Synopses & Reviews
Duncan Chaplin Lee was a Rhodes Scholar, patriot, and descendent of one of Americas most distinguished familiesand possibly the best-placed mole ever to infiltrate U.S. intelligence operations. In
A Very Principled Boy intelligence expert and former CIA officer Mark A. Bradley traces the tangled roots of Lees betrayal and reveals his harrowing struggle to stay one step ahead of Americas spy hunters during and after World War II.
Exposed to leftist politics while studying at Oxford, Lee became a committed, albeit covert, member of the Communist Party. After following William Wild Bill” Donovan to the newly formed Office of Strategic Services, Lee rose quickly through the ranks of the U.S. intelligence serviceand just as quickly gained value as a Communist spy. As one of the chief aides to the head of the OSS, Lee was uniquely well placed to pass sensitive information to his Soviet handlers, including the likely timeframe of the D-Day invasion and the names of OSS personnel under investigation for suspected communist affiliations.
In 1945, one of Lees former handlers confessed to the FBI and named Lee as a Soviet agent. For the next thirteen years, J. Edgar Hoover would tirelessly, but futilely, attempt to prove Lees guilt. Despite being accused of treason in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, the increasingly paranoid Lee miraculously escaped again and again. In a move to atone for what he had done, Lee later became a Cold Warrior in China, fighting Mao Zedongs communists. He died a free but conflicted man.
In A Very Principled Boy, Bradley weaves a fast-paced cat-and-mouse tale of misguided idealism, high treason, and belated redemption. Drawing on Lees letters and thousands of previously unreleased CIA, FBI, and State Department records, Bradley tells the unlikely story of a spy who chose his conscience over his country and its dark consequences.
Review
Hayden Peake, curator of the CIAs Historical Intelligence CollectionA Very Principled Boy tells the story of an idealist inoculated with communism as a Rhodes Scholar, who serves as a Soviet agent in the OSS, becomes a post-war Cold Warrior, and duals with the FBI when exposed by defectors and Venona. An astounding story of espionage and counterintelligence, thoroughly documented and wonderfully tolda captivating read.”
Review
Winner of the George Pendleton PrizeWall Street Journal
In A Very Principled Boy, Mark Bradley tells Lees story with few frills or atmospherics, letting the remarkable facts speak for themselves. Mr. Bradley is a former CIA intelligence officer whose straightforward narrative refuses to sensationalize. For this and other reasons, it radiates authenticity.... [A] fascinating narrative.”
Washington Post
In his swift, absorbing and damning book A Very Principled Boy, Mark A. Bradley, a former CIA officer and a lawyer in the Justice Departments National Security Division, brings the gavel down on Lees guilt and explains how he eluded prosecution. Bradley combines a lawyerly ability to build his case with a gift for storytelling to make the life of this cautious, smaller-than-life character more than the footnote it was.”
Foreign Affairs
Bradley has produced a truly superb example of this genre, especially because he exposes in riveting fashion how the Soviet spy network worked and how it flummoxed the FBI, which was very slow to catch on.”
Seattle Times
What makes the story fascinating is not so much what Lee did there arent many details of what secrets he stole as what his government did and didnt do about him, and why.... Much of the value in Bradleys book about Lee is in telling the military and political story of the 1940s, showing how the abrupt changes in the political climate played out in the life of a lonely man who chose a course he came to regret. Bradley is neither a conservative out to make Franklin Roosevelt look soft on Stalin, nor a liberal who would limit the story of communists in government to witch hunts. He is a professional telling the story of infamous breach in intelligence, and in A Very Principled Boy, he tells it well.”
Washington Times
One of the best espionage books to cross this desk in years.... A five-cloak, five dagger read.”
Weekly Standard
Duncan Lees improbable story is well-told in this new biography by Mark A. Bradley, a former CIA officer, who has diligently mined the many new sources on Soviet espionage that have become available in the past two decades.... While some parts of Lees story remain a mystery (since he never acknowledge or explained his espionage), Bradley has provided a fascinating account of one mans treachery and the toll it took.”
Journal of Cold War Studies
With A Very Principled Boy: The Life of Duncan Lee, Red Spy and Cold Warrior, Mark Bradley has provided a superb history
an exceedingly well-written, fully fleshed-out biography of Duncan Lee the man and spy that easily meets the most demanding standards of scholarly history.”
Journal of American History
Bradley skillfully navigates the complex workings of personalities, politics, ideology, and bureaucratic rivalries that make up the history of communist espionage and anticommunism. His book is a welcome contribution to our understanding of the emergence of Cold War politics out of the Grand Alliance of World War II.”
H-Diplo
A valuable contribution to the intelligence literature on Soviet spies during World War II and what happened to them after they were discovered.”
Studies in Intelligence
A Very Principled Boy explains Duncan Lee in the context of his time and closes the file on one of [William] Donovans most trusted officers. It is a major contribution to counterintelligence literature, with lessons for all intelligence officers.”
Russian Life
Lees story is by now a common one of the idealistic youth who becomes radicalized then blindly serves a power that has little regard or relation to his ideals. Bradleys tale (fluidly told and meticulously documented) is of how this Yale and Oxford educated son of missionaries first justified his personal treachery, then regretted it, and how it destroyed his life and those around him.... But it is also a larger tale of the vast scope of Soviet espionage operations in the US, of Hoover and the FBIs dogged counterespionage efforts, of what happens when conscience and country collide.”
Washington Lawyer
One of the very best espionage books in years.... [Bradley] performs a masterful job of exploring the tangled and confusing life of Lee.... Classify this as a five-cloak, five dagger read.”
UVA Lawyer
[Bradleys] work reveals the dark intricacy of Soviet espionage inside the U.S. from the 1930s through the 1950s. The result is the fascinating tale of a traitor who chose his conscience over his country.”
W and L Alumni Magazine
A fast-paced, cat-and-mouse tale of misguided idealism and treason, the book draws on previously unreleased CIA and State Department records to reveal this riveting story.”
Library Journal, starred review
[Bradley] tells the fascinating story of this complicated spys life.... Bradley provides extensive background information regarding the events of the time and all the characters involved, painting a vivid picture of the world in which Lee operated. Readers interested in Cold War history or real-life spy dramas will enjoy this thoroughly researched and highly readable work.”
Kirkus
An obscure wartime spy working for the OSS, the wartime precursor to the CIA, gets a thorough exposé by a government lawyer and former CIA officer.”
Randall B. Woods, author of Shadow Warrior: William Egan Colby and the CIA
A vivid portrait of one of the early Cold War's most important but least studied Soviet moles. Bradley does an excellent job plumbing the depths of Duncan Lee's ideological defection.”
Christopher Andrew, author of Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5
Mark Bradley's riveting biography of Duncan Chaplin Lee fills a major gap in both Russian and American intelligence history. Like Alger Hiss, Duncan Chaplin Lee persuasively claimed after the Second World War that accusations that he had been a Soviet spy were a McCarthyite invention. In reality, as Bradley demonstrates, Lee had been a committed Russian agent at the heart of wartime US intelligence. The Very Principled Boy' became a master of the black art of deceptionso much so that he deceived even himself.”
David Garrow, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Bearing the Cross
"Bradley's deeply researched and authoritative biography offers a powerful and emotionally compelling account of how one man's life illuminates the dramatic story of widespread Soviet espionage by Americans against the United States during World War II.”
Daniel Horowitz, Mary Huggins Professor of American Studies and History, emeritus, Smith College and author of The Making of The Feminine Mystique: The American Left, The Cold War, and Modern Feminism
A compelling book that draws on recently declassified Soviet and American documents to tell the story of Duncan Lee, who worked for the OSS and as a double agent for the USSR before becoming a Cold Warrior. Mark Bradley knows exactly how to help us understand the combination of bureaucratic intrigue, espionage, and multiple contexts that make this such an extraordinary history, biography, and spy story.”
Hayden Peake, curator of the CIAs Historical Intelligence Collection
A Very Principled Boy tells the story of an idealist inoculated with communism as a Rhodes Scholar, who serves as a Soviet agent in the OSS, becomes a post-war Cold Warrior, and duals with the FBI when exposed by defectors and Venona. An astounding story of espionage and counterintelligence, thoroughly documented and wonderfully tolda captivating read.”
Synopsis
Duncan Chaplain Lee was an unlikely traitor. A Rhodes Scholar, patriot, and descendent of one of Americas most distinguished families, he was also a communist sympathizer who used his position as aid to intelligence chief Wild Bill” Donovan to leak critical information to the Soviets during World War II. As intelligence expert Mark A. Bradley reveals, Lee was one of Stalins most valuable moles in U.S. intelligence, passing the KGB vital information on everything from the D-Day invasion to Americas plans for postwar Europe. Outwitting both J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Joseph McCarthy, he escaped detection again and again, dying a free man before authorities could prove his guilt.
A fast-paced cat-and-mouse tale of misguided idealism and high treason, A Very Principled Boy draws on thousands of previously unreleased CIA and State Department records to reveal the riveting story of one of the greatest traitors of the twentieth century.
About the Author
Mark A. Bradley is a former CIA intelligence officer and is currently serving as an attorney in the United States Department of Justices National Security Division. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington and Lee University, he holds a Master of Arts in Modern History from Oxford University (which he attended as a Rhodes scholar) and a law degree from the University of Virginia. He has contributed to the
Washington Post, the
Washington Lawyer, and
Naval Proceedings.
Table of Contents
Prologue: HelenOne. Born to Serve
2. "A Nursery of Somewhat Revolutionary Ideas"
3. The Party
4, My League of Gentlemen
5. A Crisis of Conscience
6. Gregory
7. On the Outside Looking In
8. The Terrible Summer of 1948
9. The Worlds Most Shot-At Airline
10. A Loyal American
11. Ishmael
12. The Irony of My Life