The Negotiator

by George Mitchell

  Eight very long hours later a young couple from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, picked me up and took me to their hometown. Although I had only a few dollars I desperately wanted to sleep in a bed, go to a real bathroom, and take a shower. When I explained my plight to them, they took me to an old hotel adjacent to the railroad station in Rocky Mount. There I was able to rent a room for just a few dollars. I immediately called Robbie.

  “I’m really sorry,” I began, “but I’m not able to get all the way to Jacksonville.” I explained what had happened and where I was and braced myself for his reaction. He could not have been nicer. He said he understood, he was very grateful to me for making such an effort, and he would drive to Rocky Mount to pick me up the next morning. I realized then that he loved me as much as I loved him. I had two sandwiches left. I ate one and saved the other for the morning. There was no shower in the room, so I took a hot bath, went to bed, and had a long and deep sleep.

  The next morning I sat in a rocking chair in the lobby and waited for him. When I saw his car pull up I ran outside and greeted him with a big hug. On the drive to Camp Lejeune I regaled him with a ride-by-ride account of my trip. He laughed, genuinely and hard, and expressed his gratitude several times. After we arrived at the camp we spent a long time loading the car, a small Chevrolet. Besides his clothes and other belongings there were several boxes and cans of food, so the trunk, the backseat, and the front passenger seat were packed full. There was just enough space on the driver’s side for me to fit snugly. Doing his best to emulate our mother, Robbie prepared several sandwiches, which he placed on the front seat.

  Early the next morning, well before sunrise, Robbie handed me enough cash to get me to Maine. I drove out of Camp Lejeune, turned toward Rocky Mount, and headed north. As I drove through Petersburg I regretted very much that I had no room in the car for the many uniformed men hitchhiking. I ate while driving, stopping only for gasoline and bathroom breaks. The only incident occurred just outside of Boston. Traffic was dense and moving slowly in hurricane-like conditions of high winds and heavy rain. The car driving alongside me suddenly lurched into the side of Robbie’s car, scraping it seriously. In the drenching rain the other driver and I got out of our cars and exchanged names and addresses. He apologized, saying that he had been blown into me by the high wind. Neither of us was in the mood for a long discussion, and in a few minutes I was back in the car, soaking wet but glad to be on the way home. I had driven slowly and continuously, and the roads then were not what they are now, so it was in the middle of the night when I pulled into the driveway alongside the house where Janet was staying. I was tired but proud; I had gotten Robbie’s car and stuff home safely, with only a few deep scratches on the car. I then made one unbreakable promise to myself: I would never again hitchhike anywhere. From now on I would travel by bus, and I hoped, eventually by train and by plane. And who knew? Someday I might even get to take a taxi.

  A few weeks later I received notice to report to the U.S. Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird in Baltimore on December 26. I started very early, traveled by bus, and made it just before the close of business. For the next six months I attended what was, for all practical purposes, a graduate school. I studied history, languages, personal surveillance, report writing, the qualities of leadership, and much more, all with a heavy overlay of anticommunism. I loved the school and the army. I met and studied and worked with young men from all across America, and when we graduated we were sent to stations all around the world. It was an exhilarating experience. To my surprise and pleasure, I was selected to be the deputy commander of one of the student battalions. I took it seriously, did my job well, and graduated near the top of my class. I was thrilled to receive an assignment to serve in counterintelligence in Berlin and promptly read as many relevant books as I could get my hands on. After a brief visit to Waterville to say goodbye, I packed my bags and headed for Fort McGuire, New Jersey, for the flight to Germany.

  THE ARMY

  The Constellation seemed to shake as it lifted off the ground, and I shook with it. It was 1955; I was twenty-one years old, had just graduated from the U.S. Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird, and was on my way to my first assignment. It was the first time I had ever been in an airplane.

  The plane banked sharply to the right, and my heart and stomach banked with it. But within minutes my concerns seemed minor. Most of the passengers on the plane were children, some very young, dependents of U.S. military personnel based in Germany. Getting to cruising altitude required a very bumpy ride through bad weather that triggered an outburst of crying. The vomiting was not far behind. Trapped in a tight middle seat, surrounded by sick and frightened children, I felt sorry for myself but even sorrier for the mothers struggling to cope with and calm their children. By the time the plane landed in Frankfurt I had concluded that flying wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. On deplaning I was relieved to learn that the next leg of the trip, to Berlin, would be by overnight train.

  An army driver took me to the train station in Frankfort. There I met Bob King, a fellow second lieutenant (the lowest rank in the Officer Corps), who also had been assigned to Berlin. He was pleasant and open, and we had a friendly talk on the train. This was my first train ride and, like the flight, it was eye-opening, but in a good way. It was a sleeper, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had a nice bed all to myself. The cold war was under way, and the train had to pass through Soviet-controlled East Germany to get to Berlin. It was exciting, though nerve-wracking, when the train stopped twice, on entering and on leaving East Germany. But there were no incidents and we arrived safely in Berlin early on a Sunday morning.

  Another army driver took us to the headquarters of the U.S. Army Command in Berlin. It was a clear, sunny morning, and there was little traffic as we drove through the city. I strained to see reminders of the battle for Berlin that occurred a decade earlier in the final days of World War II. Battle is not the right word since the Germans were unable to mount an effective resistance to the revenge-seeking Soviets who stormed and devastated Berlin. I had read many books on the great war and was eager to see the places where so much tragic history had been made.

  The huge compound was virtually deserted. The sound of our heels clicking on the marble floors echoed as we were led down a long empty hallway to the office of the adjutant of the unit to which we were assigned. I got to the door first, pulled it open, and instinctively stepped aside and waved Bob into the room. He had taken a few steps and I had not yet pulled the door shut behind me when a young officer behind a desk pointed at Bob and barked, “You’re the new supply officer!” There was no hello, no handshake, no “How are you?” or “Glad to meet you.” We were both so startled that we stopped for a moment. “Come in, come in!” he yelled, his voice still with an edge of anger. As we gingerly approached his desk he pointed at me. “You,” he said, “report to security downstairs right away.” He then asked which of us was Mitchell and which was King. After we replied he completed some forms on his desk and sent us on our way. We later learned that the adjutant, a first lieutenant not much older than we were, was upset because having to receive us and give us our assignments meant that he missed his regular Sunday morning golf game. We eventually became friends with him and often laughed when we recalled our first meeting.

  Beyond the laughter was a serious point: the significant role of chance in life. Had I been the first to step into the adjutant’s office I would have spent the next two years as the supply officer, an important role in any army but not nearly as interesting, varied, and exciting as the work I was called on to perform.

  Responding to the adjutant’s order, I went directly to the Office of Security. I was informed that I would serve as part of a three-man protective detail, beginning that evening. That evening! I was stunned to learn that on the very day I arrived in Berlin I would be sent to a remote northern sector of the city, along the border with East Berlin, to protect a visiting dignitary.

  I was in
structed to take off my uniform and dress in civilian clothes. The next time I put on my uniform was on the day I left Berlin for good, eighteen months later. The dignitary turned out to be a prominent scientist who had worked on the German rocket program in the late stages of the war. After Germany surrendered, several members of the scientific team were transported to the United States, where they continued their efforts on behalf of our country. The mother of one of them lived in West Berlin, directly adjacent to the border with East Berlin. She was in failing health, and her son was coming to visit her. The city was then a hotbed of espionage and cold war conflict, and kidnappings were common. So that evening three young Americans drove to the apartment building in which she lived and deployed to prevent a communist kidnapping. The leader of our group, Charlie McKelvey, stayed in the car, parked a discreet distance away and across the street. The other member of our team went inside the building, to a landing on the floor just above the apartment we were guarding. I was sent to the rear of the building, where, crouched in shrubbery, I watched and protected the back entrance. I was very nervous and regularly checked the revolver that I had strapped into a shoulder holster. Although I had trouble staying awake when I worked as a night watchman at the paper mill two years earlier, I was wide awake this night, as every sound raised an alarm in my mind. Fortunately nothing happened, and when we were relieved by another detail the next morning I felt a sense of accomplishment and self-assurance. I’d gotten through the first night without shooting myself in the foot and I could now unpack and settle in. I was part of the team.

  The rest of the week passed without incident, and the scientist returned safely to the United States. For the next few months I performed a series of tasks. I had the sense of being tested and knew I had passed when I finally received a permanent assignment.

  Berlin in 1955–56 was an exciting city, and I came to love the place and the people. Divided by the cold war into four sectors—Russian in the east, French in the north, British in the center, and American in the south—it remained surprisingly open. The infamous Wall was a few years in the future, and people could travel with relative ease throughout the city. Indeed it was that very freedom that ultimately led to the erection of the Wall. Chafing under the constraints of communist rule, East Germans and other Eastern Europeans were pouring into West Berlin at a rising rate. To accommodate them in some orderly fashion the U.S. and West German governments constructed a refugee center in West Berlin. It was located along the border in the working-class district of Marienfelde, from which it took its name. There teams of Americans and Germans worked side by side, receiving, screening, and assisting those fleeing communism, most of whom eventually settled in West Germany. One part of their processing involved being interrogated by a team whose specific task was to detect, intercept, and arrest those who might be entering for the purpose of becoming “sleeper spies” in the West and to identify and recruit those who might be willing to return to the East as spies for us. A delicate task, requiring a high level of personal skill and judgment, it was performed by a dedicated group of Germans, many of whom had served in the German Army in the war, and Americans, most of whom were career enlisted men who had served in the U.S. Army during the war and had stayed on after the fighting ended. All of the German veterans who worked with us said they had fought against the Soviets on the Eastern Front. We often joked with them, expressing amazement that it took Eisenhower so long to get to the Rhine River when there were no Germans fighting on the Western Front.

  I was promoted to first lieutenant and assigned to that team. I reported to a captain who in turn reported to the colonel who was the commander of our unit. I was twenty-two, much younger than most of those I was working with. I had received limited language training and although I worked hard to improve my German I was far from fluent. Neither proved to be a fatal handicap, and the next year was one of the most interesting and exciting of my life.

  Our unit maintained several safe houses in the American sector of West Berlin, ostensibly private residences that were in fact used to temporarily house refugees for extended interrogation or for their protection. I visited the houses regularly, often to make decisions for which I at first felt hopelessly unprepared. One visit took place soon after I started. I received a report that the screening process had produced strong suspicions about one refugee from a small town in East Germany. Two screeners, one American and one German, thought that he had been sent west by the East German government and should be arrested. He was accompanied by his wife and two small children. The screeners wanted me to come to the safe house to decide how to handle the situation. I drove to the house, which was located on a quiet, tree-lined street in a residential section of the city.

  When I arrived the two screeners briefed me in what had been the living room of the private house. The suspect was in an adjacent room, the wife and children in an upstairs bedroom. They were brought down first. The children were young, a four-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl; the wife was in her thirties. They were postcard-perfect Teutons: blond, blue-eyed, bright rosy cheeks, a hint of chubbiness. She was in tears and emotional; the children were frightened and silent. She didn’t know why they had been detained, but she knew she had a problem. She pleaded for her husband’s release and asked that they be permitted to go on to West Germany. After a brief discussion they were taken back upstairs and I was led by the screeners into the adjacent room to meet and talk with the suspect. As we entered the room we were shocked. He had committed suicide! There had been no indication that he might be suicidal, so his belt had not been taken from him. Somehow he had looped it over part of a protruding window frame and hanged himself, his body dangling against the wall by the window.

  When we rushed over to him, we discovered that he was still alive, although barely conscious, the tips of his toes just touching the floor. He was a stocky, heavy man who weighed well over two hundred pounds. The three of us struggled awkwardly to lift him up high enough to enable us to unloop the tangled belt and let him down. As we did so he slipped out of our grasp and fell heavily to the floor, striking his head on the edge of a nearby desk. That sliced open a deep gash along one of his eyebrows from which blood spurted. I ordered the German screener to call one of the doctors who worked with us, while the American screener and I propped the suspect up into a sitting position, his back against the desk, his head elevated, as we tried to stanch the flow of blood by pressing a towel against the wound. Within a half hour he was conscious and sitting in a chair. I began to question him.

  As the screeners had reported, he was emotional and inconsistent and contradicted himself frequently. It didn’t take too much interrogation to get him to admit that he had faked the suicide attempt to gain attention and sympathy. Then, after what seemed like a long silence, he took the towel from his face, looked at me, and, in a voice drained of emotion, said, “Whatever you do with me, she and the children know nothing. Let them go.” After thinking about it for the rest of the day, that’s what I did. In accordance with our procedures he was turned over to the West German police; she and the children were returned to East Germany. I worried so much about what would happen to the woman and her children that I sought out two respected senior enlisted men in our unit, Felix Finn and Max Baer, to discuss my feelings. Both were old enough to be my father. “It’s good you’re concerned,” Felix said, “but in this job you’re going to have to make a lot of decisions tougher than this one. You’d better get used to it.” He was right. There were lots of decisions, many of them much more difficult. I tried hard to get used to it, but I never did. I sought and welcomed the responsibility, but I was deeply uncomfortable about the fact that I, an inexperienced twenty-two-year-old, was making life-or-death decisions about people’s lives. This discomfort has never left me. Later, as a U.S. attorney for Maine and then as a federal judge, I forced myself to act in a timely and decisive way, but both before and after each decision, I thought long and hard about the people whose lives would be irrevocably
changed by my decisions, about my duties and responsibilities, and about my own fallibility and weaknesses. Some decision makers reportedly are able to quickly put each decision behind them. I have never been able to do so. I have made many mistakes and spent many sleepless nights reflecting on the morality and consequences of my decisions. Those two children in Berlin have been my companions for life.

  While in Berlin I took a major step toward adulthood. For the first time I voted in a presidential election.I The curriculum at the Army Intelligence School was understandably focused on the threat of communism, its insidious nature, and the need for constant vigilance against those who would undermine American values.II In addition I loved the army and admired General Dwight Eisenhower for his service in World War II. I also admired Governor Adlai Stevenson, but to me the choice was clear and my decision simple. I voted for Eisenhower and was pleased that he was reelected. (I have felt ever since that he was underrated as a president.) But beyond that I had little interest in politics. I was focused on my future. My term of service would soon expire. What should I do?