The Spook Who Sat By The Door (novel) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The story is set in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Chicago. The novel opens with Senator Hennington, a white liberal senator with a tight re-election campaign, looking for ways to win the Negro vote. His wife suggests the senator accuse the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of racial discrimination in its hiring because the agency has no black officers. Because of Senator Hennington's investigation and subsequent comfortable re-election, the CIA has been required for political reasons to recruit African-Americans for training. Only Dan Freeman, secretly a black nationalist, successfully completes the training process. Freeman has both the highest grades and best athletic marks of his recruitment class. Stationed in Korea during the Korean War, Freeman is an expert in hand-to-hand combat, especially judo. Freeman also played football at Michigan State University.

Freeman becomes the first black man in the agency and is given a desk job—Top Secret Reproduction Center Sections Chief. He understands that he is the token black person in the CIA, and that the CIA defines his function as providing proof of the agency's supposed commitment to integration and progress. Freeman is often used as a model Negro, and when asked to appear or speak at various events, he tells exactly the story the audience wishes to hear. He has a complete distaste for the "snob-ridden" world of Washington DC and especially the city's black middle class. Therefore, after completing his training in guerrilla warfare techniques, weaponry, communications and subversion, Freeman puts in just enough time to avoid raising any suspicions about his motives before he resigns from the CIA and returns to work in the social services in Chicago.

Upon his return, Freeman makes contact with the Cobras, a gang that was previously immune to contact from social agencies. Immediately he begins recruiting young black men living in inner-city Chicago to become “Freedom Fighters” teaching them all of the guerrilla warfare tactics that he learned from the CIA. The Cobras' training includes a fight with the Comanches, a rival gang; the study and appreciation of black poetry, music, and revolutionary leaders; a bank robbery on 115th and Halstead; and the robbery of a National Guard Armory on Cottage Grove Avenue. They become a guerrilla group, with Freeman as the secret leader, and set out to ensure that black people truly live freely within the United States by partaking in both violent and non-violent actions throughout Chicago. The “Freedom Fighters” of Chicago begin spreading the word about their guerrilla warfare tactics across the United States; as Freeman says, “What we got now is a colony, what we want is a new nation.” As revolt and a war of liberation continues in the inner city of Chicago, the National Guard and the police desperately try to stop them.

Finding the gaps in the National Guard's "sloppily trained and ill-disciplined" unit, Freeman and the Freedom Fighters escalate their actions in Chicago. First, they blow up the mayor's office in the new city hall. Secondly, they paint a Negro alderman's car yellow and white. Thirdly, they take over radio stations and broadcast propaganda from "the Freedom Fighters, the Urban Underground of Black Chicago." Fourth, they kidnap Colonel "Bull" Evans, the commander of the National Guard unit, give him LSD, then release him.

After the Freedom Fighters start their sniper attacks, killing multiple National Guardsmen, Freeman is visited by three old friends. After speaking with two female friends, Freeman's final guest is his friend and Chicago police officer Dawson. Sergeant Dawson entered Freeman's apartment on a suspicion and his suspicion is verified when he finds Freedom Fighter propaganda. After an argument, Freeman attacks Dawson and kills him. He calls in his top Freedom Fighters to dispose of the body. As the book closes, Freeman orders "Condition Red" to initiate attack teams in twelve cities across America.