The Missionary's Wife: A Romance and Spy Story Based on Actual Events (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781683150572)

The Missionary's Wife is the intriguing, thrilling, and as-it-happened story of Jim and Alexis Barclay, who found themselves in Venezuela, South America during the most difficult years of World War II. The Barclays had planned a life as missionaries, but the United States government (through President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the United States Office of Strategic Services or OSS), desperately needed American feet on the ground in Venezuela to monitor and fight against the then darkest scourge facing humanity - the Nazis, and their allies in Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy. These Axis powers desperately wanted and needed what neutral Venezuela had in abundance - oil, iron ore, and natural rubber - to run their respective war machinery.

What better cover was there for the United States and the Allied powers from December 1943 through December 1944, than operative spies working as missionaries. And what a potentially corruptive mission for the Barclays - a mission that required lies, cheating, seduction, adultery, killing - and nerves of steel.

There was no spy more qualified and highly effective than my mother Alexis Barclay, the missionary's wife, who was deeply loved and trusted by both her American husband Jim, and the Nazi Major Jonathan Speer.

Jonathan Barclay was born in Portland, Maine, U.S.A. He was adopted at birth, joining his new parents who were living in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Eventually his family also lived in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. Jonathan returned to the United States to attend Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and then the University of Illinois' John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

After graduation from law school, Jonathan worked as an international-law attorney at the prestigious law firm of Baker McKenzie in Chicago. There, he represented Fortune-400 corporate entities doing business in Central and South America, as well as Spain, utilizing his native Portuguese and Spanish language skills. Next, Jon dove into investment banking at A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. and rose to the position of Member of the Board of Directors and head of the national public investment banking division. In this position, Jon completed approximately $US20 billion of municipal-bond transactions. Finally, Jon returned to the legal profession as a United States securities and municipal-bond attorney and continues to practice law today.

Jonathan is deeply proud of his parents' work in South America and around the world, from 1943 to their retirement in 1976. The story of The Missionary's Wife is based on just a small part of what ended up being Jim and Alexis Barkley's overall significant contribution to the security, education, and betterment of the world and its inhabitants.