A mixture of evidence and assumptions in a look at the modern-day, tit-for-tat spy game between America and Moscow. (8-page...
A timely biography that attempts to provide plausible explanations for the motives of alleged FBI double agent Robert Hanssen, whose trial is set to begin on October 29, 2001.
Hanssen was a long-time FBI agent, now accused of selling top-secret information to agents of the Soviet Union, including nuclear secrets and names of other agents (which may have led to the execution of a couple of the men). The obvious question, then, is: Why? And Havill (While Innocents Slept, 2001, etc.) gives many answers, the least being ideological, even though much is made of Hanssen’s ultra-conservatism and his beliefs in the dictates of the Catholic group Opus Dei. Primarily, Hanssen’s motives seemed to be financial: the money he received (in excess of $600,000) got his six children’s private-school educations. It also allowed him to lavish money on a young female stripper in a strange, two-year, nonsexual relationship where he apparently was trying to “save” her. He also did it for the thrill; as a youngster, he was fascinated by spy confessions and espionage books, and he reportedly told a former neighbor, “I’ve wanted to be a spy ever since I was a little boy.” Lastly, he did it to satisfy his ego. The numerous interviews with Hanssen’s friends, neighbors, and childhood acquaintances, which range from sympathy to surprise to I-always-knew-he-was-strange, give a vague picture of Hanssen as someone who craved notoriety and excitement. The most fascinating aspect here—and what perhaps most reveals the man’s true nature—are the samplings of correspondence exchanged over the years between Hanssen (who wrote under the alias of “Ramon Garcia”) and his Soviet contacts, messages usually sent encrypted on computer disks. Overall, though, Havill’s account offers little suspense, even when relating the events on February 18, 2001, which resulted in Hanssen’s ultimate arrest.
A mixture of evidence and assumptions in a look at the modern-day, tit-for-tat spy game between America and Moscow. (8-page b&w photo insert, not seen)Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-28782-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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