“He was known variously as ‘the Mad Major’ for his intense intellectual passion, ‘Genghis John’ for his abrasive and confrontational interpersonal communication, and ‘the Ghetto Colonel’ for his extreme, spartan lifestyle. Boyd once said to Spinney: ‘the most important thing in the world is to be free. There are two ways to be free, you can be rich or you can crank down your needs to nothing. I am never going to be rich so I am going the other way.’”

- Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade (2011)