The Many Lives of the Prisoner of Lies – Jack Downey

Jack Downey was an up and coming young Yale student.  When he graduated in 1951, like a surprising number of his fellow Elis, he signed up to work for the CIA looking to serve and for adventure. A little more than a year later, during the Korean War, he found himself on a transport airplane attempting an “agent extraction” over China.  The plane was shot down and Downey spent the next 21 years in captivity – the longest serving prisoner in an undeclared war in U.S. history. But his story does not end with his release in 1972. Downey went to law school, married a Chinese-American classmate and became a juvenile court judge in Connecticut.  We will talk with author Barry Werth whose new book: Prisoner of Lies: Jack Downey’s Cold War has just been published. After listening to the podcast: check out The Cipher Brief’s review of the book.