by George Crile
Avrakotos is an extreme type-A personality. He can’t bear to be trapped in traffic and actually drives on sidewalks to circumvent traffic jams. But that’s not possible in Cairo, a city so overcrowded that an estimated two million people sleep in cemeteries. Stopped in hopeless gridlock, he cursed Wilson and the fates for causing him to be stuck in a seamy hotel all the way across town.
By the time he arrived at Charlie’s door he was sweaty and stressed, which made Wilson’s appearance even more startling. The congressman acted as if he were on the second week of a Riviera holiday. Gust reacalls, “Charlie was in an open white shirt. Next to him was Trish in a white jumpsuit and I said to myself, ‘Motherfucker, look at this piece of ass.’ Some women can wear panties that show through their clothes in a way that drives you crazy. This one brought out the Greek in me and Charlie, of course, knew it.”
A more unsettling sight for Avrakotos was Denis Neill, a lobbyist for the Egyptian Defense Ministry, standing behind Trish. It was more than Gust could believe. Neill might have been Wilson’s good friend, but it was hard not to conclude that he was walking into a corrupt bit of wheeling and dealing. How was he going to explain the presence of this particular American lobbyist, who seemed to be traveling with Wilson, to his three already suspicious colleagues?
Gust tried to be diplomatic, explaining that there were rules he had to follow and he could not talk business with Neill in the room. When Charlie asked if Trish could stay, Gust responded, “I don’t mind. I’ll stare at her all night. But I won’t be able to talk very much.” So Neill was dismissed and Trish sent into the adjoining bedroom, where she immediately put her ear to the door.
Once they were alone, Charlie told Gust that he had dined with the field marshal the night before and that everything was set up for the CIA’s purchases. At that dinner, Mohammed and Charlie had placed rival fifths of Cutty Sark in front of each other and begun swapping jokes and matching drinks. It was a particularly exquisite exchange because the two had delightful business to transact. There was money to be made for Egypt but, more important, a noble crusade to save the Afghans. To every weapon Charlie reported the Agency was seeking, Mohammed responded, “No problem. We have exactly what you want.” As Wilson recalls the dinner, “After the first fifth of Scotch I started telling Mohammed what we were going to do for him: we were going to save the Egyptian economy, modernize their ammunition factories, and together destroy the godless Communists.”
Charlie Wilson’s amazingly intimate relationship with Abu Ghazala was another remarkable coincidence that seemed to shape the buildup of the Afghan war. As defense minister, Abu Ghazala was one of America’s most important partisans in the Middle East, decidedly pro–United States, and, above all, not fundamentalist. In an economy and society so overloaded with corruption and bureaucracy that nothing worked, he had managed to create a separate world for the military—their own schools and housing, even their own farms. In its own way, Abu Ghazala’s army, with its opportunity for advancement based on merit, was far more democratic than any other institution in Egyptian life. And from the standpoint of U.S. interests, it was his military alone that made it possible for Egypt to remain stubbornly pro–United States, in marked contrast to most other Arab countries, which tended to side with the Soviets.* Mohammed was easily one of the most important men in Egypt, but no one in the U.S. government other than Charlie Wilson had such a raucous, intensely personal relationship with him. “We were soul brothers in every way,” explains Wilson. “Pussy, whiskey, and conversation.”
They had met in Washington during the Camp David negotiations when Abu Ghazala, now a two-star general, was a military attaché. Wilson had been moved by Egypt’s willingness to establish relations with Israel, and Mohammed was the man through whom he personalized it all. Beyond that, Abu Ghazala was a big drinker with a robust personality. Charlie invited the dashing young general to all his Washington parties. “He liked my women and wanted to know their friends,” Charlies says.
After Mohammed returned from Washington, Anwar Sadat gave him his third star and appointed him defense minister. Abu Ghazala had been on the parade-reviewing stand when the Muslim Brotherhood gunned down Sadat in 1981. Mohammed was hit in the ear, and the television clips from the event show him taking charge of the counterattack, ordering the bodyguards into action against the assassins. By that time, Wilson had become a passionate congressional champion of Egyptian military and economic assistance, so important to Egypt that he had been invited as a guest of honor to that very parade—indeed, to sit between Sadat and Abu Ghazala. Only a last-minute cancellation had spared Charlie this brush with death.
Since then Wilson had become perhaps Egypt’s most valuable congressional champion. Denis Neill had skillfully lobbied his old friend, but as always, it was the personal connection that energized the congressman. “I liked Egypt, I liked Sadat, and I love Mohammed,” he explains. “Helping my friends, what the fuck?”
With Trish exiled to the bedroom, Charlie had fleshed in all of this history, culminating with the unusual commitment that his friend the defense minister had made: the field marshal was prepared to waive all rules and regulations in selling Egyptian equipment to the CIA. No paperwork would be necessary, no governmental approvals. Not even President Mubarak need be consulted. It could all be done with a handshake because of Abu Ghazala’s confidence in Wilson.
Abu Ghazala arranged for a demonstration the following morning of the weapon he insisted would be perfect for the Afghans, the mule-portable ZSU-23. The field marshal didn’t attend; it was below his dignity. He left the fieldwork to his generals, who were all waiting anxiously as the Americans gathered in the desert. Gust noted with dismay that Denis Neill was once again with Charlie, all dressed up in his “Alan Ladd desert suit.’” Avrakotos was still offended at the idea of a lobbyist for the Egyptian defense minister glomming onto a CIA mission, so he perversely enjoyed watching Denis “sweating his balls off in his suit.”
A surreal sight awaited the odd delegation of Americans as they drove through the desert to the spot the Egyptians had chosen for the demonstration. Abu Ghazala’s generals had not only brought the ZSU-23s into the desert but also a collection of round white tables with umbrellas and red-and-white-checked tablecloths, so that the honored guests could sit in comfort. Each table sported a lunch box filled with Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The conditions couldn’t have been less pleasant, however. Wanting to simulate the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan, the Egyptians had chosen the sloping incline of a landfill over a sprawling desert garbage dump. Furthermore, no parasol could tame the desert heat that day. It was at least 110 degrees in the shade, everyone was soaking, and the hot wind made Avrakotos feel like he was in a sauna with a fan running. There were pitchers of Pepsi-Cola, which the Americans drank incessantly, but no one could think much about eating the fried chicken.
Then things began to take on a comedic dimension, so much so that it was hard for Alper, Pratt, and Vickers not to smirk at one another. The Egyptian gunners were standing at attention as a three-star general who talked as if he had been educated at Oxford gave a rousing description of the ZSU-23’s attributes. The key point he made—at the urging of his advisers, Gust had insisted on this demonstration—was that after his men fired at a target across the desert, the Americans would see how easily the gun could be broken down and moved by mule up the incline.
Even the doubting weapons experts were suitably impressed with the first part of the exercise. They could see through their binoculars how smoothly and accurately the guns fired. The Egyptians then began to strip the gun down to move it up the hill. The object, after all, was to have a gun that the mujahideen could actually transport among the mountains of Afghanistan.
Charlie was still sitting tall in his seat, not at all bothered by Vickers’s tactful effort to explain why this gun simply would not work. By this time, the Egyptians had put the six-hundred-pound base of the gun on wheels, and several mules had been harnes
sed to haul the dead weight up the long, steep incline.
“Commence the exercise,” shouted the general, whereupon a squad of soldiers pulled the blocks out from behind the ZSU’s wheels and began urging the mules forward. Gust is charitable in his memory of this moment: “Egyptians win my heart because no matter how bad they fuck up, they always smile. Those fucking mules started going backward. They were in danger of going ass over head backward, whereupon twenty Egyptians appeared from nowhere trying to hold the mules and push them back. They almost lost all the Egyptians as well.”
Vickers watched with astonishment as the soldiers desperately jammed rocks behind the wheels to keep the gun cart from racing backward down the landfill. Once it was stabilized, they would bravely began again, each time with even more desperate efforts to stop the inevitable movement in the wrong direction. “If there had been a way to will it up the mountain, they would have,” recalled Avrakotos. Finally, after repeated Egyptian tries and failures, Wilson himself ordered an end to the exercise. In an effort to spare the Egyptians further embarrassment, Gust said with enthusiasm, “This chicken is great. Thanks for the demonstration.”
Avrakotos then turned to Wilson and said, “Charlie, I can’t buy it.” Without missing a beat Wilson responded, “You’re right.” In Gust’s mind, Charlie had just passed the first ethics test. He wasn’t trying to pressure the Agency into buying a weapon that wouldn’t work for the Afghans. There would soon be a second test for Charlie.
The entourage was then ferried back across the desert to eyeball Mohammed’s next offering: a warehouse filled with eight hundred Soviet SA-7s left over from the Yom Kippur War. These were the same type of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons the Agency had gotten so excited about when they were able to buy a small supply of them from the Polish general who’d wanted a tombstone in honor of his grandfather erected in Quebec. But the station had tipped off Gust that the Egyptians tended not to maintain their old weapons well. Avrakotos, still worried that Wilson might try to put the fix in, had said, “Charlie, if the SAMs are operational, I’ll buy them. But if they’re not, I don’t want to hear another fucking word about them.”
Abu Ghazala had assured Charlie that every SAM was in mint condition. But when they walked into the warehouse, all three of Gust’s experts rolled their eyes. SA-7s, like all sophisticated electronic weapons, are supposed to be stored in temperature-controlled, sanitary conditions. This desert warehouse was filled with dust, and the SA-7s were actually sitting on dirt floors. Art Alper whispered to Gust, “They aren’t worth the metal put into them.” The wires were burned out, and the connections were no good.
Gust explained to Wilson that Vickers and Alper, the two men he trusted, said the SAMs were useless, but another expert from the station had suggested that Gust take samples back to headquarters for testing. What did Wilson want to do? Gust asked. “Forget the SAMs,” Charlie said. “We can’t give something to the Afghans that won’t work.”
Before leaving for Egypt, the CIA’s deputy director, John McMahon, had called Avrakotos into his office and issued a warning: “I want you to know that you are dealing with dynamite with Wilson. If he ever does anything that looks to you as if he is using the Agency to personally profit, you let me know immediately.” Wilson had now passed Avrakotos’s final ethics test. “It proved to me that he wasn’t out for the commissions,” Gust says. It made me one hundred percent certain he was not Mr. Five Percent. And having watched him now for all these years, I can honestly say, in my opinion, there is no question that Charlie never made a dime on any of this. His motive was just to get even with the Russians. If his friends made money he didn’t give a shit, just so long as the weapons killed Russians.”*
After the disastrous day in the desert, Gust was not very hopeful about doing much business with Mohammed. Charlie, in his typically charming manner, called the field marshal to tell him the bad news. “Mohammed, I’m afraid some of your mules fainted this morning,” he said, adding that the defense minister would be furious to discover that his officers had not properly stored the SA-7s and that the CIA couldn’t consider buying them either. “Someone is going to die,” Abu Ghazala told Charlie, who says, “I’m sure a few heads rolled that day.”
Although a bit embarrassed, Mohammed did not seem overly concerned. He quickly assured Wilson that he had many other weapons to offer and that the following day he would even arrange for a visit to Egypt’s most sensitive new-weapons development center. That night, he insisted, the entire delegation must join him for dinner and an evening at the leading belly-dancing casbah of Cairo, where Fifi Abdul was performing.
The scene in the casbah was right out of Casablanca—swarthy Egyptians drinking and watching the middle-aged belly dancers, Mohammed at the best table surrounded by equal numbers of Egyptian generals and Agency operatives, and Charlie and Gust as the guests of honor. As always, flanking the table were Mohammed’s bodyguards, understandable in a country where religious zealots had recently gunned down the president.
As head of the purchasing commission, Gust was seated next to the defense minister. The Agency’s analytic division had prepared him for this encounter by providing a psychological profile of Ghazala, which Avrakotos had studied on the way over. It reported that Mohammed smoked, drank, had a roving eye, and, most fascinating of all to Gust, loved ethnic jokes. Wanting to build a bridge to this powerful potential ally, Avrakotos decided to ingratiate himself by telling Mohammed a politically incorrect joke that made fun of a certain Greek stereotype. “Did you hear the one about the little Greek boy?” he asked. “He went with the Greek girl for three months until he finally got into her little brother.”
“It’s not that funny when you get down to it,” acknowledges Avrakotos, “but Mohammed fucking loved it. He said, ‘You’re Greek, aren’t you?’” The delighted defense minister then proceeded to spin out a series of Greek, Armenian, and Israeli jokes and ended up by saying, “Well, I have to give equal treatment to the Arabs. I can’t let you think I’m anti-Semitic.” With that, Mohammed let loose several hilarious jokes mocking his own countrymen.
As Gust and Mohammed began to bond, Gust discovered how valuable a relationship with Abu Ghazala could be. The quality of the weapons and ammunition the Egyptians had been producing for the Afghan operation was so mixed that the Cairo station had been requesting the right to inspect the factory, but after four months they had been unable to get anyone to even give them an answer. At dinner, Abu Ghazala just waved his hand and told Gust that everything was possible for Charlie’s friends; they could visit the factory in the morning.
The rest of the trip was a dizzying roller coaster. The previously inaccessible .303 factories sprang open just as promised. The CIA contingent found it hard to believe their eyes as they watched the Egyptian men loitering about, smoking next to the explosive stores of gunpowder, while women, their hands moving like machines, filled cartridges with thimbles full of the black substance. To Gust it was like stepping back in time. The factories looked just like the descriptions he had once read of conditions in nineteenth-century New England textile mills.
“Mind you, we were in a Muslim nation where women are not supposed to participate but all the quality control stations were run by women,” he says. When Avrakotos queried General Yahia about all the women supervisors, he replied, “Apparently you’ve never been married to an Egyptian woman—they’re real sons of bitches.”
“Okay,” Gust responded, “I’m going to keep buying from the Egyptians.”
Most of the Egyptians’ initial efforts to sell weapons to the Agency resembled a Keystone Kops movie. The most preposterous moment came during a test firing of Mohammed’s new briefcase-size tank destroyer. Once more a general delivered a rousing briefing and a stalwart Egyptian fired at the target, but this time the round, acting like a boomerang, turned back on the watchers. “Oh shit!” Charlie yelled as they all hurled themselves flat. “We decided not to buy any of those,” Wilson remembers.
; There had been much wringing of Egyptian hands before the demonstration, ostensibly over the disclosure of such valuable state secrets to such known friends of Israel. Art Alper had gone to some lengths to conceal his religious affiliations. After scrambling up from the ground, Gust had quipped to the embarrassed General Yahia, “I don’t think the Jews have to worry about this one.”
As compensation for these little setbacks and to the confusion and dismay of his security officials, Mohammed offered to let the Agency delegation go into the army’s most sensitive research-and-development facility, where his weapons people were finishing production of a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile that he said was not only more effective than a SA-7 but would prove superior to the American Stinger.
No one at this plant was ever prepared for visitors, but unlike everything else the Americans had seen in Egypt, this facility was operated like a sophisticated high-tech laboratory in the United States. “It was the cleanest place in Cairo,” remembers Avrakotos. “The men and women wore white coats like doctors and seemed to have been educated at technical schools in the U.S. like Carnegie Mellon.”
At first Charlie figured he had led the CIA to the silver bullet that would at last bring down the Hind, and once inside, Gust could not restrain his impulse to snoop. On a later trip with Paul, the psychological-warfare expert whom Gust complimentarily describes as “a sneaky son of a bitch,” the visitors dispersed to explore as much of the facility as possible. The Egyptians always looked quite terrified when the American spies, taking advantage of Mohammed’s license, entered areas ordinarily forbidden.
In one sealed-off room Paul and Gust came across three scientists who didn’t look Egyptian and Gust said, “As Salaam Alaikum,” Arabic for “hello.” Two of them responded with “Bonjour.” Gust now knew that French were working with the Egyptians. It was not long ago that Egypt and Israel had been at war, and the fear was that the Americans would run off and warn Jerusalem. But once again Gust, with Charlie as a guarantor, gave his word that all of the Agency’s dealings with Mohammed would remain a secret. In keeping with all of Mohammed’s other anti-aircraft solutions, this weapon never lived up to the field marshal’s promises and wasn’t even ready to be tested when the CIA was prepared to buy it.