Operation Chaos
Page 37
I had failed them all. Jim’s testimony could not sweeten a relationship poisoned by LaRouchian paranoia. Bill’s need to be interviewed like a real Washington correspondent had brought us, inevitably, to a row about his entrapment in a life-sapping cult. I stood no chance of satisfying Mark’s desire for a deathbed confession from George Carrano. (Mark’s deathbed, not George’s.) As for Chuck, I knew the lies he’d told about the Vietnam War, and that had reduced us both to silence.
Michael Vale, however, was a different case. In the beginning, I assumed the rumors about him were true. I thought he was the villain of the piece. A CIA operative charged to bring discord and division to the deserter community in Stockholm. I had seen his cruel side. I had observed the delight with which he’d recalled his ability to reduce impressionable young people to tears. He’d never tried that on me. But this crumpled little guy I’d been meeting, on and off, for the past three years had exerted his influence. Without really trusting him, I had grown to like him and to feel sympathy with the strange narrative of his life.
He was a man who had used his knowledge of psychology and politics to prepare the deserters for revolution, and then found the tide of that revolution turned against him. His loyal comrades had defected to a cult that sabotaged his career, harassed him in restaurants, and assigned him a role in their paranoid view of the world. Michael had considered himself a mentor to Cliff Gaddy, Warren Hamerman, Bill Jones, and Jim McGourty, and they had betrayed him. Through me, however, he had achieved a kind of justice. Lyndon LaRouche had stolen his protégés. But in telling this story, they had become his once more. The Stockholm deserters and their Gray Eminence, bound together in the pages of a book.
I emailed him. His reply came from the Philippines. “I’ve finally begun to get a purchase on some understanding of this vile, repugnant place,” he wrote. “I’ll be back in the summer. Probably London. My hearing aids are playing up.”
I’d sent him a list of questions to clarify some details of his early life. His travels. His education. His reading in Soviet psychiatry. He answered them fully and generously. But at the end of his email he wrote: “Matthew, to tell the truth, what exactly and specifically this book of yours is about still eludes my grasp.”
“We’ll discuss it when you come to London,” I replied. “Let’s meet where we first met. Islington Green. Last bench on the right.”
NOTES
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All quotations from individuals are from interviews conducted by the author, unless otherwise indicated.
INTRODUCTION: DEEP SNOW
the influence of a cult: For the cult nature of Lyndon LaRouche’s organizations, see “Judgment Is Reduced in NBC Libel Case,” New York Times, February 24, 1985; Dennis King, Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism (New York: Doubleday, 1989); Robert Mackey, “Visitors from Planet LaRouche,” New York Times, August 25, 2009; Alexandra Stein, Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems (London: Routledge, 2016).
“the takeover by the CIA of the United States of America”: “Injunction Against CIA and NYC Police for Insurrection Against U.S. Government,” handbill, National Caucus of Labor Committees records, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library.
1: THE HIGH ROAD
“It’s them, man”: For the source of much of the information in this chapter, see Terry Whitmore, Memphis Nam Sweden: The Story of a Black Deserter (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971).
“gooks” and “slant-eyed bastards”: Thomas Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden: The Men and Their Challenge (New York: Association Press, 1971), p. 94.
a $1,000 stipend from the Kremlin in their pockets: Johan Erlandsson, Desertörerna [The deserters] (Stockholm: Carlsson, 2016), p. 39.
They had been smuggled into Russia by an outfit called Beheiren: Thomas R. H. Havens, Fire Across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan l965–l975 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 54–76. The name is an acronym for Betonamu ni Heiwa o! Shimin Rengō, or Citizens’ Federation for Peace in Vietnam.
Joan Baez had performed: Ibid., p. 116.
full-page ads in the Washington Post: Japan Times, “Reasons for Placing Ad in U.S. Paper Explained,” April 5, 1967.
preparing hiding places and airing the spare bedding: Havens, Fire Across the Sea, p. 144.
Oda Makoto: Peter Kelman, “Protesting the National Identity: The Cultures of Protest in 1960s Japan” (PhD diss., University of Sydney, 2001), p. 168.
having saved Ed Sullivan from humiliation: Michael Harris, Always on Sunday: An Inside View of Ed Sullivan, the Beatles, Elvis, Sinatra … and Ed’s Other Guests (New York: Meredith Press).
the “Moron Corps”: See Thomas Sticht, “Project 100,000 in the Vietnam War and After” in Scraping the Barrel: The Military Use of Sub-Standard Manpower, 1860–1960, ed. Sanders Marble (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), pp. 224–68.
a Christmas bedside visit from President Lyndon B. Johnson: See Whitmore, Memphis Nam Sweden, pp. 85–88.
a four-minute film: “Anti-Yanks Sneak Griggs from Japan,” Idaho Free Press, February 28, 1968.
“For those of you on the battlefields”: “Six Real Men,” Win, June 1, 1968.
he gave testimony that shocked and baffled the world: UPI, “Deserter Tells Weird Tales on Moscow TV,” Greenville (SC) News, May 9, 1968.
Edwin C. Arnett had been an army cook: Erlandsson, Desertörerna, p. 156.
the possibility of becoming an unwitting combatant in the propaganda war: Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB, to the Committee for State Security of the USSR Council of Ministers, February 24, 1968, Library of Congress, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/tfrussia/tfrhtml/tfr032-1.html.
Knet, Arnet, Kollikot: Ibid.
“I thought he was dead”: “Stunned Family Hears Navy Deserter Filmed,” Salem (OR) Statesman-Journal, May 5, 1968.
“If it’s true, we disown him”: “Nyack Man Listed as Defector to Soviets,” White Plains (NY) Journal News, May 10, 1968.
Arnett’s tales dominated the headlines: Reuters, “U.S. Deserters in Moscow Tell of “Atrocities’ in Viet,” May 4, 1968; UPI, “Six Deserters on Moscow TV: U.S. G.I.s Called More Brutal Than Hitler’s SS,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 5, 1968.
In the shots from that day: “Deserters Reach Sweden,” White Plains (NY) Journal News, May 27, 1968; “More Deserters Arrive in Sweden Seeking Asylum,” Long Beach (CA) Independent-Press-Telegram, May 26, 1968.
A press conference was coalescing: Whitmore, Memphis Nam Sweden, pp. 172–73.
“At least Sweden ain’t Mississippi”: Ibid., p. 175.
UPI sent out a story by Virgil Kret: Virgil Kret, “GI Deserter Changes Tune on Moscow TV,” Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1968.
“he spoke English like a Japanese bar girl”: Ibid.
a California charity dinner attended by Mr. and Mrs. Zeppo Marx: “It’s All Over, Even the Shouting,” Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA), November 5, 1964.
“time poem”: Paul Krassner, “The Assassination Hotline,” Berkeley (CA) Barb, November 4, 1976.
The Obituary of the World: Virgil Kret, The Obituary of the World, http://icnews360.blogspot.co.uk.
2: THE COMMITTEE
“They call you a man”: Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, p. 63.
“this violent indignation of alienated people”: Bill Jones, typewritten speech, April 20, 1968, Papers of Hans Göran Franck, Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek [The Swedish Labor Movement’s Archive and Library], Stockholm.
a private tribunal to investigate American war crimes in Vietnam: Bertrand Russell, War Crimes in Vietnam (London: Allen & Unwin, 1967).
a notorious article entitled “Sin and Sweden”: Joe David Brown, “Sin and Sweden,” Time, April 25, 1955.
“Ten percent of the inf
ected boys”: Alfred Zanker, “Life in a Great Society,” U.S. News & World Report, February 7, 1966.
“The goal of democracy”: Olof Palme, speech, February 21, 1968, http://www.olofpalme.org/wp-content/dokument/680221c_vietnamdemonstration.pdf.
police batons drawing blood outside the U.S. Embassy: “FNL-demonstranter och polis är överens om 20 december-väg” [FNL demonstrators and police in agreement over 20 December route”], Dagens Nyheter, December 17, 1968; “3000 visade snällt sitt förakt för USA, Nilsson och Wallenberg” [“300 kindly showed their contempt for the USA, Nilsson and Wallenberg”], Dagens Nyheter, December 21, 1968.
“leftist mob”: U.S. News & World Report, February 19, 1968; Noel Grove, Newspaper Enterprise Association, “Swedish-American Relations Go from Neutral to Reverse,” St. Cloud (MN) Times, May 26, 1968.
a barrage of hate mail and rotten eggs: Associated Press, “U.S. Recalls Ambassador in Stockholm,” Baltimore Sun, March 9, 1968.
The U.S. State Department threatened: Carl-Gustaf Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War (Huddinge, Sweden: Södertörns högskola, 2017).
The International Longshoremen’s Association warned: Victor Reisel, “Union Plans to Hit Sweden,” Montana Standard (Butte, MT), April 11, 1968.
The NBC anchorman Frank McGee: The Frank McGee Report, NBC, February 25, 1968.
“They are bums”: Associated Press, “G.I. Deserters Called Bums,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 26, 1968.
the man was loaded into a van and driven away: Michael Vale, email message to the author, April 13, 2017; Dan Israel, telephone interview with the author, February 23, 2016.
the landmark study There Are No Naughty Children: Joachim and Mirjam Valentin-Israel, Det Finns Inga Elaka Barn! [There are no naughty children!] (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1946).
“Vietnamese people”: UPI, “Reports of GIs Deserting,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 10, 1967.
an attempt to induce neurosis in laboratory apes: G. M. Cherkovich, “Experimental Neurosis in Apes Induced by Disturbance of a Daily Stereotype,” trans. Michel [Michael] Vale, Soviet Psychology 8 (1969).
the effects of “conflict situations”: G. O. Magakyan, “Neurogenous Hypotension in Apes as a Model of Neurocirculatory Hypotension (Human Hypotension),” trans. Michel Vale, Soviet Psychology 8 (1969).
Forensic Psychiatry, a textbook: G. V. Morozov and Ia. M Kalashnik, Forensic Psychiatry, trans. Michel Vale (White Plains, NY: International Arts and Sciences Press, 1970).
the Serbsky had begun to acquire a reputation as a psychiatric gulag: Peter Reddaway, “Five Years in the Life of Piotr Grivogenko,” The Listener, February 20, 1969.
“You’ve got to admire him, though”: Lucinda Franks, Waiting Out a War: The Exile of Private John Picciano (New York: Coward, McCann, Geoghegan, 1974), p. 136.
Margareta Hedman: email message to the author, July 28, 2015.
Sigal had been an army observer: Clancy Sigal, Black Sunset: Hollywood Sex, Lies, Betrayal, and Raging Egos (Berkeley, CA: Soft Skull Press, 2016), pp. 31–32.
The FBI tapped his phones: Clancy Sigal, “The Problem with Clint Eastwood’s Hoover,” Counterpunch, December 15, 2011, http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/05/the-problem-with-clint-eastwoods-hoover.
Pristine, unfingermarked copies: James V. Werstch, Recent Trends in Soviet Psycholinguistics, trans. Michel Vale (White Plains, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1978); Pavel Câmpenau, The Genesis of the Stalinist Social Order, trans. Michel Vale (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1989).
Ralph Miliband, the father: See Philip Wallace, “Critique: More Than 30 Years of Socialist Theory,” Critique, April 2007.
“independent scholar”: American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies 41st National Convention, November 12–15, 2009, https://aseees.org/sites/default/files/u29/2009program.pdf.
3: THE TRANSLATOR
“The abstract, humanitarian, moralist view of history is barren”: Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed. Trotsky: 1879–1921 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 202.
when the real Jesus Zeus Lorenzo Mungi was killed in action: Shelley Marshall, telephone interview with the author, August 25, 2016.
he was jailed in 1970 for dealing in LSD and died in prison: “Desertör fick 3,5 år för knark” [Deserter got 3.5 years for drugs], Dagens Nyheter, April 4, 1970.
a witty memoir of his desertion: John Ashley, “The Deserter,” Washington Post, February 3, 1969. The article quotes a letter Ashley sent to his parents from Cincinnati, Ohio, in January 1968: “Not smoking, not drinking or taking LSD.” But all those with whom I discussed his Swedish years told me he did not remain abstemious.
two American eavesdroppers were found hiding in a cupboard: Barry Fockler, interview with the author, April 4, 2012.
“The Swedes have a natural prejudice against black people”: James Helbert, “America’s Critics Rebuked,” Pittsburgh Press, March 19, 1968.
“I am here,” Russell announced: “Army Times-redaktören: Avhoppade USA-soldater utnyttjas av Sverige” [Army Times editor: Deserting USA Soldiers are being exploited by Sweden], Svenska Dagbladet, March 15, 1968.
“All these men are still enlisted”: Ibid.
“Despite our concerted attempts”: Ibid.
“This is a clear indication”: “A Statement by Bill Jones on the Jerum Affair,” March 1968, Papers of Hans Göran Franck, Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek [The Swedish Labor Movement’s Archive and Library], Stockholm.
4: THE JERUM AFFAIR
a transcript of the call between Russell and Vale: “A Statement by Bill Jones on the Jerum Affair,” March 1968, Papers of Hans Göran Franck, Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek [The Swedish Labor Movement’s Archive and Library], Stockholm.
“stormy operation”: See “CIA-försök tvinga desertörerna hem,” Svenska Dagbladet, March 21, 1968.
“There is evidence for close collaboration”: Bo Hammar, “Hur LBJs agenter arbetar i Sverige” [How LBJ’s agents operate in Sweden], Tidsignal, March 1968.
“See how we love our country?”: Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, p. 65.
court-martialed for going absent without official leave: UPI, “First GI to Flee to Sweden, Back with Unit, Faces Trial,” Amarillo (TX) Globe-Times, April 3, 1968.
a bad conduct discharge and four months’ hard labor: UPI, “G.I. Who Returned from Sweden Gets 4 Months,” Los Angeles Times, April 4, 1968.
“Ray will now be free”: “Declaration of Ray Jones III to the Aliens Commission,” Papers of Hans Göran Franck, Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek [The Swedish Labor Movement’s Archive and Library], Stockholm.
Ray Jones’s deposition to the Swedish Aliens Commission: Ibid.
“One of the first days of March”: Ibid.
acting executive secretary of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee: See Bill Simpich, “Fair Play for Cuba and the Cuban Revolution,” Counterpunch, July 24, 2009, http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/07/24/fair-play-for-cuba-and-the-cuban-revolution/.
His declassified FBI and CIA files: Richard Gibson CIA file 1994.04.26.09:35:40:220005, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=55454&search=richard_gibson#relPageId=1&tab=page; Richard Gibson FBI record 124-90148-10001, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=118699&relPageId=1&search=124-90148-10001.
“to penetrate the ranks of the international revolutionary movement”: La Révolution Africaine/Richard Gibson, CIA file 104-10217-10204, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=108725&search=104-10217-10204#relPageId=1&tab=page.
a letter typed by Gibson: Richard Gibson, CIA file 1993.07.09.18:45:58:460330, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57826&search=460330#relPageId=1&tab=page.
Gibson had made similar overtures to the FBI: FBI memorandum 124-90147-10095, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=121828&relPageId=1&search=124-90147-10095.
“a weasel-like character”: FBI memorandum 124-90147-10095, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=121828&relPageId=1&search=12
4-90147-10095.
The information was supplied by Ray Jones IV: Ray Jones IV, email correspondence with the author, May 2017.
“A prominent Swedish figure”: Bill Jones, speech, April 20, 1968, Papers of Hans Göran Franck, Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek [The Swedish Labor Movement’s Archive and Library], Stockholm.
“We have chosen a side in the struggle”: “A Statement by Bill Jones on the Jerum Affair,” March 1968, Papers of Hans Göran Franck, Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek, [The Swedish Labor Movement’s Archive and Library], Stockholm.
“We’d rather not take a chance on foul-ball soldiers”: “Army Says ‘Rotten Few’ Were Already in Trouble,” Washington Post, January 16, 1968.
“He was wrong”: Sekai Waga Kokoro no Tabi [My heart travels the world] (Japan: NHK, 2002).
“The man with the guts”: “Coward,” Second Front Review, n.d., 1968.
“The more shit you will take”: Ray Krzeminski, “Now Hear This,” Second Front Review, n.d., 1968.
“Hello, all you happy defenders of freedom”: Mark Worrell Collection, Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek [The Swedish Labor Movement’s Archive and Library], Stockholm.
5: PETUNIA
The protagonist is a naïve man named Matthew: Tarjei Vesaas, Fuglane [The birds], trans. Torbjørn Støverud and Michael Barnes (London: Peter Owen Publishers, 2013).
a 2005 Swedish television documentary: Ramp om historia: Tillbaka till Vietnam, [Ramp on history: Back to Vietnam], utbildningsradion, June 7, 2005.
The World Festival of Youth and Students: Karin Taylor, Let’s Twist Again: Youth and Leisure in Socialist Bulgaria (Vienna: Lit Verlag, 2006), pp. 53–56.
committed the evidence to celluloid: A Time to Live (USSR: Soviet Documentary Film Unit, 1968).
They gave an impromptu press conference: Associated Press, “Two G.I.s Denied Swedish Visas,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 17, 1968.
“I don’t know where to go if I will be expelled”: Ibid.