One of the more esoteric pleasures of the end of the Cold War is the ability to get nearer the truth on espionage cases, and Barker has made the most of it in a deft, fast-paced, and balanced account of the US Marine guards scandal of 1987. Sgt. Clayton Lonetree was a Marine guard in the Moscow embassy with problems of character, intelligence, and behavior such that he in fact ``should never have been admitted to [Marine Security Guard] School . . ., and certainly should not have been sent to the most sensitive U.S. outpost in the world.'' The scandal erupted when Lonetree confessed to espionage activities. He had fallen in love with a Russian employee at the embassy, Violetta Seina, had passed on information, but felt the need to confess before he got in too deep. Another guard confessed to similar activities, two others corroborated the information, and for awhile it appeared that Soviet agents had been allowed to roam the embassy, causing ``irreparable damage'' to Western security. Suddenly, however, most of the case seemed to fall apart. The confessions of the other guards were retracted or otherwise discounted, and the main result of the assistance of high-profile lawyer William Kunstler was to get Lonetree, a Native American, a 30-year sentence, later reduced to 15 years (though with good behavior, he'll be released this spring). Everybody, it seems, wanted the story to go away: the Marines, for obvious reasons; the CIA, whose security lapses had contributed to the debacle; and the State Department, which had covered up 579 reassignments based on such security lapses over a seven-year period. Barker (The Broken Circle, 1992) interviewed everyone, including KGB officers and Violetta Seina's family, and does an excellent investigative job, even if he leaves some tantalizing themes unexplored, including CIA traitor Aldrich Ames's admitted request to his Soviet handlers, two months before Lonetree turned himself in, to divert attention from himself. This will be an indispensable source when Lonetree emerges from jail this year.
Pub Date: March 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-81099-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
However charily one should apply the word, a beautiful book, an unconditionally involving memoir for our time or any time.
Maya Angelou is a natural writer with an inordinate sense of life and she has written an exceptional autobiographical narrative which retrieves her first sixteen years from "the general darkness just beyond the great blinkers of childhood."
Her story is told in scenes, ineluctably moving scenes, from the time when she and her brother were sent by her fancy living parents to Stamps, Arkansas, and a grandmother who had the local Store. Displaced they were and "If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat." But alternating with all the pain and terror (her rape at the age of eight when in St. Louis With her mother) and humiliation (a brief spell in the kitchen of a white woman who refused to remember her name) and fear (of a lynching—and the time they buried afflicted Uncle Willie under a blanket of vegetables) as well as all the unanswered and unanswerable questions, there are affirmative memories and moments: her charming brother Bailey; her own "unshakable God"; a revival meeting in a tent; her 8th grade graduation; and at the end, when she's sixteen, the birth of a baby. Times When as she says "It seemed that the peace of a day's ending was an assurance that the covenant God made with children, Negroes and the crippled was still in effect."
However charily one should apply the word, a beautiful book, an unconditionally involving memoir for our time or any time.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1969
ISBN: 0375507892
Page Count: 235
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1969
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
Though cheerleading occasionally grates, Plouffe offers good fodder for readers willing to put in the effort and follow his...
Barack Obama’s former campaign manager and senior adviser weighs in on what it will take to defeat Donald Trump and repair some of the damage caused by the previous election’s “historically disturbing and perhaps democracy-destroying outcome.”
Plouffe (The Audacity To Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory, 2009) managed Obama’s successful campaigns in 2008 and 2012. His unsurprising goal in 2020 is to take down Trump, and he provides a detailed guide for every American to become involved beyond just voting. Where the author is not offering specific suggestions for individual involvement, he engages in optimistic encouragement to put readers in the mindset to entertain his suggestions. Plouffe wisely realizes that many potential readers feel beaten down by the relentlessness of Trump’s improper behavior and misguided policies, so there is plenty of motivational exhortation that highly motivated readers might find unnecessary. When he turns to voting statistics, he’s on solid ground. Plouffe expresses certainty that Trump will face opposition from at least 65 million voters in the 2020 election. One of the author’s goals is to increase that number to somewhere between 70 and 75 million, which would be enough to win not only the popular votes for the Democratic Party nominee, but also the Electoral College by a comfortable margin. Some of that increased number can be achieved by increasing the percentage of citizens who vote, with additional gains from voters who vote for the Democratic nominee rather than symbolically supporting a third-party candidate. Plouffe also feels optimistic about persuading Obama supporters who—perhaps surprisingly—voted for Trump in 2016. As for individual involvement prior to November, the author favors direct action. Door-to-door canvassing is his favorite method, but he offers alternatives for those who cannot or will not take their opinions to the streets, including campaigning via social media. And while the author would love to change the Electoral College, he wisely tells readers they must live with it again this time around.
Though cheerleading occasionally grates, Plouffe offers good fodder for readers willing to put in the effort and follow his advice.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7949-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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