It is the summer that man first walks on the moon, the Vietnam War is dragging into its sixth year, and riots are breaking out in American cities. At a black pride university two young men on opposite sides of the racial divide come to know an elderly and enigmatic teacher with the reputation of an Uncle Tom. Through the power of Professor Doswell's character and the unfolding of his mysterious past, their lives are transformed.


Inspired in part by the true story of Whittaker Chambers, this novel is grounded in meticulous research based largely on discoveries from the previously undisclosed Venona Project as well as KGB files opened to Western scholars following the fall of the Soviet Union.