The Man Who Was Never There

Flying an F-4A Phantom jet in a dogfight over Cambodia, Arthur Cornwallis Harris III asks himself how a good, Catholic boy from Baptist southern Alabama wound up in such danger. By age 11, he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up: James Bond, his hero, was both a spy and a naval officer. At college and in the Navy ROTC, he begins an affair with a “kissing cousin,” but work as an intelligence officer complicates his love life, because he must keep secrets. His romance has its dangers and his dangers have their own romance. His Boy Scout wilderness survival skills save his life after he is shot down in Cambodia, enabling him to fight, survive and escape through the jungle; but he must always be the man who was never there.