JERROLD SCHECTER is a historian, journalist, and award-winning author. He was Time bureau chief in Tokyo and Moscow and covered Southeast Asia from Hong Kong in the 1960s. He was diplomatic editor of Time until he left to serve on the National Security Council during the Carter administration. His nine books include The Spy Who Saved the World and Russian Negotiating Behavior.

      LEONA SCHECTER, a historian and literary agent, co-authored Special Tasks with her husband Jerrold. Together with their five children, they wrote about life in the Soviet Union in An American Family in Moscow and Back in the USSR. The Schecters live in Washington, D.C.