Last of the Cold War Spies

by Roland Perry

  Straight was never going to support Nixon, despite the fascination with his candidature. If anyone was going to get his vote, it would be Eugene McCarthy, he told the Elmhirsts. McCarthy wanted Straight as his campaign finance chairman. Clearly he had not consulted Henry Wallace (who died in 1965) or Whitney Straight. Yet Straight declined his flattering offer. He didn’t think McCarthy was a winner. Watching him in political action would have brought back memories of the Wallace campaign twenty years earlier. McCarthy had a habit of throwing away speeches his aides had researched and scripted in favor of some off the cuff remarks. American writer David Halberstam commented that “one sensed that if elected President he might abolish the U.S. Government . . . ”

  McCarthy mocked Robert Kennedy for his interest in the ethnic vote and his plan to set up twenty-six committees to deal with the main ethnic groupings in the country, saying: “26 varieties of Americans—like 26 varieties of ice cream. Like a jigsaw puzzle.” Amusing, perhaps, but vote catching, no. Straight sensed the odds were against this whimsical candidate. Besides, Straight was once bitten, twice shy. Why again waste time on a campaign that was sure to fail? And one too that would eschew real radical policies. Anyway, Straight was sure the candidate, if he reached as far as the party convention, would become institutionalized by the straight-jacket the Democrats would place on him. He was less enamored with Robert Kennedy, but admitted he was a stronger and more durable candidate.

  These two fought out the all-important California primary on June 5. Kennedy won. He spoke graciously at the Hotel Ambassador about the vanquished McCarthy and asked his supporters to join him. Moments later Kennedy was shot dead by a lone assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. Robert joined his brother as a victim of violence and conspiracy in America.

  It left the way open for McCarthy to battle Hubert Humphrey at the Chicago Convention two months later, where Straight now found Mc-Carthy petulant and self-pitying. He was also lukewarm about Humphrey, who won the party nomination. He told the family back in England that if Nixon, the Republican candidate, were to win the 1968 election, it wouldn’t be so bad, in the long run. “That really still surprised us,” William Elmhirst said.21

  Meanwhile, the Soviet Union reacted to the “problem” in Prague by leaving its troops in Czechoslovakia after Warsaw Pact military exercises finished. In effect, the country was under military occupation. In July, the Moscow newspaper Pravda, the Soviet government’s propaganda organ, suggested Czechoslovakia would soon establish “a bourgeois regime.” It lead to a suppression of any potential revolution. In Western Europe, unrest abated as 1968 moved toward its final months. The student/worker pseudo-revolution in France fizzled out. The Vietnam War was at a stalemate, leaving America bogged down in a military conflict that only Pentagon hawks wanted.

  Straight and Rose made their annual pilgrimage to Dartington in late October, where they were able to reassure the family that if Nixon became president, it would not be a disaster. Rose spoke about his positive qualities and his knowledge of foreign policy. He had been a good administrator at the law firm and was well liked. Everyone was in awe of his work habits and his capacity to absorb complex cases.

  The visit gave Straight a chance to ease his mother into the idea of his divorcing Bin and his starting a new relationship with Nina Steers, whose marriage was also breaking up.

  He also surprised the Elmhirsts by defending Jackie Kennedy’s marrying of the Greek shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis, which had drawn some criticism in the United States. Straight remarked that she had endured endless humiliations from Kennedy in the marriage. He supported U.S. Cardinal Cushing in his defense of Jackie’s decision to remarry.

  Straight continued to give the Elmhirsts a favorable impression of Nixon when he won the 1968 election, with a subtle indication that he would join the new administration.

  On December 14, 1968, Straight received a call from Leonard Elmhirst at Dartington to say that Dorothy had died the night before, without warning, and with no undue pain. She was 81. Suddenly, the matriarch whose approval Straight needed all his life was gone.

  Dorothy was cremated and her ashes buried in the garden at Dartington. Family and friends gathered for a memorial service held in the Great Hall. The Dartington Quartet added a second violinist and performed the Schubert Quintet. A second service was held at St. James’s Church in New York, at which Beatrice read Dorothy’s essay, “The Arts of Dartington.” Straight and Whitney were forced together on these occasions. Neither wished at that point to reconcile the differences between them.

  So ended a remarkable year of revolution, counterrevolution, assassinations, and change. Dorothy’s passing allowed Straight’s transition to a new life to be facilitated more easily. He didn’t have to continue to explain why he planned to divorce his wife (which he did a few months later in 1969) and marry the beautiful and much younger Nina. Nor did he have to attempt to rationalize why he desired to do an employment deal with that former devil to all left-wingers and communists, Richard Nixon.

  PART FIVE

  ART OF THE PROVOCATEUR

  25

  ARTS AT LAST

  The Nixon era represented change and opportunity for Straight that he would never have dreamed of in the days he ran New Republic campaigns against him. His closeness to Rose and association with Nixon through the New York law firm meant there was a chance he could slip into a post in the much-coveted area of the arts that he had denied himself under Kennedy. He was assisted by the fact that a good friend, Leonard Garment, also from the Nixon/Rose law firm, had been appointed Nixon’s assistant in the arts. Straight was on the inside of a new regime for the first time since the Roosevelt days. After twenty years of frustration, he was excited by the prospect. Yet still he would have to indulge in one of his finer skills—political manipulation—to secure a job.

  He was aware that his FBI record that he had himself beefed up over the past six years would not allow him to get through public senate confirmation hearings. To slide around this, he proposed that the new administration appoint a part-time chairman who would then be approved. The chairman would be supported by a full-time deputy, who would actually control the show. The deputy would not have to run the gauntlet of public hearings, just a check from the administration and an approving tick from the new president. Straight knew before he began that the Nixon team would be happy if he were the deputy.

  The political maneuvering commenced when he had Garment charge him with finding the chairman. He approached six prominent Republicans who were arts patrons. They included John D. Rockefeller III, John Hay Whitney, and Douglas Dillon. They all turned down the offer. A seventh, Morton “Buster” May, a department store executive in St. Louis, caused a problem when he didn’t want Straight as his deputy. His choice was John MacFadyen, an experienced arts administrator. Such an appointment would allow May to go on with all his other time-consuming activities.1

  May’s name was sent to a senate subcommittee for approval. An “old friend” of Straight’s, Senator Claiborne Pell, was the subcommittee’s chairman. Pell claimed he objected to May on the grounds that he would not be on call whenever congress wanted him. This was at odds with the White House, represented by Garment and Straight, who had wanted a part-timer. Now it seemed a full-time operative was required. It provided a pretext for wiping May from the list. John Warner was then suggested as chairman, but he was turned down by the White House because he was a Democrat.

  The next approach was to Thomas Hoving, director of the Metropolitan Museum; he wasn’t interested. Others were considered. No one seemed promising until about choice number twelve on the list—the attractive and energetic Nancy Hanks, 41, staff director of the Rockefeller Panel on the Performing Arts and president of the Associated Councils on the Arts. Straight knew her. She accepted the offer.2

  There was one proviso, which was later put to her by Garment. She had to choose Straight as her deputy. She agreed to this, and Straight accepted her offer.3

  With the posi
tions secured, Garment and Straight prepared to go off to Moscow to be judges at the 1969 film festival there. Even though Straight had not yet been appointed to the Nixon administration, he would be going to the heart of Russia under the auspices of an expected hard-line, anticommunist regime. It was the best political protection he could ever manage. Given Straight’s past and his growing FBI file baggage, such a visit for a Democratic administration would have been impossible. But he was going as a representative of Richard Nixon, the fierce foe of communism, who had grown to world public prominence attacking it.

  This was to be Straight’s first trip to Russia since 1935, when he accompanied Blunt after being picked out as a likely future KGB agent. He had to gain the approval of Agent Taylor, the FBI man in charge of his case since 1964. This was not an obstacle. Taylor was more interested in his upcoming retirement and golf than anyone’s travel plans.

  Straight, who had been dealing with other KGB agents since first recruited by Blunt and Burgess in 1937, visited the FBI. He asked Taylor what he should do if he were approached by a Russian intelligence agent. Taylor told him not to worry; they would never approach him again. A no doubt bemused Straight pressed the question. Taylor was adamant no one from the KGB would speak with him again. But, of course, they did. The KGB organized and controlled the film event, and it was inevitable that Straight would make contact, even without his knowledge.

  Straight, Garment, and the rest of the U.S. delegation stayed at the Rossiya Hotel. It was a time of acute tension between the United States and Russia. Various government arts officials, academics, film producers, stars, directors, and writers from around the world were watching flickering screens at venues dotted across the city. Others were using the festival as a cover for more clandestine meetings. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was testing the mettle of the new U.S. administration over China. The Chinese were deploying nuclear weapons for the first time since detonating one in 1964. They were being placed on the Sino-Soviet border. This was making the Kremlin’s residents as nervous as they had been during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when Kennedy had nuclear weapons deployed in Turkey and aimed at Moscow.

  Brezhnev had used intermediaries during the festival to see what Nixon’s reaction would be to a proposed preemptive strike by Russia on China’s nuclear bases. Would the U.S. stay out of any possible conflict created by the Kremlin, thus sanctioning it by default? Nixon had responded that the United States disapproved of any military attack on China. The president also implied that the United States could not guarantee it would sit idly by and avoid intervention.

  Other KGB and CIA activity carrying on behind the scenes was not tense. In fact, it was friendly. Special assignment groups in the two agencies had combined in an operation against the Chinese during the Cultural Revolution.4 They had a convivial reunion.

  Meanwhile, Straight was concentrating on the festival choosing the U.S. film entry the winner. The panel of three he was on supported Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey. It was considered a politically correct choice that would please the hosts. In the film’s story, the offending “intelligent” computer in the spacecraft was called HAL, a snipe at IBM (each letter of HAL being the one before the corresponding letter in IBM). A French critic suggested that HAL’s preparedness to shut an astronaut out of the spacecraft in order to complete its programmed mission would be interpreted by the doctrinaire Marxist Russians as the ultimate example of man’s alienation from his labor. The fault would be seen as lying with the capitalist producers of computers such as HAL that had pushed mechanization to such a point. There were also antiwar sentiments in the film.

  The panelists were surprised to see the cold reaction from the predominantly Russian audience of 7,000 at the film’s showing on a giant screen in the Palace of the Soviets. This was despite the dramatic effect being heightened that night by U.S. astronauts taking off for the moon on Apollo 9. Straight wanted to know why 2001 had not been appreciated. He pointed out to one Russian woman that the subordination of the computer to narrow, military objectives led to its breakdown and destruction. He even offered an interpretive talk because he had spent a day with Kubrick. The woman listened and then commented bitterly that he didn’t understand. The film was a challenge to the imagination, she told him. Soviet citizens were not permitted to use their imagination. It was a danger to the state.5

  After this refreshing interlude in the summer, Straight and Garment returned to Washington to find Nancy Hanks’s nomination in jeopardy. As a resident of New York, Hanks had been vetoed by Senator Jacob Javits. He thought that by blocking Hanks, Nixon would fall back on Democrat John Walker.

  Straight devised a counterplan with Garment. An article under the byline of Howard Taubman appeared in the New York Times on August 22, 1969, suggesting that Nixon was expected to nominate Straight as the new chairman of the Arts Endowment. It was a setup. Straight was to be Nancy Hanks’s (and his own) stalking horse to force Javits to withdraw his objection to her. The senator reacted by summoning Straight to his New York law office. Javits fumed at the White House tactics. He then asked him several questions to judge if he were a suitable choice. The bluff continued when Straight went to see leading Democrats, who controlled congress. In his book, Twigs for an Eagle’s Nest, Straight claimed that they assured the White House that he would have no trouble being confirmed. The bluff worked; Javits withdrew his objection to Hanks.

  Garment submitted Straight’s name to Nixon along with the disclosure (in reality nothing more than Straight’s misleading version of his espionage life, supplied to Garment by Straight himself ). The creative summary also went to the FBI and the CIA. Straight alleged he was surprised to learn that Nixon accepted Garment’s recommendation.

  “Well, he’s on our side now,” Nixon remarked. The relationship of the oddest couple in U.S. politics, from Straight’s point of view, was good and helpful to the arts.6 Hanks was announced by Nixon at San Clemente as his choice for the chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).7

  Now the FBI and the CIA couldn’t stop Straight, even if they wished to. At last, he was in arts administration.

  He proved to be a skilled lobbyist with congress in gaining a big increase in funds for NEA. A major part of his philosophy for handing out money followed a pattern first established by him at the Whitney Foundation. He considered that he presided over turbulent years (from 1969–1977) encompassing three upheavals: the fight by blacks for rights, the feminist movement, and America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

  Straight expressed the stark view that the arts could be a vehicle for each of these areas for showing feelings of bitterness, rage, and alienation. Drama and dance performances that attacked government, for instance, could also demonstrate rejection of traditional values and exhibit a newfound sense of freedom.8 No doubt if Straight had said this while in his job, there may have been some rage and bitterness from Republicans and some Democrats, who would have wondered about this use of taxpayer funds. Yet Straight was enjoying himself. Instead of tightly disciplined fronts controlled by Moscow, which he once helped keep afloat with family trust money, he could now use the public purse to dramatize attacks on the U.S. establishment. It was perfect for his ongoing role as a KGB agent provocateur and agent of influence.

  Straight needed all his manipulative capacities to maintain this radical dramatic commitment, while lobbying to keep the confidence of the congress. He had many a battle against objections to taxpayers’ money being given to groups for expressing strong protest against mainstream values. When asked for a “please explain” from irate congressional representatives reflecting their constituents, Straight hid behind a clause in the NEA act. This prevented any government employee acting as a censor. First, he would nudge grants toward the fringe, cultural “revolutionaries” who stretched the boundaries. When protests came in from outraged citizens, he would slip in behind the clause, saying, “sorry, I’m prevented by law from intervening in any way.”

  An example o
f this was the black dance group the Eleo Pomare Company. It came to Washington to perform at the Kennedy Center and to give demonstrations in city schools. One protest dance, “Embers,” was accompanied with shouts that the United States had fought three wars in order to suppress colored peoples and to keep up the price of rice. The Washington Star reported that the group would be visiting schools. It asked if public funds should be used to impose “Black Panther” attitudes on impressionable children.

  Straight was called to the office of Senator James L. Buckley of New York, whose assistant, William Gavin, met him. He was asked if he would exclude “Embers” from future performances supported by the endowment. Straight, poker-faced, said it was impossible under the terms of the Endowment Act. He couldn’t even call the company to find out if the offending dance were scheduled for further performances.9

  Straight’s method of handling the arts in the United States impressed, it seems, even the Presidium of the USSR. It sent its only woman member, the formidable Soviet minister for culture, Yekaterina Furtseva, to the United States in January 1972, with very short notice. Demonstrating the esteem in which he was held at the Kremlin, she went to Straight’s home for lunch on her first day.

  The hard-line Furtseva had made news in the West for her attacks on writers Boris Pasternak and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. She had voiced her displeasure at the Jewish Defense League in the United States. The group had staged persistent protests against touring Soviet artists. It wished to highlight the suppression of Jews and Jewish culture in the Soviet Union and its restriction of movement out of the country, particularly to Israel. Furtseva, it was thought, had turned up without invitation in an attempt to persuade U.S. officials to stop the protests. She had rarely traveled outside her country.