The Penitent Spy

As Hitler's government takes control of the Sudetenland, a mostly German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia, Jack Adler's family is forced to flee to Prague in 1938. Later, when the German Wehrmacht invades the whole of Czechoslovakia, the family miraculously escapes by heading in different directions. Only near the war's end and after enduring untold dangers, the entire family finally reunites in Quito, Ecuador. A chance part-time job at the American Embassy leads to Jack's immigration to the US. His family remains in Ecuador, hoping to return to a Czechoslovakia free from the control of the Soviet Union. In America Jack's ability to speak several languages enables him to join the Army. Soon after he transfers to the newly established Central Intelligence Agency. The Agency is the perfect place for him; he can serve his newly adopted country while combating the very fascism that had twice overwhelmed his country of birth. Assigned to the Cuba Desk, he eagerly takes on the White House mission of preventing the spread of Communism to the Western Hemisphere. But the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, the overthrow of the democratically elected President Allende in Chile, and a final tragic operation in Ecuador serve to shatter his illusions on the nobility of US policies in the Americas. Seeking solace in his Jewish faith, he spends his final years in a desperate search for atonement.