Friday, May 25, 2018, 7PM
Admission: $20

Presentation and Book Signing with Jaroslaw Martyniuk

From the author's experience of spying from the air for US Army intelligence in the mid-sixties to his special work of coordinating undercover research with Soviets in Europe, Martyniuk recollects a most extraordinary life that begins in Ukraine during WWII and ends with his conquest of Switzerland's highest peak in mid-August 1991, the same week the Soviet Union imploded.   

The book focuses on the author’s life and intelligence work in Paris, France, focusing on his involvement in gathering information about the Soviet Union, which provided the US Government with unique insights about the life of average citizens in the Soviet Union and helped the White House to shape strategy in dealing with Soviet leaders. The narrative, told in 40 vignettes, covers a fifty-year span of the author's life from his escape from the Red Army juggernaut to his upbringing and life in Chicago, and in 1979 his fortuitous appointment as an administrator-diplomat in Paris, France.

 In addition to an autobiographical account and European travelogue (he visited every country on the European continent) the memoir contains reflections on history, politics, economics, philosophy, art and architecture. The book also explores leitmotifs such as the meaning of freedom, synchronicity, luck, survival, mountains and the impact of political correctness on free speech and liberty.