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Rather than an autobiography about family life, growing up in a certain part of the country, or an exciting business career, Anton recalls his time as a “rogue amateur agent” for the CIA and Col. Oliver North. When he and his friends decide to get into business and become invested in the advancement of Haiti under the regime of Papa Doc, they realize that business and politics have an undeniable link. Working with Latin American countries under oppressive regimes and the threat of growing Cold War Communism, Gary and his associates work to inform the United States and the people of countries like Grenada and Haiti about the injustices going on. Despite just being regular citizens and in no way affiliated with the intelligence community or the government, they risk their lives and safety to make the world a safer, freer place.
Telling a somewhat unknown and clandestine chapter of twentieth-century history, Anton’s first-hand account of interactions with world leaders and government officials will no doubt surprise readers, even those who lived through the Iran-Contra era. Taking some time to tell his personal story at the beginning and end of the book, the author structures each chapter to take a look at a turbulent time for whatever country he and his friends were trying to liberate or keep free of a despot’s rule. Secret dealings, threatening phone calls, and even assassination and terrorist attempts fill in the spaces between the work of ordinary people, sharply contrasting with who these men were and what they were doing. Shocking, illuminating, and consistently fascinating, Gary Anton’s relaying of a period in his life when he was personally fighting the spread of Communism is something every modern history reader will happily consume.