Treasures

Scattered throughout my house are objets d’art collected during my many years of travelling abroad on intelligence assignments. As a speaker of seven languages, I was sent to many different countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, to collect data on a variety of targets over a period of thirty-five years. I am an artist by nature and loved to accumulate curios from all the places I worked. The problem is that the locations I visited, what I did, and who I worked with after 1975 are all still classified. The end result is that a visitor to my home will see all manner of art from places I can’t admit to have ever visited.

My time up to and before 1975 has been declassified. That means that the thirteen years which I spent mostly in Vietnam are no longer secret. So the many art pieces from Vietnam need no explanation.

The walls of my living room are decorated with paintings, including oils from Vietnam—landscapes portraying the haunting beauty of tropical mountains and jungles. But among them is an American farm scene, a gift given to me after I did a presentation. It is labelled “Dr. Tom Glenn Eastern Idaho 1996.” Next to it is a portrait of an American Indian matron. And over the fireplace, in the place of greatest honor, is a large painting—three and a half feet by two feet—of a tiger. In the upper right-hand corner is a series of Chinese characters I haven’t been able to decipher. My best guess is that they are the signature of the painter.

More next time.