The General's President (28 page)

"Interesting. Which do you fit in?"

Again a pause. "Well, sir, I'm not in Covert Operations, so I don't ordinarily have much contact with him. But I'm one of the "don't likes." Basically he's a mind-fucker. And when he became director, several agency people who'd had run-ins with him before, got transferred to field projects and supposedly dropped out of sight."

"Dropped out of sight? What does that mean?"

"Supposedly no one hears about them anymore. It could just mean they're in a project somewhere that's so highly secret, it's as if they don't exist."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know enough about Covert Operations to have an informed opinion."

Haugen's eyes seemed to probe, as if looking inside Godfrey's head. It might have been offensive, had the gaze not been so neutral. "You said
supposedly
a couple of times. What does that mean?"

"It means that what I know about it is rumor. You might not expect there'd be rumors in a close-mouthed outfit like the CIA. And mostly there aren't. But now and then you hear one, almost always about Covert Operations. I've always suspected that someone starts them deliberately."

The president sat contemplatively for a moment, fingers drumming on his desk. "Can you give me the names of the people you mentioned, who're supposed to have dropped out of sight?"

"Sure." Godfrey named three.

"And was there anyone in Covert Operations that hadn't gotten along with Blackburn but who's still around there?"

"Yes sir. One that I know of. His name is Thompson or Thomson, first name Bill. He held some major post; I think it was chief debriefing officer. A lot of people were pretty loyal to him: he's a good guy. I suppose he had too many friends and he was too visible to just ship him out. He's black, for one thing. And very outgoing, which is kind of unusual around the shop. After Blackburn took over, Thompson got a lateral transfer to Personnel—away from the action."

***

When Godfrey had left, the president got on the phone and talked to Dirksma. Gonzalves had already left for CIA headquarters. Haugen played back his conversation with Godfrey. "I consider that Godfrey is probably reliable," he said. "Get those names checked out, and have Gonzalves talk privately with this Bill Thompson.

"And have someone find out what the routing-out procedures are for people who leave Covert Operations for civilian life. Not just the standard, but procedures for special cases, too. Thompson may be helpful on that.

"And Peter, I've got too damn much attention on what may be a situation there. That's
Situation
with a capital S. I need to get it sorted out enough to take my mind off it; enough that I can let others handle it without worrying about it anymore.

"So I want you to update me no later than nine o'clock this evening, even if you haven't learned a damned thing more. I want communication. And if you find out something at midnight that you think I should know about right away, call me then."

***

Dirksma called back a lot sooner than 9 P.M. Blackburn had suicided. The arresting agents had allowed him to take a little travel kit with him after searching it. Later, in the cell they put him in, they found him dead of cyanide poisoning. The shaft of his manual razor had been hollow. Inside it were two more cyanide capsules.

The Bureau's investigation had thereby gained another facet: Why had he suicided? The possibility that had occurred at once to Dirksma was that Blackburn had been a double agent. But that was sheer speculation; there was no evidence for it, and only the poisoning even to suggest it.

The president didn't give his opinion—that Blackburn had been psychotic. There'd been something in the man's eyes, when they'd met the president's, like a flash of sheer terror, as if he'd thought the president, looking into them, had somehow found him out. Even guilt of treason, it seemed to Haugen, wouldn't account for terror in a sane man. Not under this morning's circumstances.

TWENTY-FIVE

Wojciech Jaruzelski's grandfather was killed in 1920 fighting the Red Army, and his father died in a Soviet prison camp during the Second World War. Wojciech himself, a student at the elite Jesuit lycee in Warsaw, was arrested by the Soviets at age sixteen and imprisoned in labour camps, first in Kazakhstan where he worked as a coal miner, then in Siberia where he laboured cutting trees. In Siberia he was afflicted by snowblindness which permanently damaged his vision....

From:
"Wojciech Jaruzelski," pp 235-241, IN
Heads of Government of the Twentieth Century,
Ploughshare Books, London, AD 2001

***

On Air Force One, crossing to Norway, the president spent much of the time practicing his Polish with John Zale. Especially reading it aloud, getting more thoroughly at home with the Polish orthography. He'd played at learning the language since first he'd known that Zale was fluent in it, but had never before taken it on as a project. Its many cognates with Russian made it far easier for Haugen than it would otherwise have been, the grammars were very similar, and his pronunciations had become quite good, quite Polish, with not much trace of American or Russian influence. But his conversational ability—particularly his recognition vocabulary—didn't extend much beyond small talk.

Their first day in Europe, Arne and Lois Haugen spent in Norway. It was an official state visit, a "working" visit, not a sentimental trip to the parish where his father had grown up. They'd visited there several times before, had met his old-country relatives while Arne was still a young man, hiked the mountain ridge where his father had raced slalom as a teenager, when
slalom
meant skiing down a winding trail through the forest, dodging trees.
Real slalom
, Arne thought of it.

Haugen's talks with the king, the prime minister, and the minister of foreign affairs, were formalities. His short, televised speech before the
storting
was memorable in only two respects: It was only the second ever delivered in Norwegian by the head of a non-Scandinavian state, the first having been by Willi Brandt, years before; and it was widely approved by the people of Norway, watching in their living rooms.

By agreement, it was not telecast outside Norway. The president had insisted on that. It was a later speech that he wanted to receive international media attention, though of course he didn't say so.

The second day was spent in Helsinki, where he spoke with the President of Finland, his prime minister and foreign minister. As in Norway, Haugen was already familiar with his ancestral district, Pori, and his short televised speech in Finnish to the
Eduskunta
, was the major event of his visit.

His third day, in Sweden, differed mainly in that the Swedish minister of defense sat in secretly on Haugen's talk with the foreign minister and prime minister. It was deemed appropriate that he address the
Riksdag
briefly, as he had the Norwegian and Finnish parliaments. This time his wife stood beside him and also spoke, both in Swedish.

When Arne Haugen went to bed that third night, it was with relief; the preliminary stops were over. There was a lot to do back in Washington. But the Scandinavian visits had been vital stage setting. Tomorrow he'd accomplish more; hopefully a lot more.

***

The next morning before dawn, the presidential party flew out of Stockholm's Bromma Airfield in a thin, dry snowfall, in a chartered SAS 727. An hour later they landed at Warsaw, 470 miles south.

***

They emerged from the armored limousines before an imposing stone building. The late autumn sunshine was thin and weak, the wintry breeze out of the east.
Out of Russia
, thought the president, then inwardly grinned at himself.
Haugen, that's pretty dramatic for an old cedar savage.

The honor guard, in heavy green greatcoats, stood at present arms, forming a precise human corridor bastioned with rifles. Among the party climbing the entrance steps were the American president, his ambassador to Poland, the ambassador's interpreter, and John Zale.

Of the Poles who'd met them at the airport, three had introduced themselves as Foreign Ministry officials. They had been friendly but nervous—concerned, Haugen supposed, for his safety. The KGB and the GRU would both have agents in Poland, and just now the Russians seemed highly unpredictable. The Secret Service had argued strenuously against his coming, fearing that the KGB might try to kill him to embarrass the Kremlin, or that the Kremlin might try to kill him to embarrass the Poles.

The CIA had been considerably less concerned. They had a lot of respect for the Polish secret police, who made life highly uncertain for Soviet agents. When they caught one, he was more likely never to be seen again than be deported, and Warsaw, they said, would be no more dangerous for the president than any other European capital.

What had
really
upset the Secret Service was the president's decision to leave his agents on the plane in Warsaw. He would let the Poles protect him. Gil Rogers, special agent in charge of this trip, had been grim to the verge of rudeness. Haugen let him be; he'd come more and more to admire his single-minded "keepers."

Besides the Foreign Ministry officials who'd met them, there were ten Poles who had not been introduced; they didn't have to be. Despite the cold, they wore jackets instead of coats, open jackets, and they looked about continually. The president suspected that, despite their considerable size, their agility and reflexes would be excellent. And there were no crowds to hide a gunman, either at the airport or at the government square, only men armed and uniformed, in little groups at a distance.

Inside the massive building, two other men, deputy ministers, met the presidential party. After introductions, they marched through a rotunda, immaculate and impressive but rather cheerless, and down a wide hall to an office. A working office, large, and with broad windows facing south. Presumably, Haugen thought, for the winter sun.

Two men stood waiting. The older man with the thick glasses was the premier himself, General Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski. He was about Haugen's age, and when they shook hands, his grip was hard. The younger man, his age perhaps thirty, would be the premier's interpreter.

"Mr. President, we are honored to have you." Jaruzelski said it in accented English, perhaps learned for the occasion.

Haugen answered in Polish. "General, I am honored to be your guest."

The premier's eyes, small behind thick lenses, examined Arne Haugen. "I have been told you speak our language, Mr. President." Jaruzelski said this in Polish, and the ambassador's interpreter, forewarned of the president's limitations, translated for him.

"A little," Haugen replied, again in Polish. "Mostly I must depend on Ambassador Tyler's interpreter, Mr. Marovich. I speak rather much Russian, but have only recently begun to learn Polish." He indicated John Zale. "My secretary, Mr. Zale, has been teaching me. We have looked forward to being here."

Jaruzelski's voice was dry. "I will try to be a better host to you than your President Reagan was to me. He refused to see or speak with me when I visited your country. Some of the time he did not even honor us with an ambassador. He made my position more difficult here in dealing with elements who wished to Sovietize us."

As the interpreter repeated the premier's words in English, Ambassador Tyler's expression turned disapproving.

"I am not Ronald Reagan," Haugen replied, in English now. "And while I do not apologize for him, he was poorly advised."

He undertook Polish again: "It is easy to be poorly advised in foreign affairs. So while I always listen to my foreign ministry, I also went secretly for advice to one of your own countrymen. You know him: Karol Wojtyla."

The ambassador's interpreter was startled at the reference to Karol Wojtyla.
The president had talked with the Pope?
He was sure the State Department didn't know about that. Certainly the ambassador didn't.

Ambassador Tyler knew too little Polish to have followed Haugen's words, and sat waiting for someone to speak English.

Haugen's Polish had already included several words that were properly Russian, though they'd been delivered with the Polish stress and accent. He continued now in English.

"Wojtyla appreciates the severe difficulties you contend with, here against the belly of the bear. And also your accomplishments in civil liberties, the further decentralization of government, the continued freedom of farmers from collectivization... All of it. I share his respect for you."

The premier's eyebrows had lifted slightly at the name. "Ah yes," he said. "Karol Wojtyla. He did not trust me at first, and even now I am no favorite of his. But he recognizes our circumstances here, and gives me my due." He smiled a slight wry smile. "And we must understand his problems. It has to be burdensome, being infallible."

Only now did Tyler show dawning awareness that they were talking about the Pope.

Jaruzelski gestured at a chair. "Let us sit. At our ages, standing is harder than walking, and sitting is better than either.

"You are a wonder to the world, you know," Jaruzelski added when they had settled into chairs. "An American dictator!" He watched closely for Haugen's reaction to the word; there was none. "Yet apparently the most democratic of dictators. And the story of your youth spent in the forest: It seems not to be propaganda after all. When I shook your hand I knew it; such a hand could only come from a boyhood with the ax or plow. Early, when the bones are still growing."

The Pope had not prepared the president for this exposure of personality by Jaruzelski; he was reputedly a cold man. Haugen grinned at him. "It's impossible for a political figure in America to sustain a false history," he said. "The newspapers and television would display its falsity for everyone to see. More than two hundred journalists with cameras descended on my home district within two days of my being named president. The cafe keeper in my village made his fortune from them. So many drove through the forest to visit my home farm that the moose and wolves fled into Canada."