This is the story of a father and son, a story written as much as a catharsis as a memoir.  In the case of Ted Wertime, it is a compelling story of a domineering father, abusive, capable of being vicious.  He loved his wife, Peggy, and four sons, John, Dick, Steve and Charlie, as much as he was capable of loving anyone.  But Ted Wertime's  brand of love would leave many scars on his wife and children.

 When he was born in the mid-to-late forties, Richard Wertime, Dick to his family, had a pragmatic view of the world, something no other member of the family seemed to share.  His half-crazy father was a  brilliant man, and served in the army during World War II.  Though he was serving with the state department, he was drafted into the army by his local draft  board.  He chose not to accept deferment, and worked both positions as long as he was in the service.  On the one hand, he was training as a private in the army, polishing the skills of survival and combat.  On the other hand, he was working with the intelligence offices, helping to plan the systematic bombing of Germany.  When it came to destruction, Ted Wertime was undeniably an expert.  Unfortunately, that genius seemed to include family lives as well as those of his enemies.

 An example of this is the beatings he gave his sons as discipline.  He told his wife that she should instruct the boys not to fight back when he was beating them.  His reasoning was that he had been trained to kill, and if the boys fought back, he might snap and kill one of them.  In truth, he knew when the boys got older and stronger, they would probably seriously hurt him.  It would never occur to him that, since he had so little control over his temper, he should never administer discipline in the first place.

 Instead, he strove to control every facet of his sons' lives, including their sexual activities.  His wife went along with his delusions, including his extramarital affairs.  He had a goal of sleeping with eighty women before he died.  One of his many mistresses, Joan, actually lived with Ted and Peggy Wertime until Ted's death.

 Though most of Ted Wertime's state department work still wears a classified shroud, he was open with his hobby.  He was curious about the science of ancient metallurgy, and he traveled the world studying archaeological digs of the smelting art.  He wrote at least two published books on the subject. 

 Ted Wertime was also obsessed with ecology, and made his fears of a doomed world quite public.  But few people shared his distorted extremist views.  When he began advocating extreme solutions to an as yet unseen problem, the Washington Post quit publishing his essays.  When President Carter dismissed his concerns, Wertime talked of fomenting a second revolutionary war.  Through all this, his family continued to suffer, with Dick taking the worst of it.  It was Dick that Ted most alienated, because Dick's realism didn't, couldn't conform to Ted's fanatical views. 

 Citadel on the Mountain is a compelling book.  It is a history of one son's treatment by his abusive father.  At the same time, it is a heartbreaking plea for love and acceptance from that same abusive father.  In the writing of it, Richard Wertime attempts to exorcise some old demons, and gain a measure of peace and freedom from the fear and guilt that have plagued him.  This reviewer hopes he has succeeded.