Unwanted Spy: The Persecution of an American Whistleblower

by Jeffrey Sterling

Overview

The powerful story of a CIA whistleblower and political prisoner who refused to give up on his American dream


In 2015, Jeffrey Sterling was sentenced to prison, convicted of violating the Espionage Act. Sterling, it is now clear, was another victim of our government's draconian crackdown on alleged leakers and whistleblowers.


Sterling grew up in a small, segregated town in Missouri and jumped at the chance to broaden his world and serve his country, first in law school and later in the CIA. After an impressive career, Sterling's progress came to a sudden halt: he was denied opportunities because of his race and was pushed out of the Agency. Later, Sterling courageously blew the whistle on the CIA's botched covert operation in Iran to Senate investigators. After a few quiet years in Missouri with his wife, he was arrested suddenly and charged with espionage.


Unwanted Spy is an inspiring account of one man's uncompromising commitment to the truth and a reminder of the principles of justice and integrity that should define America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781568585574
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	10/15/2019
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Jeffrey Sterling is a lawyer and former CIA case officer who was convicted of violating the Espionage Act and was in federal prison in Colorado. Before his trial and conviction, Sterling worked at the CIA, including for the Iran task force, for nearly a decade. He studied political science at Millikin University and holds a law degree from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. He was released from prison in January 2018.

Table of Contents

A Note About Names xi

Prologue: Waiting for the Verdict 1

Part 1 Rootless

1 Child Without a Village 9

2 Neither Black nor White 23

3 The Escape 34

4 In Search of America 48

Part 2 The Agency

5 Joining the CIA 59

6 Shadow of Africa 73

7 American Dream Unraveling 91

8 Not White Like Them 104

9 New Beginning, Same America 120

10 Man Without a Country 136

11 The Death of Hope 152

12 Seeking the Undiscovered Country 166

Part 3 Blowback

13 Desperate Times 181

14 Coming Back 188

15 America Returning to Me 196

16 Goodbye to the Past 203

17 Fate of a Whistleblower 212

18 Show Trial 219

Epilogue: After the Verdict 230

Acknowledgments 237

Index 239

Editorial Reviews

"A book that amply demonstrates grave flaws in the criminal justice system."—Kirkus Reviews

"Americans owe a debt to Jeffrey Sterling, who told the truth and endured imprisonment for us. His story is a powerful tale of integrity and bravery and the price a decent American paid for defending the values enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Make your children read it and learn."—Charles Glass, former ABC News Chief Middle East Correspondent and author of They Fought Alone: The True Story of the Starr Brothers, British Secret Agents in Nazi-Occupied France

"Unwanted Spy is at the same time an American tragedy and a first-person account of how to live an upstanding life against daunting odds. Jeffrey Sterling is a patriot. He is also one of the most courageous and underappreciated whistleblowers in contemporary America. We all want to believe the best about our country, our government, and our society. But the truth is sometimes ugly. And sometimes patriots are harmed by that ugliness. Jeffrey Sterling was vilified by our government because he wouldn't toe the line. He paid for his conscientiousness with his freedom. Unwanted Spy makes it clear, though, that he was right and 'they' were wrong. He's the better man for it."—John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorismofficer and senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

"[His] autobiography resonantly places his CIA experience in the context of epochal grievances concerning institutional racism."—The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS–Americas)

From the Publisher

2019-08-18
A CIA whistleblower tells his tale.

Sterling, a lawyer who spent eight years in the CIA, relates his life story and the details of what he maintains was a phony conviction for espionage. "During the trial," he writes, "the government did not present a shred of hard evidence to validate the charges against me. Even [the judge] summarized the case against me as being based on ‘very powerful circumstantial evidence' rather than on hard proof." Some readers—e.g., those who condemned Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden—may conclude that the author should not have exposed certain sensitive CIA secrets. However, given his coherent account, backed by copious details (other than a few redactions), most readers will believe that his revelations were warranted. Rather than coming across as a bitter former CIA agent seeking retribution for his imprisonment, Sterling comes across as a reasonable man with a persuasive case that after the CIA hired him, his white supervisors held back promotions solely because he was black. When he sued the CIA for racial discrimination, government officials, including Barack Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder, sought to discredit Sterling by alleging espionage. In the first 50 pages of the narrative, the author chronicles his upbringing in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. While some schoolmates and family members considered him too "white" to comfortably hang out with other black students, many whites displayed prejudice against him as a black boy. After noting how he was determined to find a path that suited him, Sterling discusses his undergraduate studies at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, and his law school years at Washington University in St. Louis. While working as a public defender, he jumped at the opportunity to join the CIA after reading a recruitment advertisement. Despite his initial enthusiasm while training at CIA headquarters, Sterling soon saw not only the racial discrimination, but also the strict conservative leanings of most agents and the sometimes damaging incompetence infecting the agency hierarchy.

A book that amply demonstrates grave flaws in the criminal justice system.

Kirkus Reviews