About The Book
A Need To Know
"Goodall’s book brings to light aspects of the Cold War from a perspective not mined in other treatments I know of. The effect of clandestine operations on the operators and their families is something we don’t think about often, or encounter in reading spy literature. An enlightening and moving work." --Hugh Downs, Longtime anchor of ABC's 20/20 A NEED TO KNOW: The Clandestine History of a CIA Family By Harold Lloyd (Bud) Goodall, Jr. Left Coast Press March 2006/ 416 pages/ ISBN 1-59874-041-5/cloth/ $24.95 About the Book In scenes eerily parallel to the culture of fear inspired by our current War on Terror, A Need to Know explores the clandestine history of a CIA family defined, and ultimately destroyed, by their oath to keep toxic secrets during the Cold War. 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 when he was “working for the government?” Whose political fiefdom had he threatened when the family was suddenly removed from a State Department posting in London, England and exiled to Cheyenne, 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. Advanced Praise for A Need to Know “Goodall has written a powerful, eerie, and moving portrait of his father, and of a life built on lies required of a secret agent during the Cold War. The book reads like a mystery combined with Shakespearean tragedy -- and conveys how families can be battered and broken by the forces of clandestine government work. This tale is an intimate story of family life, and also a chilling picture of Cold War America.” -- Elaine Tyler May, author of Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. H. L. GOODALL, JR. is Professor and Director of The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University, and the author or coauthor of 19 books, both popular and scholarly, and more than 100 articles and book chapters on communication, organizations, and culture. Primarily known for his pioneering work in the new ethnography of organizations and communities, his most recent work has been in the area of communication, terrorism, and national security in a post-9/11 culture. Order Information: Left Coast Press, Inc. titles are distributed by University of Arizona Press. If you are interested in ordering copies of A Need To Know, please contact the University of Arizona order department: phone 1-800 426-3797 email: order@uapress.arizona.edu UA Press Order Website |
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