by Earley, Pete
Afterward, Michael and Rachel left Barbara alone in her room and went into Rachel’s room. “I knew they were having sex,” Barbara told me later, “and I didn’t want to disturb them. The kids needed some time to themselves.”
The next morning, they visited Chicago’s aquarium and then drove to a bar in Milwaukee, where the minimum drinking age was lower than in Illinois. All three got drunk.
“We had an incredibly great time,” Michael recalled, “and my mother was really running the party, buying drinks and taking care of everything.”
Back at the Holiday Inn, Michael knocked on his mother’s door late that night sometime after he and Rachel had retired. He wanted to visit.
“We talked until three or four in the morning,” Barbara said. “Michael told me he had decided that God had a purpose for him. He wanted him to become a teacher, and I was so proud of Michael.”
The story, Michael said later, was “bullshit.” He had simply wanted to make her happy.
Rachel was not impressed when Michael returned to bed early that morning.
“Why don’t you go get in bed with your mother?” she complained.
“I’m sorry, bunny,” he replied. “We just needed to talk.”
He kissed her gently on the cheek.
“It’s okay bugger-bear,” she said, using her nickname for Michael. As a child, Rachel had had a teddy bear she carried everywhere. It was her bugger-bear. She pulled Michael close.
Because Michael still didn’t have a specific job, he remained at the Great Lakes center for several more weeks of what the Navy called A-School.
“I was alone but I got to move into this dorm, and now all the recruits had to salute me, and I really enjoyed that,” Michael recalled. “I’d go on walks and when someone forgot to salute me, I’d get into their face. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I forgot to salute you’ ‘That’s okay, but don’t let it happen again. Now get your ass moving.’ ”
Michael claimed he received special treatment at A-School.
“This chief comes in to class and he says, ‘Okay, which of you is the private eye?’ and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s me,’ so I raised my hand and he says, ‘I want you to be my yeoman. Come with me.’ Then he says, ‘You’ve just passed this school ‘cause it’s a school for idiots and you aren’t an idiot. Now, it’s up to you to help get the guys who are idiots through.’ ”
Michael’s job as the chief’s yeoman was similar to that of a teacher’s assistant. He bought himself dark glasses, a briefcase, and a pointer. When he came into class, he spoke with authority. “Okay, gentlemen, this is what we are going to do today.”
“This is where I really learned how to manipulate people,” Michael said later. “I really began to refine the skills that I was going to use as a spy and use the Navy rules and regulations to my own advantage. The class I was working with was really bad – they were all fuckups – and I didn’t think any of them were smart enough to pass one of the final exams. So I went into the chief’s office, and I found the answers to the test, and I made fifty copies. I went to the barracks that night before the test and said, ‘Attention on deck.’ Well, all these idiots stumbled out of bed and I told them: ‘You guys are a bunch of fuckups, and no one is going to pass the test, but I’ll tell you what I’m willing to do. If you can raise fifty dollars between all of you, I’ll show you a way to pass.’ Well, these dummies pooled their money and gave me the fifty bucks. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘here’s the answers to the test, but if any of you get into trouble, it’s your ass not mine. I’m the yeoman and the Navy is going to believe me.’ No one ever got caught, and I knew they wouldn’t. Like I said, I was learning how to manipulate the system and make money. I’m sorry, but that’s how it was. That’s how I was. I was nineteen and street wise. I knew how the game was played and I loved beating it.
“My old company commander came up to me after these guys had all passed the test, and he says, ‘Congratulations, Walker. I don’t know how you did it, getting these dummies to pass, but the Navy is glad you did.’ ”
Chapter 50
While Michael was undergoing his Navy training, John was frantically calling his congressman. His passport had expired and he was scheduled to meet his KGB handler on January 15, 1983, in Vienna. A helpful aide in the Norfolk office of Republican Representative G. William Whitehurst assured John that if he hand delivered his expired passport to the congressman’s office, someone there would make certain he got his new passport in time. He did, and the congressman’s office came through.
“I thought it was neat that a congressman helped me get to my KGB meeting on time,” John told me later, breaking into a grin.
On January 10, John boarded Eastern flight 508 from Norfolk to New York City flying under the alias of John Williams, then used his actual name on a Swiss air flight to Zurich. The next day, John took the train to Vienna, checking into the luxury Vienna Intercontinental on the eleventh. The hotel was filled with Americans, even in the middle of winter.
The morning of his meeting, John walked to the white marble U-Bahn station less than one block away from his hotel. As usual, he wanted to walk through the area on the day of his face-to-face meeting to make certain that nothing had altered his KGB-approved route. The U-Bahn runs above ground at this location, and as John stood on the concrete landing, he felt strange, as if someone were watching him.John surveyed the dozen or so persons waiting for a southbound U-4 train. Only one looked suspicious. Dressed in a heavy pea green overcoat and black hat, he turned his head as soon as John looked at him. The man was in his mid-thirties, was larger than John, and had a gaunt look.
John was worried that he was being followed, so he decided to perform a small test. He boarded the next southbound train, but stepped back onto the platform just before the doors closed, and then hurried up the stairs leading to the subway entrance. He heard the sound of someone else climbing the steps behind him. Resisting the urge to look, he crossed to the other side of the tracks and went down the stairs leading to the northbound platform. When he reached it, John turned around to see. No one was following him. He began to relax.
“I figured I was just nervous,” John recalled later. “I always had butterflies before a dead drop or face-to-face.”
When the next silver-colored train arrived, John stepped through its double doors and found a seat in the rear of the car. As the doors closed, John noticed a man dash past the window ... wearing a pea green coat and black hat.
Now John was alarmed. Was he being followed? Had Mark Snyder tipped off the FBI or CIA? John didn’t think that either had authority to arrest him in Vienna, but he wasn’t sure. Perhaps his imagination was getting the best of him.
There was another possibility. Less than four blocks from the Intercontinental Hotel was the Soviet embassy, a large, square, muddy brown building with radio antennae on the roof and police with machine guns standing guard near the heavy iron gate that surrounded the complex. Could the man in the pea green coat be a KGB agent?
John decided to remain on the northbound train as it circled the old city. When it reached its second stop, he got off and looked up and down the ramp for the man in the pea green coat. He didn’t see him. Just to be certain that he wasn’t being followed, John boarded another northbound train, this time on the U-1 line, whose tracks went northeast. A gaggle of small girls and boys dressed in colorful blue-and-green uniforms entered John’s car. Several women were apparently taking the noisy group ice skating. Just as the train’s doors were about to close, the man in the pea green coat burst into the car. When he saw John, he quickly turned away.
“At that point, I knew I was being followed,” John recalled. He had seen the man too often for it to be a coincidence.
Because John had flown to Zurich, he had not been able to buy a small handgun, as was his routine in Italy, but he did have a hardwood cane with a firm brass handle. He also was carrying Jerry’s film from Alameda because he had been afraid to leave it at the hotel. It was sealed in a pla
stic bag and was tucked into his coat pocket.
If he was arrested, the film would be difficult to explain.
At the first stop after the U-Bahn crossed the Danube River, the children exited. John jumped up and dashed out the door. He walked down the stairs and followed the schoolchildren.
John had exited at the Vienna International Centre, nicknamed UNO-City because it houses the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and other U.N. agencies. He followed the children about a hundred yards to an ice rink and entered it behind them.
“I looked out the door and, sure enough, I spot this guy. This damn dude is still following me,” John recalled.
He left the rink, again turning to his right. He continued walking, crossed a concrete pedestrian bridge, and entered a large park.
“The park had a lot of turns in it and I didn’t know what to do,” John said. “I started down this path and then realized that it was a loop and that I was heading back in the same direction where I had been.”
John looked around. The only figure he could see in the snow-covered park was the man in the pea green coat.
“Just as I was about to exit the loop, I saw him entering it. We were both on the same path,” John said. “Everyone always says to watch someone’s eyes and you can tell if they are going to hit you. Bullshit. You watch his hands because that is where things are going to happen. He had gloves on and his hands were outside his pockets. I could feel him staring at my face. If he would have had his hands in his pockets, I would have been afraid because he might have had a weapon.
“The second that I passed by him, I turned and I whacked that mother fucker with my cane on the back of his head. He was wearing a hat that must have softened the blow, but he fell to his knees and I whacked him one more time on the head. Then I got the fuck out of there. I didn’t run, I just walked toward the rink at faster than normal pace. I was worried because I didn’t have any idea who the hell this guy was. Whether he was a mugger, a CIA agent, a KGB agent, or some poor son of a bitch out for a stroll. People do a lot of walking around over there. I was really worried though.”
After the assault, John returned to the hotel and stayed in his room until the time of his meeting. As usual, he began his walk at the Komet Kuchen store, but a few minutes after John left the display window and began his route down Ruckergasse, his KGB handler appeared.
“Hello, dear friend,” he said. “Do you have something for me?”
John was surprised that his second KGB handler had approached him so quickly. “He seemed to scoff at the elaborateness of the Vienna Procedure. I had barely begun my walk and after the first couple turns, he showed up.”
Impatience, John noticed, was not the only personality trait that made his new handler different from his first. The KGB agent was humorless, abrupt, and unfriendly. But he followed exactly the same script as the first agent. He began with questions about security, followed by specific questions that he had memorized about various cipher machines and keylists that the KGB wanted.
John explained that Jerry had been transferred to the U.S.S. Enterprise, but before John could explain what a good post it was, the agent interrupted.
What had Jerry done wrong? he asked. Why was he being moved around so much? Perhaps he had been caught and the Navy was moving him somewhere it could watch him. Was John certain that the FBI hadn’t caught Jerry? Could Jerry be trusted?
The Soviets had always been suspicious and anytime there was an anomaly, they stopped all payments until they could verify John’s delivery and make sure it had not been doctored.
“I honestly believe that whenever Jerry changed jobs, the KGB considered the next delivery an FBI plant and had to revalidate it,” John told me.
As the two men walked through the snow, John tired of the questions. He exploded with a chain of profanity. The problem with Jerry wasn’t his past, John explained, it was his future.
“Jerry’s talking about retiring once again,” John explained. “You need to give him more money.”
John told the KGB agent that Jerry needed $1 million. In return, he would spy for ten more years.
“Imagine how this dummy feels,” John recalled, referring to his second KGB handler. “He is assigned to be the handler of one of the most important American espionage operations in the KGB’s history, and during his very first meeting alone with me, I tell him that Whitworth might retire. And then I told this shithead that the only way to make certain that Jerry didn’t get out was by giving him one million dollars. He couldn’t believe it. I’m certain he saw his entire KGB career going down the toilet.”
The KGB agent didn’t give John an answer about the $1 million. Instead, he asked about Jerry’s access. He also asked about Arthur and Laura.
John played up Arthur’s importance, but not Laura’s. He also decided, he said later, not to tell his KGB handler about his encounter with the man in the pea green coat.
Two days after their meeting, John went to Munich, before returning to New York City. During the trip he again sensed he was being followed, but he couldn’t prove it.
Back in Norfolk, John felt safe again. He decided that the man in the pea green coat wasn’t from the FBI. If anything, he was a KGB agent sent to watch him. His new handler had put a tail on him. But why? Maybe the KGB’s decision to change his handlers wasn’t a fluke, as he had believed earlier. Maybe his first handler hadn’t been promoted. Maybe the KGB had chosen a gruff handler to deal with him because it wanted someone who hadn’t befriended him in charge of the case.
Thoughts like these hounded John, he said later. Like the Russians, he was becoming suspicious whenever there was a change. His natural paranoia preyed on him too. As far as he was concerned, there was only one explanation for the man in the pea green coat and his new, gruff KGB handler.
“If necessary,” he recalled later, “the Soviets were setting the stage to eliminate me.”
Chapter 51
Jerry Whitworth didn’t have to wait long during October 1982 for some tantalizing top secret messages to cross his desk aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. The carrier and the twelve ships and submarines that traveled as part of its battle group entered the South China Sea on October 19 and intentionally crossed into what the government of Vietnam considers its territorial waters. The United States did not recognize Vietnam’s claim and said the carrier was merely sailing through the area as part of a “freedom of navigation” exercise to keep the waterway open. The trip was not reported in the carrier’s unclassified ship history that year, but it was confirmed later in court testimony by Captain Charles Reed Jones, Jr., commanding officer of the Navy’s Fleet Intelligence Center in the Pacific.
“The Enterprise battle group was asked to conduct a challenge to the Vietnamese-claimed territorial waters in the South China Sea,” Jones testified. “That claim is not recognized by the United States. It’s not recognized in international law because it’s considered to be excessive.”
The battle group was doing more than simply establishing the right of U.S. naval ships to cruise wherever they wished. The U.S.S. Enterprise was engaged in electronic surveillance, which is part of a rarely mentioned but almost routine cat-and-mouse game played by the superpowers. The Vietnamese had no way of knowing on October 19 if the arrival of an aircraft carrier off their shoreline was part of a training exercise or actual attack. So the military there took immediate defensive action. It cranked up its radar, prepared whatever surface missiles it had, and launched aircraft to monitor and, if necessary, encounter the intruder. The entire time that Vietnam was taking such steps, the U.S.S. Enterprise was busy monitoring the country’s military preparedness. Using the latest electronic surveillance devices, the ship attempted to identify Vietnamese missile sites and isolate the frequencies that the Vietnamese used for emergency communications.
Sometimes, these war games are even more sophisticated. A carrier, such as the U.S.S. Enterprise, might jam the enemy’s radar to see how it reacts. This form of inte
lligence-gathering is extremely effective, but it is also dangerous.
For instance, on March 23, 1986, the U.S. Sixth Fleet conducted a “freedom of navigation” exercise in the disputed waters of the Gulf of Sidra off the coast of Libya. For two days, Libya fired surface missiles at U.S. aircraft and ships. The United States responded by attacking several Libyan airplanes and missile installations on the Libyan mainland. Libyan leader Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi had warned the United States against crossing what he described as a “line of death” across the gulf, but U.S. officials claimed Libya had no territorial right to control the area.
The U.S.S. Enterprise’s cruise into waters claimed by Vietnam elicited the response that Navy intelligence officials had hoped for. Messages from reconnaissance aircraft and other members of the battle group streamed into the radio room where Jerry worked. As Navy analysts collected electronic data about Vietnam’s air, land, and sea defenses, Jerry quietly copied the messages that he wanted to keep for delivery to the Russians.
Monitoring Vietnam was just the start.
Sometime during November and December, the carrier battle group conducted “real world surveillance of the Soviet naval units operating in the Indian Ocean,” according to the Enterprise’s manifest. Details of the operation remain classified, but intelligence officer Jones disclosed during testimony that the U.S.S. Enterprise battle group happened upon a Russian aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean.
The Enterprise’s skipper decided to take advantage of the presence of the Kiev and conduct war games, including “a practice long-range strike against the surface force.” The Enterprise did this by sending several aircraft on a mock attack of the Russian carrier.
The aircraft, Jones later testified, flew “seven hundred nautical miles toward the Kiev, made contact, visual contact, with the Kiev and then came back.”
Once again, U.S. intelligence personnel aboard the Enterprise used sophisticated electronic monitoring devices to record the Russians’ every move during the mock attack, and Jerry Whitworth carefully put aside copies of the messages that he figured would bring the highest price.