Former Senate Chairman Unlocks Mystery in 'Keys to the Kingdom'

Retired Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D) was the featured guest Dec. 22 on the Washington Update radio show I co-host.

The leader of the committee during the 9/11 attacks, he authored Keys to the Kingdom, a well-received spy thriller.

The former two-term Florida governor wrote the book to raise concerns about national security dangers for the United States from Saudi Arabia that national security rules prevented him from describing except in fiction.

At a National Press Club talk, he described the novel as 40 percent fiction, 40 percent fact and the rest a mixture. He served 18 years in the U.S. Senate, retiring in 2004 for a presidential campaign.

He is co-chair of the Bipartisan National Commission on the BP oil disaster and chair of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

During the interview, Graham drew on his foreign policy experience to describe looming dangers for the United States stemming from Mideast rivalries and intrigue.

He predicted that the Saudi government was likely to prove resilient against the Arab Spring uprisings because of its wealth but also said our government leaders should be more aggressive in disclosing intrigue to American voters.

Graham, who voted in the Senate against the U.S.-led allied invasion of Iraq, said that war is on course to increase the power of Iran in the region because a weakened Iraq is likely to fall into Iran's orbit.

Hosted with Scott Draughon, founder of the MTL radio network, the show may be heard by clicking here, and later by archive. Regarding his book, an overview of the novel is as follows:

Former Senator and Co-chair of the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry Commission John Billington is murdered near his Florida home shortly after his explosive op-ed piece about the 9/11 investigation appears in the New York Times.

Enter Tony Ramos, ex-Special Forces operative and former aide to Sen. Billington and currently a State Department intelligence analyst. Billington, having sensed the danger he faced, has left Ramos detailed instructions for an investigation into suspected Saudi complicity in 9/11. Ramos, in conjunction with Billington's daughter, Laura, uncovers a shocking international conspiracy linking the Saudi Kingdom to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

Despite efforts to derail their investigation, whose scope encompasses Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, Ramos and Laura discover that the Kingdom has recently provided bin Laden and al-Qaeda with three nuclear devices, two of which are successfully detonated by the terrorists overseas. But they were just a warm-up to the grand finale. The third device, Ramos learns, will be detonated off the California coast. 

Now Ramos and a team of Special Forces must race against time to prevent al-Qaeda from unleashing nuclear disaster on American shores.

Graham, shown at left during his Senate career, is a former two-term Governor of Florida.

Graham has also been a regular contributor to National Public Radio's Morning Edition, a frequent guest on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC News, and has written opinion editorials for the New York Times, Washington Post Financial Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, and many other newspapers and magazines.

Bob and his wife Adele reside in Miami Lakes, Florida. Details.