STAFFORD — Marty Keenan will travel to Stafford on Sunday to give a talk on his forthcoming book about Great Bend native Joan V. Bondurant (1918-2006). The program will take place at 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 22, at the Stafford County Museum Library, 100 N. Main St. The program is free and open to the public. There will be refreshments.

Bondurant was an American political scientist and former spy for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. While teaching political science at California State University in Berkley, she published “Conquest of Violence” in 1958, still the most authoritative book in the West on Gandhi’s method of Satyagraha, “insistence on truth.”

She was born at home at 2320 Broadway Ave., Great Bend, the daughter of Price and Minnie Bondurant. Her father owned and operated Bondurant Hardware in downtown Great Bend for many years. Joan was valedictorian of the 1937 graduating class from Great Bend High School, going on to study voice and music at the University of Michigan.

Following World War II, she took a quick course in written Japanese. With a dire need for translators, she was approached by the OSS and served one year in San Francisco interpreting Japanese documents and maps; she then was sent to India to translate Japanese documents seized from Japanese soldiers in Burma.

Bondurant and a friend were soon given a second mission, to infiltrate the Indian Independence movement and report to the United States the goings-on. She carefully studied Gandhi’s methods and prior to leaving India, she was able to meet him.