The Missionary's Wife

It was September 1943, and the world was again at war, when my mother, Alexis Hart Barclay, first stepped foot in Venezuela, South America. She was twenty-four, smart, sophisticated, athletic, beautiful, worldly, romantic, and fluent in four languages. She and her equally gifted new husband yearned for the adventure and skill required to serve as both faithful missionaries and all-consuming spies during World War Il for the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the direct predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This dual role required faithfulness and adultery, giving and taking of life, and lying and speaking the truth - in an effort to assure freedom of all mankind from the tyranny and evil of the World War Il Axis powers (the German Third Reich, and the Empires of Japan and Italy).

The lives and paths of my parents and other individuals from the Axis powers crossed in dangerous and critical ways between 1943 and the end of World War Il in 1945. This story, based on actual historical events, is about my parents' incredible lives and their belief systems, both of which were necessarily compromised for the benefit of all mankind.