Leslie Absher's Blog
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May.03.2011
This is the story my father loves to tell: on the journey from North America to Athens, the sky grew dark, the winds howled and the sky opened. While our ocean liner pitched back and forth, I slept peacefully, tucked inside the metal ship’s crib, rocked by the sea. Thalassa. I didn’t know this word...
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Jul.28.2010
Some stories feel rooted to my psyche, as if I’ve always known them. Like the story of my father’s job interview with the CIA. I feel as if I was told this story as a young child but in reality I was twenty when I learned what he did for a living. By the time I first heard the parrot story I...
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Jun.11.2010
For two years, I’ve lead writing workshops at a homeless shelter for youths aged 18 to 24. Each time I step into the classroom – two white boards and three tables pushed together – I have no idea what’s in store. Will anyone show up? Will whoever does be in the mood to write? I pull from my bag...
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May.28.2010
Growing up in a CIA family, I learned to carry secrets without thinking about it. Whereas my father made a decision and took an oath; I was born into it. For me it was a matter of nuclear family loyalty. Not spy family loyalty. If I loved my father, I needed to keep his secret.
The problem was...
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May.18.2010
When my article, My Dad the Spy, was published in last year’s LA Times, I did something I had never done before: went public with a family secret. It wasn’t telling the public that was hardest, it was telling my family. Each member reacted in their own way but what I see now, looking back, was...
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About Leslie
I’ve criticized the CIA all my adult life — for its role in overthrowing democratically elected governments and supporting brutal dictatorships. But as a child I had no idea my father worked for the CIA.
He was a nerd who wore black horn-rim...
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