by John Barron
Continuing his interpretations, Morris said that while Mao himself might be a little crazy, and the Chinese might sound crazy, and their Stalinist beliefs might be crazy, given their premises they were acting logically and there was some truth in their allegations. The Soviets indeed had renounced Stalin and policies resulting in the mass murder of their people. Soviet leaders were chauvinists: they put their personal interests first and perceived Soviet interests above those of international communism. They did behave toward foreign communist parties as Teng said—“like a father toward a small son”—and they did try to buy or control foreign parties for their own benefit.
At the same time, Soviet leaders, given their premises, were acting with equal logic. Since the 1920s they had been governed by a doctrine, the Correlation of Forces, which dictated that you never initiate a war or battle unless the balance of power so favors you that victory is certain or the enemy will realize the futility of even resisting. In a nuclear war with the United States, victory was far from certain; obliteration of all Soviet cities and basic industry was. Soviet strategists comprehended that whatever the other outcomes, nuclear war would leave them with a depopulated, primitive agrarian society vulnerable to hordes of Chinese. The Chinese professed not to fear nuclear war because they did understand the force of atomic weapons, but they believed they could afford to lose a few hundred million people, people being the one thing they had in abundance. Hence, the Soviets, in defiance of what the Chinese considered fundamental rules of fraternal Marxism, refused to share nuclear weapons and withdrew technical assistance.
Morris taught Freyman and Boyle that the intentions of the Soviets often could be divined from what they said if you knew how to decipher the meaning of their words. The slogans “peaceful coexistence” and “peaceful competition” did not augur the end of efforts by the Soviet Union to expand its empire through espionage, subversion, propaganda, intrigue, and “wars of national liberation.” They meant only that the Soviets would not wittingly risk provoking nuclear war with the United States, as Khrushchev very nearly did in Cuba.
In Morris’ judgment, Sino–Soviet differences could not be reconciled; rather, they were destined to worsen because the Chinese would not moderate their ideological demands and the Soviets could not possibly accede to them. Events had proven Morris’ past analyses so correct and insightful that Boyle thought he would be derelict if he did not allow headquarters and policymakers to consider this one. So after Sunday morning Mass, he devoted most of the day to incorporating it into a report. Neither Freyman nor Boyle ever uttered profanity, not so much as a “damn”; to them use of obscenities reflected ignorance of the richness of the English language and disrespect for others. But Boyle came close upon reading the headquarters response to his report: “We are an investigative organization; not a think tank. We are interested in facts; not opinions. Take note.”
ON NOVEMBER 1, 1963, Morris began what is recorded in an informal FBI history of SOLO as the “Fourteenth Mission.” By now the Soviets had established a routine that required him to come to Moscow each autumn to receive instructions for the American party, to submit a budget detailing what the American party proposed to spend in the forthcoming year, to answer questions and offer opinions about conditions and personalities in the United States, and generally to survey the world and discuss strategy. Almost always during these annual consultations, he spent many hours with Suslov, Ponomarev, and Politburo members; usually he also saw Khrushchev and, later, Leonid Brezhnev as well as senior KGB officers. That November he thought he discerned among those with whom he drank, dined, and conferred collective gloom and individual uncertainty.
The Soviets were more exasperated, even enraged, by the Chinese than they had been in the summer. They claimed that China with premeditated malice was arming wild revolutionary bands around the world with Soviet weapons so that the Soviets would be blamed for the mayhem and murder committed with them. It appeared they deliberately had set out to incite enmity toward the Soviet Union both in the West and Third World. Their strident insults and calumny made it difficult even to talk to them, and Suslov despaired, “The more reasonable and conciliatory we try to be, the more unreasonable and bellicose they become.” The KGB colonel, who liked to drop by Morris’ apartment in the evening for “general intelligence,” lots of bourbon, and Camel or Chesterfield cigarettes, expressed Soviet frustrations more grimly. “They don’t understand what nuclear bombs can do. If they keep on, someday we may have to give them demonstrations.”
The Chinese were competing with the Soviets for ideological influence in the Third World and were courting Castro, who by himself was vexing enough. He had started smuggling arms to guerrillas in Venezuela and promising arms to revolutionary or ragtag gangs elsewhere in Latin America without, Morris inferred, first securing Soviet concurrence. The Soviets did not object in principle to arming insurgents and terrorists; they did that themselves, directly and indirectly. But you had to know what you were doing, what you reasonably could expect to gain, and what you might lose. The Soviets were not sure Castro knew what he was doing and worried that he was becoming more intent upon mythologizing himself as a world leader than in advancing the global interests of the “socialist camp.” As he was being sustained by their economic largess and military protection, they considered him obligated to consult them and abstain from impulsive theatrics that might drag them into another nuclear confrontation with the United States. Still, to retain their base in Cuba, they were willing to put up with a lot and indulge him as one would a temperamental child—up to a point.
The Politburo still hoped to use the American party as a means of influencing Castro and communicating discreetly with the Cuban party. Ponomarev observed that when Jack and Castro met in Moscow, each seemed to like the flamboyance of the other and Jack successfully flattered Castro with his inflated accounts of all the American party was doing to help him in the United States. The Soviets hoped to transform this embryonic personal relationship into an auxiliary tool for spying on and influencing Castro, and they proposed that Jack go to Havana under the pretext of delivering a formal communication from Gus Hall. They would make the necessary arrangements, pretending to be acting only as an intermediary of Hall and at his initiative. And they would explain that, to circumvent restrictions prohibiting U.S. citizens from traveling to Cuba, Jack would fly to Havana from Moscow. Thus, they could brief him before the trip and debrief him after his visit to Havana. Ponomarev or maybe his deputy suggested that Jack bring along his wife because her presence might enhance social entrée in Cuba.
Both Morris and Ponomarev understood that the annual review of the next American party budget was largely a charade. Morris laboriously wrote down how much the party needed to maintain headquarters activities in New York; to sustain front groups and publications; to travel, demonstrate, and proselytize; and to pay the salaries and expenses of party leaders. (Much of this was fiction written by him and Boyle.) On the other side of the ledger, he put down how much the party expected to receive from Hollywood and Manhattan donors and from others of the monied radical chic who thought it cute or deliciously daring to contribute. Always there was a deficit, which amounted to what Hall wanted the KGB to slip to Jack at night around New York.
MORRIS WAS IN MOSCOW on November 22, 1963, when President John Kennedy was assassinated. As Soviet rulers hastened to ask him about the possible causes and import of the assassination, he witnessed firsthand the consternation it produced among them. They first of all feared what the assassination might portend for them, but some also seemed personally to regret the murder of the charismatic young president, even though he was an enemy. Having survived the many murders ordered by Stalin, they had tacitly agreed among themselves that after future power struggles in the Soviet Union, the victors would not kill the vanquished, and the specter of political assassination in America mystified and frightened them because in their minds it denoted unpredictability and instability.
The initial co
nfusion produced many questions. Did not well-qualified bodyguards protect the president when he traveled? How could their protection fail unless some of them had been coopted into a plot? Could the assassination be part of a right-wing or fascist coup? How was it likely to affect the United States’ foreign policy and more particularly policy toward the Soviet Union? What kind of a man was the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson? How would he differ from Kennedy?
To these and numerous other queries posed during the day, Morris could offer few factual answers because about the events in Dallas he knew only what the Soviets had told him and he had no special knowledge of Johnson. He did understand the political history and processes of the United States, and, drawing upon this understanding, he offered Soviet leaders analyses that later enhanced his reputation among them as a remarkable seer. In essence, he told them:
He could not say whether the security men in Dallas had been derelict; considering the dangers to which American presidents exposed themselves by riding around in open cars and mingling with crowds, they might not have been at fault. Pending more details, it was too early to tell.
Many attempts on the lives of presidents had been made; only one, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth, was politically or ideologically motivated. The rest were perpetrated by deranged individuals. Virtually any U.S. citizen could buy and keep a gun; arguably, one percent, or more than a million American adults, were certifiably insane and there was no accounting for what madmen might do, alone or in concert with others.
A covert political coup in the United States, however, was impossible, and rational people of all political persuasions recognized this reality. The U.S. armed forces were obedient to civilian authority and loyal to the office of the presidency, whoever occupied it. Abetted by the FBI, they would crush any incipient coup, violently if necessary.
In the near term, there would be no basic change in American foreign policy. Johnson, having inherited the presidency by chance, would concentrate upon earning it in the 1964 elections. He probably would retain, at least until after the elections, Kennedy’s principal foreign policy advisors, heed their counsel, and risk no new initiatives. Additionally, Congress exercised considerable control over foreign policy and Congress’ composition remained the same.
Matters would have to be reevaluated after the next presidential and congressional elections.
Ponomarev was talking to Morris in his office about Johnson when subordinates burst in, their faces ashen. Unaware that Morris understood Russian, they ignored him and at once informed Ponomarev that Dallas police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald for the murder of President Kennedy. Other ostensible facts they rapidly reported explained their alarm, which bordered on panic.
Oswald, a former U.S. Marine, had defected to the Soviet Union and lived there with his Russian wife. Soviet psychiatrists who examined him after he attempted suicide in Moscow concluded that he was very abnormal and unbalanced, if not insane. When he asked to return to the United States, the Soviets were glad to be rid of him and they had no contact with him until a few weeks ago. Then he appeared unbidden at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City and requested a visa to go back to the Soviet Union, saying he intended to travel via Cuba. The embassy, following standard procedures, routinely asked Moscow for guidance. KGB headquarters reviewed his record, adjudged him a useless misfit, and ordered the embassy to brush him off. Accordingly, the Soviets in Mexico City advised Oswald that they could not issue a visa until he obtained a visa to enter Cuba. Forewarned, the Cuban embassy told him it could not issue a visa until he obtained a visa to enter the Soviet Union. This contrived runaround succeeded in turning Oswald away, and the Soviets heard nothing more from or about him until just now.
The KGB swore to the Politburo and International Department that before, during, and after the time Oswald lived in the Soviet Union it never utilized him as an agent or informant. The Politburo had confiscated his KGB file, and the copy that aides gave Ponomarev apparently contained nothing to contradict this claim.
Throughout the excited exchanges, Morris sat mute and phlegmatic, trying to transcribe into memory every word he heard. One of the Soviets finally took note of him and asked, “What are we going to tell this American here?” Ponomarev certified that Morris was completely trustworthy and declared he should be told the truth. Through an interpreter, Morris thereupon heard basically the same account given Ponomarev. Almost pleading, the Soviets beseeched him to believe they had nothing to do with the assassination.
Logic and professional training inclined him to believe them. While the Soviets had not foresworn assassination as an instrument of state policy, even low-level murders had to be approved in advance by the Politburo, and Ponomarev surely would have known of any plan to kill the president. Neither Ponomarev nor other ranking Soviets with whom Morris spoke could have faked the kind of shock he personally observed. If Oswald was as unbalanced as the Soviets alleged, Morris doubted that they would entrust Oswald with a mission tantamount to an act of war. If Oswald was a Soviet assassin, why would he openly present himself at the Soviet and Cuban embassies where CIA or Mexican surveillants were likely to spot him? And what did the Soviet Union conceivably have to gain from the assassination?
However, Morris realized that among many angry Americans logic might not prevail and that the conspicuous Soviet trepidation was justified. The FBI or CIA quickly would ascertain that Oswald had fled to the Soviet Union and probably that he had visited the Soviet embassy in Mexico, and the findings would spawn reasonable questions. The Soviet Union was not known as a champion of human rights nor a haven for foreigners escaping economic or political repression. Why did Oswald want to live there, and why did the Soviets admit him, unless they expected to exploit him? Hundreds of thousands of KGB border guards patrolled Soviet frontiers not so much to keep aliens out as to keep Soviet citizens in! Why did the Soviets let Oswald go? Why did Soviet diplomats talk to him in Mexico?
Ponomarev and Morris had just heard plausible explanations and could see for themselves that they were offered earnestly. But how many Americans would believe whatever the Soviet government said? And what might the supposedly crazy Oswald say? If the U.S. government or a majority of Americans were persuaded that the Soviets had arranged or abetted the murder of the president, the United States would probably retaliate. Lesser provocations had started wars.
The bizarre murder of Oswald in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters after his arrest compounded Soviet fears. Now those prone to blame the Soviets could argue that the assassin had been assassinated to bury evidence of Soviet complicity. Some in the International Department proposed that Morris be sent home forthwith to convince the U.S. government of Soviet innocence.
The absurdity of the proposal was a gauge of the desperation of Soviet officialdom. As Morris diplomatically pointed out, he was among the last persons the American government or public was likely to believe. Although he had not been openly affiliated with the party since 1947, he had been a prominent communist and Soviet advocate. Any protestations by him of Soviet innocence would be construed as evidence of Soviet guilt and, besides, how was he supposed to know what he was talking about? The same held true for the American party, and he urged that it be instructed to limit its statements regarding the assassination to expressions of regret and abhorrence of political violence. He also argued that the Soviet government should officially convey to the U.S. government, secretly or publicly, the complete truth about its dealings with Oswald, down to the last detail.
Ponomarev and Suslov ultimately agreed, and Morris flew back with instructions for Hall, landing in New York December 2. In a motel room near Idlewild Airport (now JFK Airport), he told to Boyle all he had heard and seen in Moscow pertaining to the assassination. Scribbling notes, anxious to be accurate, Boyle grasped the magnitude of the intelligence Morris was imparting and the urgency of transmitting it to Washington. They agreed to dispense with the customary summary report briefly outlining all
the information the mission had yielded, and Boyle left for the FBI field office in Manhattan. En route he mentally composed an aseptic report that clinically stated facts and omitted any interpretation or comment. However, the raw facts he personally encrypted and dispatched to headquarters collectively communicated an unmistakable message: The Soviet Union had nothing to do with the assassination of President Kennedy, and its leaders were as stunned by the tragedy as was anyone else.
Without revealing the source of information, agents personally briefed President Johnson; Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, brother of the slain president; and a few other administration leaders. The Warren Commission investigating the assassination received a secret summary of what Morris learned. Thus, within two weeks of the assassination, at a time when public passions and political emotions ran high, U.S. policymakers had compelling evidence that they did not have to act against the Soviet Union.
Nevertheless, Oswald indisputably was a communist sympathizer, a subscriber to communist publications, an adherent of Fidel Castro, and a former resident of the Soviet Union who had wanted to return to the Soviet Union. And the government could not reveal to the public what Morris personally saw and heard in Ponomarev’s office. So the communists embarked upon a systematic campaign to persuade the American people and the world that ultra-rightists, rather than a communist sympathizer, killed President Kennedy.
On November 25, 1963, Jack Childs (NY-694S*) called for a “crash” meeting with Burlinson in New York. At 2:26 P.M. that day, the New York office flashed to Director J. Edgar Hoover in Washington a coded dispatch labeled “URGENT” and sent copies to SACs in Chicago, Dallas, and New Orleans. It said: