Operation Solo (51 page)

An incident that occurred in Washington in early August 1969 illustrates that the Soviets really meant what they said.

KGB officer Boris Davidov, second secretary at the Soviet embassy, invited an American specialist in Sino–Soviet affairs to lunch and put to him a chilling question the Soviets at the time could not ask officially.

Referring to armed clashes along the Soviet–Chinese border, Davidov said, “The situation is very serious. In fact, it is so serious that my government may be forced to take much stronger action.”

“What kind of action do you envisage?” the American asked. “A preemptive strike?”

Davidov answered deliberately, “Yes. A preemptive strike is being contemplated, and the use of nuclear weapons is not excluded.” Then he put to him the question the Politburo through the KGB had sent him to relay, “What would be the attitude of the United States government if we made such a strike?”

The Soviets knew that the American would report the conversation to the White House, and within hours he did. SOLO intelligence fully and continuously informed President Nixon of the status of Soviet–Chinese relations, and Nixon recognized that an answer of any kind could be construed by the Chinese as evidence that the United States was conspiring against them. Thus he ordered that no response whatsoever be made to Davidov's inquiry or any other like it.

Author's Note: The book was
KGB: The Secret Works of Soviet Secret Agents
, written by me. A European intelligence service identified to me Chuchukin as a premier example of an excellent KGB officer plying his subversive trade out of the United Nations headquarters in New York, and another foreign security service confirmed that Chuchukin indeed was an excellent KGB officer. Neither of these services knew what Chuchukin was really doing in New York and, of course, neither did I. Professional researchers, tasked with documenting or verifying the manuscript, queried original sources. Because the FBI had supplied no information about Chuchukin, they did not ask the FBI for corroboration of the references to him. Thus, the FBI had no forewarning of the exposure of Chuchukin and no chance to ask that he not be exposed.

Switching his persona from that of a man worldly and wise enough to run the United Nations to that of an utter innocent from a small Asian country, U Thant later averred that no one ever told him that Lessiovsky was a senior, veteran KGB officer and that of course it never occurred to him to inquire about the background of a Soviet he was employing as one of his three personal assistants.

The Soviets did not specify to Morris any particular weapons system that worried them, and he had no plausible reason to ask. Subsequent evidence shows that they feared the oncoming Pershing and cruise missiles, the neutron bomb, and the B-1 bomber—all spawned by technology and production techniques they could not then, or now, equal.

Because Boyle and Langtry were not allowed to keep copies of the letter, they think—but are unsure—that the grant of immunity applied to all members of the SOLO team.

For more than twenty years, Soviet and American missiles had been pointed at each other. They would all sail through the skies at approximately the same altitudes and on the same trajectories. The interceptors the SDI program hoped to develop would fly no higher than Soviet missiles except when they intercepted them at launch. (As the best research indicates, no American journalist or politician has referred to Soviet missiles flying through the same space as “Star Wars.”)