A Spy's Journey Read online

  Given the military officer’s acknowledgment of his error, we now had to effect a major damage-control effort, since my agent was one of only a handful of people who could have been the source of the information. Fortunately, I had rehearsed this type of scenario and immediately put emergency meeting plans into effect. However, our meeting site was a long distance away in an isolated locale.

  I made my way to the meeting site, but the agent failed to show up the first two days. By now, I was seriously concerned about his fate, and whether or not I would be wrapped up as well. Finally, the agent showed on the third day. He was greatly alarmed at what I had to tell him—that there had been a serious compromise of the information he had provided to me, and that there was a greater than average chance that he would be pulled in for questioning. We rehearsed for this eventuality, and it paid off. He was pulled in, interrogated, but never admitted to his work on our behalf. The host counterintelligence service was never able to pinpoint the source of the intelligence. Nonetheless, we lost the valuable services of this brave agent, as he remained under suspicion for the rest of his career. It was of small benefit, but he was honored for his service to us.

  I felt I understood how things were done when I was called into the office of the senior U.S. military commander in the country. He handed me an eyes-only message to him from a senior ranking member of a congressional committee. The note was short: “I am arriving to visit. Make sure I get to play Sangran.” The general and I both knew that Sangran was the real hot spot for ladies of the night, and the spot to which most visitors went. I looked at the general, and he told me, “You meet him at the military airport when he comes in and take care of his request discreetly.”

  “OK,” I said—the epitome of discretion.

  I made several calls, had things lined up for the congressman, and was very pleased with myself. I stood at the door when his plane landed, and, to my horror, he emerged from the aircraft carrying his golf clubs. I immediately remembered that Sangran had also recently opened a new world-class golf course. It took all I could do to control myself and welcome the congressman (“We’ll be on our way, Sir; I just need to make one call.”) and make a pleading phone call to the manager of the Sangran Golf Course. He was most gracious and in fact pleased to set up the congressman and the local club champion for a match. It all turned out terrifically, including the evening when I was present as the general hosted a dinner for the congressman. On passing by, the general looked at me and said, “Say, you’re pretty good!” I did learn another valuable lesson that helped me throughout my career—never assume anything.

  As I neared the end of my tour, I ignored three separate suggestions that I volunteer for duty in Vietnam. The Agency presence there was enormous, and it was consuming all of our case officers. As the saying went, “There are three types of case officers: those who have been to Vietnam; those who are in Vietnam; and those who are going to Vietnam.” Nonetheless, I had no desire to go to Vietnam. I did not go while in the Army, and I had no idea of what we were really trying to do there. And the death of two close friends in Vietnam while we were all in the Army also furthered my belief that we had no real idea of what we were doing there. I got a final note that the deputy from Vietnam was coming to our area and wanted to interview me, and, further, that if he agreed, I was going to be assigned there or else I should, as he said, consider my career options. That was plain enough, so I accepted an appointment to see him. I went to his luxurious temporary duty (TDY) quarters and rang the bell. He appeared at the gate, looked at me, and said, “Get your hair cut before you come to Vietnam!” It was the same officer who had previously been my chief.

  I looked at him and said no. He thanked me for coming, closed the gate, and went back inside. Two days later, I received a cable from headquarters saying I had been rejected for duty in Vietnam. I had no assignment, and my career seemed in shatters.

  As my family and I were packing to return to headquarters, I got a cable that offered me a lateral assignment to another Asian station that was desperate for a Chinese linguist. I accepted on the spot. There was more than a little irony in the ensuing events. During the first three months of my new assignment, first Hue, then Danang, then Saigon itself fell to the onrushing tide of the North Vietnamese Army, and we suffered our worst military and political defeat in history. The upshot was that hundreds upon hundreds of our case officers were rushed out and back home, where they wandered the halls trying to find assignments. While they were now searching for jobs, I proceeded to have one of the finest and most productive assignments of my entire career. I went to bed for many years thanking my hair.

  CIA officers do a lot of funny things to maintain and enhance their cover. In one unique experience, two factors were at play: one, the army unit I was assigned to was doing a lot of charity work, both out of conviction and out of the desire to enhance the public-relations image of the military in this country. The second factor was my fluency in Chinese. As the two factors worked together, I found myself assigned to temporary duty as a translator for two Special Forces personnel who were up in the highest mountain area in the country. They had promised to build a suspension bridge across a mountainous ravine to enable the indigenous inhabitants to move their products to market without traveling nearly 27 miles out of the way—all on foot. They had gathered a work force of 100-plus natives to do the work (a major engineering accomplishment) under their guidance, but they could not communicate with the workers. Several of the natives spoke Chinese, so I was assigned to the camp to be the interpreter.

  I was up in the mountains for nearly three months at a time in two intervals, during which the skills of the two Special Forces personnel impressed me greatly. One had an engineering degree, and the other had the normal Special Forces skills, including demolitions. We worked very hard during the non-rainy season to get things ready. There were, of course, unexpected incidents, and work was slow and laborious. The Special Forces man would give instructions in English, I would translate them into Chinese, and one of the workers would translate them into the native dialect. The natives were bright and hard working, and they learned a lot of English during the construction. One of the first terms they learned by experience was, “Fire in the hole!”—the term yelled out just prior to detonating explosives. In fact, most of them learned it the first time. As we lay behind a big boulder to set off the first charge, the Special Forces fellow yelled, “Fire in the hole!” I translated it into Chinese, and while the worker was in the midst of translating it to the crew, the charge blew and scared the heck out of them. So the next time we yelled “Fire in the Hole!” no translation was needed and everyone ran for cover.

  Special Forces had arranged to have a huge cement mixer ferried in by a “Jolly Green Giant” crane helicopter. Used for transporting huge equipment over long distances, the Jolly Green Giant is one of the largest heavy-lift helicopters in the U.S. military.

  It was quite an event—the entire village came out, and we had a devil of a time keeping everyone from going underneath the crane as it tried to lower the mixer down into the ravine where we were working. While we escaped tragedy that time, we weren’t always so lucky. In another instance, one of our trucks had wandered too close to the edge of the mountain path, and a worker was trying to push up against the truck to keep it from tipping over. It fell over and crushed the poor fellow to death. Due to local custom, we stopped work to observe three days of mourning. A second worker was bitten by one of the many poisonous snakes that inhabited the country. He died a terrible death, trembling with fever, blinded by the venom as it attacked his nervous system.

  That also led to an unusual situation: a village council demanded money for the family of the deceased worker. We informed them that this was not possible, since the U.S. government had no liability in this matter, and further, that we were doing work for their benefit. The council powwowed for a while, and then sent two armed natives to take one of the Special Forces fellows and myself back to their village
as hostages. Both Special Forces fellows asked what we should do. I suggested simply, nothing. The villagers would not be able to extort money from the U.S. government, and they couldn’t complete the bridge without us. They took the two of us and held us in a small room while they decided what to do. I was moderately concerned—particularly since this tribe was only recently reported to have given up headhunting. After six uncomfortable hours, the tribal council decided to release us, and we went on from there to build one of the most magnificent suspension bridges in Asia—the bridge at Hao Cha. It provided significant economic benefit to the tribe, and I am still proud to have played a role in its construction. A footnote to this story, however, tells you something about the U.S. government’s way of operating. After I submitted my expenses, I found that the allowance for my temporary duty had been reduced because government quarters had been provided. Well, they had—I spent nearly six months sleeping in one of their tents.

  FIVE

  STILL LEARNING THE CRAFT

  1974–1977

  My second assignment, which would again utilize my language skills, came while I was working directly inside a CIA facility for the first time. This job proved to be a real benefit to my career.

  While on this assignment, my wife blessed me with a healthy baby boy, and my job blessed me with one of the best supervisors I would ever have. He welcomed me, told me he knew all about my resistance to going to Vietnam, and that he was only concerned with how well I worked in this assignment. That part settled me down. The boss took me around and introduced me to everyone who was anyone. As we stopped at the desk of one officer—I knew him in passing, as he was also a Chinese linguist—the boss said to me in front of this officer, “Whatever you do, stay away from this jackass. He is a worthless officer who won’t be around long.” Wow, I didn’t know whether to run and hide or what. As it turns out, the boss was right on both counts.

  I was working with, in all, a great group of middle-grade officers who ensured that I got off to a good start. And being one of the first summer rotating officers to arrive proved to be quite beneficial. As such, I was given a large group of agents to run and handhold until more help arrived. I had nine agents to deal with (a good load is normally three to five max). I worked really hard that summer until help came. And the hard work helped me greatly, because I was then given the choice of which agents to keep for myself, and which to pass on to other officers. Naturally, I kept a couple of the best and produced some first-class intelligence from several terrific operations.

  I also had early in this tour two other excellent superiors. One was my direct branch chief, a man who had been awarded the Intelligence Star for valor behind enemy lines. The second was the deputy—considered a legend in the business of technical operations.

  Technical operations include the use of technology or equipment as a key element in the effort to collect secrets and intelligence. For instance, implanting a secret listening device into a room, briefcase, or piece of furniture to record someone’s conversations is considered a technical operation. An operation to illegally and secretly enter the premises of another country’s mission or facility to make copies of their codebooks is a technical operation. And operations in which we have intelligence transmitted either by short-wave radio, by secret writing, or by microdots, are also technical operations.

  And we did technical operations. After I had been in country only two weeks, I was part of a team to make an entry into the mission of a hostile country to install a listening device. This was tense but exciting stuff. While I can’t go into details here, I learned that good officers take the initiative. Our agreement with our headquarters was that we would do an initial survey from outside and then regroup and get headquarters’ permission to go inside the walled compound and make another survey before doing the entry for real. We had set up an observation post (OP) in a nearby apartment, and I was assigned two tasks. One was to bring in my dog so one of the surveillance teams could walk her around the neighborhood to provide cover for their evening activity. Second, I was to walk around the neighborhood with the tech that was going to install the device, and take notes of his observations. So far, so good. But as we rounded one of the darker corners of the compound, the tech said to me, “Hey, lift me up so I can look over the wall.”

  “OK,” I said. After I raised him up, he quickly put one foot on my shoulder and went over the wall into the compound. I almost had a stroke. I wandered around the area for a while, waiting to see if he would need help getting back out. In about five minutes, all hell broke loose. I heard someone running inside the compound, a dog snarling, and over the wall unassisted came the technician. We ran a little ways, and then assumed a walk back to our OP. The deputy asked us what had happened.

  “I saw a chance to get a good look at the locks on the building and decided to make an imprint,” the tech replied, and he produced a sample of the lock. He also noted, “And, we learned they keep patrol dogs around.” The deputy praised him for both his courage and his seizing the opportunity, and I learned another lesson—you must take the opportunity when you have it.

  The operation went successfully forward several nights later—but again, not without incident. Involved in this operation was one of our officers, who would later haunt me in a second assignment. Let’s call him “Dufus” to save him embarrassment. We had surveillance patrols out, our observation post was in place, and all parties were ready to go as darkness approached. We had gone over the ground rules, including what to do if apprehended—basically, ask to see someone at the American embassy. When caught in flagrante with audio bugs and such inside a foreign mission, there is no cover story. We had three surveillance teams deployed complete with radios. We had stakeouts in several cars in the event police entered the area. As we were ready to go over the wall, we threw meatballs with mild tranquilizers over the wall for the dog. Just as I was to hoist our audio specialist over the wall, we heard our radio broadcast the prescribed message telling us to stop and return with all haste to the observation post. We stopped our activities and returned as calmly as possible to see what had gone wrong. Dufus had called the emergency when he had noticed that one of our surveillants had a U.S. government pen in his pocket. Dead silence. Finally, the deputy looked at him and said, “So what?”

  Dufus replied, “If the police or someone else see him, they would know he is with the U.S. government.”

  “He’s with the U.S. government, you moron,” shouted the deputy. “He is not the one we worry about; he has a real and legitimate cover story.” The deputy was livid that in addition to calling off the operation with this call, Dufus had heated up the area with all the unnecessary running around that would likely draw the attention of neighbors or local security officers. After calm returned, we persuaded the deputy that, if we waited several hours, we felt we could re-deploy and still carry out the operation. Although he didn’t like it, he reluctantly agreed. First, however, he ordered Dufus to go home, and to have nothing further to do with this operation. We finished the operation with no difficulty. Dufus went home after only two years on his assignment.

  My second assignment continued my education in Asian culture. I was meeting one of our sensitive assets out of town to ensure that we avoided surveillance or an encounter with anyone familiar with the asset. He was a senior distinguished member of the host government, and it would have been difficult to explain his being with me. So, we traditionally met out of town in a variety of places, taking great care to ensure we did not meet twice in the same location. In this instance, we had planned to meet way out of town, at a locally famous hot springs hotel. I spoke enough of the local dialect to make it easy to get a hotel reservation, done only after arrival to ensure no one knew in advance where I was staying. I arrived the day before to scout the area and do a normal surveillance detection run (SDR), and to also be in position to watch my agent arrive so I could make sure he didn’t bring anyone with him.

  After checking in, I saw that the hotel ha
d a traditional family hot springs sauna pool. I decided to take advantage of it, so I put on my robe and slippers and went down to the bathhouse. As I got near, I could hear the sound of what sounded like young women giggling. No matter, I thought, as I saw there were separate men’s and women’s changing rooms. So I went into the men’s room, disrobed, and walked out the door to the pool stark naked. All the giggling stopped as I saw six or eight elderly women swimming around the pool in the nude. As I stepped down the steps and into the boiling water, they all shrieked and ran for the steps. They dashed out of the pool, scaring the hell out of me, shouting “foreigner, foreigner!” They dashed for the women’s dressing room, and I saw the obvious—there were two areas for disrobing, and one pool for everyone. In the meantime, the manager of the hotel ran into the pool area, where I was now the only one present. Highly excited, he first made all sorts of gestures, and then told me in halting English, “You can’t soap up in here,” indicating that he feared that I was going to use the pool as we foreigners use our bathtubs. I told him I understood the local custom of washing outside the tub, and using the tub only for relaxing. He walked away, but later I learned that he drained the pool and refilled it just in case. So much for keeping a low profile. I used many local facilities in the time I was in Asia after that, but I always assured the managers that I knew how it was done. And, to this day, I am also puzzled about the same thing that puzzles Asians: why do we sit in a tub, scrub ourselves down, and then lie in the same dirty water?

  I learned a lot about recruiting and motivating agents during this tour. In one case, I made a significant recruitment based on ideological motivation. I had made the acquaintance of a well-known and respected foreign journalist who had written extensively about events in East Asia, and who had obvious contacts of importance. We started meeting quite discreetly for drinks in the evening to talk about Asia. Finally, over drinks late one evening he asked me pointedly, “Do you work for the CIA?” I hesitated only a moment and told him that I did. Slightly taken aback, he suggested that meeting in the open as we were was probably not a good idea. I agreed and set up our next meeting at a local hotel with a room I had rented with an alias.