This study contains biographical sketches of Benedict Arnold, Quisling, Klaus Fuchs, Richard Sorge, and Oleg Penkovsky. Greenacre finds structural similarities in their life stories that 'suggest a certain degree of patterning of developmental attitudes'. These include superego defects and excessive craving for power. In all the cases there was evidence of prior identification with more than one national or political group, including (save for Quisling) the one in whose behalf the treachery was committed. Arnold had been a British subject; Quisling had 'dwelt much on the early connections of Scandinavia and Russia [and] may have gone to Russia with some deeply rooted and cherished dream of fulfilling his heroic destiny there'; Fuchs, born in Germany and a Communist at nineteen, was convicted of selling secrets to Russia; Sorge, Russian born to a Russian mother, was charged with espionage for Russia and was executed by Japan; and Penkovsky, executed by the Soviets for selling secrets to the West, was the son of a Czarist officer.