Clifford D. Conner

I was born in New Jersey, grew up in Tennessee, and went to college at Georgia Tech. I worked for Lockheed Aircraft, which in 1966 sent me to England for a year as a design engineer on the C-5A cargo plane. My time in England coincided with the escalation of the Vietnam War. When I returned from England to Georgia, I resigned from Lockheed in a public act of protest against its role as a war profiteer. As a result, I became unemployable as the FBI dogged my trail, warning prospective employers against hiring me. (This was confirmed years later when I got my FBI files via a Freedom Of Information Act request.) I got married while still in college and by 1968 had three children, all daughters. The marriage ended in 1970, whereupon I moved to Manhattan and have been a New Yorker ever since. In 1980 I met my soulmate, Marush; we have lived "happily ever after." Meanwhile, the three daughters have produced a total of six grandchildren. Job stability has not been my strong suit, but I did eventually settle down to choose a career path. In 1985 I decided I wanted to be a historian, so I got the requisite Ph.D. degree and went on to teach history and write books on historical subjects.