An unsettling narrative of “business as usual” gone awry, and a timely warning for post–Cold War optimists.
A retired American naval intelligence officer chronicles his detention, trial, and conviction for espionage in Russia.
Like many businessmen who went prospecting for opportunities in the wilds of post-Communist Russia, Pope was pursuing a wide variety of semi-promising technologies while steering clear of still-classified projects. He succinctly depicts the nature of business in the new Russia: “Honesty, truthfulness, fair dealings . . . to Russians these are unfamiliar and ineffectual business practices.” Thus, it was hardly surprising when the FSB (the KGB’s still-feared successor) detained Pope for interrogation regarding his interest in the propulsion system of the Shkval torpedo. Although Pope protested that these pursuits were legitimate, the FSB focused on his earlier career with naval intelligence as proof he was a spy in their midst. Worse, the State Department and Pope’s employer, Penn State, virtually disowned him following his arrest, which seemingly emboldened his captors. Eventually, due to intense pressure from his devoted wife Cheri and a few stalwart connections in science and the military, a nonbinding House of Representatives resolution censured Russia for the prosecution, and then-President Clinton lobbied on Pope’s behalf with incoming Russian Federation President Putin, who insisted that Russia’s judicial process must proceed. As his trial slowly continued, Pope deduced that his prosecution was emblematic of a spy mania sweeping the shaky Russian society; many believed it was part of ex-KGB spymaster Putin’s campaign to roll back Yeltsin-era civil liberties. Putin ultimately pardoned Pope, who had spent 253 days in jail. He exhibits empathy for his cellmates (including some likely FSB plants), for others ensnared in the Russian criminal justice system, and for ordinary Russians. But he is not optimistic about the nation’s prospects, noting in conclusion that “Putin and his minions are combining the worst aspects of Communism with the worst aspects of Fascism.”
An unsettling narrative of “business as usual” gone awry, and a timely warning for post–Cold War optimists.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-316-34873-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 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
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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