From My Narrative Inheritance to Their Own Narratives

Abstract

These comments provide a brief introduction to and framework for this special issue honoring and commenting on the author's memoir: A Need to Know: The Clandestine History of a CIA Family. By locating his narrative within scholarship dedicated to family secrecy and to cultural histories of the cold war and war on terror, the author connects the long term consequences of growing up in a family marked by secrecy and fear to the long term consequences of a people living under conditions of an enduring war marked by a culture of secrecy and fear.