A Need to Know: The Clandestine History of a CIA Family

by H.L. Goodall Jr.

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1598740423
• ISBN13: 9781598740424
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

What If Everything You Know About Your Family Is Wrong?

Imagine your child starts asking questions about your family. Imagine you don't have any answers. Imagine your father left you three things when he died: a Bible, a well-worn copy of The Great Gatsby, and a diary. Oh, and lots of questions. Imagine you found out Dad was actually an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency. Welcome to the beginning of Bud Goodall's dilemma. This book is Goodall's attempt to make sense of a childhood enmeshed in secrecy. Like all good writers, Goodall doesn't tell us what is happening, he shows us. Wonderfully written, A Need to Know is a family story, a historical record, and a detective novel wrapped up into one. At times it is simultaneously tense, sorrowful, and enlightening. With the care of a researcher and the writing style of a novelist, Goodall enchants the reader, pushing and pulling us through the mazes, twists, turns and terrifying truth of living through a family slowly torn apart by secrets - all in the name of National Security during the years of the Cold War. Just as in his previous works - Casing a Promised Land and Living the Rock n Roll Mystery - Goodall takes you inside. You see what he sees. You learn what he learns. Goodall has done it again. Only this time he's done it better.

A History Lesson With a Storyline

In the preface of this book Goodall explains that he writes it for his son, Nic, in order to answer questions he often asked about his grandparents. He also writes the book for his father and namesake, his mother, and for himself. As a reader and autobiographical writer, I can't help but feel that he also wrote the book for me, and others like me, who have an incomplete family narrative and needed a template to follow. He says he wrote the book "to help others find in [his] story a way to understand their own." I have. Joining personal narrative, politics, memory and honesty, this amazing book reads as a conversation with the author as he invites the reader to join him on a journey that collapses time and offers a history lesson with a storyline. As a writer he helps me imagine it and see it. As a storyteller he helps me understand it. It is beautifully written! This work is unique and enchanting. Carefully orchestrated and outlined, we follow Goodall as he traces a legacy that began before he was born. He uncovers secrets, discovers himself, and recovers his "narrative inheritance." I found myself reading in the midst of the noise and chaos of a busy airport and full household, yet not being distracted from the places, the people, the implications, the pain, and the story he tells. The story echoes in my head even now that I have read the last pages and returned to the beginning to read it again. Goodall says his parents left him "a gift of understanding history in a very human way." He selflessly shares this gift with readers. I highly recommend it!

A Gripping Historical Narrative

I was fortunate to obtain an advance copy of Dr. Goodall's book. The time period spanned corresponds to the evolution of American intelligence and counterintelligence. To intelligently overlay a personal history upon this era without too much emotion or editorialization is a unique talent that Dr. Goodall obviously posesses. To be able to write in a manner that flows from one chapter to the next is an ability that not all writers are capable of. Anyone who has an interest in this period of history will find this narrative enlightening from many perspectives.