Product Overview
TAUT, COMPLEX AND CONSTANTLY SURPRISING . . . a tough tale, well told, that's twice as much fun because it's true.
--The Flint Journal
It sounds like a plot torn right from the latest spy thriller: Russian women seducing U.S. Marines so that KGB agents could gain access to top-secret information at the American Embassy in Moscow. In fact, this infamous sex-for-secrets scandal was one of the most notorious espionage cases in Cold War history. At the center of the turmoil was a twenty-five-year-old Native American marine sergeant, Clayton Lonetree, who fell in love with Violetta Seina, a Russian woman who in turn recruited him as a spy for the KGB.
The story soon expanded to involve the CIA and diplomats on both sides of the Iron Curtain. But before the political frenzy was over, Lonetree was tried and sentenced to thirty years, and charges against everyone else were dropped. Now author Rodney Barker peels away the layers of this controversial case, painstakingly interviewing key U.S. military and intelligence figures, Russians and KGB agents, even Lonetree and Seina themselves, to uncover the long-concealed truth--and to answer the disturbing question: Was justice really served in Lonetree's court-martial or did he merely take the fall?
A deft, fast-paced, and balanced account.
--Kirkus Reviews
