Need to Know The Clandestine History of a CIA Family

When Bud Goodall's father mysteriously died, his inheritance consisted of three well-worn books: a Holy Bible, The Great Gatsby, and a diary. But they turned his life upside down. From the diary Goodall learned that his father had been a CIA operative during the height of the Cold War, and the Bible and Gatsby had been his codebooks. Many unexplained facets of Bud's childhood came into focus with this revelation. The high living in Rome and London. The blood-stained stiletto in his jewelry case. The mysterious "uncles" who interrogated the six-year-old boy after embassy cocktail parties for information he might have gleaned from other children. Bud, as a child, was always told he never had "a need to know." Or did he? Now, as an adult and a university professor, Goodall attempts to fill in the missing pieces of his Cold War childhood by uncovering a lifetime of family secrets. Who were his parents? What did his father do on those business trips "working for the government?" Whose political fiefdom had he threatened when the family was suddenly removed from a State Department posting in London and exiled to Wyoming? What betrayal turned a heroic career of national service into a nightmare of alcoholism, depression, and premature death for both of his parents? Slowly, inexorably, Goodall unearths the chilling secrets of a CIA family in A Need to Know.Goodall, H. Lloyd is the author of 'Need to Know The Clandestine History of a CIA Family', published 2006 under ISBN 9781598740417 and ISBN 1598740415.