Operation Solo (25 page)

The CPUSA has an “elder statesman” who has ties with many Communist parties throughout the world, including the CPUSSR. He is Morris Childs, who years ago was district organizer in Chicago and later became secretly active in the leadership of the CPUSA. Childs travels extensively for the CPUSA, including trips behind the Iron Curtain. When he travels, he uses assumed names,
and when introduced in foreign circles, he is introduced as Mr. So-and-So or as Mr. Smith. Source believes that through the many channels of Childs, the CPUSA is able to obtain funds from Moscow. Source does not know how the funds are passed or handled. Source believes the CPUSA could not sustain itself without outside support. Source said Childs has intimate contact with the leaders of the Canadian Communist Party. Source said he met Childs several times in Prague and considered him a conspiratorial figure. His name never appears among those listed as attending international party conferences, even though he speaks at them. Source said Childs undoubtedly has contact with “elderly statesmen” in Soviet bloc countries.

 

 

THERE IS A GREAT old hotel in Ottawa, the Chateau Laurier, some of whose rooms have turrets overlooking the Canadian Parliament. At the hotel, the U.S. legal attaché (the senior FBI agent assigned to effect liaison with Canadian authorities) over lunch thanked an RCMP inspector for the leads concerning the “elderly statesman” and suggested the FBI investigation would be facilitated if his name was not mentioned by anyone, especially the defector from the Canadian party. The inspector glanced at his FBI friend as if to say, “congratulations”; he actually said only, “done.” If the Canadians surmised any part of the truth about Morris, they forever kept it to themselves.

 

 

MORRIS ALIGHTED AT KENNEDY Airport in New York December 13, 1970, pale and depleted, as he always was after long flights from Moscow through Europe. Boyle asked if he would like to rest before they talked. “No, let's just get to the motel. I have something you may want the right people to see before they begin the holidays.” Without unpacking or showering in the motel suite, Morris proceeded to summarize the most important intelligence and his thoughts about it.

The Soviet attitude toward the United States suddenly had become “belligerent, even combative,” and among themselves the
Soviets were throwing a tantrum out of exasperation at failure to swiftly euchre the United States into the kind of disarmament and other agreements upon which they banked so much. Through the agreements, they hoped to slow the strategic arms race in those spheres where they felt at a disadvantage and thereby gain time to improve their technology. At the same time, they hoped to use the agreements as a shield from behind which they could attempt to neutralize Western Europe, undermine NATO, and isolate the United States politically. But so far the United States had refused to buy.

Here Morris offered another prescient analysis. The Soviets in the coming months might wail and flail about, making all sorts of menacing noises about the perils (unspecified) to the United States of not promptly coming to terms with them. It would be a mistake to be intimidated by such theatrics because ultimately the Soviets, who could not go to Peking, could only turn to Washington if they wished to treat with a Great Power—and they did. So however loud their bombast, they eventually would quiet down and come around.

“Of course, this assumes they act rationally,” Morris said. “We must watch carefully for any signs of irrationality. Walt Boyle, the next year will be interesting.”

eleven

A CROSSROAD IN HISTORY

WHEN RICHARD NIXON ASSUMED the presidency and selected Professor Henry Kissinger as his national security advisor, the SOLO file offered a clear road map to China. SOLO kept showing the way.

National leaders, particularly Americans, prefer to make great foreign policy decisions on the basis of scientific or objective, verifiable evidence rather than the word of fallible human spies. Stalin in 1941 dismissed warnings from his British spies that the Nazis were about to attack the Soviet Union. The Kennedy administration in the summer of 1962 ignored reports from CIA spies indicating that the Soviets intended to emplace nuclear missiles in Cuba. It did not accept the truth until months later when U-2 reconnaissance photographs showed the missile sites and bunkers for storage of nuclear warheads being constructed. Throughout the 1960s the United States emphasized intelligence gathering by technological means rather than through human agents.

But the camera that can photograph the thoughts and intentions of men has yet to be invented. For more than a decade
Operation SOLO had read very accurately the thoughts and intentions of communist leaders. All the readings were consistent with one another, and collectively they predicted that the United States had a historic opportunity to convert China from an enemy into an ally against the Soviet Union.

Just as the solution to a riddle or puzzle seems simple once the riddle is solved, the wisdom of exploiting that opportunity today may seem self-evident. At the time, though, Nixon risked alienating his core constituency, which was militantly anticommunist, and antagonizing liberals sensitive to China's human rights abuses. Additionally, the Chinese were aiding the Vietnamese fighting against the United States (although the aid was less extensive than most imagined). If overtures to China became known and failed, Nixon would expose himself to charges of political treachery and personal perfidy. But the SOLO files made clear that the Chinese were likely to welcome American overtures.

Because the United States and China did not maintain diplomatic relations, first there was the practical problem of how to open up a line of communication. It appears that an American emissary made the first contact through the Chinese embassy in Paris. Other contacts continued as the two nations searched for a mutually acceptable intermediary who could broker arrangements for direct, secret talks.

When Morris visited Moscow in 1971, he discovered that the Soviets had a source in Peking who kept them apprised of these exchanges. The Soviets expressed alarm and anger at what they termed the “growing improvement” in American–Chinese relations and declared that the new U.S. policy was a “slap” at them. They now distrusted the United States more than ever and doubted that it was sincere about disarmament. The Soviets planned to counterattack by organizing a worldwide anti-Aerican propaganda campaign, by arranging a European Security Conference to isolate the United States, and by seeking better relations with Japan.

Pakistan, which had close ties to both the United States and China, ultimately acted as the intermediary in negotiations that culminated in Kissinger's secret trip to Peking in July 1971. The
Chinese in general, and Chou En Lai in particular, accorded him the most cordial and heartening of welcomes. Of all the communist figures Morris ever met, he considered Chou the most brilliant, profound, and engaging. Nixon ranked Chou as a statesman alongside Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. Kissinger characterized him as “electric, quick, taut, deft, humorous,” and from the start the two got on well.

Their initial discussions demonstrated the accuracy of all Morris had reported over the years about the irreconcilable enmity between China and the Soviet Union, and about Chinese willingness to ally itself with the United States. The Chinese were not only willing; they were eager. Kissinger later wrote: “China identified security with isolating the Soviet Union, and with adding the greatest possible weight to its side of the scale—which meant rapid rapprochement with the United States.”

Chou and Kissinger agreed to communicate through the Chinese embassy in Paris and the Chinese Mission to the United Nations in New York. Chou proposed that they begin to consider establishing formal diplomatic relations and indicated that the problem posed by U.S. recognition of the government of Taiwan as the legitimate government of all China could be ignored for the foreseeable future. Finally, they agreed that Nixon should make a state visit to China, prior to which Kissinger should return in October 1971 for broader, private talks.

Shortly before Kissinger's second journey to Peking, Morris flew to Moscow on Mission 39, one of the most significant of all SOLO operations. Morris intended to prepare for a “state visit” by Gus Hall, during which Soviet rulers wanted to brief him personally. Just before his scheduled departure from New York, Hall suffered gall bladder problems and was hospitalized. Consequently, the Soviets told Morris what they meant to tell Hall and gave him documents to study for the benefit of Hall. Again, he dared to take copious notes, recording long passages of conversations verbatim.

Suslov began by saying, “First of all, just between you, me, and Gus—we don't intend to make this public but we may—Comrade Brezhnev received a letter from Nixon during the latter part of
August. He raised a number of questions but the idea was ‘Why don't we get together?' We took our time, and Brezhnev did send a preliminary answer in which he indicated that just getting together could be pleasant but unless we are ready to discuss some concrete questions and solutions, we doubt the advisability of a meeting at this time. As time goes on, we will undoubtedly lay the basis for such a summit meeting in Moscow.”

Suslov recounted a recent, unexpected visit by Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, a large, jocular man who evidently charmed the Soviets:

Suslov then meandered away from the conversation with Scott and onto the subject about which Morris most wanted to hear: Soviet reaction to American–Chinese negotiations.

Glancing at his notes, Suslov said, “You will be invited to the Convention of the Indian Communist Party which opens October 3. We hope you will go. You should know that Indira Ghandi asked us for an invitation to visit here. We told her that she can come if she wants.

“You know the Japanese are very much worried about the United States' role in Asia again. They are very worried about Nixon's visit to Peking. We can tell by their changed attitude toward us.”

The official business of the day had ended, yet Suslov wanted to
talk a little more to his friend of forty years. He proposed that the two of them stage an impromptu dinner party that evening at the “Captain's Cabin” and invite whomever Morris wished from the Politburo and Central Committee. If no one was free, then the two of them could dine and reminisce by themselves. The “Captain's Cabin” was an elegantly paneled and richly carpeted redoubt of the oligarchy, probably the most exclusive club in the Soviet Union, serving the best cuisine available in Moscow outside the Kremlin. Under regular circumstances, duty and personal inclination would have compelled Morris immediately to accept the spontaneous invitation. Some of the most meaningful intelligence or insights could be gained at these intimate, alcoholic séances with the rulers. But Suslov had overloaded Morris with intelligence that he wanted to put on paper before any detail faded, so he begged off, pleading fatigue and promising to join Suslov at a farewell luncheon in a couple of days.

Except that he could not sell or bequeath it, Morris by now in effect owned an excellent apartment in Moscow, just as he did in Chicago and New York. The party set it aside exclusively for him, and he kept there a full wardrobe, including a heavy coat and fur cap that made him look like a Muscovite, and expensively tailored suits that identified him to Soviet associates as what they thought he was, a devout communist clever enough to beat the capitalists at their own game of making money. In the armoire, he left a house robe and slippers that he liked to wear while writing because in the colder months the apartment was overheated and the windows sealed shut. In the bath, he left toiletries and a veritable pharmacy of Chicago drugstore nostrums that he passed out to guests.