Most people won’t remember dad, but in 1985 everyone knew his name.  That’s because my dad, Ronald Pelton, was one of a rash of spies caught during, “The Year of the Spy.”

I promised dad I would never publicly talk about him until after he died. We all did.  None of us put his photos on social media when he got out of prison. None of us answered even one reporter’s phone call.   I’m still grieving his death, listening to his voice, pouring over his recorded interviews. His death is still fresh. I can still feel the sting. This is my piece on remembering dad.

My goal is not to avenge him, nor to attempt to create public sympathy.  My goal is to try to understand him. How he thought.  Why he betrayed his country, and his own family, who he professed was so important to him.  How he was able to forgive his family for abandoning him, while he was away, while they worked through how to live without him. I went to visit him in prison, but I could have gone more often.

I want to understand how an ordinary family man with no criminal record survived 30 years in a federal prison.  How he could turn 180 degrees to betray the NSA, the agency he loved, that made up so much of his identity. .

His stories have the makings of a spy thriller - dad going to Austria to meet with the Russians, how dad got his cash back into the USA, dad’s home (with his girlfriend) and car being bugged, and he knew it, dad’s girlfriend testifying for the prosecution, while his family watched, how dad got into the DC Russian embassy, and back out, without intelligence knowing; the intelligence community later trying to uncover whether the defector who turned dad in, Vitaly Yurchenko, was a true defector, or something known as a limited hangout, where he was sent to distract the U.S. intelligence community from a more damaging spy, Aldrich Ames.

This will all be a part of his story. But, it won’t be the focus.

His real story is existential, how dad betrayed his own soul and lost his faith in the intelligence community, and his God. It is told through the lens of his daughter, who lived through what caused him to turn, and interviewed him for the parts when she wasn’t there.

How dad was thrust into a pragmatic crisis that became more than practical, it became existential.  Where he made pivotal decisions based from the desperation of his own making.

How dad suffered during his mid-life, when failure became his new norm.  How dad betrayed his own soul beyond everything else.  And, how dad coped with his public reputation, when he could no longer hide his double life.

I hold two points of view at once.  Dad performed acts that truly hurt people, especially his family.  For that he lives with his tarnished legacy, and he paid through his time in prison.  But, dad also did a lot of good in his life, before, during, and after prison.  He simply cannot loathe himself indefinitely. 

Dad and I met over many months. I taped and transcribed each interview.

At first I created this tribute for family members and friends to share stories they wanted to tell about dad. This was because initially his body was to be cremated and returned straight away in an urn quietly.

Then, I turned over the responsibility for dad’s funeral and obituary to my sister, Pam. I was too emotionally spent to perform another task. She managed a great service, and found a place to put dad’s ashes with a tombstone for us to visit in the future. The funeral home created an online tribute.

Now, my goal is to share one story a week about dad. To show his humanity.

Writing about dad is cathartic.  It’s about finding my own truth. When you find your truth, you will be both blessed and stricken. The truth can bind us closer together, or keep us tragically apart.  

How do you want to be remembered?