Operation Solo (18 page)

The Chinese declared that the Soviet Union and China “have what divides them and lack what unites them; have what sets them apart and lack anything in common.”

Other documents Morris saw sounded similar themes. The Soviets appreciated the geopolitical importance of maintaining China as an ally and the danger China would pose as an enemy. They had made every conceivable, reasonable effort to placate the Chinese. The Chinese had rebuffed, often arrogantly and rudely, their every overture.

From his private conversations in Moscow during March and April, Morris garnered more secrets. The “collective leadership” of the Soviet Union was falling apart, and each of its members was scheming to gain undisputed power for himself. The winner of this hidden power struggle almost certainly would be Brezhnev. Under his rule, the Soviet Union would probably seek a stable, nonconfrontational relationship with the United States while engaging in unremitting subversion and ideological warfare against the United States. It would do all it could to undermine the United States in Vietnam without risking war.

Not long after Morris and Eva came home in late April, the CIA termed the report embodying this information “the most significant piece of intelligence data ever supplied concerning the Soviet Union.”

As important as it was to know who was likely to rule the Soviet Union and what he was likely to do, to Freyman, the copious data about the Sino–Soviet split was in the long term more important, and he wondered whether its importance was being made clear to policymakers.

Headquarters had enjoined him, Boyle, and Morris from putting opinion or analysis into reports. “We are an investigative organization,” it said. That was true and, in Freyman's mind, therein lay a potential problem. As an investigative organization, the FBI at the time had no analytical unit tasked with measuring and collating facts to deduce their underlying or overall meaning. And he was not sure who had seen what.

So Freyman asked Boyle to assemble copies of all SOLO reports pertaining to China dating back to 1958. From them and notes Boyle turned over, he wrote a history of the Sino–Soviet split which delineated a clear pattern of a progressively worsening relationship that had turned allies into enemies. Collectively, the authoritative, consistent reports Freyman cited showed why relations between the Soviet Union and China would not improve; why instead they would only become more envenomed.

Freyman submitted the history to Washington as a report rather than as an analysis and noted he had compiled it on his own time. Headquarters forthwith had an agent take a copy to the White House, which soon said, in effect: Now this is real intelligence; this is as outstanding as you can get; this is what we want.

Subsequently the FBI started asking Boyle, in consultation with Morris, to analyze or comment upon certain reports, developments, or issues. Jim Fox, on becoming Boyle's supervisor, instructed him and Morris to analyze and comment whenever they wished without waiting for nods from headquarters. Thus, to the end Morris was simultaneously an analyst both for the FBI and the Politburo.

Shortly after, Freyman—out of his own initiative and sense of
duty—did something original that yielded important, enduring benefits, he did something everyone thought was wrong. He retired from the FBI.

He was at the height of his powers; no one in the Chicago office was more esteemed or respected; and he loved his work. The operation he and Burlinson gave birth to more than a decade ago was generating such spectacular intelligence that the White House, State Department, and CIA clamored for more and more; as Boyle said, “the sensational became routine.” If Morris and Jack stayed alive, there was every reason to expect that future results would be even more spectacular. Morris was developing a close personal relationship with Brezhnev, who delighted in direct dealings with a fascinating man the Soviets had come to regard as one of their greatest agents. Morris also retained his longtime friendship with Suslov and Ponomarev, still two of the most knowledgeable and powerful men in the Soviet Union. If need be, he probably could speak directly to his old acquaintance, Yuri Andropov, chairman of the KGB. And he was the chief lieutenant and confidant of Gus Hall, who depended upon him and Jack for what he valued most—money.

After the fifteenth SOLO mission, Freyman and Boyle glimpsed a dazzling possibility that reached beyond collection of information. Jack had influenced the thinking of Ponomarev, persuading him to overrule the KGB; he had influenced Castro, inducing him to establish direct communications with the American party. If Jack could affect the decisions and actions of communist chieftains whom he did not know all that well, what might Morris do with Soviet leaders who were his friends?

Yet Freyman thought like a professional athlete who elects to stop playing before his abilities wane. It was not unusual for him and Boyle to work seventy hours a week, during which they sometimes had to make immediate decisions that were, literally, a matter of life and death. He feared that as he aged, he might not be able to constantly maintain the mental acuity and vigor SOLO demanded.

Then there was Boyle. Partially to put his adopted children in a happy environment, partially to be relatively near O'Hare Airport,
Boyle bought a house not far from Freyman's suburban home. The two often rode the commuter train together, and Freyman, ever the astute judge of people, came to understand Boyle probably better than anyone did other than Morris. Boyle could be unconventional, wild, ferocious. How many politically conservative Caucasians adopt black children and integrate them into an all-white neighborhood? How many FBI agents go to church to pray during their lunch hour? How many men volunteer to fly more than two hundred aerial combat missions, how many earn six decorations in ten months of unceasing combat? How many risk their careers by threatening superiors with fisticuffs? But SOLO itself was unconventional and wild, and it required ferocity. It was, after all, aimed at some of the most murderous thugs and despots in history. Boyle had won the intellectual respect of Morris, who treated him increasingly as a son; Eva doted on him; and he was completely consecrated to SOLO.

Certain that he was leaving Morris and Eva in caring and gifted hands, Freyman bade a cheerful farewell to all and never again involved himself in the operation that represented his greatest achievement. Boyle became, and for the duration of SOLO remained, the principal handler of Morris and Eva. Although he always answered to a supervisor, the Chicago SAC, and headquarters, he made most of the day-to-day operational decisions pertaining to Morris and Eva and drafted all of the reports incorporating the intelligence they supplied.

The secrets Morris gleaned from Brezhnev, Suslov, Ponomarev, and Politburo members during his next three missions to Moscow made Freyman look like a prophet. In October and November 1965, the Soviets convinced Morris with facts and figures that they were doing all they could to assist North Vietnam militarily and politically. Then they gave him a translation of a formal communication from the Chinese party and government to deliver to Hall:

As Suslov pointed out, after railing on and accusing the Soviets of all sorts of treachery and perfidy, the Chinese in a sly gesture of contempt offered “Fraternal Greetings!” With a shrug of despair, he remarked, “It's hopeless.”

In addition to documents, Morris brought back intelligence confided to him orally. The competition for supreme power
continued among the “collective” leaders, and Brezhnev was still the probable winner. The Soviet economy was in shambles, a condition conveniently blamed on Khrushchev. Because of a shortage of hard currency, the Soviets could afford to give the American party only about $700,000 in 1966, whereas they had forked over more than $1,000,000 in 1965.

During the Twenty-third Party Congress in March and April of 1966, the Soviets briefed Morris in detail about the extent and nature of their military and material aid to North Vietnam, and their plans to enlist Western intellectuals in a propaganda campaign to force U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. They also gave him another baleful appraisal of their relations with China, which seemed to worsen by the month.

Together with Gus Hall, from August 7 to October 15, 1966, Morris toured Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, conferring with Anton Novotny, president of Czechoslovakia; Walter Ulbricht, boss of East Germany; and Brezhnev.

Brezhnev had triumphed in the competition to become the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union and was now unchallenged. The new leader also happened to like Morris very much and would be an important, though unwitting, source for SOLO intelligence in the future.

In his first meeting with Hall, Brezhnev was much more formal and reticent than when alone with Morris, and while he paid lavish tributes to the American party and Hall, he said little that could not have been read in
Pravda
. Suslov and Ponomarev did. They advised Morris that Brezhnev had triumphed in the competition to become the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union and that he now was unchallenged. Both appeared confident of their futures under his reign, and Suslov said Morris should be happy too because Brezhnev very much liked him.

In the judgment of Suslov and Ponomarev and, Morris gathered, the entire Soviet leadership, China constituted the most urgent and dangerous international problem confronting the Soviet Union. They believed more than ever that China was trying to drag the Soviet Union, Western Europe, and the United States into a nuclear holocaust from which it could stand aloof and after
which it would emerge as the dominant power in the world. From Brezhnev on down, everyone in the Soviet oligarchy was truly fed up with the Chinese, or the “yellows,” in general and Mao in particular. Passages from Soviet reports and analyses Morris copied or noted suggested why: