Operation Solo (30 page)

Miller seemed to meditate for half a minute or so before saying, “We could and should have done more. We will.” And at once, he tried. Morris and Jack were just as much a part of the FBI family as he, Bill, Al, Walt, and John, and as family members they were
entitled to be informed about family business, which of course was private. The death of Hoover naturally precipitated change and invited temporary organizational disarray. The new director, L. Patrick Gray, whose appointment had yet to be confirmed by a hostile Senate, was still adjusting to unfamiliar responsibilities. Gray, other FBI executives, and the FBI as an organization had fallen under severe political attack, which caused personal stress and diverted attention from normal duties.

Morris and Jack had emphasized the necessity of security; the FBI agreed and consequently enforced extraordinary security procedures to safeguard the operation. Because in the main they had succeeded, very few people either at headquarters or in the field, and nobody outside the FBI, had been fully informed of SOLO. Pending Senate confirmation of Mr. Gray and until “the clouds cleared,” no one else would be admitted to the “inner circle.”

The intelligence SOLO was producing—the verbal and documentary revelations of the thoughts and intentions of Soviet leaders and their reactions to the words and comportment of American leaders—was literally priceless. Miller said he seemed to recall reading in the top-secret files, now kept in special safes in his office, something to the effect that the CIA had offered to pay the FBI any amount of money to be a participant in the operation, even though it was ignorant of the nature of the operation and the identity of its principals. Morris himself that very morning eloquently had traced the effects of SOLO intelligence upon American–Chinese relations, and its contributions to a historic realignment in the balance of world power. Famous men, whose names were well known, hungered for their reports.

“I cannot mention their names,” Miller went on. “I can remind you of what you said earlier. Whenever the Soviets talk to Nixon or Kissinger, they consult you before and after the talks. Do you think Nixon and Kissinger are disinterested in what they tell and ask you? Sometimes at the White House or State Department when people hand back reports to our messenger—he of course is more than a messenger—they send along handwritten notes of commendation or appreciation or congratulations. Sometimes we get letters or phone calls. But nobody can say
anything about you because nobody knows anything about you; they only know what you produce. We can't tell anybody, not even colleagues I would trust with my life, what the president or secretary of state or director of Central Intelligence says to us in confidence. Maybe we have been remiss. Maybe we should have tried to find some way to circumvent this rule so we could let you know how much what you are doing is valued. But to do that, we would have to talk about you and SOLO. None of us can have it all ways at once.”

On a scale of one to five, Boyle rated Miller's performance a six, and he sensed that it had placated Morris and revived his faith. Langtry, like Boyle, was a military man and, like Boyle, he had kept silent while superiors spoke. But he sensed it was time to speak up and rein Jack in.

Langtry really understood and liked Jack. Undoubtedly, Jack and Morris had conferred before the conference and agreed upon what each would say, so whatever concerns Jack expressed were also those of Morris. Jack worked best on a loose leash so he could exercise his native brashness, initiative, and ingenuity as a self-described con man; but he had to be kept on a leash.

In complaining earlier, Jack mentioned that he recently had been upbraided by his KGB case officer (Vladimir Aleksandrovich Chuchukin). Brezhnev had sent an urgent message for Jack to deliver at once to Gus Hall; the message arrived on a Saturday night, and the KGB had not been able to reach Jack until it signaled on Monday morning for an emergency meeting that afternoon. “We must be able to contact you seven days a week,” Chuchukin had said.

Langtry said that the FBI could “guard” (monitor) any and all designated radio frequencies twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week if necessary. But he recalled that when Jack last underwent such intensive interrogation in Moscow, his KGB inquisitor had asked if Jack did not think it strange that everything about the operation always went off flawlessly. Jack should point out to Chuchukin that he precisely followed communication procedures dictated by the KGB and that the radio schedule issued by the KGB called for no transmission that Saturday night, so neither he
nor his auxiliary radioman (NY-4309S*) had been by their receivers. Jack (actually Langtry) had checked the signal site on Saturday morning, and there was no call for a meeting. According to the KGB plan, if the right chalk mark did not appear, Jack was free for the weekend.

Jack had been willing to give up many a Saturday and Sunday to smuggle the money. But always he had advance notice; if the KGB wanted to revise the communications plan to provide for sudden, emergency contact on Saturday night or Sunday morning, swell, “peachy keen.” In the meantime,
don't blame me for doing what you and your whole organization have told me to do
.

Jack should say something else that Chuchukin, an intelligent man, would have to report, both in the interests of the KGB and self-protection: By effectively demanding that Jack be on call around the clock throughout the week, the KGB was jeopardizing MORAT. While handling clandestine communications, accepting and hiding illegal cash coming in now at an increasing rate that exceeded a million dollars a year, being at the beck and call of Gus Hall, and while supporting Morris, Jack needed and wanted to take care of his own family and business. What would the neighbors think if he skulked around the house all day awaiting messages from Moscow, never going to work or the grocery store? He believed the FBI watched KGB officers whom it had identified and tried to listen to their telephone calls. For Chuchukin to call him at home on a Saturday night over an open line was, as they had taught him in Moscow, suicidal, amateurish, irresponsible, dangerous.

Langtry also played basketball, and with a glance he passed the intellectual ball to Boyle. As reflexively as when he captained championship teams, Boyle picked it up and shot, “Jack, after dumping on the KGB and going through your poor-me routine, why don't you apologize. Say you're sorry for being rude; say you are under a terrible strain; say that you know he, his family, and his organization are under great strain; say you know something about bureaucracy. Then say, ‘If there are problems, do you want my brother to bring them up with Brezhnev, Suslov, Ponomarev, or Andropov?'”

Jack and Morris smiled, and Miller saw why headquarters had continued to let New York and Chicago run the case since its inception.

 

 

THE CONFIDENCE THAT ALL felt upon leaving the conference was shortlived. Through the summer and into the autumn of 1973, the ongoing Watergate circus, the disclosures of secret information, and the political attacks upon the CIA and FBI mortified Morris and Jack. A barrage of allegations, true or false, compelled Gray to resign as interim director of the FBI (he was accused, among other things, of removing documents from headquarters and throwing them into the Potomac River). At the behest of Boyle, Chicago SAC Richard Held warned headquarters that Morris and Jack again needed some high-level handholding. Morris was due to fly via Europe to Moscow on November 21, so the FBI arranged another operational conference in New York on November 20. Inspector Andrew Decker and Supervisor Brannigan came up from Washington to preside over it, and at first it was a repetition of the May conference.

Decker started by saying that SOLO intelligence was “invaluable and unavailable from any place else,” that there were many means of tracking, numbering, and evaluating weapons and military forces, but that “insights into what people were thinking” were more important and rarely attainable.

Morris responded with a review of SOLO accomplishments in the 1970s: Every time there were negotiations about arms control or Vietnam or anything else, we knew in advance what they were thinking and afterward we knew what they thought. “We were always one step ahead.”

Morris always had been scared; now Boyle more acutely than ever appreciated just how scared he was. Morris said he thought he understood the United States and the FBI; he understood political disagreements—after all, they were part of what America was about—but he could not understand politicians who struck at the institutions that existed to guarantee the right to disagree; and he frankly wondered whether the FBI still was functional. “This has
been a very bad year. How can a person feel secure in these circumstances? We have said if this thing blows, there isn't a place on earth that could hide us. If they found out that for all these years we have duped all of them—Mao, Chou, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Suslov, Ponomarev, the head of the KGB, and the whole KGB—if it was the last thing they did, they would try to exterminate us. Hundreds of men would vie for the honor of doing that. Tomorrow I leave for Moscow. It is not easy in Moscow. I am a member of the club. I have my own apartment, servants, and driver, and a card that gets me into the speakeasies and anything I want. I can deal with
them
; I've done that most of my life.”

The minutes of the meeting paraphrased Morris' next statements (and anyone is entitled to guess why). Despite these amenities, Morris and Eva, when she was along, lived in fear of making the most minute mistake and the necessity of making every nuance right. A little example of how careful they had to be: The Soviets discerned that art galleries and exhibitions delighted Eva, and they took her and Morris to an exhibition of paintings by a Jewish artist who had been “rehabilitated.” Several beguiled Eva, and she asked Morris if he had enough rubles with him to buy one. Curtly, Morris told her no; later he explained, “They know I am Jewish; I don't want to remind them of it.”

Still, they could manage in Moscow. But they could not manage in Washington; the greatest fear they had in Moscow was of what might happen in Washington. They feared the politician, the journalist, the climbing bureaucrat—the congressional or White House aide—who, from ambition, ignorance, avarice, or malice, might exploit any knowledge of SOLO and thereby betray them.

Like Miller in May, Decker took his time and thought about what to say, and like Miller, he was honest. “The FBI is back on an even keel. Morale never was bad at the operating level. Pat Gray used terrible judgment, abysmal; but we rode it out. If some politicians knew about this operation they probably would exploit it. But they never, ever will know… John Dean would have betrayed his mother, if he had anything on her. There can be a traitor in any organization. Jesus had one. But so far as we know the
FBI has not had one. Doubtless someday we will. But he won't be part of SOLO.”

Morris said that in Moscow he probably would be asked about a small story in one of the Chicago newspapers alleging that the Soviets were funding the American Communist Party. Decker replied, “The story was written by a notorious anticommunist, and their records will show that. The story offers no specifics or proof or indications of how the supposed funds are being delivered or what they amount to or what they are being used for. You can be sure that if the reporter had any specifics or evidence, he would have reported them. He did not and everyone ignored the story for just what it is: informed speculation by a young anticommunist. Anyone can ask, ‘Who else would give money to the American Communist Party except the Soviet Union?' So it is nothing. You can say, ‘The FBI would love to catch Jack or me with the money, and it would have all American television photographing us as they carted us off to jail and it would do that without asking anybody.'”

Decker asked if that would wash in Moscow. Morris answered in one word, “Brilliantly.”

Burlinson, Langtry, and Boyle read Jack well; whereas in May he might have been theatrical, he now was earnest and seeking professional counsel. “The Russians have been keeping very quiet. The last time it took four days to meet my contact. When I did meet him, he kept questioning me about security. Then he talked about setting up contingency plans in the event contact is broken.”

Jack paused, stared at Decker and Brannigan, and asked, “What did the Watergate committee see?”

Decker replied, “Absolutely nothing, zero.”

“Well, the Russians' experience is that an apparatus lasts five years, no longer,” Jack said. “But we are still going after five times five years. This gives them cause to reconsider this operation from every angle. My Russian contact worries all the time. He asks me how I am feeling. Then he begins to ask me about Morris. They are very vigilant. Gus is also very vigilant. Sometimes he lets out information to see what will happen. He is testing… The Russians have changed procedures. My Soviet contact will meet and ask if
everything is O.K. Then he goes away and comes back in fifteen minutes or half an hour. Also there is a strict order: no messages or talking while handing over money.”

Decker's response took Langtry back to the woodlands, rolling hills, and meadows of Virginia, to Quantico where Marines and future FBI agents trained, and he could hear his instructor: Someday you will have to be the director. There will be no supervisor or manual to consult; there will be no telephone. You alone will have to decide, then and there.

Within hours, Morris had to leave for Moscow. There was no time to assemble a committee or make a study; Morris and Jack would construe any ploy to lead Burlinson, Langtry, and Boyle out of the room for even a few minutes of consultation away from them as a sign of distrust; the FBI—the United States—very much needed the trust and services of these two men and their wives, all now in their seventies. So Decker on the spot decided and became for the moment the director. In essence, he proposed or ordered that the FBI and the SOLO team turn things upside down, that they turn quite rational Soviet concerns with security into American advantage.