by Jack Barsky
I had done it. I had overcome all obstacles, and now I was holding the prize. The Center would be proud that I’d succeeded. This birth certificate unlocked the first step to my new identity.
I opened the envelope and pulled out the enclosed document. As I scanned the authentic, signed, and sealed birth certificate for Henry van Randall, every muscle in my body went tense, and my elation turned almost instantly to despair. Stamped across the page in big red letters was a single word that changed everything: DECEASED.
I felt like a lottery winner whose winning numbers turned out to be from the week before. After absorbing the initial shock, I stashed the document away and went for a long walk to clear my head. As I pounded the pavement, block after block, I thought about my phone call to California, the weeks of waiting, and the brief moment of satisfaction when I thought I had succeeded. I hadn’t failed at anything in a very long time, but this was a clear failure, regardless of whose fault it was.
Soon, other thoughts came to mind. If a dead person requested a copy of his birth certificate, something shady was going on. Had the authorities in California notified law enforcement? Were they already on my tail? The Center had to be informed immediately. My existence in Canada had possibly been compromised.
I returned to my room, locked the door, and prepared to create a letter in secret writing.
First, I removed a mirror from the wall and cleaned it thoroughly with soap and water. I then awkwardly pulled out a piece of white paper from a regular writing pad so as not to leave any fingerprints on the sheet.
Setting the sheet of paper onto the mirror, I smoothed it out several times with the back of my hand to remove any impurities from the surface. I then proceeded to write an open text with a ballpoint pen. This text consisted of innocent banalities, as if I were writing to a friend. I always made a point of including a phrase such as “thank you for your recent letter” to make it appear that there was two-way communication.
Once that was done, I pulled out another sheet of paper and cleaned it on the mirror in a similar fashion. Now came the key component—a sheet of paper from a pad given to me by the Center. The first five pages were impregnated with a chemical that could be developed to make the secret writing visible. I placed that sheet between the blank sheet and the sheet with the open text.
Pulling out a No. 2 pencil, I wrote the message with even pressure, explaining my circumstances. I then placed the sheet with the open text and the secret writing in an ordinary envelope and sealed it using a moist rag to avoid leaving any trace of my saliva on the flap.
When I was done, I folded the piece of paper with the pencil writing on it, stood it up on the mirror, lit it with a match, and let it burn freely, a method I’d been taught to minimize smoke.
After completing the letter, I took to the streets for a three-hour surveillance-detection exercise. Once I was certain that no one was following me, I deposited the letter in a mailbox near the fake return address. Fake return addresses were typically large apartment buildings. If such a letter were ever returned, it would very likely just disappear.
By the time I returned to the apartment, every muscle in my body ached, and I dropped into bed without changing my clothes. The entire operation, from the time I opened the birth certificate to writing and delivering the letter, had taken six hours.
I needed sleep, but then again I had to get out of the hotel and Montreal as soon as possible. If law enforcement was chasing after me, getting out of town would be the best way of losing them.
The next morning, I packed up and left for Sarnia and then to Windsor, without any good-byes to the Belgian couple who managed the hotel. When my prepaid time expired, they would find I was already gone.
My failure to obtain a valid birth certificate weighed heavily on me. When had I last failed at any goal or objective? I couldn’t remember. It dragged me down and soured my mood. I was more disappointed about not achieving my objective than I was afraid of being tracked down.
I desperately wanted to return to Moscow with a success story, so I decided to test my ability to pass myself off as an American.
On my last night in Windsor, I headed downstairs to the bar at the Holiday Inn where I was staying. Having mentally prepared throughout the day to “be American,” I sat down at the bar and ordered a drink with confidence and a touch of joviality. Soon I struck up a conversation with a Canadian citizen, the captain of a small commercial ship that carried freight across Lake Erie. We talked for more than an hour, and in my mind, phrases such as “I tell you what, the trip across the river is always worth it. Your beer is much better than ours” could only come from an American who hailed from Detroit or somewhere just across the border.
The conversation didn’t seem to raise any doubts with the Canadian captain, and as I headed back to my room, I declared the experiment a success and believed the Center would as well.
With that final exercise behind me, I got ready for my return trip to Moscow via Montreal and Geneva.
MY DEBRIEFING THE DAY AFTER MY ARRIVAL in Moscow began with the failed birth certificate operation. Just to prove to my bosses that I was telling the unvarnished truth, I handed over the useless van Randall document.
Alex and Sergej both showed their disappointment, but at the same time they agreed that I was not at fault in this matter. When I told them about my success in impersonating an American, they cheered up considerably.
“Let’s lie low for a while until we have a plan for your deployment,” Alex advised. “We’d like for you to go back to Berlin, get in touch with Nikolai, and wait for instructions from the Center.”
My old apartment on the Eitelstraße had been kept empty, so I moved right back into familiar surroundings, but the thick layer of dust that had settled on the furniture during my absence was a visible confirmation of something I had told Sergej a year before: I did not have a home anymore. Eitelstraße was a place to sleep until somebody in Moscow decided where to send me next.
Late one morning, about a week after I had settled back into my solitary life, there came a knock on the door. Very few people knew my address, and only the KGB knew I had returned to Berlin, so who could it possibly be? I jumped up from the sofa and turned off the television, which was playing—what else?—Sesamstraße.
When I opened the door, my heart stood still.
There was Gerlinde, in all her sparkling blonde-haired, blue-eyed glory.
“Do you still love me?” she said.
Instinctively, I gave her the only answer possible in that situation. “Yes.”
I swept her inside the apartment and we hugged and kissed without concern for the implications of that six-word exchange.
Later, as we were talking about everything and nothing, Gerlinde surprised me.
“You didn’t go to Moscow, did you?”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. “What makes you say that?”
“Well,” she answered with a knowing smile, “you always carried English books and papers with you, never Russian.”
That forced my hand.
“Listen, I did go to Moscow, but I never worked at the embassy. I can’t tell you much more, but perhaps I’ll be able to soon. “
Gerlinde looked me straight in the eye and said with unquestionable sincerity, “I sensed that you were involved in something top secret, but I didn’t have the courage to bring it up. After you left, I tried to put you out of my mind. I dated other men. I wanted to pretend that you never existed. I have no idea what made me come here today after almost two years, but what I do know is that you’re the only one for me. I will do whatever it takes to keep you. If necessary, I will wait, and I will wait for you a long time. Just don’t leave me like that again.”
My eyes teared up and I resolved to discuss the situation with Nikolai at the next opportunity.
That opportunity came two days later, when Nikolai came to the apartment to tell me that the Center had decided that I should study Portuguese and learn as much about Brazil as
possible. It wasn’t clear whether Brazil was my new target country or an intermediate stop on my way to the United States, but at that moment it didn’t matter. Brazil was a fascinating country and a great second choice.
When the official briefing concluded, I asked Nikolai to stay for another minute.
“Listen,” I said with great trepidation, remembering his reaction to the Gabriele episode. “I have a confession to make.”
Nikolai looked at me impassively, and his eyes seemed to harden.
“I had a girlfriend two years ago. I never told her anything about what I was doing, and I broke up with her before I went to Moscow. Two days ago, she showed up at my apartment out of the blue. Nikolai, I really love this woman. Is there any way she can be part of my life?”
Given our history, I was prepared for the worst, but Nikolai did not react with anger. Instead, he seemed to think for a moment and then said in a matter-of-fact tone, “I will discuss this with our comrades at the Center.”
His response made two things clear to me: Nikolai was not the decision maker, and after four years of training I was now a valuable asset to the KGB rather than an unproven rookie. This made me hopeful that we could work something out.
Two weeks later, Nikolai came to our meeting with an answer from Moscow.
“Albrecht, we ran a background check on your girlfriend. She is cleared, and you may continue your relationship with her. There are several alternatives under consideration. If she qualifies, she may eventually be able to join you in the West. If not, we might arrange periodic visits—either here or in a third country—to keep the relationship alive.”
I was ecstatic. I was going to have my cake and eat it too! I could proceed with the mission I had spent the last four years preparing for and have a lasting relationship with the woman I loved. I could not wait to share the good news with Gerlinde.
The next time I saw her, I gave her a lot more information about my situation.
“Would you have a problem if I told you that I work for the Soviet Union?” I asked.
“Not at all,” she said. “I would even move there with you, if necessary.”
“That is probably not going to happen,” I explained. “Up until a month ago, I was pointed toward the United States, but things have changed. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but that’s the reason I was carrying English books with me all the time.”
And then I couldn’t contain myself any longer; I had to show her. I started saying a few phrases in my best American English, and Gerlinde’s jaw dropped.
“My goodness,” she said when she had regained her composure. “What else can you do that I don’t know about?”
I left that question unanswered. I had to be careful not to tell her too much about my unusual profession.
My schedule over the next few months was light. Other than the Portuguese lessons and maintaining my technical skills, there wasn’t much to do. Had it not been for Gerlinde, I easily could have slipped into depression. After all, I was twenty-eight years old and had accomplished essentially nothing. All I had done up to that point was study and train. If I had stayed at the university, I would’ve had my doctorate by now and would be sharing my knowledge of the wondrous world of chemicals with a new batch of students. I hinted at my growing impatience during conversations with Nikolai, who seemed to understand that I was eager for action.
In May 1978, the Center finally made the all-important decision. Nikolai informed me that Brazil was now out of the picture, and direct infiltration into the US was the plan of action. A month earlier, a resident agent had discovered the tombstone of a boy who had died just shy of his eleventh birthday and was buried at Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Adelphi, Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington, DC. According to the inscription, the deceased—Jack Barsky—was born on November 13, 1944, and passed away on September 7, 1955.
Armed with this information, the agent had obtained a death certificate, which he then used to request a certified copy of Jack Barsky’s birth certificate, posing as the boy’s father. That document was now stored at KGB headquarters in Moscow and designated for use by one Albrecht Dittrich.
IN JUNE, I LEFT FOR MOSCOW to do some final preparatory work for the launch. The focus was to create the cover story for Jack Barsky, whose identity I was about to assume.
So, how does one reconstruct the life story of a person who died when he was ten? Alex came to the apartment and we went to work. My “legend” was created piece by piece and with a lot of imagination.
“This is what we have so far from our friends who have been busy in Washington, DC, and New York City,” Alex said as he pulled a thick binder from a briefcase he had brought with him.
Resident agents in the US had collected all kinds of information, like pieces of a puzzle that I would eventually put together. They located and took pictures of “way stations” for the fictional Jack Barsky—places he could have been during his life, such as an apartment building on the Upper West Side of New York City, and an elementary, middle, and high school. They suggested a factory where I could have worked—made all the more useful by the fact that it had since been torn down and no longer existed. As the final piece to the puzzle, they suggested the name of a farm in upstate New York where I could have worked for several years before reappearing in New York City.
It was now up to my imagination to weave a story around those basics.
“Let’s simplify things and kill off my father,” I suggested.
“What age?”
“When I was an infant. That way, I won’t have to make up any memories.”
“Good,” Alex said, jotting down notes.
I leaned back against the wooden chair and continued with the story of my life as Jack Barsky. After my father’s death, I was raised by my mother, with whom I had a very close relationship. She had been born and raised in Germany—conveniently, the real Mrs. Barsky’s maiden name was Schwartz—so we spoke a lot of German around the house as I grew up.
“Excellent,” Alex said, writing furiously to keep up with the tale I was spinning. “That will serve well as an explanation for any residual accent.”
For childhood and school memories, I used many of my real experiences, as long as they seemed generic enough to translate across the Atlantic. I focused on a number of key friends and gave them Americanized names—Ronald for Reiner, Gary for Günter, and so on. I even took Rosi with me.
Since I did not have a valid high school diploma, and the unbreakable rule of my legalization was that we would use only authentic documents, it was necessary for me to have dropped out of high school. The immediate trigger for my dropping out was the death of my mother in a car accident during my senior year—a huge loss that sent me into a depressive tailspin from which it took years for me to recover. Her “death” also eliminated the need for any more memories or details about her. Eventually, I found a job at George Lueders and Company, a chemical firm that produced artificial flavorings. But when that company closed its doors, I decided to drop out of society altogether and went to work at the Miller dairy farm in New Berlin in upstate New York.
Four years later, with my mental and physical health restored, I was giving life another try and was about to resurface in Manhattan to start over.
I knew there would never be a situation in which I would have to reel off this much detail about my fake past, but the legend fulfilled its main purpose, which was to provide me with a psychological safety net. With time I would create a real history for myself in the US, reducing the importance of the legend as I would be able to divert attention from my early years by replacing old fiction with new facts.
“We got it,” Alex said after hours of working on what we thought was a masterpiece of deception.
“Now I just have to cement this into my mind,” I said.
“That’s correct.” Alex rose from the table, packed up his briefcase, and put his orange leather coat over his shoulder before departing into the night.
With
the reconstructed Jack Barsky in place, it was time to say good-bye to Gerlinde. This time, however, it would be in grand style.
The KGB flew Gerlinde to the city of Leningrad (now called St. Petersburg), and Sergej and I traveled by train from Moscow to meet her.
The hotel where we would stay was of prerevolutionary architecture and was one of the gems of the historic town center. Our room and other accommodations were outright luxurious. Sergej and I noticed many Western tourists around the hotel, and he warned me to keep a low profile and not to meet any of them.
Sergej served as our personal tour guide and interpreter, and he had a way of opening doors that would remain shut to foreign tourists and most Russians. We toured the awe-inspiring Winter Palace, the equally impressive Hermitage, and various other historic buildings in the downtown area. We also paid a visit to the Monument of the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad on Victory Square, a massive memorial to the more than one million victims of the two-and-a-half-year siege of the city by Hitler’s army during World War II. Being at this site reminded me of the importance of my work and the vow I’d made long ago in Buchenwald. Hitler’s fascism was gone, but the world would not find peace without Communism.
Our loaded agenda included other highlights, such as a performance of the world-class Leningrad Ballet. I looked at Gerlinde’s face as she watched the performance in wonder, and for the briefest of moments I wondered how we would do apart from each other for such long periods of time.
When it was time for our last good-bye, Sergej and I took Gerlinde to the airport, and he discreetly left us alone for a few minutes before she departed. This time our good-byes were bittersweet—not just bitter as they had been three years before. I promised that we would meet again in two years’ time.
Back in Moscow, the preparations became more intense. I memorized the six-page legend down to the last detail and committed to memory the critically important, and very detailed, communication plan. This complex plan included radio frequencies and times of transmission, two addresses for sending secret letters, an initial dead-drop site in New York City, meeting spots in various cities en route to the US, signal spots, and instructions about the shape and meaning of the graphic signals to be placed in those locations.