The Trade: My Journey into the Political Labyrinth of Political Kidnapping

From the Sunday New York Times Book Review (12/10/17)

"Van Dyk is a methodical and sensitive reporter, and his emotions are made vivid. Like many released hostages, he feels guilt for those who did not make it out alive. There is further remorse for those individuals — some he did not know — who worked hard to release him. He is wounded by the pain he caused his elderly father, sister, brother and other loved ones. He feels ashamed that CBS, which worked tirelessly to get his release, found him, only a few years later, to be a “remnant from the past,” and fired him.

“The Trade” is about what happens in the “second life” you live after you have been released (here he quotes another American hostage, Steven Sotloff, who was captured and killed in Aleppo a few years ago). Unlike other hostages, Van Dyk does not return a wounded hero. CBS orders Van Dyk not to write or talk about his ordeal, supposedly to protect other correspondents in the field, but perhaps also to hide its own involvement in procuring the ransom money. The F.B.I. hovers menacingly.

Given the extensive Rolodex of Taliban contacts Van Dyk has gathered over the years, thanks to the “essential” Afghan tenet that “the only way forward was for one man to introduce me to another,” it’s inevitable that the F.B.I. tries to use him to glean information about them. Van Dyk is vulnerable and weakened, and clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Initially, he trusts the agency to do the right thing. It’s a mistake. A creepy “therapist” tries to unravel his trauma, but she ends up being needier than her patient, as well as manipulative and controlling.

He is troubled by the knowledge of those who worked hard to save him to “prevent a second Daniel Pearl,” the Wall Street Journal reporter captured and killed by Pakistani terrorists in 2002. So he travels to Los Angeles to meet Pearl’s parents, and the journey proves yet another test of his bravery — “it was easier to cross the mountains into Pakistan than to come here.” Van Dyk repeatedly mentions his childhood — he was brought up in the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church in the American West — and there ensues an affecting scene in which the Pearls absolve him of his bad conscience for living while their son did not.

Along his quest to piece together what happened to him, Van Dyk meets with other families of former captives. He feels ruthlessly betrayed — by colleagues, and also, in a sense, by himself. (As an expert in Pashtun culture, he felt he knew the Taliban well enough to understand their ways and motives. How and why did this happen to him?) He feels “like Daniel in the Lion’s Den, to stand alone, for God, against the world, and to not be afraid,” he writes. “It would take me a lifetime to learn about physical courage, in that cell in the mountains, longer still to learn about moral courage.”

At the heart of this frustrating yet poignant book is the dangerous reality that there exists no solid, consistent global policy regarding ransom payments.

"The Trade is a thought-provoking book written by a courageous journalist and expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Having worked within the U.S. government and experienced his own kidnapping. It is a must read for anyone seeking to better understand this threat to our freedom."
Diane Foley, mother of Jim Foley, the first American journalist murdered by ISIS, and founder and president of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation.