Publishers Weekly
06/17/2024
Journalist Werth (The Antidote) offers a riveting account of a “botched and blown” spy mission during the Korean War and the subsequent 21-year imprisonment of CIA agent Jack Downey (1930–2014), “America’s longest-held captive of war.” In 1952, Downey was among the crew of a clandestine flight into northern China assigned to exfiltrate a courier who was supposedly carrying vital communiques. But the “air-snatch” (literally dropping a line from a slow-moving plane) was a setup, Werth writes; the asset had turned coat, the plane was shot down, and Downey and another survivor were taken captive. Within a month, Downey confessed to working for U.S. intelligence. China offered to release Downey as a spy and, over time, began allowing visits from Downey’s mother, who spoke openly with journalists about her son’s plight. But U.S. policy was to never acknowledge spies held by a hostile power; even as spy exchanges with Soviet Russia became de rigueur, Downey continued to languish, unacknowledged as an American operative because the U.S. didn’t officially recognize China’s communist government. In a dense narrative, Werth meticulously details the tangled diplomatic goals and maneuvers that contributed to Downey’s long interment and his eventual release in 1973 when the U.S. began to normalize relations with China. It adds up to a robust look at the Cold War’s perpetual limbo through the prism of one spy’s harrowing ordeal. (Aug.)
Booklist
Readers will revel in Werth’s raw and unsparing depiction of international power politics and a brave American hero.
Daniel Okrent
"It's difficult to grasp what Jack Downey went through in his Chinese imprisonment - and just as difficult to grasp how he was able to recover from it so thoroughly and so fruitfully. In Barry Werth, Downey's story has found the perfect writer: thorough, fair, insightful, and most of all empathetic. This is an important book."
Joe Nocera
Barry Werth's Prisoner of Lies is many things: a bracing saga of survival, a post-war history of government hubris, and a painful example of the consequences of America's anti-Communist fervor. Most of all, though, it is a thrilling story about the fortitude, determination and courage of Jack Downey, the man who spent more years in a Chinese prison than any other American.
Kati Marton
"In this real-life spy thriller, a brave young American survives the cruelty of both sides in the Cold War. Jack Downey is the resilient hero of this astonishing saga, told by a writer in full command of his material. You will not soon forget this shocking tale."
Michael Gorra
All countries lie and all countries spy. But for a while in the dead middle of the 20th century the United States pretended that it was different, and the young CIA recruit Jack Downey became the victim of the truths his country refused to tell. Barry Werth’s wonderful new book is a real-life page-turner, a history of the Cold War, a study in stoic heroism, and a profound tale of forgiveness and rebirth.
Stephen Kinzer
"This long-overdue book cuts through the web of deceit that shaped one of the most dramatic secret episodes of the Cold War. Written with restrained outrage, it is both the story of one remarkable CIA officer and of the government that abandoned him. Thrilling, richly informative, and infuriating."
