Operation Solo (34 page)

Morris and Boyle scarcely had finished all their reports when Hall sent Morris back to Moscow in November with a letter begging for money; it said the party was almost broke and could not sustain itself much longer without an infusion of cash. The Soviets took the plea seriously and promised to deliver $500,000 in early February and $1.3 million more later in 1975.

Ford and Brezhnev had just concluded their first summit conference, and Ponomarev shared with Morris the Soviet assessment of the meeting and the new American president. They considered him a “nice” man with whom they could do business despite his record of anticommunism; in their judgment, he lacked Nixon's experience in foreign affairs and therefore it might be even easier to do business with him.

The Soviets feted Eva as a queen, and in early December her escort and interpreter, Irina, announced that wives of Politburo members had arranged a luncheon in her honor. That meant they wanted her out of the way for the day so the KGB could talk to Morris alone in the apartment. Vladimir Kazakov, the KGB officer who grilled Jack, greeted Morris with unusual warmth and, Morris thought, sincerity. He said the KGB had made an exhaustive analysis of the book
KGB
and determined that Morris was right—the references to Chuchukin doubtless sprang from his prior activities rather than from his work with Jack in New York, and those activities became known to the author not because of any fault of Chuchukin but from some traitor. The KGB was confident that MORAT had not been compromised and that no one involved in the operation had made a mistake. The crisis was over but everyone
must redouble vigilance because what they were doing was both important and dangerous.

As he started to leave, Kazakov said, “By the way, Vladimir [Chuchukin] sends greetings and best wishes to you and Jack. And we all thank you.” Both understood why he gave thanks: for absolving Chuchukin and the KGB of guilt during the witch-hunt caused by the book. More than ever, the KGB was Morris' ally.

After long dinners, Morris and Eva stayed up late copying documents revealing Soviet views of world affairs and the status of communist parties throughout the world. When they left the second week in December, they were tired and eager to go home to quiet and security.

But storms were about to burst upon them.

fifteen

UNDER SUSPICION

WANNALL FLEW TO CHICAGO on February 11, 1975, to personally congratulate Morris on the success of the last mission. In a meeting with Chicago SAC Richard Held and Boyle, he told Morris that the information gathered was immensely important and that it had been hand-carried to “the highest U.S. officials” (President Ford, Kissinger, and the director of the CIA, who then was George Bush).

The gesture heartened Morris, who understood that Wannall was sacrificing a whole day just to say kind words to him. In the security of the cover office and the camaraderie of men he trusted, he tried to tell them what a mission was like, how terrified he had been in Prague when ordered back to Moscow. “Over there, I am always worried. It is like being in a luxurious prison. I am a member of the club. I have my own apartment or, if I stay at the Central Committee hotel, I am given splendid accommodations next to the suite reserved for general secretaries of foreign parties. I am given a safe and a key. I am met at the airport by a special limousine. I don't have to handle my luggage or bother with arrival
details. I am greeted by special contacts from the International Department. But when I go to bed at night, I never know what the next day will bring. I try to analyze just where I stand with the Soviets, whether certain people will agree to see me, why they would meet me, whether they would allow me to enter certain buildings if they didn't trust me.”

Wannall replied that the few who were aware of what Morris was doing appreciated the enormous strains he had to endure, and again Wannall flattered Morris by sharing in-house matters. Director Kelley had appeared in closed session before the so-called Church Committee, the Senate committee investigating U.S. intelligence agencies. Kelley told them that there were certain subjects he did not want senators or staff members to ask about. If they asked, they would bear full responsibility for the consequences. Wannall emphasized, “SOLO will not be involved.”

The conference lasted little more than an hour but in terms of its effects on Morris' spirits it bought more than money could have.

Afterward, over a pleasant lunch Wannall, Held, Boyle, and a supervisor privy to SOLO engaged in amiable banter, and the supervisor asked, “Walt, what would you do if you're on a plane and someone tries to hijack it to Cuba?” Because of hijackings, Boyle insisted on remaining armed while flying. Sometimes he had with him copies of documents Morris and Eva had copied in Moscow, and in any case the FBI did not want him subjected to the mercies of Cuban interrogators.

“The plane ain't going to Cuba,” Boyle said.

“But what are you going to do?”

“I said, the plane ain't going to Cuba.” They dropped the subject—some things are best left unsaid.

 

 

BOYLE KEPT READY A small bag packed with a fresh shirt, underwear, socks, and toiletries so that at any time he could leave immediately for O'Hare Airport, only some twenty minutes away from his home. Around 4 A.M. a call from the physician who relayed Morris' messages in code advised that Morris would arrive that afternoon in Los Angeles aboard a flight from
Oslo. The FBI issued agents a booklet of government vouchers that enabled them to write their own airline tickets to anywhere in the world, and by early afternoon Boyle was at the Los Angeles airport where Morris' flight was listed as “delayed.” In the tower, air traffic controllers had no information about when it might arrive or the cause of the delay. Boyle stayed in the terminal through the night, calling the tower hourly until a controller told him the plane had been diverted and would land in Seattle.

In New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, Boyle developed contacts among customs and immigration officials who gladly helped him and the FBI. In Seattle he didn't have any, but he persuaded authorities there to pass Morris and Eva without questions or inspection. Unbeknown to him at the time, one of the customs officials had second thoughts and panicked. Had he let in narcotics smugglers or Mafiosi or spies? To cover himself, he went to the FBI agent assigned to the airport, said that someone impersonating an FBI agent duped him into admitting two dubious characters and that the impersonator himself appeared to be “under the influence.” This allegation was inherently implausible. Why would a trained customs inspector blindly obey the orders of some strange drunk? If he had doubts about the validity of FBI credentials shown him, he could have confirmed or dispelled them by a one-minute telephone call. Did Morris and Eva fit the profile of the types of people inspectors are taught to guard against? Without making any inquiries of his own, the Seattle agent relayed the allegation to headquarters as if it were credible and the FBI soon determined that the allegedly drunken impersonator was in fact Walter Boyle from Chicago.

Kelley was away, and his chief deputy directed Wannall, “Go out there and fire him.”

Wannall protested, “But shouldn't we get the facts first?”

“All right, get the facts and then fire him.”

Chicago SAC Held called just as Boyle was sitting down to breakfast after early Sunday Mass. “Ray Wannall is here and he wants to talk to you. Please come to the office, the sooner, the better.”

It was to have been a family day—the park and zoo followed by hamburgers and sundaes for the six children—and Boyle was
disappointed at having to disappoint them, but he was pleased that Wannall had flown out to discuss SOLO.

Wannall was interested in something else. After polite salutations, he said, “Walt, I'd like for you to go to your office now and sit down and write a detailed account of your trip to the West Coast. I want you to put down everything that happened, from beginning to end. You can't include too much detail. Take as much time as you need. Dick and I will be waiting.”

Boyle started to exclaim Why! But a stare from Held said,
For your own sake, just do as he says
.

Dutifully, Boyle detailed the whole trip: Upon arriving in Los Angeles, he in accordance with rules notified the Los Angeles office that he was in the area and where he was staying. After learning that the flight from Norway had been diverted, he notified the Los Angeles office that he was leaving the area. When he alighted in Seattle he informed the local field office that he was there; he obtained assistance from customs and immigration officials; he told the Seattle office he was leaving.

Wannall read the narrative slowly and remarked, “It looks like you didn't get much sleep on that trip.”

The anger welling within Boyle caused him to blurt out an impertinence that surely would have provoked a less gentlemanly and insightful superior than Wannall: “I didn't go out there to sleep.”

“All right Walt,” Wannall said. “I'll be here for a few days and I'm sure we'll talk again.”

SAC Held was pure, old-time FBI, a Hooverite, relentlessly tough and courageously fair, and Boyle knew that if he could get to him he could get the truth. But every time Boyle peered into Held's office, there sat Wannall on the leather sofa. Finally Boyle persuaded a fellow agent to entice Wannall out of the office, and he was able to speak to Held alone. “What the hell is going on?”

“You're under massive investigation for being drunk on duty. Right now, Ray Wannall is the best friend you have. He and the Bureau are checking out every word you wrote and, thus far, everything checks.”

To this day, Boyle refuses to disclose who called him at home late at night. Maybe the call came from Burlinson or Langtry or a
secret SOLO ally at headquarters. A better bet would be that the caller's initials were R.H., as in Richard Held. Be that as it may, the caller was informed and spoke authoritatively. Everything Boyle wrote about the trip to Los Angeles and Seattle had been confirmed. Nevertheless, the FBI intended to remove him from SOLO on the pretext that his expertise was needed at headquarters. The caller offered some advice, “You didn't hear this from me, but it wouldn't hurt if you told 58 about the situation. In fact, if I were you that is exactly what I would do and I would do it right away.”

 

 

IN SELECTING A PLACE to live, Morris had to satisfy the divergent demands of his multiple lives. He needed a home that was in keeping with his ostensible status as a wealthy businessman, which is what Hall and the Kremlin thought he was. But as a devoted proletarian he did not want to live ostentatiously on the North Shore like a greedy capitalist. The necessity of traveling so often and his inability, because of security reasons, to employ servants made maintenance of a house impractical.

Morris solved the problem by buying a penthouse in a handsome building occupied primarily by wealthy and friendly black families. In Moscow Morris was regarded as a comrade so principled that he was even willing to live among the “black asses,” as the Russians called them.

Wannall visited the penthouse which Eva, with art, antiques, Oriental carpets, and fine crystal, had transformed into an inviting home. During dinner she flirted with him while Morris entertained with tales of adventures in the Soviet Union, including the story of how he and the director of the Leningrad Shipyard became so drunk that they got into a fistfight with each other. He recalled that, when he first saw Moscow in 1929, trees lined many boulevards and the beautiful architecture reflected the verve and imagination of Russians. But Stalin soon ordered the trees cut down and scarred the face of the city with huge, box-like buildings that glowered menacingly down at the people. Friends in 1947 told him that Stalin later persuaded himself that the felling of the trees, that he
had ordered, was part of a plot to enable German aircraft to land on the streets and that he executed many of the “plotters.” Eva piped up, “That Stalin, he was such a barbarian.”

Over the years, some things had changed for the better; some had not. Ponomarev still expected Morris to bring aspirin, Alka-Seltzer, and Contac; everybody still wanted Camel and Chesterfield cigarettes, and cosmetics. “They want anything American,” Eva interjected. “Secretly, they like us, really.”

SOLO was not discussed until after dinner. While Morris excused himself supposedly to call Jack in New York, Eva remarked they had heard Walt might be leaving. Well, she understood, nothing is forever; Walt needed to get on with his career, and certainly if anyone ever deserved a promotion, Walt did. Doubtless the Bureau had more important things for him to do, doubtless it had operations more important than SOLO. And Walt had been stuck in Chicago a long time; let's see, how long had he been fiddling around with their little operation—about thirteen years? That was a long time. Of course, nobody understood Morris as well as Walt did, and Morris trusted him, and nobody understood the operation as well as Walt did, except maybe Al (Burlinson) and John (Langtry), but they also heard that Al was retiring.

Wannall, being a young man, might find it hard to understand, but old people tend to get into a rut, to expect, perhaps unreasonably, that things will continue the way they were. Sometimes old people start thinking of a young man as a son, especially when after many years they know they always can count on him. Still, Eva understood, but she wanted Wannall also to understand. Maybe the time had come for her to stop. She had traveled to Moscow at least twenty times; each time she was afraid, and when she wrapped documents around her body she was terrified. She was most terrified when Morris was over there without her. Outside of him, Walt was the person she relied upon most. If he were to go, she did not want to go on. If she did not go on, she was not sure Morris would; Wannall would have to take that up with Morris. Of course, if Morris quit, so would Jack.