Operation Solo (38 page)

Wannall waited until Boyle signaled that Morris and Eva were safely out of Moscow and on their way home. Then he called Church and said he urgently needed to discuss a sensitive matter. Before leaving headquarters, he removed from a SOLO safe something fewer than ten Americans ever had seen.

In an ornate and secure chamber of the Senate Office Building, Wannall announced to Church that his committee unwittingly was about to destroy the most important of all American espionage agents and the most vital intelligence operation the FBI ever had sustained against the Soviet Union. Astonished, Church asked, “Can you explain?”

“I can show you.” Thereupon, Wannall displayed a photograph of Morris seated with Brezhnev in the Kremlin. Normally, Soviet technicians blanked out or erased the face of Morris from official photographs. But once, in a comradely mood, Brezhnev insisted that a picture of him together with Morris be taken and that Morris be given a copy as a keepsake. As Wannall stressed, the photograph illustrated the kind of access “our man” regularly enjoyed. He proceeded to outline the history of SOLO, its enormous success, its continuing value to policymakers, and the reasons why opening up the King file would collapse the operation and endanger lives.

Having grasped the importance of all he had heard, Church finally said, “I only wish the American people could know. This certainly would open their eyes. It has opened mine.”

They agreed that Wannall should also talk to a few selected staff members without disclosing any details he felt should be suppressed. Church picked three aides, and the ranking Republican on the committee, Senator John Tower, sent a fourth. At the outset of the secret meeting, Church gravely admonished all four: What they were about to hear was extraordinarily sensitive, and not one word of it ever was to be repeated.

While omitting many details, Wannall for nearly two hours entranced Church and the staff with the story of SOLO. He explained why FBI assets (he never named Morris or Jack) had to participate in the deliveries of Soviet money in order to continue the operation. Finally, he again laid out the reasons that caused Robert Kennedy, with the concurrence of his brother, the president, to order the investigation of King and why the file would expose SOLO. The FBI remained ready to cooperate with the committee by all means consistent with national security, but it respectfully requested that the committee steer clear of the issue of Martin Luther King and do nothing that might compromise SOLO.

Church pronounced the official verdict in two words: “I approve.” He added, “I am satisfied that there was every reason in the world for the FBI to be investigating King [he later made the same statement to the entire committee]. Of course, I want none of this talked about. None of this is to leave this room.”

Church categorically assured Wannall that neither he nor any staff member would ever ask any question, publicly or privately, that might imperil SOLO.

A test occurred on November 19, 1975, when Adams and Wannall testified before the committee in open session. A senator raised the issue of FBI actions pertaining to Martin Luther King.

Adams spoke up, “You're getting into a sensitive area.”

“That's right,” Church declared. “We will move to another subject.”

It appeared that the FBI had won the gamble. But to win it, the FBI had to betray its solemn word so often given to Morris and
Jack over the years:
Outside a few of the highest people in government, we never will tell anybody about SOLO
. Now somebody had to tell Morris and Jack, an unwelcome task.

Leavitt, Brannigan, Boyle, and Langtry undertook it at a conference with Morris and Jack on December 12, 1975. Leavitt told them just what happened, explaining that the FBI had no choice if it were to prevent them and SOLO from being exposed. No identifying data about Morris and Jack were provided. Wannall had quoted State Department and CIA evaluations and numerous letters from Kissinger attesting to the great importance of the operation. Ultimately, the committee agreed with the investigation of King, dropped its demands for files showing why it began, and pledged to keep the secret.

Then Leavitt acknowledged, “But there are five people in the Senate and two Justice Department attorneys who now know about the operation.”

As Jack's face reddened with anger and Morris stared incredulously, Langtry tried to mollify. The committee could subpoena the agents who wrote the reports about Levison and his management of the reserve fund, his continuing ties with Lem Harris and reports by Harris to the party about him, and his relationships with King and the KGB, and could compel them to tell all under oath and in public.

Brannigan also tried. “We told them this was a sensitive operation and that if they exposed it, the country would be the loser.”

Unmollified, Jack shouted, “This is serious and shocking.”

“I also am surprised and shocked,” Morris said. “Once something goes beyond a tiny group of people we no longer have a secret. The danger is that politicians or staff members will betray information for their own self-aggrandizement. We know little about these staff members or their relatives. We must admit to ourselves that we no longer have a secret.”

“I would be a fool to disagree,” Leavitt said.

“It could reach other senators and congressmen with bigger ambitions. One of them could leak it to the press; that's happened. We have no assurances. Then what about the communists? Do we know all the connections of the communists? We would be fools to
think so. From long experience, I know they have connections in Washington. Information gets to them sooner or later. ‘Fatso' [a porcine party member, also known as ‘Tiny,' who claimed to have entrée to some congressional offices] used to have that job for them.

“There is also an ongoing campaign to use the Freedom of Information Act to ferret out info. The communists are just beginning in that area. The communists' lawyer was censured for being too slow about it… The implications are tremendous both from security and our personal viewpoints. We are in danger of exposure. We have no control over these individuals.”

Jack added, “There is a great deal involved here. It's not just the apparatus; it's our families.”

Brannigan responded, “We must tell you, as members of our family, that this is what we thought we had to do. Mr. Kelley, all of us, agreed. We cannot give you any guarantees and that is why we are here. We were trying to head off much worse. We were trying to protect you and this operation. This is the most valuable thing the FBI has.”

Jack still was not appeased: “The operation is no longer the great secret it was up until now. There were dozens of FBI people involved over the years, but we felt secure. The word of the Bureau was its bond.”

Boyle saw that Morris was paying little attention to what anyone said; characteristically, Morris was trying to analyze, to think ahead, and as he did so he mused aloud, speaking more to himself than anyone else. “If they ever found out that we duped all these leaders and the KGB and all the governments that work with them, including Mao, and guys like Gus, they would hound us to the ends of the earth. There is no place on earth where we would be safe. Even the kindest of individuals would want the honor of destroying us… Today Jack received a message from the Soviets to Gus asking, ‘Can you see our ambassador?' Tonight I must give the message to Gus. Do you think it is easy for me to see Gus? I am worried. Do I have to carry around a pocket radio to find out when my life is in danger?”

Leavitt interrupted, “I realize this is like being hit between the eyes with a baseball bat, and I understand your feelings.” And he
proceeded to list the unique security safeguards protecting SOLO—the special safes; the armed couriers; the willingness of the highest people in government to read reports and then hand them back; the fact that only the president, the secretary of state, and the attorney general knew about SOLO. He recited all this and stated that the FBI at any time could “resettle” (i.e., uproot and hide) Morris, Eva, Jack, and Roz. Meaning to pay tribute, he repeated something Morris had heard at least a dozen times: “This is the most important intelligence operation the United States has.”

Morris said, “But there's something new, isn't there?”

Leavitt admitted there was. The FBI could control what it did; it could not control what congressional committees and their staffs did. And yes, the KGB or anyone schooled in the history could deduce from salient portions of the King file the identities of sources (58 and 69). The Church committee had given its word and thus far honored it. But it could offer no guarantees about the future.

Morris was scheduled to go to Moscow in February 1976 as a secret delegate to the Twenty-fifth Party Congress. Failure to attend this exalted ritual would raise questions and perhaps suspicions. So might Eva's failure to accompany him. By now, the Soviets expected her to be along, and the wives of Soviet rulers looked forward to her gifts, her company, and the invitations to grand banquets. But now Morris was not sure whether they dared go. “We will play it cool. We have to think things out. In view of all that's going on in Washington, we better think. If I am able to go, then we must exert superhuman energy to prevent anything from happening—even if somebody who is supposed to testify has to get sick.”

During the discussions, Boyle said almost nothing. Headquarters had not consulted or notified him before baring SOLO secrets to seven people outside the FBI. He understood the necessity of keeping the committee out of the King files. But, like Morris and Jack, he felt betrayed. However necessary the revelation, the Bureau had broken its word and dramatically increased the risks they were running. For all Boyle knew, the congressional staff members Wannall briefed might all be honorable, discreet patriots. But he agreed with Morris, who had said, “I think some of
those committees are hiring people who in normal times couldn't have gotten a security clearance to use a government urinal.” So what was there to say? Ultimately Morris alone would decide whether to go on.

Morris would of course tell Eva that journeys to Moscow now were much more dangerous and ask if she wanted to go on. Boyle could hear her answer:
It always has been dangerous; how dangerous can dangerous get? If you think it's best to go, let's go. In other words, I'm your wife. I'll accompany you to hell and back, if we can get back. If not, well, there is an end to every story and we have lived a pretty good one. You decide
. For all her cultured grace and coquettish charm, Eva at age seventy-five was still a very tough lady, an American patriot, and a very good spy. If the vote were left to her, it would be “go.”

Morris would consult Jack, who was very adept at irreverently giving him, the FBI, and the KGB advice. To the KGB: Stop making these money deliveries in damned blizzards. Stop acting like creeps, spooks, and children. In New York, people don't talk to each other with chalk or crayons or graffiti. They just pick up the telephone. You may have tapped every telephone in the Soviet Union, and I don't give a damn about that. The FBI has sworn to Congress—and they can't lie to Congress unless they want their balls and money cut off—that it has taps on the phones of fewer than two hundred people and I'm not one of them. Morris and I have played a lot of tricks to prove that. To the FBI: We need medical insurance; I need it for my wife and children. I can't run around twenty-four hours a day kissing Gus Hall's ass and screwing the KGB and still run a business. Can the Bureau arrange that? Or does it want to prosecute me for taking 5 percent from all the commie cash I bring in each year?

Outrageous as he may have been, Jack more often than not was right. The FBI came up with the medical insurance. The KGB agreed that if there was a snowstorm everyone could wait until roads were passable, and that phone calls could be made now and then (it never fully abandoned the old-time communications procedures—marks by chalk, crayons, graffiti, and the radio signals that said, “We have nothing to say”).

But Jack was a tactician, or as he said in the early days, a “street man,” rather than a strategist. In the end, as he had done all his life, he would do whatever his revered brother told him to do.

As the conference adjourned, Langtry asked Boyle, “Do you have time to lift some weights?”

“Absolutely. I need the exercise.”

After Langtry's last physical examination, an earnest female medical assistant said to him, “For a man of your age—I mean you are not really old; you're only fifty—but you're in superb condition. You must be an athlete.”

“Yes, I am. Almost every night I lift weights.”

“I should have guessed from your muscles. What sort of weights do you lift?”

“Scotch on the rocks.”

seventeen

TO GO OR NOT TO GO?

AGAINST A LIGHT SLEET, Boyle threaded his way along streets crowded with shoppers, past storefronts brightly decorated for Christmas. The trumpeters and buglers of the Salvation Army in their operatic uniforms were still at it, just as they had been when Morris studied and tried to learn from them in the 1930s. They blared out carols, compensating with vigor for what they lacked in concert skill, and a small woman, who looked to be in her sixties, added to the volume by pounding an immense drum as if it were the devil himself. Thinking of Morris in the 1930s, he dropped a few dollars into the kettle.

About ten minutes after Boyle entered the cover office, the young agent who had trailed him telephoned, signaling that he had detected no surveillance. Boyle liked the agent personally, but then he tended to be prejudiced in favor of all FBI agents who had served as military officers in Korea or Vietnam. You didn't need a doctorate in personnel management to figure out that past combat and danger prepare men for future combat and danger. It was late, Christmas was near, and Boyle ordered the agent to go home to
his family instead of hanging around just to follow him back to the FBI offices.