8vo. Original blue cloth lettered in white on spine (slight rubbing to corners); publisher’s dust jacket with "12401" stamped in white in lower corner of rear panel (a few closed tears with cellotape repairs verso, some minor edgewear to spine ends; cloth slipcase. Provenance: Thomas B. Connery (bookplate).

FIRST EDITION of Condon’s political thriller about the son of a prominent U. S. political family who is brainwashed and becomes an unwilling assassin for a Communist entity.  The novel has been adapted into a feature film twice: in 1962, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury, and in 2004, directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, Meryl Streep, and Jon Voight.