The Miernik Dossier (6 page)

18.  I
NTELLIGENCE REPORT FROM THE
A
MERICAN STATION IN
K
HARTOUM.

1. The revolutionary-terrorist organization calling itself the Anointed Liberation Front (ALF) plans to move during June and July from its training ground in the Darfur highlands in western Sudan to a variety of large villages and small cities. Teams of trained men, usually numbering from three to seven, will carry out the assassination of important public figures, disruption of communications, small-scale attacks against police outposts, and exemplary punishment (i.e., torture and assassination) of those who refuse to cooperate with the ALF.

2. The leadership of the ALF consists of two Sudanese of unusually good educational and social background. Both were trained in the USSR in ideology, organization techniques, weapons, demolition, and communications. Of these two, one whom we have code-named
Firecracker
was recruited by us before his departure to the Soviet Union. He has remained our prime source of information about the ALF, although we have penetrated the organization with several other agents of lower rank.

3. Firecracker states that the ALF is well equipped with submachine guns, grenades, explosives, and other small weapons. All weapons are of American or Belgian manufacture. The weapons, together with medical supplies and other materiel, were dropped by parachute into the Darfur region from unmarked DC-3’s painted gray. Six Land Rovers, with false Sudanese registration, were driven across the border from Egypt and through the desert. A number of camels were purchased with funds provided before Firecracker and his companion left Moscow. Total funds currently available to the ALF are estimated by Firecracker at £5,000 (US $14,000).

4. In the six months since the return of the two Sudanese agents from the USSR, approximately one hundred men have been recruited and trained as three-, five-, and seven-man teams. Strict compartmentation of teams has been observed, so that the members of one team do not know the names or faces of those in any other team. The teams follow the Soviet practice of using code names even within the teams or cells, so that members know each other only under
noms de guerre.
Firecracker has been able to furnish us with true names for 61 of those involved.

5. The objective of ALF is to arouse an Arab resistance to the central government. After the terrorist stage, it is expected that this Arab organization will merge with the non-Arab resistance that has been attempting to operate in the South. The ALF theater of operations will be confined to an area north of a line running from El Fasher in the West to Om Ager on the Ethiopian border. This area includes about half the territory of Sudan, and most of the major population centers.

6. ALF, as its name suggests, hopes to pass itself off as a revolutionary religious movement in the Mahdist tradition. At the moment it has attracted no figure of sufficient stature from the Islamic community to serve as its leader. Firecracker reports that the ALF is under heavy pressure from Moscow to recruit such a figure.

7. The information in para. 6 is confirmed by radio messages from Soviet control in Dar es Salaam to ALF. We continue to intercept and decode this radio traffic with the aid of transmission schedules and a code key supplied by Firecracker.

8. We believe that this operation has reached a stage where a decision must be made by Headquarters as to whether we should continue this project strictly as an information-gathering activity, or whether action should be taken to gain control over the ALF with a view to neutralizing it.

19.  R
EPORT BY
C
OLLINS TO A
B
RITISH INTELLIGENCE SERVICE.

Prince Kalash el Khatar stopped by my flat on the evening of 23rd May in order to borrow a sharp knife. (Because of his position in the religious nobility, he is much in demand among Muslims to preside over the ritual slaughter of the goats and sheep that are eaten by Mohammedans at this time. Apparently Ramadan, the annual Muslim fast, has either just ended or is about to commence.)

2. Khatar invited me to accompany him on a trip to his home in the Sudan. His father has bought an air-conditioned Cadillac and has instructed Khatar to see that the car is delivered to him at his palace in western Sudan. This involves driving it from Geneva to Naples, accompanying it aboard ship to Alexandria, and then driving it down the Nile and across the desert to the house of el Khatar. The whole trip would take about a month. Khatar anticipates that we might meet some bandits along the way, and he asked whether I might be able to get my hands on a couple of Sten guns. “We shall only need them in Egypt, where the population is not Arab,” said Khatar. “Once we are across the frontier, you will be quite safe so long as you are with me.” Khatar assures me that he has been schooled since earliest boyhood in desert navigation, so there is little chance that we shall become lost in the trackless waste that lies between Khartoum and his home. “If you become lost in the desert,” he says, “you just go back to where you started and begin the whole trip again. It is quite simple. I will teach you to read the stars, in case we become separated.”

3. Khatar intends to invite Paul Christopher, the American, to accompany him. He believes that Christopher will be able to make repairs on the Cadillac if anything goes wrong with it. Further, he thinks that Christopher must be a good shot and an expert outdoorsman. “Americans are very good with motors and firearms,” Khatar says. (The belief that Christopher is any sort of mechanic is, I think, an illusion. But he may be able to shoot a submachine gun well enough, since he was a parachutist in the American Army.) I have no doubt that Christopher will go along on this journey if it materializes.

4. One other companion is being considered by Khatar. This is Tadeusz Miernik, the Pole. Miernik, as I have reported, is about to lose his passport and perhaps his position at WRO. I mentioned these difficulties to Khatar. He waved them away. “I will tell our Ambassador here to give Miernik a Sudanese passport,” he said. Khatar wishes to take Miernik along because the latter, it appears, has a scholarly interest in Sudanese history and culture. Khatar alleges that Miernik has for some time been writing a book on this subject. “He distracts me with his questions about the look of the country, and what he calls social dynamics,” Khatar said. “I hope to shut him up by letting him see it all with his own eyes.

5. I asked Khatar when he intended to begin the journey. “The car will be ready in June,” he replied. “We can leave as soon after that as we wish. As soon as we have the Sten guns.” Procuring these weapons apparently is going to be my responsibility. I explained that automatic weapons are not easy to come by. “Oh, it’s not so difficult. Half the zealots in Sudan have them,” Khatar replied. I asked why he was so determined to have machine guns. “It is better to have them just now,” he said. “There are madmen in Sudan. Everyone knows that.” I pressed him for further details. “One of the forms of social dynamism in the desert,” said Khatar, “is banditry. Part of the local colour, always has been. And just now there are a lot of silly bastards who think that they’re revolutionaries. The Russians gave them guns and bombs and told them to go and kill people. Naturally, people in Cadillacs are very desirable targets. I rather like the picture of old Miernik hosing down a bunch of black Communists with a Sten gun out of the window of an American limousine. If we turn up the radio and the air conditioner, it will be quite like the telly, won’t it?”

6. Subject to your approval, I agreed to go along on this trip. I should be glad of any assistance you may be able to give in obtaining three or four Sten guns, with ammunition.

20.  R
EPORT BY THE
A
MERICAN CHIEF OF STATION IN
G
ENEVA
(26 M
AY
).

1. Search of the apartment of Tadeusz Miernik has discovered an extensive file of information on Sudan. A card file with more than 700 entries lists important personalities in that country, together with detailed information on tribal matters, transportation system, principal public buildings, power stations, etc.

2. A large number of books in Arabic were found. It is speculated that Miernik reads and/or speaks Arabic, a fact that he has not disclosed to Christopher or, as far as we can determine, to any of his other friends.

21.  D
ISPATCH FROM
W
ASHINGTON TO THE
A
MERICAN STATIONS IN
G
ENEVA AND
K
HARTOUM.

1. Information from a highly sensitive source in Warsaw indicates that a Polish national will be put into Sudan under joint Polish-Soviet control as principal agent advising an indigenous Communist movement.

2. Headquarters believes that the movement in question is the Anointed Liberation Front.

3. Headquarters believes, further, that the Polish national in question may be Tadeusz Miernik. (See Geneva’s reporting, this subject.)

4. We have arranged for the delivery of an automobile in Geneva as a gift to the Amir of Khatar, head of the Bakhent Muslim sect. The Amir has instructed his son, Prince Kalash el Khatar, who resides in Geneva, to accompany the car to Sudan.

5. A trained U.S. agent (Christopher), controlled by Geneva, will accompany Khatar and the automobile.

6. Through the intervention of Christopher, Miernik will be invited to join Prince Kalash on this journey. This arrangement will provide for close surveillance of Miernik by Christopher.

7. After Miernik’s arrival in Sudan, Khartoum should facilitate his contact with the ALF and keep watch on Miernik’s activities through existing assets within this organization.

8. No operation against the ALF will be considered until Miernik is in place and until documentary evidence has been developed by Khartoum that he, as a foreign Communist agent, is controlling the activities of the ALF.

9. When the conditions of para. 8 have been fulfilled, Headquarters will issue further instructions.

22.  F
ROM THE FILES OF
WRO.

To Mr. Miernik

The Director General has decided not to renew your temporary contract when it expires on 30 June.

The Director General has asked me to express his gratitude for the excellent work you have done during the term of your temporary contract, together with his best wishes for the future.

Note for the file

The Director General, on 2 June, informed the Polish Ambassador of his decision to let the temporary contract of T.Miernik lapse. The Director General asked for assurances that the Polish consulate will, if so requested, renew the passport of Mr.Miernik. The Polish Ambassador replied that this was “a routine matter” in which he could not intervene. He added that Mr.Miernik would undoubtedly wish to return to Poland, where employment awaited him, and would therefore have no immediate use for a valid passport. If in future Mr. Miernik wished to travel again, his application for a passport would be treated like that of any other Polish citizen.

23.  R
EPORT BY
C
HRISTOPHER.

Miernik’s distress is complete. His contract with WRO will not be renewed and the Poles will not reissue his passport. He came to my apartment just before midnight yesterday (2 June). I was in bed, reading, when the doorbell rang; it kept ringing until I opened the door. I was not surprised to find Miernik with his finger on the bell. Collins had told me earlier in the day what had happened to him, so I expected that he would turn up to discuss his problem.

Although his clothes are faultless—suit pressed and brushed, shirt clean, vest and coat buttoned, shoes shined—Miernik always manages to look disheveled. His thick body, the huge head set crooked on the shoulders, the big sad face with its strange nose and great hairy ears give him the look of an animal dressed up for a child’s tea party. He was sweating a lot and his breathing was audible, as if he had walked very fast up the fire stains.

Miernik began talking as soon as I opened the door. “I suppose you know the news,” he said. “Nigel informed me this afternoon. He called me into his office and shuffled his papers, which had my fate written across them. ‘My dear Miernik,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid it’s Poland for you. Really, I had to laugh—he seems to think my anxiety is a joke. Your friend Collins has another side you’ve never seen. When he is on duty he is as cold as a fascist. He treated me as a British district officer would treat a native. I asked him—very quietly, very calmly, Paul—if he had any idea what this meant to me. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Really, Miernik,’ he said, ‘you must try not to be so theatrical. The worst that can happen is that you’ll spend a short time in custody, and then you’ll be let out. Things will be back to normal for you in no time at all.’ A short time in custody! Things will be back to normal! His idea of hell is his public school.”

“Did he really call you ‘my dear Miernik’?”

“Of course he did. What else would he call me? When I lost my papers, and therefore my identity as a functionary of WRO, I crossed over into another existence. Nigel’s friend Tadeusz vanishes. Miernik the statistic takes his place. Before my very eyes I became a dossier. I no longer have blood. I become a paper man. I am what Nigel Collins and the other bureaucrats write on my new paper skin:
Take away his passport. Put him in jail. Kill him.”