My Father the Spy: An Investigative Memoir
by John H. Richardson
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Book Summary Information
Author: John H. RichardsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2006-08-01
ISBN: 0060510366
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of My Father the Spy: An Investigative Memoir
Book Review: An Interesting and Worthwhile Read
Summary: 3 Stars
Another book given to me by a bibliophile friend, John H. Richardson's
"My Father the Spy" proved to be an interesting read. In addition to learning what it is like to be born and raised in the family of a key Central Intelligence Agency operative, the reader gets an inside view of the workings of our secret intelligence gathering agency during critical times of the post-World War II era.
The author's father, the senior John H. "Jocko" Richardson, entered the United States Army during WWII and found himself assigned to a unit of the Central Intelligence Corps, the CIC, hunting down enemy spies and saboteurs in Italy and, when the war ended, pursuing former Nazis in Vienna. It seemed only natural that with his discharge from the army, he became a founding member of the newly formed intelligence wing of the U. S. government, the CIA.
Jocko's work with the CIA took him to Greece, the Philippines, and then to Vietnam, where he became chief of the Saigon station in June, 1962. There he became involved in the machinations leading to the overthrow of South Vietnam's president, Ngo Dinh Diem. He had dealings with CIA director John McCone and the young New York Times reporter, David Halberstam, and became a controversial figure when Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu and his wife, the infamous Madame Nhu, persecuted the Buddhist leaders who were protesting the state of affairs in Vietnam.
In the summer of 1963, President Kennedy appointed Henry Cabot Lodge to take over the Saigon embassy. Richardson was soon at odds with Lodge, and in October 1963, Jocko was recalled to Washington, where he was named Director of Training for the CIA, and though he tried to enjoy the suburban life of a nine-to-five job in Virginia, Richardson longed for another overseas assignment, and he was at last given his final posting as station chief in South Korea. Finally, in 1973, after more than thirty years as a spy, Jocko Richardson retired to a remote Mexican town, where he spent the remaining years of his life in a kind of self-imposed exile in declining health and spirit.
The meshing of the author's troublesome youth with the story of his father, the spy, seemed forced and sometimes impeded the narrative flow, and the scenes of the senior Richardson's death were tiresomely drawn out, but, all in all, the book proved to be a worthwhile read.
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