Then, since Harvey had been bothered by alley cats raiding the garbage can behind his house, he and George devised the ultimate cat repellent. They took two old wood-stove plates, put gunpowder between them, and connected a fuse to a battery on the ground outside. If the cat were to jump into the can, an electrical connection would be made, blowing the cat out of the can. On the night of its trial, Harvey's wife suddenly went to the hospital to deliver their second child. His mother came over to stay with the two-year-old. The next morning the men went to work; Grandmother took out a big sack of trash and tossed it into the can. Ka-boom! Trash was everywhere, and Grandmother fell over backward. She was not amused.2
George eventually found a way to get back East. He received a letter from his childhood friend Malia Natirbov saying, "The next time you come to see your mother, stop by Washington and see me. The CIA could use you; they're recruiting madly." George went to see a recruiting officer and told him of his Russian background. The man was enthusiastic; the CIA wanted him to come right away. George asked Velma, adding, "You know, I'm sick and tired of asking a farmer what his hay is worth and what a hog will be worth tomorrow." She agreed and they were off to Washington. They had altogether about a ten-year project with the alfalfa. George left after five years, while things were still very good. He didn't know it at the time but their days were numbered. The demise of the business took place when modern technology provided a means whereby vitamins could be manufactured synthetically in great concentrations and purity. Moreover, for certain applications, synthetic vitamins were more cost effective, so less alfalfa would be required for vitamin A needs.
On 18 September 1947, the U.S. Congress enacted the National Security Act, which established the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. In late 1951, George accepted a position as a branch chief in the Soviet Russia Division at the newly organized Agency. His grade was GS-14, which paid about seven thousand dollars per year. His interest in the CIA had been greatly enhanced by the Soviet-sponsored invasion of South Korea in June of 1950. One of his earliest substantive assignments with the Agency would involve operations there. The man who hired him was Peer de Silva. In describing his initial interview with George, Peer stated, "lie was a bear of a man who spoke native Russian, as well as other languages, a man of enormous energy and imagination and a man who subsequently would handle some of the Agency's most important work with Soviet intelligence agents." de Silva's admiration for George's ability and the close friendship that developed between the two eventually prompted him to declare George to be "my best friend in or out of the Agency."3
Peer assigned George to the important job of branch chief for Soviet operations in the Far East. The region to come under his purview included Alaska, all of Siberia in the USSR, and all of the countries around the horn to Burma, with the exception of China. His branch was charged with developing leads to intelligence about the Soviet Union that came through, or originated in, any of these countries. To that end, George began to hire people and organize the branch.
Dick Kovich considered his first meeting with his new supervisor unforgettable. He had just returned from an assignment in Asia to join the group. Most of them were recent graduates of Yale, Princeton, or Harvard. So, Dick, a Minnesota graduate, was precipitously thrust in among the Ivy Leaguers. Frank Summers, a Yale man, took Dick down to their branch office in the old temporary buildings on the Mall off Constitution Avenue to meet George. They saw him over in a corner lecturing to four or five case officers. Frank turned to Dick and asked, "Don't you think that he is really rather old?" Dick replied, "Yeah, Frank, I guess he is old, but at least he has no gray hair." George was forty-one years old at the time. Right in the middle of the lecture, Frank introduced him to George, who then said in Russian, "Greetings and welcome back from the Orient. I want to sit down and chat with you about activities there." George then went back into his lecture.
When the lecture finally broke up, George and Dick sat down and talked about Dick's case alternately in Russian and in English as George tested Dick's Russian and sized him up. George said that he had heard from Dick's boss, Ed Snow, who said nothing but good things about Dick. The two of them discussed the case of a young agent they had recently dropped into the Soviet Union via parachute. They had dropped him into a marshy area and the man had let it be known that he didn't appreciate their little mistake.
George knew that Dick was of Serbian descent. This would bring them closer together, since they both attended the same church, the Eastern Orthodox. Dick felt that they had clicked.
George's young charges took to calling him "Papa." In many ways, he was sort of a father to them. He was concerned about all of them; he assisted them, gave them advice, and, when necessary, admonished them. Disciplining them, however, was most difficult for himhe simply could not reprimand people. They all got along extremely well. George had a sense of humor, but he was serious about the job and fanatically anti-Communist.
In the meantime, Velma found a lovely home on California Street, "embassy row," right near Massachusetts Avenue and Observatory Circle, where the vice-president's home is now located. The house was made of stone and had three major stories and an elevator. Doctors and diplomats were neighbors and the National Zoo was not far away. George promptly developed a personal relationship with one particular bear at the zoo. Often, he would go down early in the morning carrying bread for the bear. Not surprisingly, the bear would respond to his presence. George's coworkers were very much in awe of the house and became quite enamored with Velma. For some of them, the home became the center of their social life and would continue as such for many years. Likewise, their friendships would be continuous up until her demise. One important thing for George seemed to be "getting to know Velma." George was the type who, after work, would bring home his buddies for drinks. Velma would never know how many were coming. She knew that he loved his job and that he would be coming home with his friends. She would mix the drinks for them, although she did not drink at all. This was the way that he wanted things, so that was the way it was going to be, because she loved him very much.
At the CIA, some of the most important operations under way at that time involved sending agents into Sakhalin, an island formerly a part of Japan that the Soviets had collected after World War II. The Agency design was to put them ashore with PT boats and later retrieve them. Their objective was to find out information relative to Soviet installations and report back. This was dangerous for them, and actually it did not pay big dividends. But the leaders of the new CIA felt compelled to try personal reconnaissance, since flying airplanes over the island had proved to be even more dangerous. The Soviets had already shot down several U.S. aircraft, killing the crewmembers.
That year, the Pentagon made a special request of the CIA that would be fulfilled, in part, by George's branch. The Soviets were constructing an airfield in the southeast region of the Chukotski Peninsula near Providenya Bay. The facility was directly across the Bering Strait from the town of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island and about fifty miles from U.S. soil. From an elevated position, on a clear day one can see the hills of the other. Surely the airfield would serve MIGs, but could it accommodate a bomber large enough to carry an atomic bomb? The airport runway would have to be substantial-thick enough to support the bomb-laden aircraft and long enough for such an aircraft to attain takeoff speed. In addition, it was believed that a pit might be dug at some point on the airfield where a plane could be loaded with the bomb. The loading procedure for the U.S. Air Force was to place the heavy bomb in a hole in the ground, taxi the bomber over the hole, and then, very gingerly, raise the payload up into the aircraft.
The Agency could not parachute in someone to get this information; he would be detected with radar. A PT boat certainly would be observed. So, eventually, they decided to investigate launching someone by submarine. The navy agreed to provide transit. The submarine would approach as close to the shoreline as was practical and surface at night just
long enough to launch four agents in a rubber boat powered by a silent motor. The men were to navigate to a landing with the aid of shoreline charts. Upon landing, they were to camouflage the craft, hiding it until the next nightfall. They then would climb the mountains overlooking the airfield and take photographs. At dark, they were to launch the rubber boat and rendezvous with the sub out in the Bering Strait. With the benefit of some special radar-reflecting panels mounted on the boat's sides, the sub crew would easily spot it with its four men.
A lot of time was spent in conference at the Pentagon, coordinating the acquisition of the submarine, rubber boats, silent motor, secure communication preparations, and a host of other details. George and his men actually inflated a rubber boat in their office area and studied such things as where the men would sit and where the equipment would be placed during the voyage. Agent selection was crucial. Four daring men, all of whom were proficient in Russian, were chosen, and extensive training began.
Months later, everyone took his respective position. Dick Kovich was stationed with radio gear on St. Lawrence Island. His main mission was to assist the men if they missed their rendezvous with the sub and had to cross the entire Bering Strait. He could, of course, speak fluent Russian, and he had a great deal of radio experience from the Second World War. The four agents boarded the submarine in Pearl Harbor. Two CIA officers were with them. The captain of the sub was Comdr. Ed Spruance, the son of Adm. Raymond Ames Spruance, commander of the carrier task force that sank four Japanese carriers at Midway during the Second World War.4 They arrived at the Bering Strait, found the appropriate spot to launch the men, and, on a calm, moonless night, surfaced. The rubber boat was inflated and the men were dispatched to reconnoiter the runway.
The operation did not go as planned. The agents were startled to discover people actively engaged in construction at their intended landing site. Consequently, they did not go ashore and the operation was aborted. There was considerable disappointment on the part of all participants. The naval activity had proceeded successfully, and a worthwhile training exercise had been conducted with no one getting hurt, but the mission was a failure-no useful intelligence information had been gathered. Later, reconnaissance and analysis by others determined that the runway had no loading pit and was not of sufficient dimensions for a bomber large enough to carry an atomic weapon.
Despite this early failure, George's group continued to make plans to expand their activities, hiring others and strengthening the capabilities of the branch. Paul Garbler was one such individual and his first encounter with George was memorable. While he was in South Korea as the assistant naval attache in Seoul, Paul met two American "tourists" who in fact were working for the CIA. He then left Korea and went directly to Washington for his next assignment. He hadn't been back there more than two weeks when he received a telephone call from one of these fellows. He said that he was in town and wanted to know if Paul would have a drink with him. When they met, the man asked Paul what he thought about the CIA and if he would be willing to consider joining the organization. The man then gave Paul the name of a contact, George Kisevalter, and a time at which to appear. George was a "sort of a hefty guy who had a magnificent pot and big hips, giving him the shape of a bear," Paul recalled. "A cigarette hung out of the corner of his mouth that dropped ashes down to that pot. He was wearing rumpled looking clothing but spoke elegant Russian and talked with sincere humanness." George took Paul up to an office on the second floor. Spoiled food and dirty dishes lay on the hall floor outside of the offices. All dressed up in his spotless navy uniform and accustomed to extreme cleanliness, Paul cringed and asked himself, "What is all of this? What kind of business is this? What kind of people are these?"
George then took the apprehensive naval officer into a small, dim room where a man was crouched down in a corner, pecking away at a typewriter illuminated by a gooseneck lamp. The man didn't even look up until George cleared his throat. "Oh, hi, George," he said. "Hello, Paul. Come on; sit down." For an hour and a half, the mysterious man, Harry Rositzke, went through Paul's whole life, probing and telling him things that he had forgotten all about. The interrogator was quite thorough.5 Paul and George then left the room and went to another small office. This one was cleaner than a surgical facility. There was nothing on the wall, and the only thing on the desk was a telephone. There wasn't even a wastepaper basket in the room. "What am I getting into?" Paul wondered.
"Ever thought about Alaska?" George asked.
"No."
"How would you like to go to Alaska? You could be our first chief in Alaska."
"I would have to check it out with the family, but it sounds like something that I might like to do."
"There will be a lot of flying involved, back and forth between Fairbanks and Washington. Would you agree to that?"
"Well, I wouldn't join the CIA to fly. If I join the CIA I want to be involved in operations."
"We're doing operations out of Alaska across the Bering Sea into Russia and the Far East, and that's what we want you up there for."
The adventurous sailor went home and told Florence, his wife. She promptly went out and spent a great deal of money oncoldweather gear. About a week later Paul called for George on the phone; that is, he called the number that George had given him. The people on the other end of the line had never heard of George.
"Here I was, completely adrift," Paul remembered. "The only connection that I had with the CIA was George and that telephone number where they had never heard of him! Well, I had been through a navy intelligence course before I had met George, so I went back and saw the chief instructor, who was CIA. I said to him, `Okay, you guys are whackos; I'm going back to the navy!' The instructor said to me, `No, no, no; don't do that. There is a guy coming in here next week from Berlin. I know him. Would you like to go to Berlin?' I said, Jeez, you know, I'd give my hat and overcoat to go to Berlin.' Well, this fellow came. He accepted me for Berlin and off I went for four years. One day, near the end of my tour in Berlin, I saw this fat guy. I thought that I recognized the fellow; he wasjust standing there and talking to somebody. I went up to him, I grabbed him by the coat collar, and said, `You son of a gun, I am going to poke you right in the nose.' He said, `Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't do that.' You know how George is. He took me out of my anger in a minute. `You don't understand. I was taken away suddenly. I had no chance to get in touch with you or anybody else. I just had to go.' I didn't believe George at the time, but I later found out that it was true. He had been taken away for the Popov case. So, that is how I met George. The whole Alaska thing depended upon George. It never happened for me." Paul and George were to become good friends and eventually would work together for years on some very significant operations.
George's job required that he travel to the Far East to supervise some of the operations. He did not welcome travel; he had already been separated from Velma too much during their marriage. But in 1952, he traveled extensively. He went to South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and other Far East sites, running operations in all locales. During his travels in the Orient, he met Ed Snow, an experienced intelligence officer who spoke very good Russian as well asJapanese. Snow's parents were White Russians. He spent some of his youth in Japan before going to California, where he later was graduated from UCLA. George and Ed were to become good friends and work associates.6
As the Korean War continued, George visited some very hazardous areas in torn-up South Korea. The CIA had air and maritime groups there to augment its various operations. Many of these operations were failing, however, for reasons that were not clear. Moreover, several agents and even case officers had been lost. Perhaps the Communists had penetrated the Agency. An analysis of these events and conditions was in order. George spent a month in Seoul reviewing twenty-six operations into North Korea but could not isolate any penetration. Only years later did the Agency learn that it hired foreign assistant had been tipping off the North Koreans and souring many of the Agency plans.
Geo
rge took along his secretary, Jackie Bush, a young woman from the Agency and an invaluable worker. Having brought her, however, he felt obligated to be her moral supervisor, so to speak. So when all of the wolves asked to buy her drinks and take her out, she could refuse. He had to protect her, but that also meant that he had to buy the drinks.
An army colonel stationed there wanted to take her to a dance in Seoul. She wouldn't go unless George went. George told her, "I don't even dance, for goodness sakes." She persisted, "I won't go unless you go." So, with glares from the colonel, George said, "Okay, I'll go. We'll make this happy for everybody. You take the girl," he told the colonel. "Just give me a pistol and put me in the,Jeep. I'll ride shotgun with you."
So they went. She was the most popular of the dancers, being the only woman in a skirt. All the other girls, the nurses, were wearing their uniform pants. Everything was fine until alarms started to ring, many loud sirens everywhere.
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