The Eagle Mutiny V2

by Richard Linnett, Roberto Loiederman

Overview

On March 14, 1970, two young merchant seamen sparked the first armed mutiny aboard an American ship in more than a century by taking control of the SS Columbia Eagle, a U.S. merchant vessel under U.S. military charter, carrying napalm and munitions to the Vietnam War. The mutineers set most of the crew adrift in lifeboats in the open sea and forced the captain to take the ship to Cambodia. After a tense impasse with the U.S. military, the Eagle arrived in Sihanoukville and the mutineers surrendered its cargo to Prince Sihanouk's government. Declaring themselves antiwar revolutionaries, the mutineers were granted asylum. Two days later, however, a coup put a pro-U.S. junta in power and the two men were imprisoned. Sihanouk, in exile, claimed the mutiny was a covert CIA operation which delivered weapons to the junta.

A serious piece of journalism with the narrative drive of a novel, The Eagle Mutiny is a tale of idealism and extreme daring. It chronicles the mutiny, the investigations and trials that followed, and it also paints a moving, complex portrait of the young mutineers. "The Eagle Mutiny," said a reviewer, "is an intriguing investigation into a forgotten crime - or, perhaps, a forgotten act of courage, depending on the reader's point of view... The authors present us with a vivid picture of flawed men, flawed choices, and tragic consequences."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940150827073
Publisher:	Richard Linnett & Roberto Loiederman
Publication date:	08/03/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	295
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Richard Linnett is a nonfiction writer and journalist. He's the author of In the Godfather's Garden, The Long Life and Times of Richie The Boot Boiardo (Rutgers/Rivergate Press, 2013), a biography of the New Jersey gang lord who inspired the HBO series "The Sopranos." He's now working on the documentary film Paradox Valley USA, about the "uranium renaissance" in America, and Stone Free, a nonfiction book about McKinley Nolan, an Army infantryman who was one of only two officially-recognized traitors of the Vietnam War

Richard's work has appeared in The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, L.A. Weekly, Penthouse, Cineaste Magazine, Adweek and Advertising Age. He is an MFA writing graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of the Arts and a B.A. graduate of George Washington University.

After receiving a B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University and an M.A. from San Francisco State (English Literature), Roberto Loiederman worked as a deck-hand on 14 U.S.-flag merchant vessels, first as ordinary seaman, then as able seaman (AB). His first three ships, in 1966-67, went to Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines during the height of the war and were nearly identical to the ship on which the mutiny took place.

In 1974, Roberto and his wife moved to Israel, where he wrote, produced and narrated documentary films, including a series of four half-hour movies about the old city of Jerusalem. After moving to L.A. in 1981, he worked as a TV writer for such shows as Dynasty, Knots Landing and Father Dowling. He's worked as a journalist and feature writer with more than 100 articles published in The Washington Post, L.A. Times, Baltimore Sun, Penthouse, Jewish Journal, and many others.

Editorial Reviews

The Eagle Mutiny is an intriguing investigation into a forgotten crime - or a forgotten act of courage, depending on your point of view... The authors do an excellent job of illuminating their subjects without demonizing them, or deifying them. McKay and Glatkowski were not saints, but neither were they drug-addled fools...Treason takes courage, and their actions did not occur in a vacuum... The authors present us with a vivid picture of flawed men, flawed choices, and tragic consequences.

Mekong.net - Bruce Sharp

The authors weave an interesting tale of mutiny and the subsequent investigations and trials that points to complex motivations typical of so many actions involved with the war in Vietnam... The Eagle Mutiny offers a well-written and interesting glimpse for general readers into one event on the periphery of the war in Southeast Asia.

The Journal of Military History - William McBride