Harlot's Ghost

by Norman Mailer

  You see, I have real intimations of what I desire. The great ship of this nation is not rudderless, but the compass is skewed. I cannot tell you what a shock the Bay of Pigs has been for those of us in the Agency who merely looked on. If we do not know how to steer a course through history, then who can? We are supposed to serve the President, but most of our Presidents have had an inner light so dim that we have been obliged to take the lead ourselves.

  Now we have a President who is alive, who can recognize error, is human, vain, wise, willing to learn, and with a keen nose for the balance between prudence and risk. It is crucial that he be well informed. He deserves that. He leans—with one-hundredth part of himself, or do I exaggerate?—upon the Montagues. Nonetheless, that one part in one hundred is very much alive. I believe he is as ready to listen to me as to Hugh.

  So I discover that what I learn from Hugh is not enough. I want more. You may speak of this as egregious vanity, but I wish in some most determined part of myself to become my own intelligence center.

  It is madness, you will say. Too inchoate for Little Miss Lava.

  No, I tell you, not so. Half of everyone in the bloody Agency has the same passion and keeps it in the same closet. Few of us dare to admit to it. I do. I want to know what is going on. I want to influence the steering of the ship. Despite my warps and flaws, I feel as capable of fine judgment as my husband, and he is wiser than anyone I know in the Agency or anyone else in this holy swampland, Washington, D.C.

  What, you may ask, can you contribute to our surround of two? Plenty, buddy. I have taken care of that, you see. You were right. Your career was indeed in the doldrums. Hunt failed to come through for you after the Zenith stint. On your performance, he described you as “sporadic in work habits and often distracted.” Perhaps the fault comes down to the time you spent with Modene in bed. You were on the good ship to nowhere.

  All the same, I said to Hugh the other day, “You’ve got to do something for Harry.” He answered, “I don’t know that I want to. He bollixed up BLUEBEARD.” It was the first time he admitted that you were Harry Field.

  I pointed out to Hugh that you had gone reasonably far. Others in such a squalid op might not have attained anything at all, not even the lady’s lips.

  “He didn’t use his position to advantage. He could have gotten so much more. On the other hand, if he was that much in love, then he was singularly lacking in the integrity to tell me to stuff it.” So went Hugh’s judgment.

  Do you know, I think he is secretly fond of you. Hugh approves of almost no one’s work, but you are his godson and he does not forget that. We discussed suitable jobs until he came up with what I think is the right one for you. It is to serve as liaison between Bill Harvey and General Edward Lansdale in the new Cuban op that is now shaping up. I don’t have to underline how super-octane this promises to be. I can tell you in confidence that it is called Operation Mongoose in honor of that ferocious ferret from India renowned for its skill in killing rats and poisonous snakes. MO/NGOOSE, you see. MO refers to the Far East, and most conveniently is a Pentagon digraph rather than one of ours. Helms chose it. He thinks it will confuse the nosy among us. The curious in the Agency will assume it’s something we and the Pentagon are up to in Asia.

  Actually, Mongoose is overseen by Special Group, Augmented, General Maxwell Taylor as Chairman, standing in for Bobby Kennedy. (If you think Jack is agitated about Cuba, I can assure you that Bobby is virulent on the subject, intimately virulent. So there’s lots of push to get a great deal done. The idea is to overthrow Castro by any variety of means.)

  General Lansdale has now been put in charge of Mongoose and, directly under him, representing the Agency contribution (which promises to be nine-tenths of Mongoose), is your old pal Bill Harvey.

  Hugh and I discussed it carefully. This is an out-of-category job. It could prove prestigious or nugatory, and that, Harry, is not entirely up to you. You could be in the lap of the gods. Career advancement so often depends on recognizable career slots—this many years spent at minor Desk A, then abroad to minor Station A (read: Uruguay), then larger Desk, larger Station, und so weiter. You, dear boy, are a little out of category and will probably remain so. Liaison, however, will keep you close to some active people. Lansdale, for example. He is, by all reports, a consummate maverick and has had an army career that is not at all typical. He never went to West Point, nor served in the regular army, merely a reserve commission in ROTC. All through the thirties, he worked in advertising and public relations, and during the war for OSS. (Propaganda, I expect.) After VJ Day, he wangled an assignment to the Philippines as a Major in the Reserve, and began to distinguish himself. I’m sure you must know something of his now legendary career. He was immortalized by Graham Greene (invidiously) in The Quiet American and made much of by Lederer and Burdick in The Ugly American. Fact is, he turned the Philippines inside out and proved most instrumental in defeating the Communist Hukbalahap. Next, he just about managed Ramon Magsaysay’s successful bid for the presidency. Recently, has been very close to Diem in Vietnam. The man has credentials. Maverick, but inspired.

  The immediate problem was how to sell you to Lansdale. Hugh knows him barely—in fact, Hugh plans to get to know him better at dinner tomorrow night. It was Cal did the deal. I prevailed on Hugh to call Cal in spite of their recent chill over Pigs, and your father, who knows Lansdale and has worked well with him in the Far East, certainly came through. Right on the phone from Japan, he gave the following quote to us which is, indeed, the same recommendation he gave to Lansdale, nothing less than, “Harry’s a good young man and getting better all the time. I’m fortunate in being able to call him my son.” Then he added to Hugh, “Don’t tell your godson. It’ll swell his head.”

  Hugh wasn’t about to. I do. For your morale. Which, Harry, you are going to need. The reason Hugh chose Harvey’s Restaurant for your dinner is that you are not only going to be liaison between Lansdale and Harvey, but between Hugh and Harvey. If that doesn’t make you enough of a conjunction, you will also keep nourishing me every step of the way. Just as I am going to keep on feeding you. I know that I am now indulging the worst hubris, but I do believe we are two of the purest spirits in the Agency. Even when it comes to treachery, the CIA still needs purity of intent.

  Aren’t I mad? Listen, love, I know that after Berlin, the thought of working for Harvey can hardly appeal to you, but this I will say: Hugh has some absolute grip on Wild Bill. You need fear nothing there. I’m working on Hugh to find out what it is, but can promise that it’s powerful.

  I do hope you will keep up your end of things now by giving me a full account of the dinner tomorrow night.

  Love, conspiratorial love,

  Kittredge

  6

  Sunday night, Oct. 29

  Dear Kittredge,

  Last night Lansdale spent a small but definite portion of dinner instructing me in how circumspect I must become. “You will be handling material that originates in the National Security Council,” he said, underlining the gravity of the source. Hugh then fixed me with one of those looks that pin you to your own guilt. I, of course, nodded to both of them.

  You are right. I feel an absolute exhilaration at linking up with you. And I will adhere to my part of the bargain (save for an occasional betrayal for prophylactic purposes).

  To business. It was an odd evening. I could see it had pretty much been decided in advance that my job was in place. Lansdale, given his declared affection for my father, was hardly about to join us for dinner in order to declare at the end of the meal, “Sorry, young man, you won’t do.” I will confess I enjoyed myself.

  Part of the interest for me was in how Hugh and Ed Lansdale sized each other up. I suppose Hugh’s GS rating has to be about as high as Brigadier General, which is Lansdale’s rank, so they met in that manner as equals. Though Lansdale has been in OSS, and was CIA, I gather, in Vietnam, he is not at all an Agency man. Not in manner. Indeed, as you warned me, he is sui generis
.

  In any event, your husband and Lansdale looked to get some measure of each other by comparing war stories. Hugh only told one and I wondered at that until I recognized that he was comporting himself as a judge. Let Lansdale be the one to show his wares. For that matter, it was only after Lansdale had narrated four or five good tales that Hugh decided it was time for one of his, and then entertained us with a hilarious if minor episode concerning the Nasser government. It seems Hugh was in Cairo trying to convince Nasser to accept some Agency program, but he couldn’t even obtain an audience with the great man. Hugh, therefore, typed out a detailed memo laying out his project, stamped it TOP SECRET, and left it on the top of his chifferobe. He knew it would be photographed by the security people the moment he stepped out of the hotel. “Next day, Nasser called me in to discuss the matter.”

  Kittredge, do you know, I recollect a dinner guest at the Stable, one tricky gentleman named Miles Copeland, telling the same anecdote. This gave me an insight on Hugh. Since war stories, I am sure he would argue, are an inferior form of discourse, use any one that serves your purpose, and don’t look back. You can even make them up. I think he did not want to blow Lansdale out of the water with any of his real stuff.

  The General is another matter. He delivers each one of his presentations with all the sincerity of an inspired salesman. He’s an odd, tall man, who does not, but for his crew cut, look in the least like an Army general. In his fifties, he is mild, pleasant, soft-spoken, and not bad-looking—a long, straight nose, good dimpled chin, full mustache—but he has hollow eyes. I don’t know quite what I wish to say here. They are not weak eyes, but they do not have any light in them. It’s as if he is inviting you to enter some private hollow. I suppose I wish to say that he is the next thing to a hypnotist and seems to suck you right into the center of his concentration. Yet he is full of contradictions. He has to be sophisticated, but it doesn’t show. He even seems innocent. When it came my turn to produce a war story, I told the tale of Libertad La Lengua and that produced some very high-pitched giggles from Lansdale.

  I would guess that sexual matters are strange to him. He presents himself as sweet, idealistic, and possessed of a puckish sense of humor. Once, on a military tour of the Ryukyu Islands in 1946, surrounded by local children, he instructed them to shout at the Americans who would be following, “My papa is Major Lansdale. Major Lansdale!”

  That story was the opening gun. Next, he showed a more curious side of himself. “I had once,” he said, “early on, to deal with a Luzon official who was a truly corrupt fellow, and when the showdown came, he locked himself in his room and brandished a pistol at the window. I had to establish myself with the local folk, so I called out, ‘Sir, take a shot at me. It will be a pleasure to cut you down.’ Do you know? He surrendered.

  “Afterward, one of my people asked if I was that good a shot. I confessed to him that I did not know anyone who took longer to whip his pistol out of a shoulder holster.”

  “Weren’t you taking a risk with such a confession?” asked Hugh.

  “No, sir. My strategy does not depend on gun handling but on psychological warfare. In our battles with the Hukbalahap we used to maneuver our helicopter into position over them, and assail their ears with a bullhorn. One of my best Filipinos would harangue the poor souls below. The guerrillas knew it was a helicopter, but hell, it was also a voice from above. Since we had good intelligence, we knew the names of some of the Hukbalahap. They were all out of the local barrios, and our people knew their people. My fellow spoke to them with material such as this: ‘We see you hiding down there, Platoon 3. We see you, Commander Miguel, and you as well, José Campos. Yes, we can also see you, Norzagaray Boy, and you, Chichi, and Pedro, and Emilio. Don’t try to hide, Carabao Kid, because we see you, and Cuño, and Baby. We have heard all about you. Believe us, we are coming back to kill you tonight. Our soldiers are approaching. So, to our friends among you, we say, “Run.” To our private ally who told us all your names, we say, “Muchas gracias, amigo.” Now, save yourselves. Escape from this platoon.’

  “Well,” said Lansdale, “after we’d flown off, half of those fellows down there wanted to flee. Of course, the hardcore began to wonder who our friends were, and soon held a kangaroo court. A few platoon members were executed by morning. That bullhorn killed more guerrillas than any mortar.

  “We also trained our best scouts in the Philippine Army to work at night. The Communist boast in the Far East has always been that the Americans can drive along the roads by day, but the Communists own the night. To win the war, we had to appropriate the powers of darkness.

  “I decided to take advantage of the local demons. Anthropology is worth as much as firepower. In one area that we were trying to wrest from the Huks, there was intense belief in a hideous vampire called an asuang. I decided to employ this demon.”

  “Fascinating,” said Hugh.

  “I thought so. We saturated the area with stories that the asuang was stirring. Then, on a given night, one of our crack patrols set themselves up near a trail the Huks were known to use. We did not trigger the ambush until the last man passed. To our good fortune, he was a straggler and my people were able to overpower him, then drag him off the trail. Quick as you could say Jack Robinson, one of my boys spiked two holes in his throat. Then the poor victim was held up by his heels until all his blood drained out. After which, we put him back on the trail. We knew that when the Huks returned to look for their missing fellow, they would find a bloodless specimen with two small holes in his throat. Be certain that the news went around the Huk encampments that the asuang was on the prowl. Defections, as expected, were numerous. The Filipinos believe, you see, that the asuang will only attack those who have enlisted on the wrong side.”

  “How are you going to apply these intense principles to Cuba?” asked Hugh.

  “The real need is to go out in the field and get to know the people you are dealing with. The Bay of Pigs was a classic study in aloofness. Officers sitting at desks reading so-called objective reports. Written by specialists who were as remote from the reality as themselves. You cannot learn the scene at second-hand. Lazy intelligence always calls for more firepower.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Hugh.

  “The key is to take Communist precepts and convert them to our use. The harder the Communists attack some weak point in a country’s social fabric, the more honest we have to be in strengthening that weak point. It’s what I’ve been trying to get across to Diem and Nhu in Vietnam. Work with the people. Let them run the show. Policymakers in the military are too much in love with brute force. The only real defense against Communism is ‘of the people, by the people, for the people.’”

  Hugh, by now, had lit his first cigar. “Yes,” he said, “it’s apparent to me, Ed Lansdale. Your heart is in the Far East, not the Caribbean.”

  “So it is.”

  “May I ask why you agreed to take on this job?”

  “Well, sir, you don’t argue with the President of the United States. He did ask me.”

  “One can’t say no at such times,” agreed Hugh. “I do, however, foresee a problem.”

  “I’m here to listen,” said Lansdale.

  “The problem, as I see it, is that you are placed between Bobby Kennedy and William Harvey. Both, you will soon discover, are eager for results.”

  “No more than I am,” said Lansdale.

  “Yes. But your method, as I comprehend it, is to develop rapport with the people. In this case, the Cuban people. Unfortunately, they are not going to be as available to you as the Filipinos, nor the Vietnamese. You will not be stationed among them. You will not be free to mingle with the denizens of Sancti Spíritus, or Matanzas, or Santiago de Cuba, or Cienfuegos, or, for that matter, Havana. You will be restricted to a corps of Miami exiles who have already failed because of their specific vices.”

  “Which are?”

  “Unbridled license. To a Cuban, a valuable secret is a flag to dazzle his friends, or to wa
ve in the face of his enemy.”

  “We encountered something of the sort in the Philippines.”

  “You were on the ground there. The first move belonged to you. Your troops could travel faster than your secrets be exposed. Now you need time to build an underground.”

  “Yes. I want it to be composed of Cubans fighting for their principles rather than for ours. I plan to zero in on those exiles who were against Batista and originally for Castro. We will work with them within Cuba, and select our points of attack most carefully, so as not to bring down unholy reprisals on the locals.”

  “Do you believe you will have that luxury? Two months ago, our redoubtable young Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, openly scourged Richard Bissell in the Cabinet Room at the White House. Bissell is a man of some dignity and twice Bobby’s size, ‘but,’ said Bobby to Bissell, ‘you are sitting on your ass.’”

  “Now Mr. Bissell is on his way out,” said Lansdale.

  “Certainly is. Dick Helms is in. Smaller, meaner, and much more to the point.”

  “I don’t know if I follow you,” said Lansdale.

  “You claim anthropology is more useful than firepower. Admire the metaphor, but take warning: There is not much anthropology left to Cuba. The original natives were wiped out three centuries ago. Then came the slave ships. Cuba’s culture, you may find, is equal to its economy: uprooted Spaniards and ex-slaves, sugar, rum, coffee, tobacco, rumbas, mambos, tourists, sex shows, and santería.”

  “I,” said Lansdale, “might add two words. Sin, and Catholicism. Both—may I underline this?—are highly motivational. When you are short on anthropology, try motivational research.”

  “I know you are thinking of more than an advertising campaign to rid Cuba of Mr. Castro.”

  “Yes, sir, I plan to get in a little deeper than that. The Vietnamese have a beautiful axiom. ‘No man,’ they say, ‘can govern a nation without the mandate of heaven.’ So, in Cuba, we’ll try to take away the mandate.”