My Spy; Memoir of a CIA Wife
New York: Avon Books, 2000. First Edition [stated]. First Printing [stated]. Hardcover. x, [2], 308 pages. Illustrations. Inscribed by the author. Mrs. Kiyonaga was married for 30 years to Joseph Y. Kiyonaga, who served as a CIA station chief in Brazil and Panama. From a base in Japan, he ran psychological operations against North Korea during the Korean War. He plotted espionage operations with military strongmen and businessmen in Panama, El Salvador and Brazil. When he died in 1977 the CIA was coming under public criticism for exceeding its authority in covert operations overseas. In the face of such criticism, Joseph Kiyonaga told his wife, he wanted to “stand up and be counted.” So she got a yellow lined legal pad and took notes while he talked. Twenty-three years after his death, her book was published, “My Spy: Memoir of a CIA Wife.” The volume described her husband as tight-lipped and mysterious. He would disappear for days without notice and return without explanation. There were shadowy characters around the house, neither friends nor business associates nor relatives. They lacked names. They lacked identities. As the wife of a spy, Mrs. Kiyonaga followed the requisite code of silence. “We lied about our husbands’ jobs,” she wrote, “stalled inquisitive policemen, befriended ministers’ wives, kept our ears open at parties, deflected the children’s questions, worried in silence alone. We were CIA wives. You never knew us.” Publishers Weekly praised it as an “unpretentious account of their 30-year marriage and its description of her lonely life as a mother of five . . . which unfolded on a need to know basis.”. This memoir tells the story of Joe Kiyonaga, a Japanese-American born in Hawaii who, after service in Europe in World War II, joined the CIA and rose to chief of station in Panama, El Salvador, and Brazil. Bina Kiyonaga’s loving tribute to her husband, career East Asia and Latin America operations officer Joe Kiyonaga, makes a significant contribution to intelligence literature by sharing with us the awesome demands and extraordinary life of a case officer’s wife living on the front lines of the Cold War. Part spy tale and part love story, My Spy chronicles a 30-year marriage that spanned “four continents, three wars, a revolution, five kids, two races, and one faith,” in Kiyonaga’s words. Joe Kiyonaga, a veteran of the legendary Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II, joined the CIA in 1949, two years after his marriage to Bina. They spent the early years of their marriage in Asia, where Kiyonaga ran clandestine operations against China and North Korea during the Korean war. It was Bina’s introduction to the secret life and she reflects on the difficulties of holding a relationship together when she was excluded from a significant part of her husband’s life. You sense the costs of that exclusion as she remembers the night when good friend John Downey went missing, only learning years later that he was in a plane shot down over China where he remained a prisoner for 20 years until his release as part of the US/China rapprochement. She credits her larger CIA family with the richness and support that made her own family life so meaningful. This is a compelling book, well worthy of a space on your bookshelf. Better yet, put it into the hands of someone steeped in James Bond mythology who has questioned whether intelligence officers have real lives. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: CIA, Panama, El Salvador, Brazil, Joe Kiyonaga, Cold War, Espionage, Manuel Noriega, Inscribed, CIA, Korean War, Psychological Operations
ISBN: 0380975874
[Book #23528]
Price: $50.00