Operation Solo (36 page)

“If I am physically able, and unless Gus Hall has something different in mind, I should take off on a trip in a few days. The Bureau people in charge have to be on the lookout to prevent any bombshell while I'm on the road. With intelligence agencies on the griddle, you never know when someone will pull a boner or go crazy or give something out.”

Leavitt emphasized that measures to safeguard SOLO were more stringent than ever and that the intelligence it yielded was distributed only “at the highest levels, to the White House, the State Department, and sometimes the military” (it is unclear whether Leavitt's failure to mention any distribution to the CIA was inadvertent or whether the Bureau had stopped sharing SOLO data with the Agency).

Ingram added, “You have men here in this room—your life is their life. Their entire life is devoted to you.”

His words evidently moved Jack and Morris. Speaking of the SOLO team and the FBI, Jack said, “Regardless of the present turbulence, we have reached
a
peak but not
the
peak. I never thought we would reach this level of perfection. I think that means they still trust us, though they are being careful.”

Morris said, “I have never run across anybody except dedicated men in the Bureau. The Bureau as a whole is the most dedicated organization I've ever known, maybe with the exception of the early Bolsheviks.”

 

 

HAVING FLOWN VIA LONDON and Prague, Morris arrived in Moscow on October 17, 1975, and tried more than ever to read obscure signs: Who greeted him at the airport? Familiar friends from the International Department, or new faces that might be those of KGB officers? How was he greeted—with hearty embraces or polite handshakes? Did the reception party have personal messages for him from Ponomarev, Suslov, or Brezhnev? Where would he be lodged, in his apartment or a suite at the party hotel off Arbat street or some place lesser and new? Would his escorts, after taking him to his residence, stay for a drink? How soon would he see Ponomarev, who, barring illness, always was the first Soviet leader he saw? Who else appeared on his schedule? How soon did the “special comrades” (the KGB) want to see him, and just how was their request to see him phrased? Was there any hint that he might have to stay much longer than planned? Would the Soviets maintain or raise the level of payments to the American party?

Most of the first signs were good. Friends awaited him at the airport and were delighted to join him for supper at the apartment. Ponomarev expected him at lunch the next day, Mostovets was counting upon him for dinner the day after, and the schedule outlined was crowded. Ponomarev received him as cordially as ever and, so far as Morris could discern, was genuinely glad to see him. He did say that, because of an unexpectedly poor grain harvest (more bad weather), the Soviets next year might have to lower the subsidy to the American party (in 1975 it totaled $1,792,676).
Then at the end of lunch, Ponomarev mentioned that the “special comrades” had been making a nuisance of themselves and wanted to speak with Morris at his earliest convenience. Could he get them out of the way by letting them drop by the apartment that afternoon? Morris could only say, “Of course.”

Kazakov, the KGB officer who supervised MORAT (SOLO) from Moscow, and another officer whom Morris had not met accepted his invitation to pour themselves brandies, thereby signaling that they had not come to interrogate him. They did want his opinions. How much did he think the FBI knew about him?

Morris said that because the party had no sources in the FBI he could not be sure. Doubtless the FBI recognized that he was a communist; after all, he had run for public office as a communist and edited the party newspaper. He assumed that the FBI had some low-level informants in the party; probably it tried to keep an eye on Gus and thus might know that he and Hall saw each other. However, he had not been active in overt party affairs since 1947; he was old and, as any investigator easily could ascertain, his health was not the best, and he owned a legitimate business. Therefore, in his judgment, the FBI did not have much interest in him. About one central fact he was sure: The FBI knew absolutely nothing about MORAT or the money.

Kazakov courteously said it would be helpful if he could explain why he was so certain.

Morris then confidently assumed the role of a professor lecturing the KGB. First, if you excluded Kazakov's comrades, the only people in the United States who knew about the money deliveries were Gus Hall, Jack, Morris, and their wives; and that “radio fellow” the KGB assigned to help Jack (the old Comintern radioman, NY-4309S*). The Central Committee of our party, Morris went on, knows we receive support, but outside the six or seven of us, no one knows how we receive it, and everyone who touches the money has to be extremely cautious. In America, you could commit almost any crime and, even if you were caught, chances were a clever lawyer or a stupid jury or a daft judge would spare you from jail. But the government and courts sternly enforced the income tax law. If you were caught with large sums of cash, whose
origins you could not explain and on which you had failed to pay taxes, you went to jail. Thus, handling the money was so dangerous that nobody involved ever talked about it outside the tight little circle.

But there was a more basic reason why Morris was sure the FBI did not know about the money—the same reasoning Boyle and Langtry had used in speaking to headquarters. The FBI was a virulently anticommunist, semimilitary organization; in fact, most of its young agents were former military officers. If the FBI knew about the money deliveries, it could arrest everybody, including “special comrades,” and stage a prolonged circus that would sabotage détente, ruin the party, and land everyone in prison. The FBI would love to do just that.

In Russian, Kazakov said to his colleague, “You see, I told you.”

The other KGB officer replied in Russian, “Yes, he is remarkable.”

Turning to Morris, Kazakov said that his explanation made eminent sense and was very reassuring. Kazakov asked if they could meet again to discuss technical operational details and apologized for burdening him with such matters. It would be better to discuss them directly with Jack, and he wondered if Jack could resume his visits to Moscow.

Morris feared he could not. Because of a combination of emphysema, heart trouble, and other ailments, doctors had warned Jack against attempting long flights. That reminded Morris of something: He hoped that in the future, money deliveries could occur in the spring, summer, and autumn so Jack would not have to expose himself to winter weather.

The preceding June, Morris had made a quick trip to Moscow to obtain Soviet approval of a report drafted by Hall for presentation to the national convention of the American party. While there he learned that Aleksandr Shelepin had been purged from the Politburo after instigating or participating in a coup aimed at dethroning Brezhnev. Morris gathered that the infighting in the Kremlin had not entirely subsided. Now in October Ponomarev told him Brezhnev had secured his position and unquestionably
would be reelected general secretary of the party (something Kissinger very much wanted to know).

Ponomarev also told him that upon further assessing the summit meeting between Brezhnev and President Ford, the Soviets were gloomy about the results and additionally were pessimistic about the outcome of the arms limitations negotiations being conducted in Geneva.

As Morris prepared to leave in November, Ponomarev announced that the Soviets would not have to reduce the 1976 subsidy as he earlier indicated. In fact, they could increase it to $2 million and very shortly they would give Jack the last 1975 payment of $350,000.

Flying homeward, Morris mentally composed reports and looked forward to telling Boyle the good news—that the KGB had completely accepted his explanation of why the operation was secure.

But in the United States, very bad news about SOLO again awaited him.

sixteen

UNDER SIEGE

MORRIS ALWAYS FEARED MOST that which he could not control. During decades of dueling with the Soviets, he made not one operational mistake; Jack made just one when he gave his Soviet handler Langtry's notes instead of his own. Together, Morris and Jack long had outwitted the KGB and cynical tyrants who had helped raise the science of mass terror to a new apex. In difficult circumstances, they proved that if the outcome depended upon what they did, they could effectively control the outcome. They could not control the actions of the United States Congress or its ambitious young staff members. And there was nothing they could have done to prevent a Senate committee from demanding FBI files that would expose them and grievously damage the cause for which they continued to risk their lives.

The crisis that developed while Morris was in Moscow during October and November 1975 arose in part from events that occurred many years earlier and only tangentially related to SOLO. It had to do with civil rights leader and Nobel Laureate Martin Luther King. SOLO was never directed at King; neither
Morris nor Jack ever met King or even indirectly dealt with King; neither personally knew anything about him. A few SOLO reports did, however, mention King, and other reports concerned people who became close to him.

To see what happened, we must look back into history and into the communist underground of North America.

During the late 1950s, the FBI retargeted SOLO, aiming it at the Soviet Union rather than at the American Communist Party. Morris and Jack continued, passively and incidentally, to gather information about party activities, especially those that might illuminate secret Soviet actions and intentions. But they and the FBI were vastly more concerned with maintaining the flow of secrets and money from the Kremlin than with anything happening inside the American party; to all involved in SOLO, the party mattered most because through it Morris and Jack could tunnel into the Kremlin.

In the early years of SASH/SOLO, when the objective was to infiltrate the American party leadership, Morris and Jack did provide detailed data about party activities and personalities. One personality they identified was Stanley David Levison, a New York lawyer and business entrepreneur.

By 1946 Levison, then thirty-four, had gained admission into the inner circle of the communist underground. One of his sponsors and mentors was William Weiner, who administered party finances and the reserve fund, the cash hidden for emergencies. Weiner was a friend of Jack and of Sam Carr, the Canadian communist and Soviet espionage agent who attended the Lenin School with Morris and whom Morris and Jack later befriended.

Jack in early debriefings told the FBI that beginning in 1946 Weiner and Levison conferred frequently, and that Levison helped establish party business fronts and collected money from party “angels” in Hollywood and on Wall Street. (Morris confirmed that Levison consulted him while setting up party businesses in Chicago and Michigan.) Jack also advised that, in 1946, Levison gave Weiner $10,000 for the party and Weiner asked Jack to hide the money in a safe deposit box.

Weiner in 1952 instructed Jack to go to Levison's office and meet another underground member with whom he was to cooperate. In
1953, Levison warned Jack that an FBI agent had visited the party business front in Chicago and he offered Jack $200 to help him found another front. In 1954, during a meeting with Jack at the Statler Hotel, Levison said that, as a result of the death of Weiner, he had assumed responsibility for party finances. In 1955 Phillip Bart, the underground secretary who brought Morris back into the party, said that Levison was active in party work. And in 1956, Bart told Jack that Stanley Levison and his twin brother, Roy, who had changed his name to Roy Bennett, were now in charge of party business.

Jack in 1958 reported a conversation with James Jackson, the party secretary in charge of “Negro and Southern Affairs.” Jackson claimed that he and Eugene Dennis had conferred with the “most secret and guarded people who are in touch with, consulting with, and guiding [Martin] Luther King.” Though he pretended not to know their identities, Jackson characterized them as “party guys far removed from the top level but [who were] playing an important role in guiding these fellows [King and associates].” Jackson thought that “this group may be important in Negro work.”

Unbeknown to Jack or Morris, Levison in the 1950s met King and subsequently attached himself to the young civil rights leader as a personal confidant and advisor. At the behest of Levison, King later employed Jack O'Dell in the Southern Christian Leadership Council. Morris identified Jack O'Dell as Hunter Pitts O'Dell, a secret member of the party's governing body, the National Committee. In November 1959 Jackson revealed to Jack that O'Dell was working full time for King and that Levison worked closely with O'Dell.

On May 6, 1960, Jack reported: “Hunter Pitts [Jack] O'Dell is working full time in connection with the King mass meeting to be held in Harlem on May 17, 1960. Working closely with O'Dell are Stanley and Roy Levison [Bennett]. The CP considers [the] King meeting of the most importance and feels that it is definitely to the Party's advantage to assign outstanding Party members to work with the [Martin] Luther King group. CP policy at the moment is to concentrate upon Martin Luther King.”

At the time, King was not the object of FBI investigation but his intimate association with Levison and O'Dell sounded alarms, and in 1961 the Bureau decided it should alert the newly elected president, John F. Kennedy, and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. No one could have been more sympathetic to King than the Kennedy brothers. During the 1960 presidential campaign they publicly defended him and demanded his release from an Alabama jail, fearing he might be killed in his cell. The Kennedy administration had no higher legislative priority than enactment of a federal civil rights law forbidding discrimination against (or preferential treatment of) any citizen on the basis of race, creed, or ethnic origin and guaranteeing every citizen equal access to public accommodations. Thus, hoping to save King and the civil rights movement from embarrassment, President Kennedy and Attorney General Kennedy cautioned King that, by personally associating with and relying upon Levison and O'Dell, he was putting himself and the civil rights movement in jeopardy. King equivocated, then continued to associate with O'Dell and Levison, both openly and secretly.