Ray Nagin Book: Former New Orleans Mayor Worried CIA Would Shoot Him With Poison Dart

After the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, then New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin said he plunged into a state of paranoia.

In his new book, Katrina’s Secrets: Storms After the Storm, Nagin writes that he believed his criticisms of top officials, including President George W. Bush, would put him in grave danger.

"I thought to myself, ‘I’m a dead man! I have just publicly denounced the governor, U.S. Senators, FEMA and the president of the United States,’” he writes. “I started wondering if during the night I would be visited by specially trained CIA agents. Could they secretly shoot me with a miniature, slow-acting poison dart?"

The ex-mayor also thought the city’s wealthy were trying to bug his hotel suite.

The Miami Herald reports that exactly why Nagin thought the men wanted to bug his room was unclear.

From the Miami Herald:

In the book, he said the guards' visit may have had something to do with an angry telephone exchange he had earlier in the day with a local business leader from an upper class New Orleans neighborhood. The man wanted Nagin to allow private security forces into the city to supplement police.

Nagin also claims credit for helping New Orleans get back on its feet.

"Our footprints, our fingerprints are all over the recovery," Nagin writes.

Comments

[European1919]

05:13 AM on 07/12/2011

Must be something to do with Norlin's water supplies, huh?

[bob40wil]

03:54 PM on 06/27/2011

Mr. Chocolate City is a nut case.

[zt54]

03:20 PM on 06/27/2011

Just a sign of the corruption of New Orleans in general. He obviously deals with types who would shoot him over some kind of scam. This guy is just another political hood!

[threnodymarch]

09:00 AM on 06/27/2011

I'm sure he has some excellent points to make and has an interesting perspective. I just wish the rational part of his personality made the news. Quotes from his book, like this, skew his facade and make him look bad. Inflammatory comments taken out of context help no one. I'm intrigued by his book and don't think we should discredit him based off of several excerpts (and really, are they truly that crazy to begin with?)

[Howard53545]

06:33 AM on 06/27/2011

You kissed their butts for so long but they threw yr butt out , so go fad dude, you are no Bin Laden. Darts cost too m much.

[jefe]

05:18 AM on 06/27/2011

Sounds like a plan

[anthonyNtx]

01:15 AM on 06/27/2011

He is full of it.

[cameron d]

12:28 AM on 06/27/2011

I was watching him on the Daily Show and I said to myself "hmmm, this guy seems a bit off." Now I know I was right.

[cats22]

12:25 AM on 06/27/2011

There's a lot more to this story that needs to be published before any informed opinions are made.

[Seedomang]

12:23 AM on 06/27/2011

Cigar smoke wit an untraceable poison. Or just a lot of mcdonalds

[Gjorg]

10:28 PM on 06/26/2011

Another crack victim? Paranoia running a little high.

[Dragoon]

11:52 AM on 06/27/2011

Thats how they framed Marion Barry!!

[JoeMomma]

08:23 PM on 06/26/2011

He was very right to be concerned.

[RobtBrock]

09:24 PM on 06/26/2011

There had to be at least one hundred thousand people who would have loved to have slipped some cyanide into his gumbo.

[Chiron090]

07:51 PM on 06/26/2011

"Poison darts..."

This man is crazy!!!

Everybody knows the CIA uses satellite-tracking-spontaneous-combustion-lasers.

[CountLeo]

07:39 PM on 06/26/2011

I don't even care what the article says - that's the best headline I've probably ever read on the Huff. I should get a chuckle from that one for the next several days.

[doctorj2u]

08:01 PM on 06/26/2011

New Orleans is all about the entertainment. Glad you got a chuckle. Really!

[multidoc]

02:25 PM on 06/26/2011

Nagin has to take responsibility for the unbelievably poor planning that led to the disaster that was New Orleans during Katrina. But sorry 'baggers, the Bushies' FEMA is what was in charge of the aftermath, and they showed themselves to be every bit as incompetent and far more callous.