Saturday, August 12th at 9 P.M. the final episode will air of the AMC dramatic series, TURN: Washington’s Spies – about Long Island’s own Culper Spy Ring, the United States’ first organized espionage ring, during the American Revolution. TURN gets its name from the word “turncoat,” which is another term for a traitor, and can also imply undercover operations. For many people on Long Island, around the country, and beyond its borders, news that Long Island has a history, much less a Revolutionary War spy ring operating at great personal risk behind British lines, came as a shock. The series is well-acted and directed, but the emphasis is largely on dramatics, too frequently at the expense of history, and of personal and family reputations. But, before the screenwriters’ view becomes too firmly embedded as what actually happened, or because it is likely to be so, it’s been time, over the past 4 years, to clear away some of the Ring Baloney.
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