The Witness Tree

A political epic based on the early life of Eleanor Dulles–sister of John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, and Allen Dulles, the first head of the CIA–and the secret beginnings of modern Israel. The Witness Tree interweaves years of classified research by co-author and Nazi war crimes investigator John Loftus with a perilous love story–the result is a sweeping novel of a diplomatic dynasty, born in the hope and treachery that defined the twentieth century. Eleanor Dulles comes from one of the most respected families in America. An economist and a socialist, she is the family rebel–and its last hope for salvation. Her affair with a mysterious younger man leads them into fateful brushes with the Zionist underground and the Soviet Comintern. Eleanor comes to understand her family’s connections to the treasonous Second World War oil business, and the unlikely lovers are led separately from war-torn Europe toward the doorstep of Nelson Rockefeller himself, with profound implications for the future of the Middle East. Part family saga, part political thriller, The Witness Tree imagines the little-known life of a woman who became the conscience of her family with a single, desperate act to redeem the soul of a nation betrayed. From the Hardcover edition.