by George Crile
The well-kept jogging trails were still empty. They would be filling up in another two hours, once the lunch break began. None of this was any longer novel for the Texan, but he still marveled at this center of tranquillity where America plots so much of its espionage abroad. The CIA headquarters building is a somber cement structure that some still call modern even though it was opened just after the Bay of Pigs disaster. The bus slowed down at the entrance, then continued a hundred feet beyond to an oddly shaped, smaller building known to Agency insiders as “the Bubble.”
Waiting in front was the new director of Central Intelligence, Jim Woolsey, and next to him, the Near East division chief, Frank Anderson. The congressman was late. He tried to apologize, but Anderson, a man of about fifty who bore a rather strong resemblance to Clark Kent, said, “No sweat.”
With that they led Wilson into the Bubble, where close to a hundred people were already seated—men and women conservatively dressed in suits and dresses, uniformly white and middle class. Somehow, all at once, they sensed the arrival of Wilson with the director by his side. Without any apparent signal, these earnest men and women rose to their feet and a hush suddenly overcame the auditorium.
It was a strange sensation for the congressman, who had first come to the attention of this institution eleven years before as a virtual public outlaw—a seemingly corrupt, cocaine-snorting, scandal-prone womanizer who, the CIA was convinced, could only get the Agency into terrible trouble if it permitted him to become involved in any way in its operations. But now the director himself was leading this civilian into the Bubble and everyone was standing in silence, as if a holy man were passing.
The oddness of this moment is hard to exaggerate. America had just won the Cold War, a triumph every bit as significant as the victory over Nazi Germany, yet there had been no V-Day celebrations, no ticker-tape parades, no Douglas MacArthur to publicly celebrate. Life in the capital seemed to roll on as if there never had been a Cold War. At this moment, Charlie Wilson, of all people, was about to be honored as the architect of a great American triumph.
On a large screen on the auditorium’s stage was a quotation—all that was necessary to explain why they were all there:
“Charlie Did It”
—President Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan, explaining the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan
The director quickly came to the point. “The defeat and breakup of the Soviet empire is one of the great events of world history. There were many heroes in this battle, but to Charlie Wilson must go a special recognition.” Woolsey compared Wilson’s role to that of Lech Walesa climbing over the fence at Gdansk to launch the Solidarity movement. He described how invincible the Soviets had appeared to be just thirteen years before and how Wilson had engineered one of the lethal body blows that had wrecked the Communist empire. Without him, Woolsey concluded, “History might have been hugely different and sadly different.”
Sitting in the third row of the audience, a man in his fifties with thick glasses and a bushy mustache chewed gum manically, as if he were about to explode. Twenty-five years of clandestine service had accustomed him to looking beneath the surface of events. Wheels within wheels moved in his brain as he thought of the incredible irony of this ceremony. He hadn’t been back to the Agency for three years, but one thing was certain: the men currently running the CIA weren’t about to tip their hat to the role he had played with Wilson in turning a timid, uncertain operation into the biggest, meanest, and far and away most successful CIA campaign in history. The truth was, Gust Avrakotos was the only person in the room who understood how it had all happened, how he had broken the rules to make it happen, and how easy it would have been, if he had let the bureaucrats have their way, for things to have gone very, very differently. The gray man, so used to operating in the shadows, recognized that once again he would have to sit back and let Charlie take the honors for both of them.
The screen with the “Charlie Did It” slide on it was now being lowered into the stage floor as Frank Anderson took command of the proceedings. “To say that this is an unusual moment would be to underplay how unique it really is.”
The Near East Division had been Anderson’s home ever since he had been recruited out of the University of Illinois and joined the Agency’s Clandestine Services. Now he was responsible for all American espionage activities from Morocco to Bangladesh. It was his great good fortune to have been in charge of the South Asia task force in the final years when his men, funneling billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the mujahideen, had chased the Red Army, tail between its legs, out of Afghanistan. Then, promoted to division chief, Anderson had watched the mystical process unfold as the entire Soviet bloc disintegrated, until an exhausted and helpless foe stood vanquished before America’s secret warriors.
Anderson explained that he and the CIA were about to do something that had never been done for a civilian nonmember of the Agency. They were about to anoint Charlie Wilson as one of their own. “This moment is about elitism. Within the Clandestine Services we are a self-proclaimed elite unit called the Near East Division. It is an organization whose greatest weakness is hubris. One of the things about elites is that they only care about the approbation of the members of their own elites. So within the division we created an Honored Colleague award, something never before presented to anyone outside the service.”
Perhaps no one but the handpicked officers of the Near East Division could fully understand how unusual it was to grant this recognition to an outsider, especially to a member of Congress. Any wariness and hostility that Congress seems to harbor for the CIA is more than reciprocated by the spies who suffer the politicians’ scrutiny and endless criticism. But for some reason this man was different. “We really do feel that you are a member of our community,” Anderson said with the look of a man who knew he was about to give out the most precious of all gifts. “So if you would, stand with me, Charlie, and be our Honored Colleague.”
There were no television cameras present. No newspaper articles the following day would register the event. But curiously, even if the CIA had decided that day that it was appropriate to tell the real story of the CIA’s Afghan war and how “Charlie did it,” no one there would have been able to explain how it all began.
This book is the story of the biggest and most successful CIA campaign in history. It’s the story of how the United States turned the tables on the Soviet Union and did to them in Afghanistan what they had done to the U.S. in Vietnam. The operation certainly contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union; how critical a role it played is still being debated. But without doubt the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Red Army’s defeat at the hands of the CIA-backed Afghan rebels was a world-changing event. And what makes it all the more unusual is that at the heart of this drama is the story of two men, Charlie Wilson and Gust Avrakotos, and what they did in the shadows of the U.S. undergovernment.
This is the story inside the classified story. The version of events that Frank Anderson or the director of Central Intelligence would be capable of telling about the Afghan operation, were they so inclined, would only be a part of the real history. There is a peculiar phenomenon at the CIA that makes it almost impossible for anyone to have a complete picture of a covert operation that unfolds over a number of years.
To begin with, information is shared only on a need-to-know basis. That means that an officer in the European Division would have little, if any, idea what his CIA counterparts in Africa or Asia were doing. The men running the Contra war wouldn’t have any way of knowing operational details of what was happening in Afghanistan. To further compromise any individual’s field of knowledge, it is the institution’s practice to freeze officers out of the information pool once they leave their assignment. That means the station chief who ran the Afghan war in 1981 will know next to nothing about what his successors did in 1984 and 1985.
Finally, there is the very human fact that the most interesting events are rarely put down on paper. Cert
ainly that is the case with the conspiracy that Charlie Wilson and his CIA friend Gust Avrakotos engaged in during the mid-1980s to maneuver the United States into an all-out war against the Red Army in Afghanistan.
The word conspiracy is used with caution here. It means “an agreement to perform together an illegal, treacherous, or evil act.” Neither Congressman Wilson nor the CIA’s Avrakotos considered their efforts to be evil or treacherous. By their lights they were doing God’s work as true patriots: moving a nation to fulfill its proper destiny. As to the illegal aspects, both acknowledge with pride that they joyfully broke the rules with abandon to achieve their daring goals.
The CIA’s war in Afghanistan is, of course, a huge historical event featuring many players in prominent roles. But responsibility for transforming the American side of it into what became the biggest CIA operation ever belongs to these two highly flawed and perhaps heroic characters.
It can be said with absolute certainty that no one who knew or met these two men at the time the Soviets invaded and occupied Afghanistan could have imagined the circumstances that would cause anyone to give them responsibility for the most sensitive and highest risk of American covert policies. But no one ever gave them this commission. They seized it and this is the story of how they did it.
It needs to be underscored that this is a true story. It’s purely by coincidence that, as in any good spy novel, we happen to come upon the leading man in the beginning of this account surrounded by beautiful women.
CHAPTER 1
Liz Wickersham and Charlie Wilson
A HOT TUB IN LAS VEGAS
When Congressman Charlie Wilson set off for a weekend in Las Vegas on June 27, 1980, there was no confusion in his mind about why he had chosen to stay at Caesars Palace. He was a man in search of pure decadent pleasure, and the moment he walked into the hotel and saw the way the receptionists were dressed, he knew he had come to the right place. No doubt there were other members of the Ninety-sixth Congress who fantasized about orgies and altered states. But had any of them chosen to take the kind of plunge that Charlie Wilson had in mind, you can be sure they would have gone to some trouble to maintain a low profile, if not don a disguise.
Instead Charlie strode into the lobby of Caesars almost as if he were trying to imitate his childhood hero, Douglas MacArthur, majestically stalking ashore to take back the Philippines. He looked in no way ashamed or uncertain about what he was doing in this center of gambling and entertainment.
In truth, it wouldn’t have been easy for Wilson to fade into any background. Six foot seven in his cowboy boots, he was handsome, with one of those classic outdoor faces that tobacco companies bet millions on. And he just didn’t have the heart or the temperament to operate in the shadows; he felt like a soldier out of uniform when he wasn’t wearing his trademark bright suspenders and boldly striped shirts with their custom-designed military epaulets.
Moreover, Wilson had never been able to shake the politician’s impulse to take center stage. He covered ground rapidly, shoulders back, square jaw jutting forward. There were no volume controls on his voice as he boomed out greetings with astonishing clarity—and people in the Caesars lobby turned to see who was making such a stir. He looked like a millionaire, but the truth was, after eight years in the Texas legislature and almost as many in the House, he had nothing to show for his efforts but debt and a $70,000-a-year government salary that didn’t come near to supporting his lifestyle.
Along the way, however, Wilson had discovered that he didn’t need money of his own to lead a big, glamorous life. The rules governing Congress were far looser in those days, and he’d become a master at getting others to pick up the tab: junkets to exotic foreign lands at government expense, campaign chests that could be tapped to underwrite all manner of entertainments, and, of course, the boundless generosity of friendly lobbyists, quick to provide the best seats at his favorite Broadway musicals, dinners at the finest Parisian restaurants, and romantic late-night boat parties on the Potomac.
All of which explains how the tall, charismatic congressman with the blazing eyes and the ever-present smile had grown accustomed to moving about the world with a certain flair. And so as he arrived in Las Vegas, he was observing his hard-and-fast rule that whenever he traveled, he went first class and tipped lavishly. The bellhops and receptionists at Caesars loved this, of course, and Wilson, in turn, appreciated their outfits: little white goddess robes showing lots of cleavage for the girls, and Roman togas and sandals for the bellhops.
In all of Vegas, there was no place like Caesars Palace in 1980. It was the first of the great hotel emporiums to be inspired by the fall of a civilization. Its promoters had had the genius to recognize that the sins of Rome could seem far more enticing than any contemporary offering; and as the young Roman in the toga whipped out the gleaming, two-inch-thick golden key to the Fantasy Suite, he opened a door designed to lead even the most pious of visitors straight to hell.
Charles Nesbitt Wilson comes from a part of the country very familiar with Satan. The Second Congressional District lies in the heart of the Bible Belt, and it may well be that Wilson’s Baptist and Pentecostal constituents spend more time worrying about sin and wrestling with the Devil than just about any other group of Americans. JESUS IS THE LORD OF LUFKIN reads the huge sign in the center of the district’s biggest city where Wilson maintained a house, on Crooked Creek Road.
The congressman did at least have one dim justification for being in Las Vegas that weekend. He could say he was there to help a constituent: the striking twenty-three-year-old Liz Wickersham, former Miss Georgia, fourth runner-up in the Miss America contest, soon-to-be Playboy cover girl, and, later, host of a CNN talk show that an admirer, Ted Turner, would create specifically for her. The free-spirited Wickersham was the daughter of one of Wilson’s main fund-raisers, Charlie Wickersham, who owned the Ford-Lincoln dealership in Orange, Texas, where Wilson always got special deals on his huge secondhand Lincolns. When Liz moved to Washington, her father asked Wilson to show her around, which he did with great enthusiasm. He even took her to the White House, where he introduced her to Jimmy Carter, proudly informing him that Liz Wickersham had won the Miss Georgia beauty contest the very year Carter had been elected president. There was never any question that Wilson would go all out to promote the career of his friend and fund-raiser’s attractive young daughter. Now, in Vegas, he was doing just that—orchestrating an introduction to a producer who was casting for a soap opera.
A few months earlier, a young hustler named Paul Brown had approached him about helping to develop a Dallas-type TV series based on the real political goings-on in the nation’s capital. It wasn’t long before Brown had convinced Wilson to invest most of his savings—$29,000 and to sign on as the show’s consultant. The reason for the Las Vegas weekend was to meet a big-time Hollywood producer who, Brown claimed, was eager to back the project.
It was a giddy moment for Wilson and Liz as they sat in the Fantasy Suite talking about a deal that was all but iced. Brown had already persuaded Caesars to comp the congressman’s stay, and now he was making Charlie and Liz feel like they were the toasts of the town. He had brought up some pretty showgirls, and before long the whole party was acting as if they were part of a big-time Hollywood mogul’s entourage, knocking back champagne as they congratulated one another on the deal that was about to be signed and the role that Liz was about to land.
Two years later, teams of investigators and federal prosecutors would spend weeks trying to reconstruct exactly what the congressman did that night after Paul Brown and the other hangers-on left the Fantasy Suite. It almost landed Wilson in jail. And given the very high wire he later had to walk to avoid indictment, it’s quite astonishing to hear the way he cheerfully describes those moments in the hot tub that the investigators were never quite able to document. No matter how much hellish trouble it later caused him, the congressman leaves the unmistakable impression that he relished every single moment of his outrageous
escapade.
“It was an enormous Jacuzzi,” he recalled. “I was in a robe at first because, after all, I was a congressman. And then everyone disappeared except for two beautiful, long-legged showgirls with high heels. They were a bit drunk and flirtatious and they walked right into the water with their high heels on…. The girls had cocaine and the music was loud—Sinatra, ‘My Kind of Town.’ We all mellowed out, saying outrageous things to each other. It was total happiness. And both of them had ten long, red fingernails with an endless supply of beautiful white powder. It was just tremendous fun—better than anything you’ve ever seen in the movies.”
As Wilson later framed the episode that almost brought him down, “the Feds spent a million bucks trying to figure out whether, when those fingernails passed under my nose, did I inhale or exhale—and I ain’t telling.”
Other middle-aged men have brought young women to the Fantasy Suite for activities not unlike Wilson’s. But ordinarily there is something a bit desperate and tawdry about such aging pleasure seekers. It’s unlikely that any of them would be able to talk about their debauchery in such a way that it would sound almost fresh and innocent. Charlie Wilson, however, had a genius for getting people to judge him not as a middle-aged scoundrel but instead as if he were a good-hearted adolescent, guilty of little more than youthful excess.
This survival skill permitted him to routinely do things that no one else in Congress could have gotten away with. One of the first to marvel at this unique capacity to openly flaunt the rules was the young Diane Sawyer, who met Wilson in 1980 when she was just beginning her career as a network correspondent. “He was just untamed,” she recalled, “tall and gangly and wild—like a kid before they discovered Ritalin. He had this ungoverned enthusiasm, and it extended to women and the world.”