From Publishers Weekly
The sentencing of Native American Marine sergeant Clayton Lonetree in 1986 to 30 years' imprisonment for espionage has become one of the nearly forgotten episodes of the Cold War's final stage. In describing Lonetree's recruitment by the KGB while assigned to the U.S. embassy in Moscow, freelance writer Barker (The Broken Circle) makes a strong case that the actual damage of the affair was minimal; in fact, improved security measures introduced in its aftermath may have even represented a defeat for the KGB. Barker is far less convincing in depicting Lonetree as a victim of racial prejudice, a scapegoat for his superiors' errors or a misguided victim of love-even though the Soviet woman who seduced him and began his subornation apparently plans to marry him on his release in 1996. Barker's detailed account of Lonetree's court-martial shows that his protagonist received justice, if not mercy, from the Corps and the country he betrayed.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Mulling the motivations of betrayal, Barker re-creates a marine sentry's entrapment by the KGB. The case was classic honey trap: a femme fatale seduced the naive, vainglorious Lonetree, who was then coerced to give the siren's "Uncle Sasha" info about CIA agents and such. Lonetree realized he was in over his head, contemplated suicide, confessed instead. At the court-martial, Lonetree, instead of copping a plea and getting five years, followed the fight-the-system flamboyance of the late lawyer William Kunstler, whose legal ineffectiveness cost Lonetree an additional 25 years in the brig. (The sentence has since been reduced on appeal.) In revisiting these decade-old events, Barker perceptively replaces the monochrome publicity that washed out Lonetree's personality with the full-hued character traits that led him into such a predicament and further delivers a vibrant inside view of the agency conflicts that complicated a still-mysterious affair with as-yet-unrevealed connections with the infamous Ames case. Solid fare for sedentary spy masters.
Gilbert Taylor
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.