Asked to tell why he wrote this book, John T. Flynn replied : “As the weird story of Owen Lattimore unfolded itself in official documents and sworn testimony, I noted that it had one flaw. It was unbelievable. In a Dumas novel of intrigue at the court of Louis XV, it might be accepted. But in America, the America of the 1950s-it seemed fantastically out of place and utterly incredible. Much has been written about it, but now all the evidence is available. Few have the time or means of sifting the immense folios of testimony and incriminating documents, which were dramatically unearthed in an old barn, as might be done in a screen thriller.”