ABSTRACT
AT THE ONSET OF THIS PROJECT I BELIEVED THAT WRITING ABOUT MY father and mother would bring me closer to them. I believe it has. I also thought that researching their lives and trying to answer the confounding questions of my childhood and adolescence would clear up my lifelong confusion about them. I believe it has partially done that, although now there are newer questions and deeper mysteries that remain unresolved. And, at the beginning of this project, I thought that by the time I reached the end of it, I would have finally learned something profound about the truth of my parents’ experiences. If not the whole truth and nothing but, then at least something wise enough to serve as the final resting place for their story and their contributions to our understanding of the legacy of the cold war.
