The Protagonist

The central character, Rudyard Kipling Glynn Jr., is a composite of several OSS agents who worked with Uncle Ho and the Viet Minh in the waning days of World War II. The story is fictional, but the protagonist's passion to have the United States recognize Ho Chi Minh's government is true to the beliefs of those who served there.

Known to his friends as "Rudder Glynn," he sacrifices a promising military career in a quixotic attempt to persuade his government to keep the French out. He is haunted by his failure, and although he is agonized by a war that should have been avoided, he is unable to bring himself to oppose it openly. The tragic consequences of his inability to sway American policy are visited on his family in 1969, just a few weeks before his son is to complete a second tour in Vietnam.

One reviewer describer Rudder Glynn as:

authentic, a noble person, living noble ideals, believing that there is something more to life than life itself, that words mean something, that a promise is a commitment to a result, and not just an attempt at effort . . . that others sometimes come first, that we can do wrong, be straight about what we have done and, the most difficult of all, forgive ourselves, that there are different kinds of love which do not necessarily compete.

The name of the character, Rudyard Kipling Glynn, Jr., is central to the story line. Named after his father, whose namesake was the famous British poet, the family tradition carries over to his son, Kip (III), and to a grandson, Rudy (IV). This unique name, especially the nickname Rudder, is crucial to the son's fate when he is captured in 1969.

Even Rudyard Kipling' writings on colonialism are key to the plot.