Amerika? America!: From Immigration to Espionage

This memoir was vetted by the CIA.
"February 12, 2010: CIA Declassifies History of the Glomar Explorer"
Interested in a first-hand account of Project Azorian? We have it! The story of how naval engineer Manfred Krutein assisted the CIA in raising a sunken Soviet submarine from the ocean floor, including orchestrating the "Hughes Glomar Explorer" ocean mining cover story for this secret project is told with breathtaking immediacy in his diary entries, which are interspersed with wife Eva's third memoir of the Krutein family saga of emigration from Germany to Chile to the U.S.

Eva Krutein - refugee, wife, mother, musician, community leader, writer - confronts every crisis in life with courage, honesty and good humor. Vol.1, "Eva's War" takes place in Europe, as Eva and her infant daughter flee westward from Danzig in January, 1945. Vol.2, "Paradise Found, and Lost" tells how the growing family emigrates to Chile, lives and thrives there for nine years, and then decides to move again, to the USA. "Amerika? America!" is a story of rough beginnings, with gradual and sometimes comical adaptations to strangeness - it is California in the 1960s! - with five teenagers. Suddenly Eva's narrative is interrupted by the voice of her husband, Manfred. His secret diary is quoted at length, revealing how his "ocean mining" assignment for Howard Hughes and the Glomar Explorer is really complex and extended cover for a secret spy project: raising a lost Soviet submarine from the floor of the Pacific. Eva and her family know nothing of this secret for years. The story tells of family tensions and growth to maturity, music and travel, especially to Hawaii, Iceland and back to Danzig [now Gdansk]. Told with compassion and honesty, the Krutien memoirs strengthen our feelings of worldwide human solidarity.

"Another colorful, heart-warming tale of the Krutein family's life adventures - this one addresses immigration to Amerika and the process of becoming American. It's a wonderful book!" -Dr. Gay Irons, psychotherapist

"A whale of an exciting, romantic, true story. A spy thriller, a beautiful love story, family challenges and a happy ending. I read this through at one sitting." -Martin Hebeling, professor emeritus, Cal State Fullerton University, former U.S Military Intelligence Officer

"A wonderful story! A page-turning memoir which adds a necessary dimension to the 'immigrant' picture, one that we rugged individualists of America need to take a good look at. An educated, sophisticated family deals with an unfamiliar and often hostile culture, meets the challenges, copes with the complications. They become valued, trusted citizens of a nation that is not grateful enough." -Florence Cohn, book reviewer, National Council of Jewish Women

"If all human beings were endowed with a writer's talent, the world would be filled with an incalculable number of profoundly fascinating autobiographies. Realistically, this will never come to pass. However, Manfred, a scientist, and Eva, a musician, prove themselves to be exceptions. In their collaborative autobiography, 'Amerika? America!' they tell their life story with disarming openness, rich detail and passion, always connecting their personal narrative to the events unfolding around them: VietNam, the Kennedy assasinations, feminism, U.S./Soviet relations, the emergence of Buddhism in the U.S., the rise of the youth culture, etc. Their work is highly recommended. I read through the entire text in one sitting." -Rev. Tetsuo Unno, adjunct professor, Institute of Buddhist Studies/Gaduate Theological Union