by John Barron
According to the Center, unusual activity during nonworking hours was likely to occur in government buildings, and KGB officers were to stand on the streets to keep watch “for lights burning late at night.” Thus, if the president and his wife invited their children or old friends up to the private quarters of the White House late at night for a chat and a snack; if harried men and their secretaries stayed late at night to finish a report or assignment; if some janitor or cleaning woman forgot to turn off the lights in offices at the Pentagon, CIA, or FBI—war might be drawing near. Efforts to arouse “anti-Soviet sentiment” constituted another danger sign. Thus, any Western politician or publication taking exception to the Soviet tactics of maiming children in Afghanistan with explosives disguised as toys also fanned paranoia in Moscow.
The Soviets and their communist allies joined in one of the most massive propaganda campaigns (“active measures”) in history to prevent deployment in Europe of the cruise and Pershing missiles. Ronald Reagan, in effect, said “to hell with you”; the British, West Germans, Dutch, and Italians, in effect, said “bring them [the missiles] on over.” They were “brought over” and made ready to fire, and now at KGB headquarters the pronouncements regarding RYAN bordered upon the hysterical.
Morris Childs never saw the British report that so shocked both William Casey and the president. It would not have shocked him; he, like they, would have been very alarmed, but not surprised. “TWA-DD”—tell Walt about dangerous delusions.
According to the report, Vladimir Kryuchkov, the head of the First Chief Directorate, the man in charge of all foreign KGB operations, made the following statements at a conference of the KGB leadership in January 1984. (Morris warned that Soviet rulers had made themselves prisoners of their own “cant and propaganda,” and, with the exception of a few technical references, what Kryuchkov said could have come from a Bolshevik manual Morris studied at the Lenin School in 1930.)
Reactionary, imperialist groups in the U.S.A. have openly embarked on a course of confrontation. They are increasing tension in literally all sectors of struggle between the two opposed socialist [political] systems and in consequence the threats of outbreak of nuclear war have reached dangerous proportions… American monopolies would like to recover the positions they have lost in recent decades and conquer fresh ones… The White House is advancing in its propaganda the adventurous and dangerous notion of survival in the fire of thermonuclear catastrophe. This is nothing else than the psychological preparation of the people for nuclear war.
The Center in February 1984 cabled to the Rezidencies a directive that evoked wide-eyed disbelief. Declaring that nuclear war might erupt at any moment, it ordered officers to recruit spies in banks, insurance agencies, hospitals, church organizations, and slaughter houses:
In order to restore and regulate the stability of the country to function in the period after a nuclear missile strike, the political–military leadership of capitalist states will pay particular attention to seeing that the system of financial credit operates uninterruptedly… More intensive activity may take place in the period of preparation for RYAN at branches of banks involved in insurance and credit operations. Banking personnel at any level [emphasis added] may have information of interest to us about the action being taken.
Post offices were sure to know when the attack was coming because “these institutions are used to make a preliminary check on addresses of mobilization contingents and for measures to ensure stable functioning of national communications.” As “mass slaughter of cattle” would precede the attack, butcher shops and slaughter houses needed to be watched. The Center was sure that Western governments would tip off “leaders of national and international religious organizations, the Vatican, and institutions abroad” about their war plans.
The directives conjured up this surrealistic scenario: The whole Western world, plus China and Japan, was plotting a surprise nuclear attack. Everyone had been so secretive that the Soviets could not find any clue about the impending attack. However, on the eve of the attack, government, military, or security emissaries throughout the West would drop by the bank or the post office, or call their insurance agent, and say, in effect, “We’re going to attack the Soviet Union next week. Make sure the mail gets through; get my credit card statement out on time; keep my policy in order.” To meat packing companies or their local butcher: “We’re going to attack the Soviet Union next week, so we’ll need some extra meat.” And of course the French, British, or American ambassador in Rome would request an audience with the pope: “Your Holiness, I just stopped by to let you know that next week we’re going to blow up the Soviet Union. We thought you might want to say a prayer for all those commie bastards we’re going to kill.”
Some honest KGB officers in the field protested to their superiors that Operation RYAN had become insane. But the operation had gained such powerful patronage and momentum in Moscow that no one in authority dared try to stop it. On the contrary, some KGB bosses or Rezidents in the field cynically inflamed Kremlin paranoia by forwarding ridiculously meaningless reports.
Having been rebuked for making insufficient contributions to RYAN, London Rezident A.V. Guk on March 9, 1984, a Soviet holiday, summoned a subordinate to the nearly empty Soviet embassy. According to a radio report, British and American troops that day were conducting a joint exercise at Greenham Common where cruise missiles were based. The fact that the British press and radio publicized the exercise made clear that it was routine, that there was nothing secret about it. Nevertheless, at Guk’s orders, the junior officer flashed to the Center a message assigned the highest priority and labeled “of strategic importance.” It said: “In connection with our task to watch for signs of enemy preparations for sudden nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union, we report that on 9 March the U.S. and British armed forces conducted the first field exercises with cruise missiles based on Greenham Common.”
For reporting what the British press and radio had reported, the London Rezidency received a commendation, and a few days later it won another. The Center had explained that nuclear explosions burn people and that treatment of burns requires blood plasma; therefore any attempt to increase supplies of blood plasma was a prime signal that the West was about to pounce. Great Britain annually asks public-spirited citizens to donate blood. In several reports the Rezidency represented this yearly well-publicized appeal as a sinister phenomenon related to RYAN and for that received praise.
Not being fools, other Rezidents, like Guk, sensed the message: Show us what we want to see and you prosper; show us nothing and you will suffer. Hence, the KGB locked itself and its masters into an accelerating cycle of fear and increasingly strident alarms.
In April, then again in May 1984, the Center warned that war was about to erupt at any minute. On July 4, 1984, it ordered Rezidencies to report every two weeks on RYAN even if they had nothing to report, and its levies grew even more unrealistic. For example, officers in the field were to report at once any infiltration into the Soviet Union of “sabotage teams equipped with nuclear, bacteriological, and chemical weapons.” It was as if the Center expected Western governments to invite KGB officers out to a military airfield or submarine base to wave farewell to the departing saboteurs, who presumably had shown them the nuclear weapons they had in their hip pockets.
It got worse. The Soviets estimated that no more than ten days would elapse between the time the West finally decided to attack and the attack began. They concluded that, even if they learned of the decision to attack the moment it was made, ten days would not be enough for them to organize and launch a first strike of their own. Therefore, on a wall at KGB headquarters, they put up a kind of doomsday graph. A number of red bars on the graph represented separate “indicators” that the West was about to strike. If reports caused enough bars to rise to a specified level on the graph, the Soviets automatically would launch missiles in a massive preemptive strike against North America, Western Europe, China, and Japan.
Former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane recalls that Americans returning from Moscow reported that Soviets told them they knew they were about to be attacked. He says, “The idea was so preposterous that we couldn’t make any sense out of those reports and we dismissed them.”
Having escaped to London in 1985, Gordievsky detailed the full history of RYAN. He said that, after Mikhail Gorbachev assumed power in March 1985, L.P. Zamoyski, deputy director of the KGB’s Analytical Directorate, declared that RYAN was “absolutely useless”; the KGB admitted it had failed to gain insights into “the real thinking of NATO and the U.S.” But as far as he knew, the operation continued and the doomsday graph with those awful red bars still was on the wall.
In October 1985, Ronald Reagan arrived in Geneva early and before meeting Gorbachev walked around the estate where they were to talk. He looked inside a charming chalet on the grounds and told the Secret Service men guarding him that by 10 A.M. the next morning he wanted a fire blazing in the fireplace.
Upon being introduced the following day, Reagan told Gorbachev that prior to their formal discussions he wished to speak to him alone, man to man. He invited Gorbachev to bring his own interpreter and take a walk with him. Alone with Gorbachev and the interpreter before the fire in the chalet, Reagan declared that the United States had no intention of attacking the Soviet Union and that it was dangerous to everyone for the Soviets to think otherwise. He insisted that Gorbachev come to the United States and see for himself that there were no preparations for an attack.
In large part, thanks to a British spy and loyal allies, Operation RYAN, which ultimately menaced all mankind, was finally put to an end.
Had Operation SOLO still been alive, RYAN never would have been born.
EPILOGUE
JACK CHILDS ENTERED A New York hospital August 11, 1980, and died the next day at age seventy-three. The Soviet Union in 1975 awarded him the Order of the Red Banner (awarded only to those who distinguish themselves in battle); the United States in 1987 posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom for Intelligence. Had it not been for Jack Childs, Operation SOLO would never have occurred.
Alexander Burlinson, who worked with Jack for twenty-four years, lived the life of a country squire after his retirement in 1975. He continued to smoke cigarettes, drink whisky in milk, rub his ulcer, play the piano, and compose poetry almost until his death July 4, 1990. He was eighty-five.
Carl Freyman, who recruited and developed Morris Childs into Agent 58, still lives with his wife of more than half a century in the same pleasant house outside Chicago where many SOLO sorties were planned and analyzed. He retains his mental acuity and good spirits, and for a man in his eighties enjoys good health. Those privileged to study the secret history of SOLO regard Freyman, along with Burlinson, as a legendary figure of the FBI.
John Langtry lives in New York, where his son is an outstanding young FBI agent. Although physicians have forbidden him to “lift weights” (“Scotch on the rocks”), he stills meets his many friends in neighborhood taverns and attends monthly luncheons where active and retired agents gather to renew friendships and to talk about what the FBI has done right and wrong, and what it ought to do. As throughout his FBI career, Langtry always is one of the most popular men present.
James Fox, as assistant FBI director in charge of the New York field office, also became popular among union, business, religious, and political leaders, and most of all among the FBI personnel he led. Fox often appeared on national television to answer questions after agents under his direction arrested terrorists ultimately convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993. He planned to retire January 3, 1994, and on December 4, 1993, a New York television station interviewed him about his FBI career. Toward the end, the interviewer asked about the public statements of an FBI informant who claimed he had given the FBI advance warning of the bombing. Fox said, “Salem did not warn us. Nobody warned us. If we had been warned, we would have prevented the bombing.” (Testifying under oath, the informant later admitted that he had never given the FBI any forewarning, just as Fox said.)
FBI Director Louis Freeh on December 10 telephoned to inform Fox that in consequence of these three sentences he was placed on administrative leave as of 5 P.M. that day until his official retirement. In other words, he was to clear his desk, get out, and never come back.
Freeh had ordered that no one comment on the case of the bombing of the World Trade Center pending the trial. Fox agrees that by impulsively telling the truth, he violated an order. Few others, in or out of the FBI, think that by telling the truth in nineteen words Fox harmed the FBI. Nevertheless, two weeks before Christmas his long and luminous FBI career ended suddenly and sadly.
Before his suspension, between 250 and 300 people had registered to attend a retirement dinner in honor of Fox. Now he expected only about half that many, and he understood that friends still in the FBI might consider it imprudent to come. When Fox entered the banquet hall at the New York Hilton Hotel, more than a thousand men and women stood to applaud. Among them were clergymen, union leaders, financiers, corporate executives, politicians, and hundreds of men from the FBI, including a defiant delegation from headquarters. The Democratic governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, and the Republican mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, led the tributes to the son of a Chicago bus driver, to Eva’s “favorite Baptist Indian.” Fox silently prayed, Please let mother and father see what they have done.
Today Fox is executive vice president of the Mutual of America Life Insurance Company, a columnist for Forbes magazine, a consultant to the Columbia Broadcasting System, and a member of the board of directors of several major corporations.
Walter Boyle officially retired in January 1980 after twenty-six years in the FBI. In declining a promotion and transfer to headquarters, he had said, “There is no way I ever will walk away from 58.” So the day after his retirement, Boyle returned as a “consultant” working out of the cover office in Chicago, doing what he had been doing since 1962. He stayed eighteen more months until Morris and Eva were safely hidden and until SOLO ended or at least until it seemed to have ended.
Today Boyle is a security director for a large conglomerate that fights gangsters instead of communists (to him they are not all that different). He lives in an attractive home with a lovely wife and at sixty-six remains in superb physical condition, weighing about the same as when he joined the Marine Corps forty-five years ago. He dotes on his children and grandchildren, whose happy lives have been made possible by him and Catholic Charities of Chicago, to which Morris and Eva donated the $10,000 bonus from the FBI. He is also close to his brothers and older sister, who has been a nun for more than fifty years. John Langtry and he talk often. As Eva said, “We always had a lot to talk about.”
Boyle and other agents packed Morris and Eva off in August 1981 to a condominium apartment high in an elegant building north of Miami. It gave them spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean, the Inland Waterway, moored yachts, and the lights of Miami. The apartment was spacious enough to allow each a study and to accommodate guests. Guards patrolling the lobby twenty-four hours a day permitted no one they did not recognize to go near it without first consulting Morris or Eva.
FBI agents visited often, and they formed special friendships with three of them: Ivian C. Smith, Wesley Roberts, and Barbara Moser. Smith first called upon them after taking charge of the Miami field office, and he realized he had stumbled onto a gold mine of intelligence that still could be mined. Eva recalled, “After I.C. [Smith] became boss, it was kind of like we were back in business. People started coming down out from Miami and down from Washington, and they brought us up to Virginia and treated us like royalty. They asked Morris lots of questions about what was going on in Russia, and they asked me about wives and people we knew in Moscow, and sometimes they asked about things that happened a long time ago. These talks perked Morris up; he could stay up explaining things all night without getting tired.”
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Since his first heart attack in the 1940s, Morris long had beaten both the medical and actuarial odds. Many times ambulances rushed him to hospitals and physicians feared for his life, yet always he came home. In late May 1991, Eva had to summon an ambulance and this time she sensed that he would not be coming home. She stayed at the hospital, and when he died on June 2, she was holding his hand.
Eva in June 1991 was eighty-one or ninety-one or somewhere in between, and there was nothing more she could tell the FBI. However, Smith had secured a written commitment from Washington that the FBI would provide for Morris and Eva for the rest of their lives, and it did. The Miami office arranged for Eva to have a female companion; Agents Roberts and Moser visited often; Jim Fox called regularly from New York; and nieces and nephews from Chicago came to see her. Still, the FBI and Eva were careful to conceal her whereabouts from all but the most trusted people. As late as 1993, Gus Hall made inquiries in Chicago in an effort to discover where she was.
Eva very much looked forward to publication of the story she and Morris lived, and she was prepared, in secure surroundings, to talk to journalists and historians about it. Having heard that she had been in the hospital, I in June 1995 telephoned her, and she assured me she was going to be all right. Three days later, Eva died.
Some one hundred relatives and friends, including quite a few young people, gathered in the same Chicago chapel where services for Morris were held. There was no longer any reason to conceal the truth, and a eulogist announced the presence of five representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—Barbara Moser, Wesley Roberts, Carl Freyman, James Fox, and Walter Boyle. Characterizing Eva as an American heroine, the eulogist told something of her feats as a spy and her contributions to the United States. This time the gasps from the congregation expressed awe and pride rather than shock and anger. After the service, many of the mourners, especially young people, crowded around to shake the hands of the FBI agents.