Jack Doherty grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, immersed in the Irish traditions, folk tales, food, song, and dance. (Yes, Jack did the traditional Irish jigs and reels on stage.) He has dual Irish and United States citizenship and a Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg, Germany. He frequently made the short trip to visit his relatives in Ireland. During the Cold War and his period of study in Germany, he took advantage of a thaw in Communist vs. Western relations and managed to make two treacherous journeys behind the Iron Curtain. He was secretly in contact with dissidents and members of the largest anti-communist organization in the Soviet Bloc (the cardinals, bishops, and secret priests behind the Iron Curtain). He was in constant contact with Carol Cardinal Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II and who at that time begged him to send books. Working with the United States Armed Forces in Germany, he organized a successful effort to smuggle in more than 57,000 pro-western books over a five-year period. He became a persona non grata, earning the banishment and black listing of authorities in communist countries. He tells the story of these courageous dissidents in his book Abandoned by the Vatican. His interest in Irish customs, history, and folk tales led him from childhood to ponder why the Irish and the other white slaves suffered and endured being treated as animals under Sir Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s. There were many more angry, vengeful Irishmen than their captors. Why did they let the British get away with it? Why would they just “take it” from their English oppressors. Faithful to accounts of historical events, battles, commerce, and traditions, he attempts in his historical novel, Memories That Never Should Have Been, to explain how escape and revenge was possible. He became licensed as a Healthcare Director and Administrator in hospitals and post-acute care facilities and retired as a Healthcare Executive Director.