John Stockwell is the highest-ranking CIA official ever to leave the agency and go public, working with them 13 years before going the way of conscience. He is a former U.S. Marine Corps major, hired by the CIA in 1964, who spent six years working for the CIA in Africa, and was later transferred to Vietnam.
In 1973 he received the CIA's Medal of Merit, the Agency's second-highest award. In 1975, Stockwell was promoted to the CIA's Chief of Station and National Security Council coordinator, managing covert activities during the first years of Angola's bloody civil war.
After two years he resigned, determined to reveal the truth about the agency's role in the Third World. Since that time, he has worked tirelessly to expose the criminal activities of the CIA. He is the author of the international bestseller In Search of Enemies (published in 1978), and The Praetorian Guard: The U.S. Role in the New World Order.