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Title details for Prisoner of Lies by Barry Werth - Available

Prisoner of Lies

Jack Downey's Cold War

by Barry Werth
ebook
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A "riveting" (The Economist), "gripping" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) true story of the longest-held prisoner of war in American history, John Downey, Jr., a CIA officer captured in China during the Korean War and imprisoned for twenty-one years.
John (Jack) Downey, Jr., was a new Yale graduate in the post-World War II years who, like other Yale grads, was recruited by the CIA. He joined the Agency and was sent to Japan in 1952, during the Korean War. In a violation of protocol, he took part in an air drop that failed and was captured over China. His sources on the ground had been compromised, and his identity was known. Although he first tried to deny who he was, he eventually admitted the truth.

But government policy forbade ever acknowledging the identity of spies, no matter the consequences. Washington invented a fictitious cover story and stood by it for four administrations. As a result, Downey was imprisoned during the decades that Red China, as it was called, was considered by the US to be a hostile nation, until 1972, when the US finally recognized the mainland Chinese government. He had spent twenty-one years in captivity.

Downey would go on to become a lawyer and an esteemed judge in Connecticut, his home state. Prisoner of Lies is based in part on a prison memoir that Downey wrote several years after his release. Barry Werth fluently weaves excerpts from the memoir with the Cold War events that determined Downey's fate. Like a le Carré novel, this is a "thrilling, richly informative" (Stephen Kinzer, author of The Brothers) story of one man whose life is at the mercy of larger forces outside of his control; in Downey's case as a pawn of the Cold War, and more specifically the Oval Office and the State Department. His freedom came only when US foreign policy dramatically changed. Above all, Prisoner of Lies is an inspiring story of remarkable fortitude and resilience.

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  • Release date

    August 20, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781501153990

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781501153990
      • File size: 4373 KB

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    The publisher provides the following statement about the accessibility of the EPUB file supplied to OverDrive. Experiences may vary across reading systems. After borrowing the book, you may download the EPUB files to read in another reading system.

    Summary

    A moderate complexity publication with cover images and logos, converted to meet EPUB Accessibility specifications of WCAG-AA level. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for cover images and logos, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order, structural navigation, index, and semantic structure. Blank pages from print have been removed in this ebook, with related page number spans set on the first following in-spine page. Certain front and back matter pages have been adjusted in the reading order sequence from print, with related page references removed in the page-list order.

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    • No information about appearance modifiability is available.

    • Not all of the content will be readable as read aloud speech or dynamic braille.

    • Has alternative text descriptions for images.

    Conformance

    • The publication contains a conformance statement that it meets the EPUB Accessibility and WCAG 2 Level AA standard.

    • This publication claims to meet EPUB Accessibility 1.1 WCAG 2.2 Level AA.

    Navigation

    • Table of contents to all chapters of the text via links.

    • Index with links to referenced entries.

    • Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation.

    Additional Information

    • High contrast between text and background

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

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Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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