A Very Private Plot (7 page)

On the fourth day, using crutches, Nikolai made his way to the canvas-covered army theater, where movies and documentaries were shown. Three hundred men and officers were assembled there, under regimental orders, to view a documentary flown in from Moscow. Andrei Sakharov had denounced the Afghanistan war from his exile in Gorky, the announcer reported. The camera then focused on Sergei Chervonopisky, a thirty-two-year-old former major in the Soviet airborne troops who had lost both legs in the war. He was one of 120 Afghan war veterans in the Congress. Chervonopisky lashed out at Sakharov for telling the reporter from a Canadian newspaper, the
Ottawa Citizen
, that Soviet pilots sometimes fired on Soviet soldiers to prevent them from being taken alive by Afghan rebels.

“To the depths of our souls we are indignant over this irresponsible, provocative trick by a well-known scientist,” Chervonopisky declared. He accused Sakharov of trying to discredit the Soviet armed forces and attempting “to breach the sacred unity of the army, the Party, and the people.” The camera turned then to General Secretary Gorbachev. He was joined by the entire Politburo in a standing ovation for Chervonopisky's censure motion. Chervonopisky had shouted out, “
The three words for which I feel we must all fight are state, motherland, and communism
.” Speaker after speaker heaped opprobrium on Sakharov. “Who gave him the right to insult our children?” a middle-aged farm worker had declared indignantly.

Nikolai Trimov closed his eyes and formulated a sacred pledge. Something that had been gestating deep within him since he first absorbed the details of The Episode from the lips of a schoolmate six years before, and fused them with what he had learned about the death of his grandparents.

Nikolai resolved to assassinate the leader of the Soviet enterprise. That meant, to kill the General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev.

CHAPTER 8

APRIL 1995

Wearing light corduroys and a crew-necked gray sweater, Blackford opened the door of his house in Virginia to Arthur Blaustein, chief counsel to the Senate Committee on Intelligence. Blackford had read several months ago—and this morning had got from Nexis a copy, to refresh his memory—the profile of Blaustein published in the
Washington Post
the day his appointment was announced by Senator Blanton.

Arthur Blaustein was born in 1960, the son of a federal judge in Milwaukee. At the University of Wisconsin he majored in Russian studies and served as editor of
The Daily Cardinal
, the student newspaper. In a widely discussed editorial published a week before the 1980 election, the student newspaper, at the direction of editor Blaustein, endorsed the candidacy of Barry Commoner and LaDonna Harris, who were running for President and Vice President on the American equivalent of a Green ticket, calling for environmentalist totalism and unilateral disarmament. From there to the law school at Harvard, after which Blaustein clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall. From there he went to work for independent counsel Lawrence Walsh, who was investigating Iran-Contra, the gravamen of which was that the Reagan administration had illegally supported the Contra movement in Nicaragua, using funds illicitly obtained for that purpose. Blaustein was prominently associated with the trials of John Poindexter, Oliver North, and Richard Secord. He was highly visible in the prosecution of Elliott Abrams and Caspar Weinberger, whose prosecutions were aborted by the controversial pardons handed down by President Bush in the last days of his presidency.

One week ago, the Senate had voted a contempt citation against Blackford Oakes. The sergeant at arms to whom the matter was assigned had yesterday announced that the malefactor, Blackford Oakes, should report to Room S321 in the Capitol at noon, April 19. This was a most unusual procedure, reactivating congressional punitive dramas associated for the most part with the nineteenth century.

The news story describing the Senate vote and the order given to the sergeant at arms explained the procedure in some detail. Any failure by Mr. Oakes to report as ordered would result in his arrest. The debate in the Senate had featured the spirited opposition of senators from the right and from the left. The conservatives were antagonized by what they viewed as recriminatory persecution of a Cold War hero. The civil liberties left railed against the resurrection of a congressional power so long unused, a power that permitted the legislature to transgress against the doctrine of habeas corpus: What the detention of Blackford Oakes amounted to was punishing a citizen without trial, in flat violation of due process. Senator Simon argued that the Fourteenth Amendment had de facto anachronized this ancient and arbitrary power of the Senate and of the House to incarcerate intransigent witnesses, and that to revive the power now would set civil liberties back “by a century.” Senator Blanton countered with the argument that to fail to exert the authority of the Senate was in effect to fail to exercise the responsibility of the Senate adequately to inform itself before proposing legislation. Senator Hatch stressed that Blackford Oakes, although practically nothing had been published about his career, was known within the intelligence community to have risked his life more than once to further U.S. interests; that Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had availed themselves of his special skills, entrusting him with special responsibilities; and that to punish him now, “using Tower-of-London sanctions,” would be to punish someone whose valiant conduct in the past was entirely consistent with his reluctance now to give out information that might endanger the lives and careers of men and women who had helped the United States during the dangerous days of the Cold War. Senator Hatch's speech was the grist for one hundred editorials the next day.

Senator Nunn said that he would vote against the contempt citation. He delivered a speech on the need for covert action to defend American interests, and nominated Blackford Oakes as an “unsung hero” of the Cold War. The
Washington Times
quoted a paragraph from the senator's speech: “Consider the moral dilemma in which the Blanton Committee and its energetic counsel, Mr. Blaustein, have put the 69-year-old American, legendary in the shadowy world in which so many enemies of America have lived and worked. That much of their work was frustrated is owing to the efforts of such as Mr. Oakes. And now we wish to put him in jail for the crime of respecting pledges he made in pursuit of his country's objectives.” Several opponents of the Blanton Committee's war on covert activities spoke up, declaring the objective of the Blanton Committee to be dangerous. The majority leader reminded the honorable gentlemen that they were not here to debate CIA policy but to reaffirm the division of powers under the Constitution. It was then that Senator Albright announced that she felt she had no alternative but to vote to punish someone who disdained, in effect, a Senate subpoena. “We cannot leave it to individual consciences whether to cooperate or not with congressional committees charged with gathering information on the basis of which laws are made,” Senator Albright kept stressing the point.

The vote was 65–30 to punish Blackford Oakes.

It was one hour after the vote was taken that Blackford got the telephone call. Blaustein sought a private session with Blackford, “any time today after 4 p.m.”

“I told him,” said Bob Lounsbury, his spectacles as always at the end of his nose, his ballpoint pen, as always, doodling on his yellow pad, “that of course I would need to be present at such a meeting. He asked me to ask you, on his behalf, to meet without me. I told him I would relay the request and advise against granting it.” Lounsbury was known in the legal community as the most unambiguous naysayer since the hanging judges of frontier days.

“Oh hell, Bob. I know that's the way lawyers act. And there are good reasons for it. But look. I come out of a different tradition from you guys. I've met with maybe a hundred people in the last forty years to discuss critical matters, including my own safety, more hazardous than any problems I have with the U.S. Senate. Which simply wants to send me to the joint until Senate pride is assuaged. I've told too many people too many times
I have to see you alone
to say No to Blaustein, when he says the same thing to me. If he yaks on about legal questions I can easily shut up. Or call you up. Or tell him unless he goes away I'll …
have him assassinated
! Tell him to come to the house at six.”

Lounsbury knew he wasn't going to get anywhere with his old friend, client, and classmate.

“But you can tell me this, Bob,” Blackford went on. “Is there a typical maneuver done by congressional counsel before actually dispatching somebody to jail? And by the way I forgot to ask you, but when I was at school I think I remember that in the early days of the republic, recalcitrants were jailed—is my memory correct on this?—within the walls of Congress? Have they now got themselves a Lubyanka somewhere nearby?”

“I knew you'd ask that, and I've done the research. The best treatment has been missed by the press. It's in”—Lounsbury shuffled some papers—“it's in the ‘Public Officials Integrity Act of 1977,' a ‘Report of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate,' page ninety-six. And what it says is, ‘Subsection (g) expressly provides that the enactment by Congress of a mechanism for the civil enforcement of a subpoena does not affect the power and authority and absolute discretion of Congress, or an appropriate House of Congress, to choose to enforce a subpoena by either of the two existing methods rather than by initiating a civil enforcement action.' Now this, a civil action, is what they haven't done to you—yet. ‘The first of these two existing methods is certification by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia of a matter pursuant to section 104 of the revised statutes (2 U.S.C. 194). This procedure provides for a criminal prosecution brought by the United States Attorney to punish an individual or entity for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena or order.'

“And here is what they
have
done to you: ‘The second existing method of enforcement is for either House of Congress to hold an individual or entity in contempt of such House of Congress. This method is commonly referred to as trial before the bar of Congress. While historically this method has been used numerous times, it is generally considered to be time-consuming and not very effective. No one has been tried for contempt of Congress before the bar of Congress since 1945.'

“So what will they do to you like, tomorrow?” Bob went on, drawing a jailhouse with bars on his pad. “The report then says, ‘In exercising its discretion with respect to enforcing a subpoena or order, Congress may decide that it is important to secure production of the subpoenaed documents or compliance with the order and that a civil action is quicker and more effective in achieving these purposes. In other cases'—and this seems to me to apply to you, since you aren't going to yield those ‘documents,' ever—‘In other cases, Congress may decide that it is more important to punish the individual or entity who has refused to comply with a congressional demand and thereby to deter violations by others. In that case the contempt should be certified to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia for criminal prosecution.'”

“So I'm supposed to cool it somewhere until the Senate decides whether to press for federal criminal action?”

“Correct. That is my reading of it. And, of course, smart people avoid your problem by the simple act of pleading the Fifth. Which I, your former colleagues, your wife, your stepson, the army, the navy, and the marines have been urging you to do for thirty fucking days. But no, you are too accustomed to the great days of brinkmanship—”

“Bob? Bob, do you hear me, buddy? You are becoming—
noisy
! You remind me of that wonderful ruckus you generated when, stark naked, you ran up Church Street followed by half the New Haven police force, the night you were initiated into Deke. And who, dear Bob,
who
, filing out of the Fence Club, saw you, took off his overcoat in the freezing cold, threw it over your manly torso, spirited you into the club, tucked you into the big fireplace, and got our faithful John Huggins to tell the police (a) you weren't there, and (b) if they wanted to search for you, they'd need to get a court order? Did I leave you in the middle of the street, and say, ‘Wait here, Bob! I'll call Wiggin and Dana and get a lawyer'?”

Lounsbury, whose detailed memory of the event had been blissfully erased that same night by the bottle of gin he had been forced by the initiating club to chugalug, remembered only his gradual recovery of consciousness sometime after midnight. Blackford alternately squirting cold water on his face and pressing him to drink more black coffee. He muttered now, “You bring that old chestnut up about every ten years, and it's becoming tiresome.”

“I bring it up only when provoked.”

“Okay. Now listen, Black. Blaustein will come at six. I'll be in my office—you have the private number—till seven-thirty, and you can reach me at home after that. And you'd better damned well tell me
exactly
what he said. And don't make any deals with him without first checking with me.”

Blackford replied with something soothing.

Arthur Blaustein was carrying what Blackford assumed was the heaviest briefcase ever manufactured. He was dressed as if headed for a funeral, where he would deliver the—was there such a word as “dyslogy,” Blackford wondered. Surely Arthur Blaustein would never mourn the passing of anybody, except maybe Ralph Nader. Framed against the light blue sky and the setting sun in pastoral Virginia, the scene might have made a picture for Andrew Wyeth, it occurred to Blackford, opening the door to the bulky six-footer. He asked his guest if he might help him with the briefcase—“I'm surprised any one man can lift it.”