whitacre and revealing the malleability of truth, the portrait of ADM (and even the Justice Department) is damning enough to make anyone a cynic. --Lesley Reed |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Extremely thorough account of true crime
Rating: 
Books about true crime are interesting because they give us insight into human nature. I like to read about true crime to help me understand and see the characteristics or tendencies of antisocial behavior in everyday interactions with family, friends, or co-workers. This book does an outstanding job of covering the details of Mark Whitacre's involvement in fraud, espionage, extensive lying, and embezzlement, along with ADM's corporate crimes.
I did not find the book entertaining as many of the reviewers did. I did not find it to be a "page turner," nor did I find it difficult to put down. The level of detail was extraordinary, and I found much of it unnecessary, particularly the descriptions of the myriad of challenges between the government agencies. This book has been compared to a Grisham novel numerous times, but I can say that if I did not know this was a true story, I would have put the book down early. I did not, because I wanted to continue learning about what happened from a historical perspective, and I wanted to keep learning from an academic perspective.
This book is truly an impressive piece of work and I commend the author for his accomplishment. If you want to study true human nature, it is a great read. If you want to be entertained, perhaps you will like the movie better.
This is nonfiction?
Rating:
Such a crazy tale that I had to keep reminding myself that it was all true. Just imagine how many other similarly crazy and perhaps even crazier tales there are out there that we don't know about. Evidently this book has made me a cynic...
Patience Is a Virtue. . .
Rating:
that I really don't possess as a reader. And I love to read long and involved books. I do it all the time. Having bought and read Mr. Eichenwald's Conspiracy for Fools, I was more than eager to delve into this. Yet, here I am on page 219, and I'm still waiting for the bizarre and crazy that's promised in so many of the reviews here. Instead I've gotten 200+ pages of the same routine over and over again. Meetings w/ taping and surveillance. Behind the scenes with the FBI. And then more meeting w/ taping and surveillance.
I intend to finish this book, because I love the corporate espionage/subversive true story as much as anyone else and am chomping at the bit to get to the meat of the matter. How long do I have to wait? Another 100 pages?
This book is well written and researched, but a good editor would have tightened this story up a lot.
Siouxie, The Bronx
Serves as a case study on the use of informants by law enforcement personnel
Rating:
The Informant is 656 pages and while I would have preferred a much more edited version for myself, one can see the historical value in this large edition. Eichenwald spent a lot of time interviewing and assembling information, and without his efforts the significance of this grand story would have been mainly lost to history.
What a strange story! Whitacre was a promising informant, even wearing wires to record many conversations. The government's case was strong but Whitacre was a criminal himself and also went crazy. The government did not anticipate possible sanity ill-effects of being an informant over a long period of time on Whitacre. Thus, Whitacre did a lot of strange things and violated his agreements with the government, and ended up doing time. But it's such a complicated story that it's not easy to figure out if Whitacre is a hero or partially a villain.
Personally, I thought Whitacre should not have had to serve time for eight years, mainly because he brought the case to the FBI and built their case for them by wearing the wire. Secondarily, he sacrificed his career by doing what he did for the FBI, and it's hard to imagine what large company would want to take a risk on hiring him after that. Finally, even though his hands weren't exactly clean, he evidently lost his mental stability as a result of his cooperation over a long period of time.
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) paid hefty fines (this was in the 90s), and paid out a lot in settlements to customers that had overpaid as a result of the price fixing. One could imagine how the employees at ADM that had nothing to do with the price fixing scheme must have suffered. That is a story that I would find equally interesting. For example, did they have to forego raises because of budgetary reasons due to the fines and settlements? Did some innocent executives have to leave the company after investing years building careers at the company?
Another interesting follow up theme would be how the FBI and the Department of Justice used this case to learn how to better handle informants. It is stressful to live a double life as an informant and follow instructions to wear wires and implicate people that one works with. But maybe it is too tempting to rely heavily on an informant on whom the entire case depends and to do everything necessary to make the informant do what the investigators want him or her to do. But certainly, the investigators in such a case have to monitor and evaluate the mental condition of an informant.
Terrific: Reads Like An Extended Wall Street Journal Investigative Article
Rating:
If you like the Wall Street Journal-style of investigative reporting on business issues, you'll enjoy this book as much as I did. Kurt Eichenwald, an award-winning journalist, does a superb job of meticulously reporting and weaving this tale of personal and corporate malfeasance. It's hard to believe this twisted tale is based on truth -- the Archer Daniels Midland Company price-fixing scandal and its prime actor, wonder-boy executive Mark Whitacre. Mr. Eichenwald says this book is about the "malleable nature of the truth," and indeed there are many legal, political, technical, interpersonal and business twists and turns. If you like this style, it's a great read, as are most of his books, notably Conspiracy of Fools (about Enron).
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