In his final years, Whitson was destitute and disgruntled, telling rueful stories of the “Quarry”—his term for the section of the CIA he worked for—and trash-talking the agency. Once you’re in, he told one friend, “You really are a pawn.” In his dying days, the government had said, “You didn’t even exist to us.” Even the movies were no reprieve, offering reminders of his glory days. About a year before he died, seeing the thriller The Pelican Brief, Whitson leaned over in the dark of the cinema and told a friend, “I wrote the yellow papers on everything that happened.” With a hint of
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