44. A far more formal and heavily documented history of BOB is contained in the landmark work by David E. Murphy, Sergei Kondrashev, and George Bailey, Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), which deals in some detail with base operations during the 1950s. Murphy was Bill Harvey’s deputy, ran the Soviet operations section of BOB, and succeeded Bill as Chief, BOB. He also most generously provided considerable information from his files for this book.
CHAPTER 5: HARVEY’S HOLE
1. See Robert J. Lamphere and Tom Shachtman, The FBI-KGB War: A Special Agent’s Story (New York: Random House, 1986).
2. Siegfried Hoxter, a prewar German refugee, an ardent Socialist, a former leader of the Socialist Youth in Germany, and a double PhD in chemistry and mathematics, was one of the most notable OSS/CIA officers and one of the least known. He died in 1957.
3. Quotes from Donald P. Steury, ed., “The Berlin Tunnel,” in On the Front Lines of the Cold War: Documents on the Intelligence War in Berlin, 1946 to 1961 (Washington, DC: CIA, 1999), http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/17240/art-7.html.
4. Bob Kilroy, letters, e-mails, and phone conversations with the author, March 2001ff. All quotations in this chapter, unless otherwise sourced, are from this series of communication with Kilroy.
5. Richard M. Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency, with William Hood (New York: Random House, 2003), 134–135.
6. David Stafford’s Spies Beneath Berlin (London: John Murray, 2002; reprint, Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2003) adds considerable information, primarily from the British side, about the Vienna Tunnel operation and about London’s vital contribution to Harvey’s Hole. Stafford also has a wealth of interesting detail on Peter Lunn, Harvey’s British opposite number in Berlin—for instance, Lunn was involved in SILVER in Vienna. (See also below on Lunn.) Actual technical details on location, etc., are abundantly available in David E. Murphy, Sergei Kondrashev, and George Bailey, Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997).
7. A word of explanation about CIA cryptonyms and pseudonyms. Inside the Agency, cryptonyms were written AMLASH, JMWAVE, not AM/LASH or JM/WAVE. Area desks in the CIA had different two letter prefixes, many of which remain classified, but for instance, RE denoted a Soviet operation; KU was an activity within CIA, which was itself KUBARK; ZR was a Staff/Division D operational slug; the polygraph was LCFLUTTER. We often wondered if someone somewhere spent his or her entire time dreaming up the names.
Then there is the matter of pseudonyms. Everyone in the Clandestine Services was issued a name that was used exclusively in correspondence; mine was Ralph S. Hanlon; Bill Harvey at first was Henry M. Rogall, later Frederick B. Presland. To complicate matters even further, all operational people in Berlin had phony names and phony identity documents. One of the minor problems many officers had was trying to remember which name one had used, even in making restaurant reservations.
8. James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (New York: Anchor Books, 2002), 2. By 1945 Rowlett was a lieutenant colonel and was in charge of American efforts to read the dispatches of other nations’ delegates to the San Francisco Peace Conference. “The feeling in the Branch is that the success of the Conference may owe a great deal to its contribution.” (Bamford, pp. 22–23.) See also Karen Kovach, “Frank B. Rowlett: The Man Who Made ‘Magic,’” Inscom Journal 21:4 (December 14, 1998).
9. Clarence Berry, various e-mails to the author, June–July 2001. Without the frequent help, advice, and steering of Clarence and Bob Kilroy, this chapter would have been skimpy indeed.
10. Peter M. F. Sichel, e-mails to the author, July 27, 2001 and October 6, 2002; and Peter M. F. Sichel, in conversation with David E. Murphy, un-dated (c. 1994).
11. Tom Polgar, e-mail to the author, July 10, 2001.
12. Berry, e-mails, June–July 2001.
13. Clarence Berry added, in an e-mail of July 31, 2002, “Fleetwood left Frankfurt for Washington in early 1956…. Let’s face it: no one could replace Fleetwood.”
14. See Murphy et al., Battleground Berlin, appendix 9
15. M. Neill Prew, memorandum to David E. Murphy, undated (c. 1994).
16. Berry, e-mails, June–July 2001.
17. The 9539 TSU designation might have covered all the military at the tunnel site.
18. Steury, “The Berlin Tunnel”; and “Clandestine Services History: The Berlin Tunnel Operation, 1952–1956,” prepared August 25, 1967, published (in two original copies) June 24, 1968 (Washington, DC: CIA, 1968).
19. M. Neill Prew, in conversation with the author, March 17, 2001.
20. Ernie Leichliter, phone conversation with the author, May 29, 2002.
21. Berry, e-mails, June–July 2001; Ted Shackley, in conversation with the author, May 21, 2001; and David E. Murphy, e-mail to the author, January 4, 2001.
22. Steury, “The Berlin Tunnel”; and “Clandestine Services History.”
23. George Blake, No Other Choice: An Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990). This is Blake’s KGB-approved version of his career and his escape from British prison. Page 24 gives Blake’s version of how he alerted the KGB in London. Pages 172ff deal with his meetings with KGB in Berlin. At age seventy-nine, Blake suddenly surfaced as a lecturer at the Russian Federal Security Service’s headquarters in Voronezh. “Georgii Ivanovich” boasted he had betrayed four hundred British agents, but his relative importance to the KGB is indicated by the fact that he was only made a colonel, whereas Kim Philby was given the rank of major general. Radio Free Europe Security and Terrorism Watch 3:14 (April 23, 2002).
24. Blake, No Other Choice.
25. David E. Murphy, in conversation with the author, January 19, 2001, and April 2001.
26. George Bailey, letter to and phone conversations with the author, January, March, and April 2001. George was a much-honored correspondent for and editor of Max Ascoli’s Reporter magazine, and he also worked for ABC. He was head of Radio Liberation in Munich for a while, and thereafter he concentrated on books. He was a notable linguist, a distinguished writer, and a gentleman. He died in Munich on September 11, 2001.
27. David E. Murphy, “How I Got to Berlin: Personal Memorandum for the Record,” May 25, 1994.
28. Henry Woodburn, in conversations with the author, May 20–21, 2001.
29. Clarence Berry, e-mail to the author, May 28, 2001.
30. Woodburn, conversations, May 20–21, 2001. Another version has a GI manning the machine gun, and Bill ordering him to slam the bolt. Henry Woodburn, letter to the author, August 4, 2001.
31. Murphy, “How I Got to Berlin.”
32. Clarence Berry, e-mail, May 17, 2002.
33. Woodburn, conversations, May 20–21, 2001.
34. Murphy, “How I Got to Berlin.”
35. Clarence Berry, e-mail to the author, July 13, 2001.
36. Clarence Berry, e-mail to the author, July 29, 2001.
37. Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder, 137.
38. Clarence Berry, letter to the author, August 21, 2002.
39. Ibid. Berry explains, “Demuxing: a process of isolating and printing out on teletype (or reading voice) each ‘channel’ of information which is transmitted on a single ‘circuit.’ Each ‘circuit’ consists of one pair of wires or one radio signal. Generally, there are many channels on a single circuit. In the case of the tunnel, there were three landline ‘cables’ consisting of over 170 circuits, with multichannels on each circuit. [Wilderness claims there were at least 18 channels on each ‘circuit,’ and I have no reason to doubt this.] In other words, taps were made on each pair of the 170-odd pairs of wires [a circuit], and this circuit was tape-recorded back at the site at 15 inches per second.
However, each circuit contained a potential 18 signals which made it sound like a jungle of noises and mish mash. Each channel had to be isolated and printed out in some fashion to make it intelligible
. This is where the demuxing came in. One channel might consist of clear text teletype or voice, another on the same circuit might consist of cipher text, another, possibly facsimile. I have the impression that the teletype signals were normally on one circuit, while voice was more likely on other circuits. I don’t know this for certain however. I know that teletype signals were the big problem, and this was done back in Washington in T-32; the voice signal traffic went to London.”
40. Ibid.
41. Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 397ff.
42. Clarence Berry, e-mail to the author, July 16, 2001.
43. James Critchfield, e-mail to the author, August 12, 2001.
44. Clarence Berry, e-mail to the author, June 5, 2001.
45. Grose, Gentleman Spy, 498.
46. Clarence Berry, e-mail to the author, July 29, 2001.
47. Richard W. Montague, letter and email to the author, March 29, 2004.
48. Tom Polgar, letter to the author, August 10, 2001.
49. Peter Lunn, telephone conversation with and letter to the author, February 22, 2001.
CHAPTER 6: HARVEY’S SUPPORT SYSTEM
NOTE: Many of the documents referred to in this chapter are in the Harvey family papers, which are held by Sally Harvey, who gave me completely free access to them in March 2001. More documents and artifacts are in the possession of Bill’s son by his first marriage, Jim Harvey, who declined to cooperate on this book.
1. Rita Chappiwicki Merthan left the CIA and became Mrs. Jimmy Carter’s private secretary at the White House. She died of a heart attack in 1982.
2. Sally Harvey, in conversations with the author, March 9–12, 2001; and Sally Harvey, e-mails to the author, January and June 2001. Unless otherwise sourced, all quotes by Sally Harvey in this chapter come from these communications.
3. Henry Woodburn, letter to the author, April 17, 2002.
4. Sally Harvey, in conversation with David E. Murphy, 1993.
5. CG Harvey, in conversation with David E. Murphy, November 15–16, 1993.
6. Peter Karlow, phone conversation with the author, March 14, 2002.
7. CG Harvey, conversation, November 15–16, 1993.
8. Star Murphy, e-mail to the author, October 18, 2002; and Star and David E. Murphy, conversations with the author, January 26–27, 2001.
9. Herb Natzke, phone conversation with the author, May 15, 2002.
10. Tom Polgar adds, “CG did not fly to United States with scientists. CG was a good friend of mine, but I have problems with most of stuff [quoted from the Murphy conversation] attributed to her.” Polgar, e-mail to the author, May 4, 2003, after reading draft of this chapter.
11. Unless otherwise sourced, all quoted material in this section comes from Sara King Harvey, handwritten note headed, “Further Comment …with much love,” January 18, 1959. The letter was in CG’s papers.
12. West Berlin Police incident report, translated into English, undated.
CHAPTER 7: INTO THE CAULDRON
1. James Critchfield, e-mail to the author, April 18, 2002.
2. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. quoted in Boston Globe, April 17, 2001.
3. Critchfield, e-mail, April 18, 2002.
4. Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 205. Jim Critchfield’s recollection of who attended the meeting is slightly different from the list given in Thomas’s book.
5. James Critchfield, e-mail to the author, June 5, 2002.
6. This interesting document was in the trove of material supplied to the author by the British writer, Anthony Summers.
7. The material and quotes in this section are woven together from Peter Wright, Spy Catcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (New York: Viking Penguin, 1987), 146–162.
8. For most of the story of Task Force W in the Langley Building, I am deeply indebted to Sam Halpern, who was a key player throughout the period and who delved deep into his memory bank for details in the course of a long conversation on May 23, 2001, and telephone conversations on June 3, 2001, and in March 2002. Halpern’s quotes throughout this chapter are from these three conversations.
9. Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988), 244ff.
10. The “fascinated listener” was F. A. O. Schwarz Jr. Schwarz, phone conversation with the author, April 11, 2001.
11. CG Harvey, in conversation with David E. Murphy, November 15–16 1993; and CG Harvey, videotaped monologue, given at the Indianapolis Lutheran Church, February 22, 1998.
12. The following is an excerpt from a lengthy biographical sketch by a famous American correspondent of the late nineteenth century, Richard Harding Davis:
At thirty-seven …Walker beheld greater conquests, more power, a new South controlling a Nicaragua canal, a network of busy railroads, great squadrons of merchant vessels, himself emperor of Central America. On the gunboat the gold-braided youth had but to raise his hand… but the gold-braided one would (pardon Walker) only on the condition that Walker would appeal to him as an American….
“The President of Nicaragua,” he said, “is a citizen of Nicaragua.”
They led him out at sunrise to a level piece of sand along the beach, and as the priest held the crucifix in front of him he spoke to his executioners in Spanish, simply and gravely: “I accept my punishment with resignation. I would like to think my death will be for the good of society.”
From a distance of twenty feet three soldiers fired at him, but, although each shot took effect, Walker was not dead. So, a sergeant stooped, and with a pistol killed the man….
Had Walker lived four years longer to exhibit upon the great board of the Civil War his ability as a general, he would, I believe, to-day be ranked as one of America’s greatest fighting men.
And because the people of his own day destroyed him is no reason that we should withhold from this American, the greatest of all filibusters, the recognition of his genius.”
I wonder whether Bill chose to name his task force in honor of Walker because he was in some way related to the freebooter. Note that the Cleveland birth certificate cited in chapter 1 mentions “Drenan R. Walker of Danville,” then age twenty-seven, a lawyer, as father of the baby born to Sara J. King, also of Danville.
13. Star Murphy, e-mail to the author, July 28, 2001.
14. M. Neill Prew, in conversation with the author, March 17, 2001.
15. Ted Shackley, in conversation with the author, May 21, 2001, and follow-up phone conversations, February–March 2002. Shackley’s posthumous biography, Spymaster: My Life in the CIA, with Richard A. Finney (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005), 50ff, adds some detail to FI operations into Cuba, especially at the time of the missile crisis. See also David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA’s Crusades (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 74–75.
16. Shackley, conversation, May 21, 2001; and Shackley, phone conversations, February–March 2002.
17. Ibid.
18. Herb Natzke, in conversation with the author, February 11, 2001.
19. Warren Frank, in conversation with the author, March 15, 2001. Warren joined the CIA in 1950 and worked Eastern European/Soviet bloc matters in Germany, where he stayed until 1958. After a tour of duty at Langley, “I was selected by Ted Shackley and Bill Harvey in 1962 to be chief of the FI Branch at JMWAVE, where I remained until 1965. Once a Berliner, always a Berliner.” Warren returned to Berlin as deputy chief of base. He spent years in German and Eastern European operations, then switched to Indonesia and East Asia. He retired in 1985.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. David C. Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 132–136, 137–138.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Currey, Edward Lansdale.
26. Thomas A. Parrott, “Memorandum of Mongoose Meeting in the JCS Operations Room, October 26 1962
, at 2.30PM.”
27. Tom Parrott, phone conversations with the author, December 20 and 23, 2005.
28. Richard M. Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency, with William Hood (New York: Random House, 2003), 196.
CHAPTER 8: PLOTTING ASSASSINATION
1. Richard M. Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency, with William Hood (New York: Random House, 2003),182.
2. Sam Halpern, in conversation with the author, May 23, 2001; and Halpern, phone conversation with the author, June 3, 2001.
3. See James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (New York: Anchor Books, 2002).
4. Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 223, 288ff; Halpern, conversation, May 23, 2001, and phone conversation, June 3, 2001.
5. Clarence Berry, e-mails to the author, June 2001. O’Donnell background: Douglas Valentine, e-mail to the author, March 24, 2001. O’Donnell served in Bolivia, the Netherlands, Thailand, and Turkey, an interesting group of countries.
6. Halpern, conversation, May 23, 2001, and phone conversation, June 3, 2001.
7. Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder, 182.
8. Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 94th Cong., 1st sess., 1975, 83.
9. Central Intelligence Agency, Report of the Inspector General, U.S. Government: Documents on the Cold War in Berlin, 1946–196? (Washington, DC: CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, March–May 1967).
10. David C. Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 137.
11. Halpern, conversation, May 23, 2001.
12. Lansdale’s account of the Castro assassination planning is in Cecil Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1988), 240–250.
13. Harvey’s notes are without doubt genuine. They came into my hands in a sheaf of material provided by the kindness of Anthony Summers, who had obtained the sheaf from CIA under the FOIA. Other inquirers have also seen and pored over them.
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