Operation Overflight (20 page)

The letters were extremely difficult to write. Not wanting my family to worry any more than they already had, I tried to be as cheerful as possible—emphasizing that I had been well treated, that I was taking walks, even sunbaths, that I had been given cigarettes and books to read—but found it impossible to eliminate the hopelessness I really felt.

“Barbara, I don't know what is going to happen to me. The investigation and interrogation is still going on. When that is over, there will be a trial. I will be tried in accordance with Article 2 of their criminal code for espionage. The article states that the punishment is seven to fifteen years' imprisonment and death in some cases. Where I fit in, I don't know. I don't know when the trial will be, or anything. I only know that I don't like the situation I am in or the situation I have placed you in… .

“I was told today that I could write letters to you and my parents. That was good news. I was also told that there appeared in one of the U.S. papers a statement that my father had made that he would like to come here and see me. I was told that if the U.S. government would let any of you come that you would be allowed to see me. I would rather you waited until the trial or after so that
I could tell you what the results were. But I will leave the decision of when to come up to you. …”

The following day both letters were returned to me. Certain remarks were unacceptable and had been crossed out. Words had been changed, sentences and paragraphs transposed. I was to recopy both letters, as indicated, also wording them in such a way that it appeared I was alone in my cell while writing them.

Since there was no pattern in the content of the deletions, this meant only one thing: they were watching for a code, and were using this method to frustrate it.

Also, rewritten, the letters gave no indication of censorship.

There was no need for such niceties when it came to the letters I received, toward mid-June. They were butchered. Not just single lines or paragraphs, but half-pages cut out. A code, as the Russians well realized, can work both ways.

There was little in the way of encouraging news, except that both my wife and my parents wanted to come to Moscow, if they could get visas. My father had written to both Premier Khrushchev and President Eisenhower, asking them to help me. My mother urged me to be a good boy and read my Testament.

A photo of her was enclosed. She was in bed, obviously ill.

I could have done without that.

From the moment I had been told I would be allowed to receive mail, I had anxiously awaited its arrival, asking each and every day if any letters had come.

Now that they had, the loneliness became even more acute.

Earlier, the evening interrogations had been discontinued. Now, as June passed and spring turned to summer, there were no more Sunday interrogations; then I was given Saturdays off too; and occasionally, without warning, there would be no questions for a whole morning or afternoon.

I learned a new way to tell time. From the gap at the top of my cell window I could see two office windows across the courtyard. They were opened each weekday morning at nine, then closed each evening at six. On Saturdays they were opened at nine, closed at two. Sundays they remained closed all day. But on Sunday the streets outside the prison were quiet, and I could hear each hour as the Kremlin clock tolled the time.

It hung very heavy.

Often I'd wondered whether there were other Americans in Lubyanka. Maybe even as I took my walks there was someone in one of the adjoining courtyards, waiting for a signal.

Desperate for communication of any kind, I hit upon a way to make my presence known. Although I was forbidden to speak, no one had said anything about whistling.

As I walked, I'd whistle American songs.

Finishing one, I'd listen for a reply.

That there wasn't one today didn't mean there mightn't be one tomorrow, or the day after.

On June 30 I was informed that the investigation was officially completed. There would be no further interrogations.

My first reaction was relief. After sixty-one days the questioning was finally over. Despite all their tricks, I had succeeded in keeping from them the most important things I knew.

The self-congratulatory feeling lasted only until I was returned to my cell. Then I realized that except for reading and walks, there was no way to fill my days.

Another realization followed. Now that the investigation was finished, I was that much closer to the trial. And whatever came after.

Six

O
n July 9 I had a visitor.

Mikhail I. Grinev was a small, balding man in his early sixties, with horn-rimmed glasses and a wispy goatee. His English was so poor as to be nearly unintelligible—he had studied it in school, used it little since—but as interpreter he had brought along an English teacher from Moscow University.

Grinev informed me that he was a member of the Moscow City Collegium of Lawyers and had been appointed my defense counsel.

I had been hoping for a lawyer of my own choice, an American.

Not permitted.

For seventy days I had been held in solitary confinement. Except for a few heavily censored letters, no communication with the outside world had been allowed. Repeated requests to see a representative of my own government had been denied. Albeit involuntarily, I was learning a few of the differences between Soviet and American law. Grinev would teach me quite a few more.

This was a courtesy visit, he explained. We could not actually start work on my defense until we received a copy of the indictment.

When would that be?

Sometime before the trial; the date was not yet set.

I was curious to know whether the trial would be open to the public. My wife and parents had applied for visas; if granted, would they be allowed to attend?

Grinev didn't know, or so he said. I was to be tried before the military division of the Supreme Court of the USSR. Often in cases involving state security, as did mine, such trials were closed to the public. The military division, he went on to explain, consisted of three generals—Lieutenant General Borisoglebsky, chairman; Major General Vorobyev, of the Artillery; and Major General Zakharov, of the Air Force—who acted as judges.

I was civilian, I noted, not military.

That was not important, Grinev said. In the USSR all espionage cases came under jurisdiction of the military division of the court.

Would there be a jury?

There were no jury trials in Russia. I should realize, he added, I was being tried before the highest court in the land. And the procurator general himself, Roman Rudenko, would act as prosecutor. Remembering Rudenko from the interrogations, I wasn't surprised at this.

Procurator general, Grinev explained, was a position corresponding to that of Attorney General of the United States.

The following background piece on Rudenko appeared in
The New York Times
on August 18, I960, the second day of the trial. Although I was not to read it until much later, it bears reprinting here for its insight into his character and motivations:

“Traditionally, there is only one side of criminal law in the Soviet Union that offers the attorney opportunities for fame, stature, and high office. That is the right side, the prosecution side. It is the side that Roman Andreyevich Rudenko, meticulously and without ostentation, as traveled for thirty years. He revealed his traits again yesterday in prosecuting Francis Gary Powers, the American reconnaissance pilot. Mr. Rudenko appeared in court as chief prosecutor, not because he is an unusually brilliant lawyer or because he is a particularly striking performer in public, like the late Andrei Y. Vishinski. He apparently holds the office of prosecutor general because he has been a faithful and thorough executor of whatever law was decreed by his superiors in the worst days of Stalin as well as in the best days of Premier Khrushchev.

“He has purged and he has purged the purgers. He has helped to concoct false confessions and fantastic indictments, and he has dealt affably and studiously before a tribunal run in the Anglo-Saxon manner.

“He has stretched the law as ordered, to arrange secret and unconstitutional proceedings, and he has presided over efforts to reestablish the law against the former 'abuse.'”

Reviewing his career,
The New York Times
characterized this adaptable man as “careful, capable, and colorless.”

I had the distinct feeling that Grinev expected me to feel grateful for these honors. But he went on to add the liabilities. Since I was to be tried before a branch of the highest court, there could be no appeal of the sentence. While technically possible to appeal to the full bench of the Supreme Court, such requests were almost always refused. Of course, a personal appeal could be made to Premier Khrushchev or to President Brezhnev.

It was interesting. I felt, that we were discussing appeals even before we got around to a defense.

I was fortunate, Grinev continued. In 1958 Soviet criminal law had undergone a tremendous reform. Previously the penalty for espionage had been twenty-five years' imprisonment, with death in some cases. Now maximum imprisonment was fifteen years.

But still death in some cases?

Yes, he admitted.

Was this one of them? In short, what were my chances?

He couldn't tell me that, not until after he had seen the indictment. Also, a great deal would depend on my testimony in court.

We wouldn't have to worry about that factor, I told him, because I didn't plan to testify. Since there was no question of my guilt, my intention was to plead guilty and let the court sentence me.

That was not the way the law worked in the Soviet Union, he explained. Even should I plead guilty, a trial would still follow, with the prosecution introducing its evidence. As for not testifying, the prosecution would simply read the transcripts of all my interrogations into the record.

Also, my refusal to testify would be held against me.

The explanation that followed was highly technical but boiled down to this: in the Soviet Union there was no such thing as the right to remain silent, no privilege against self-incrimination. They could not force me to testify. But if I didn't, the judges could draw unfavorable inferences from my refusal. Too, this would show that I was uncooperative and did not feel sincere repentance. And these
mitigating circumstances were my only chance to reduce the sentence.

If I had no further questions, he would see me again when he received the indictment.

I had one, though I suspected his presence was in itself the answer. Was he a member of the Communist party?

He nodded affirmatively.

I observed that in my particular circumstances, being both defended and tried by Communists, I could see no prospect of having a fair trial.

On the contrary, he replied, the state guaranteed every accused person a defense. And it was his job to supply it.

Escorted back to my cell, I thought about another important difference between American and Soviet law. In the United States there is a confidential relationship between attorney and client. You can tell your lawyer things you do not wish the prosecution to know, things instrumental in shaping your defense. In short, you can trust your attorney. I couldn't trust mine.

Perhaps it was fortunate that I did not learn, until much later, the track record of my so-called “defense counsel.”

Mikhail I. Grinev specialized in losing important state cases. When Lavrenti Beria, head of Stalin's secret police, was tried for treason, Grinev defended him. Beria was executed. In 1954 and 1956 Grinev defended twelve of Beria's former secret-service officials following purges. All twelve were convicted; four were given stiff sentences, eight executed.

Nor was this the first time he had worked in tandem with Rudenko. During the Nazi war-crime trials at Nuremberg, Grinev had been a defense counsel, Rudenko a prosecutor.

Such knowledge, however, would have made little difference. I knew my captors wouldn't appoint someone to defend me who would not act exactly as they wanted.

Maybe I was wrong, but I had the strong feeling that everything had already been decided, that even Grinev knew what the sentence was to be.

Grinev's visit on July 9 was the first time I had seen anyone other than my guards and the serving woman in nearly a week.

That previous occasion had come as a surprise. A few days after the first of July, I had been taken back to the interrogation room.

What did I know about the RB-47 flights?

I gave the same answer as in the earlier interrogations. Nothing. Which was not true.

Although they approached the subject from a number of different directions—Did I know any of the pilots? Had I ever flown the plane? Was there an arrangement whereby the RB-47s covered certain areas, the U-2s others?—I continued to plead lack of knowledge.

I knew something had spurred their interest. I had no idea what.

When the interrogations were in progress, I had dreamed of the day they would be over. Now, left alone in my cell, I missed them. Deceiving my captors had been a challenge; even that stimulation was gone, and with it any semblance of human companionship. This was the way they intended it, I was sure. No beatings, no torture except that inflicted by the mind. Only an all-pervading emptiness that made you desire even the company of your enemies.

Even visits to the doctor became welcome events. Possibly because of the ten days when I hadn't eaten, or the changed diet, I was still losing weight and having considerable stomach trouble. Had I known what was coming, I would have said nothing, for the result was the ultimate indignity, a proctoscopic examination, made even more unpleasant by an audience of doctors, nurses, guards, and interpreters.

Ten days after Grinev's visit, I was informed that my trial would begin on August 17.

My thirty-first birthday. A hell of a birthday present!

I was also allowed to write two more letters. Again I was to reiterate that I was being well treated; “very nice” was the phrase they wanted me to use. I was also to state that I had conferred with my defense counsel several times. This wasn't true; I had seen him only once, and I still hadn't received the indictment, but I went along because it was a small point and I didn't want my mail privileges revoked. Although my incoming letters were censored, and my outgoing letters edited and rewritten, this was my only link with the outside world.