His loyalty was evident to me in one other aspect of his life: his passion for art.
A love of painting and sculpture was a tradition in his family, he explained; his brother was a professor of art history at a university in upstate New York and that brother’s daughter, Comrade Dieter’s niece, is a painter (and dancer) in the city of Manhattan. When he finally received permission from the Party to correspond with his family, all his letters were carefully vetted by me to make certain that nothing impugned the state or hinted at disloyalty (much less discussed his work). The subject was exclusively his, and his family’s, love of art.
He described the rousing art scene here in Our Mother-Homeland, extolling the Soviet artists who labor to further the goals of the Revolution. He wrote glowingly to his family about the “Socialist Realist” movement that has typified our culture since the days of Comrade Lenin: paintings that are not only brilliantly executed but embrace the four pillars of Our Mother-Homeland values: Party-mindedness, ideology-mindedness, class-content and truthfulness. Among the art that he sent to his family were a postcard of a landscape by Dmitry Maevsky, another card of a thoughtful portrait by Vladimir Alexandrovich Gorb (of the famed Repin Institute of Art), and a poster announcing a forthcoming Party Congress, which Comrade Dieter himself would be attending, illustrated with the rousing “Trumpeter and Standard-bearer” by Mitrovan Grekov, a work, of course, much revered by all patriotic countrymen.
His brother in return would send postcards or small posters of paintings that he believed Comrade Dieter might enjoy and that he might use to decorate his quarters. These cards, like the letters themselves, were vetted by the GRU technical division and found to contain no secret messages, microfilm, etc., though I did not think that likely. My concern with these gifts, for concern there was, Comrade General, lay elsewhere.
You are perhaps aware of the American Central Intelligence Agency’s International Organizations Division. This insidious directorate (which the GRU was the first to uncover, I must add) has in recent years attempted to use art as a weapon—by promoting the incoherent and decadent American “abstract expressionism” to the world. This absurd defacing of canvasses, by the likes of Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, is considered by true connoisseurs of art to be sacrilege. Had these men (and the occasional woman) committed such self-indulgence here they would find themselves under arrest. The International Organizations Directive is the CIA’s pathetic attempt to proclaim that the West values freedom of expression and creativity while Our Mother-Homeland does not. This is, on its face, absurd. Why, even the American President Harry Truman said of the abstract expressionist movement, “If that’s art, then I’m a Hottentot.”
But I was vastly relieved to note that Comrade Dieter’s family—and obviously he—also rejected such nonsensical travesty. The paintings and sketches they sent him were realistic works that displayed traditional composition and themes not incompatible with those of the Revolution—by such Americans as Frederick Remington, George Innes, and Edward Hopper, as well as classic painters like the Italian Jacopo Vignali.
Indeed, some of the reproductions sent to Comrade Dieter were tantamount to agitprop supporting the values of Our Mother-Homeland! The Jerome Myers paintings, for instance, of immigrants struggling on the streets of New York, and those of Otto Dix, the German, whose paintings mocked the decadence of the Weimar Republic.
If ever anyone seemed enamored of his adopted home, it was Comrade Dieter. No, my instincts as an intelligence officer told me that if there were any risk regarding this singular man, it would not be his loyalty but that foreign agents or counterrevolutionaries would attempt to murder him, in an effort to derail Our Mother-Homeland’s efforts in the field of atomic weapons. Protecting him from such harm became my whole life and I made certain he was protected at all times.
Now, having “set the stage,” Comrade General Tasarich, I must turn to the unfortunate incident of 10 November of this year.
Comrade Dieter was active in the Party and attended Party Congresses and rallies whenever he could. These, however, were rare in the closed city of Arzamas-16 and so he would occasionally travel to larger metropolises in Russia or other nations within the Soviet Union to attend these events. One such gathering was that which I had mentioned earlier—described in the poster illustrated by the artist Grekov: the Joint Party Congress in Berlin, scheduled for November of this year, at which First Secretary Khrushchev and East German Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl would speak. The Congress would celebrate East Germany’s recent autonomy and it was anticipated that plans would be announced for allegiances between the two nations. Everyone in Our Mother-Homeland was curious what direction the relationship between these former enemies would take.
I set about to make secure arrangements for the travel, contacting the MVD, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the newly formed KGB, Committee for State Security. I wished to know if they had any intelligence of potential threats to Soviet citizens at the Congress and any word regarding risks to Comrade Dieter specifically. They said no, there was no such intelligence. Still, I proceeded as if there could well be a threat. I would not accompany him alone but would be aided by a KGB security officer, Lieutenant Nikolai Alesov. Both of us would be armed. Further, we would work closely with the Stasi (I am no fan of the East German Secret Police but one can hardly argue with their—dare I say ruthless?—efficiency).
Our instructions—from both GRU command and Our Mother-Homeland state security ministers—were to insure that Comrade Dieter was at no point in danger from counterrevolutionaries or foreign agents—and from criminals too, Berlin, of course, being well known as a hotbed of illegal activity perpetrated by the Roma, Catholics and Jews that have not been relocated.
We had additional orders too. If it turned out that Western agents or counterrevolutionaries made a move to kidnap Comrade Dieter, we were to make sure that “he was not able to supply our enemies with any classified information about the weapons program.”
Our superiors did not elaborate, but it was clear what they meant.
I will be honest, Comrade General, that though I would have had some regrets, if the matter came down to it, I knew I could kill Comrade Dieter to prevent him from falling into the hands of Our Mother-Homeland’s foes.
Arrangements thus made, on 9 November, the day before the Congress, we flew in a military aircraft to Warsaw and then took a train to Berlin. There, quarters had been arranged for us in Pankow, not far from Schönhausen Palace. It was a most elegant area, finer than any I had ever seen. As the conference was not until the next day, the three of us—myself, Comrade Dieter and Comrade security officer Alesov—attended the ballet in the evening (an acceptable version of Swan Lake, not up to the standards of the Bolshoi). After the performance we dined in a French restaurant (and joked that we need not use atomic bombs on the West; it will gorge itself to death!). We had cigarettes and brandy at the hotel and then retired. Comrade Alesov and I took turns remaining awake and guarding Comrade Dieter’s door. The Stasi had searched the hotel for threats and assured us that the identities of every guest checked out satisfactorily.
Indeed, no danger presented itself that night. I must say, however, that despite the absence of hostile actors I got little sleep. This was not due to my duties in safeguarding Comrade Dieter, but rather because I kept thinking this: I am in the country of men who, just a few years earlier, had so viciously slaughtered so many of my fellow soldiers and who had wounded me. And yet here we were, each embracing nearly identical ideals. Such is the universal lesson of the Revolution and the invincibility of the Proletariat. Surely Our Mother-Homeland would conquer the world and live for a thousand years!
The next morning we attended the Party Congress, which proved to be a truly rousing event! Oh, what an honor to see First Secretary Khrushchev in person, as “The Internationale” played and men and women cheered and waved crimson flags. Half of East Berlin seemed to be present! Speech after speech
followed—six hours, without stop. At the conclusion, we left in rousing spirits and, accompanied by a somber, weasel-faced Stasi agent, dined at a bierhaus. We then returned to the station to await the overnight train to Warsaw, where the Secret Police officer bade us farewell.
This station was the scene of the incident about which I’m writing.
We were seated in the departure lounge, which was quite crowded. As we read and smoked, Comrade Dieter set down his newspaper and stood, explaining that he was going to use the toilet before the train. The KGB agent and I of course accompanied him.
As we walked toward the facilities I noted nearby a middle-aged couple. The woman was sitting with a book in her lap. She wore a rose-colored dress. A man in trousers, shirt, and waistcoat stood beside her, smoking a cigarette. He was looking out the window. Curiously, on this chill evening, neither wore a coat or hat. I reflected that there was something familiar about them, though I could hardly place what it might be.
Suddenly Comrade Dieter changed direction and walked directly toward the couple. He whispered some words to them, nodding toward myself and Comrade Alesov.
I was immediately alarmed but before I could react, the woman lifted her book, beneath which she was hiding a pistol! She gripped the Walther and pointed it at me and Alesov, as the jacketless man pulled Comrade Dieter away. In American-accented Russian, she told us to throw our weapons to the floor. Comrade Alesov and I, however, drew ours. The woman fired twice—killing Comrade Alesov and wounding me, causing my pistol to fly from my grip, and I dropped to my knees in pain.
But immediately I rose, retrieved the gun and, preparing to shoot with my left hand, ran outside, ignoring my pain and without regard to my own personal safety. But I was too late; the agents, along with Comrade Dieter, were gone.
At the train station the Criminal Investigations Directorate of the National People’s Army and the Stasi investigated but it was only a half-hearted affair—this was a matter between the West and Russia; no East Germans were involved. Indeed, they seemed to suspect that I myself had killed Comrade Alesov, as no witnesses were willing to come forth and describe what actually happened. The Stasi offered no justification for this theory other than the incredulity that a middle-aged woman would perpetrate such a crime. . . although, of course, the true answer is that it is easier to arrest a bird in the hand than go tramping through the bush in search of the real perpetrator—especially when that bird is in the employ of a rival security agency. That is, myself.
After two days they concluded that I was innocent, though they treated me like the worst Nonperson imaginable! I was escorted to the Polish border and ignominiously deposited there, where I had to beg the local—and extremely uncooperative—police for transportation to Warsaw for a flight to Moscow, despite my shoving my credentials as a senior member of the Russian intelligence corps into the face of everyone in uniform!
Upon my return home, I was attended to in hospital for my gunshot wound. Once released I was asked to prepare a statement for your Committee, Comrade General, describing my recollection of the events of 10 November.
Accordingly, I am submitting this report to you now.
It is clear to me now that the spiriting away of Comrade Dieter was an operation by the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington DC and carried out with the help of Comrade Dieter’s brother and niece. It seems that the family’s love of art was a fabrication. The reference to such an interest in the first letter sent by Comrade Dieter to America put his family on notice that he had come upon a way to communicate clandestinely with the intelligence agencies in the United States, in hopes of effecting his escape to the West. His brother and niece were not, as it now seems, involved in the arts at all but are, in their own rights, well-established scientists.
The CIA agents contacted by Comrade Dieter’s brother were, without doubt, the ones who sent him the postcards depicting the paintings I referred to above. But they were not random choices; each painting had a meaning, which Dieter was able to work out. My thinking is that the messages were along these lines:
• The painting by Jacopo Vignali, a 17th century artist, of the Archangel Michael saving souls near death told him that the Americans did indeed wish to rescue him from life here in Our Mother-Homeland.
• The Frederick Remington painting called “The Trooper” depicted a man armed with a gun—meaning force would be involved in the rescue.
• The George Innes painting depicted the idyllic land of the New York valley, which is where his brother lived—the image beckoning him to join them.
• The message of “immigrating,” that is, fleeing from East to West, could be found in the Jerome Myers work of the tenements of New York City.
You will recall that among the paintings that Comrade Dieter himself sent to America was the poster, incorporating Grekov’s painting. The point of that missive was not the illustration itself, but the details of the Party Congress in East Berlin. The CIA rightly took this to mean that Comrade Dieter would be present at the event. Western Agents in Berlin could easily have surveyed hotels and train ticket records and confirmed when he, and his guards, would depart from East Berlin and from which station.
The Otto Dix postcard—of scenes in Germany—was the penultimate sent to Comrade Dieter from America and it confirmed that Berlin was in fact acceptable as the site of the contact with Western agents. The last postcard sent to Comrade Dieter was the most significant of all—the Edward Hopper painting.
This canvas was entitled “Hotel by a Railroad” and it showed two people: a middle-aged woman in a rose-colored dress, reading a book, and man without a jacket or hat, looking out the window. (This is why the couple in the station struck me as familiar; I had seen the postcard of the Hopper painting not long before.) This image informed Comrade Dieter how he might recognize the agents in East Berlin who would effect his escape, as they would be dressed in the garb of the people in Hopper’s painting and affecting the same pose.
I have described how the abduction occurred. I have learned since then that, following the shooting in the station, a waiting car outside drove the two operatives and Comrade Dieter to a secret location in East Berlin, where they crossed to the West undetected. From there an American Air Force plane flew Comrade Dieter to London and then onward to the United States.
This is my recollection and assessment of the incident of 10 November 1954, Comrade General, and the events leading up to it.
I am aware of the letter from the Minister of State Security which states the KGB’s position that I am solely at fault for the escape of Comrade Dieter from Our Mother-Homeland and his flight to America, as well as the death of Comrade Alesov. It is claimed that I did not appreciate Comrade Dieter’s true nature: that he was not, in fact, a loyal member of the Party nor did he feel any allegiance to Our Mother-Homeland. Rather, he was simply feigning, while spending his hours learning what he might about our atomic bomb projects and awaiting the day when an escape to the West might be feasible.
Further, the letter asserts, I did not anticipate the plot that was concocted to effect such escape.
I can say in my defense only that the Comrade Dieter’s subterfuge and his plan—communicating with the West through the use of artworks—were marks of genius, a strategy that I submit even the most seasoned intelligence officer, such as myself, could never discover.
Comrade Dieter was, as I say, a most singular man.
Accordingly, Comrade General Tasarich, I humbly beseech you to petition First Secretary Khrushchev, a former soldier like myself, to intervene on my behalf at my forthcoming trial and reject the KGB’s recommendation that I be sentenced to an indefinite term of imprisonment in the East for my part in this tragic incident.
Whatever my fate, however, please know that my devotion to the First Secretary, to the Party, and to Our Mother-Homeland is undiminished and as immortal as the ideals of the Glorious Revolution.
I remain, yours in loyalty,
Mikhail Sergeyevich Sidorov
Lubyanka Prison, Moscow
CRAIG FERGUSON has written films and television shows. He has written a couple of books and hours of stand-up comedy but squirms at the idea of calling himself an author; “vulgar lounge entertainer with artistic pretensions” might be more accurate. He wears pancake makeup and tells jokes which a proper author should never do and he is, these days, a reasonably cheerful soul, which means he lacks any credibility among the pseudointelligentsia.
He is married to a spectacular woman he loves, father to beautiful clever children he loves, and caretaker to various cats and dogs (and a fish that “regenerates” every so often for the benefit of his youngest son) that he honestly doesn’t really like. (One of the dogs is OK.)
He contributed to this collection because he is an enthusiastic fan of both Mr. Hopper and Mr. Block and is afraid of Mr. Block. He is also a fan of Elvis and St. Augustine but if you’ve read the story you already know that.
He worries about dying sometimes.
South Truro Church, 1930
29 × 43 in. (73.7 × 109.2 cm). Private collection
TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
BY CRAIG FERGUSON
The Reverend Jefferson T. Adams, beloved and respected minister of this parish for over fifty years, pulled deeply on the long fragile Jamaican-style reefer and held the smoke deep in his lungs. There was no sensation of getting high anymore, or indeed panic or paranoia or any of the other unpleasantness. No sensation at all really, but he enjoyed the ritual.
He listened to the music from outside the church. It was too nice a day to go inside. Cold and still with a high milky cataract of cloud diffusing the sunlight enough to flatter the landscape, softening the edges and blanching out the imperfections like an old actor’s headshot.
In Sunlight or In Shadow Page 10