Conversations With the Crow

by Gregory Douglas

  RTC: You did check this out?

  GD: Yes, I did. I have cut it this way and looked it that way and try as I can, and I have a very skeptical mind, Robert, I could not explain this mass number of missing. Some hole open in the ground? Giant birds swooping down and flying off with them? They couldn’t all be rotting under the Jersey Pine Barrens.

  RTC: (Laughter)

  GD: I’m serious now, Robert.

  RTC: Oh, I’m sure you are and I’ve heard all about this before. When my man vanished, we did quite a bit of research and what you say is quite true. However, Gregory, I suggest that you look into other matters and stay strictly away from this one.

  GD: Why is that?

  RTC: You will be branded as a nut and your many enemies will gleefully get their hands on this and really lambaste you. Just deal with other matters. If you do something on Kennedy, believe me, all the night creatures will come up from under their wet logs and bite you on the ankles. Try to stay main line and you’ll do much better.

  GD: I see your point but do you see mine?

  RTC: Which is?

  GD: Which is that huge number of people in this country, and probably in others, have just vanished.

  RTC: Off the face of the earth.

  GD: Exactly.

  RTC: Well, maybe they have, Gregory, maybe they have. You know, aside from drawing unwelcome attention from the rabid lunatic fringe, you will get the government excited if you really push this vanishing business. Why? Because it obviously can lead to the UFO business and that is strictly off limits. It’s fine for the nuts to write weird books but if someone like you, who is a serious writer and an excellent researcher, starts in on this, they will come down on you very quickly. Just stay away from this and I assure you we will all be happy.

  GD: I suppose you’re right. But still…

  RTC: Gregory, let it be. OK?

  GD: Fine.

  (Concluded at 10:56 AM CST)

  Conversation No. 35

  Date: Thursday, September 12, 1996

  Commenced: 8:47 AM CST

  Concluded: 9:15 AM CST

  RTC: This time I called you, Gregory. I hope it’s not inconvenient for you.

  GD: No, I’m fine here. If you hear any odd noises, I am trying to adjust the volume on my phone set. I have a hearing problem in one ear. There, I think it’s better now. What can I do for you, Robert?

  RTC: I think I mentioned Jim Critchfield to you before.

  GD: Ran the Gehlen Org up at Pullach. Yes, we talked about him. As I recall, you are not fond of him.

  RTC: No, I am not but Jim doesn’t know that. What I’m calling about, Gregory, is a plan I have to jerk Jim’s chain. Do you think we could work together on this?

  GD: I have no problem, Robert. What do you have in mind?

  RTC: Well, Jim is a class A asshole as I may have mentioned. I introduced him to his wife which I now regret. Jim is a boor and I was not aware of it at the time. As you know, or perhaps you don’t, he ran your friend Mueller when he worked for us. First he ran him in Switzerland where he was working for Swiss intelligence and then they brought Mueller over here because he was too important to leave in Europe. The Jews know he got away and they’ve been looking for him so we brought him over here. It’s safer that way. You understand that we’re officially bosom buddies with them, but actually they hate us because we do business with the Arabs for oil and they don’t like that.

  GD: But they don’t have any oil.

  RTC: Yes, I know. But to get back to Jim again. He knows about your Mueller books and he and his friends are very worried about what you do, or don’t, know. You have not mentioned Jim’s name yet so he is now on a fishing expedition to see just what you know and, more important, what proof you have Mueller worked for the Company.

  GD: I have enough proof. New name, pictures of him and Truman, CIA ID cards and so on.

  RTC: Fine, that’s what I believe. Anyway, Jim has ordered your book and wants me to talk him up to you so you will talk to him. He thinks he is very slick and he can pick your brains. I never bothered to tell him that you are twice as smart as he is and are much more likely to pick his brains. And that’s one of the things I want you to do. Jim wants to call you up and make nice with you. You know, praise you without actually committing himself. I suggested he write you a letter first to make introductions so you can expect this in a week or so. After that, he will want to talk to you. Of course he will have one of his friends on the other line and will, 100%, tape you so be very careful what you admit to him. He’s got his reputation to defend here and also he’s writing a book on Gehlen. Now you knew Gehlen…when was that again?

  GD: 1951, in the summer.

  RTC: Any proof of this?

  GD: My memory, which is very good, plus two pictures. One is of Gehlen during the war as a general officer and one is a snapshot of both of us standing in front of his house on the lake.

  RTC: I believe you, Gregory, but Jim might want proof. Of course he will be very diplomatic about this. Also, he is being told you were in military intelligence under another name. Just be deliberately vague if he wants names or a unit number. You know the usual sort of “That’s still classified because of my work” crap. I’m sure you can pull this off.

  GD: Thanks for your confidence, Robert. But I was only 17 at the time.

  RTC: I doubt if he’ll ask you for your birth date. Hint but do not be specific.

  GD: Is he a little ex-cavalryman from the Dakotas?

  RTC: The same. Did I tell you that?

  GD: No, I met him at Gehlen’s once and I never forget people.

  RTC: I’m sure you don’t. Now the way I want to nail him is for you to imply that you have absolute proof Mueller worked for Critchfield and was here in the States.

  GD: That’s not any kind of a problem. I should throw Willi Krichbaum in for some spice.

  RTC: Willi…?

  GD: Krichbaum. He was a Gestapo agent. A full colonel in the SS and Mueller’s standing deputy. In charge of the southwestern border guards, which was under the control of the SS. Willi then ran the Secret Field Police for the Army and this was staffed mostly with Gestapo and SD men. When I met Willi there, he was down at Bad Reichenhall as Gehlen’s chief recruiter. Mostly sought out and recruited SS and SD people for the Org.

  RTC: And you knew him? Personally? Saw him? Talked with him there?

  GD: Oh, yes, very well and if Critchfield asks me I can fill him in on all kinds of physical details. Don’t worry about that.

  RTC: That will scare the shit out of him for certain.

  GD: Good. I’m better than a laxative. What is the end goal here, Robert?

  RTC: To convince him that you know all about him and, like him, you too are writing another book. That’ll keep his bowels open. But don’t give away too much. If you mention papers, don’t say you have them at home or he’ll have someone break in and take them. He’s already said so.

  GD: Will he shoot me?

  RTC: No, but he’d like to. They are very angry with you, Gregory, but they know nothing substantive about you. Wolfe has been filling them with spiteful crap but then they have no respect for him at all. When did Mueller die?

  GD: ’83. Buried in Oakland under his own name.

  RTC: Don’t tell Jim that or they’ll dig him up or put down another stone. Sound authoritative but play your cards close to the vest. Something like, ‘as we both know” sort of thing. Oh, and by the way, they have another Hebrew stool pigeon working on all of this. Name of Naftali. [36] Works at Yale teaching potential Foggy Bottom boys about security, and so on. He’s a friend of Wolfe and be very careful of him if he calls you. He’d put a knife into you as soon as fart.

  GD: Thanks for the heads-up, Robert. I have heard nothing from him yet but when I do, it’s up hill and down dale with the BS express.

  RTC: Good.

  GD: It’s too bad Mueller is dead. He would genuinely have enjoyed this idiotic crap. We did have some lovely conversations about life a
nd all the insects in it. But given his background, he was a very decent sort of person all in all.

  RTC: Yes, that was my impression, too. Correct and very sharp.

  GD: And decent. It’s your dime. I can tell you a story about him and what he thought about a few personal things.

  RTC: Go on.

  GD: One time he asked me why I had such a cynical view of life. Was there a defining moment for me? There was, of course, there always is. I told him about the time when I was in high school and there had been a rash of locker thefts. Money, portable radios, sports equipment and so on were looted. Suddenly, the police called me into the front office and questioned me about this. Then they searched me physically and went into my own locker. I objected to being searched but they informed me I was not an adult and they could do what they liked. Most policemen are very stupid and it does not pay to discuss the law with them. Anyway, they found nothing at all. Then they went to my home and of course my mother welcomed them in and let them tear my room up. They didn’t find anything there, either. But I was blamed for this by everyone. Kids demanded I return their dad’s radio or their money and so on, the teachers made snide remarks about me in front of the classes and my family said that I must have done something wrong or the precious police would never have come by. I can assure you that I had nothing to do with any of this. I had a Russian friend at school and he was known to be very handy with his fists so I never got smacked around but I can guarantee that it was not a pleasant time. So, one day, a janitor came out of a supply closet and saw someone looting a locker. He grabbed him and dragged him to the office. The police came, searched him and his locker and found concrete evidence that he, not I, was the thief. He confessed and the loot was returned except for the cash which his rich parents gave back. He was from a good family, as they say, so instead of juvenile detention center, he was allowed to go to a private school to learn how to become a valued member of society without being caught. When I told this story to Mueller, he looked at me and asked me to finish the story. I told him I had. He said I had not. What did he mean by that? He asked me if I looked like the thief and I said I did not. Then he asked me if anyone had apologized to me for my harassment and I said no, that no one had ever apologized to me. He said that surely my own family had said something and I said that they had not. And no one at the school ever talked to me again and I am positive that most of them still believe I stole thousands of dollars from their lockers. And then Mueller said that this was, in his opinion, disgusting and said, and I have not forgotten this, that he would apologize to me for those who did not. I told him not to say this because he would never have done this and not to apologize. I thought it was a very decent thing for him to say and I never forgot it.

  RTC: Now that’s a terrible experience, Gregory. People are such royal shits, aren't they?

  GD: That’s a very perceptive and very true observation, Robert.

  RTC: It must be frustrating to realize that there’s nothing you could have done about it.

  GD: Oh, I did do something about it, Robert, I did indeed.

  RTC: Care to tell me about it?

  RTC: Vicarious pleasure for you, Robert? Very well, I’ll tell you but I warn you, you might not have any respect for me afterwards. Shall I go on?

  RTC: You know my former business, Gregory. I would not condemn you. Given your talents, I would really like to know how you got even.

  GD: Very well. Consider yourself warned. I had a friend who was, to be kind, very strange. The so-called normal people didn’t like me. Anyway, I should preface this by saying that at that high school, the students all had to eat lunch in their cafeteria. If your family wrote a note, you could go home for lunch and I had such a letter. One day, about two months after this locker business, my friend and I went downstairs into the cafeteria to see if we could find any cookies. It was later in the afternoon and there was no one about. Nothing. All the cookies, cakes and so on were locked up. But I noticed a very large stock pot slowly bubbling on the range. In one of the unlocked cupboards, I found three gallon jugs of commercial detergent. The label said the contents were odorless and tasteless and designed for use in restaurants to avoid alien tastes getting into prepared foods. I could see at once what to do so without further ado, as they say, I dumped all three gallons into the soup stock pot….

  RTC: My God, Gregory!

  GD: Well, I told you. Ah, but the best part was the next day. It was a Friday and after I came back to the school when I finished my delicious, nourishing lunch at home, my first afternoon period was a study hall. I and my girlfriend signed in and then took off. I figured that by that time, the student body was primed and ready to go. Of course I didn’t tell her, to spare her feelings. We were standing by my locker, right by an exit door, when about one twenty, someone ran down the hall and into the only lavatories in the school, right down the hall. This was followed by a few more and then by many more. There was a stampede of sorts. Of course the bathrooms were small and couldn’t handle the traffic. Panic and humiliation, Robert. Accidents in the hall, in doorways, outside the door behind me on the steps. I recall the hero quarterback of our beloved football team, a prime asshole, running frantically down the hall, slipping on a pile of crap and crashing down onto his back. And from his expression, it was obvious that his reason for visiting the jammed john was gone. He got up and walked, bowlegged, for the back door. Humiliation. He should have tied his shoelaces around his ankles to save the floor but at that point, the floor was past saving. It smelt like a cross between a public lavatory in France in July and a cow barn.

  RTC: (Laughter)

  GD: And I recall my French girl friend pointing to a girl and screaming with laughter. She was pointing at Geneva, a tennis champion on the school tennis team. Geneva was a prime bitch and my girl friend hated her. Poor, vain Geneva. She was wearing a nice white pleated wool tennis skirt and was weeping with shame because she had had a very obvious accident. It looked, Robert, exactly as if she had sat down on a pumpkin pie.

  RTC: (Laughter)

  GD: All in all it looked like a painting by Bosch, some ancient view of Hell. Shouts, thundering feet, flatulence, cries of dismay and other really delightful background noises. We finally exited by the door and had to step carefully to avoid the messes on the steps and I distinctly recall legions of the afflicted voiding their watery bowels all over the lawns and into the parking lot. And it was even worse on Monday. You see, they had no idea I had salted the soup so there was another episode on Monday. This time, there was a good deal of profitable work for the local proctologists, not to mention the sudden surge in business for the dry cleaners.

  RTC: You are quite mad, Gregory. But remarkable. Was your honor satisfied?

  GD: I think so. I haven’t laughed so hard since my evil aunt fell into the septic tank. Mueller didn’t have to apologize after all.

  RTC: Did you ever tell him about this? He seemed like such a very serious person.

  GD: He laughed even louder than you did a few minutes ago, Robert. I will have no trouble dealing with your Critchfield, Robert, don’t worry about that.

  RTC: Remind me to never eat lunch at your house, Gregory.

  GD: Well, everything came out in the end, Robert.

  RTC: (Laughter)

  GD: Are you disgusted with me?

  RTC: No, entertained.

  GD: The custodians were not amused. One of them told me the lavatories were a real horror show and it took a week to clean everything up. They had to scrape the walls. But my honor was avenged and that’s all that mattered. Of course I could have put something else into the soup pot but I’m not that sort of person.

  (Concluded at 9:15 AM CST)

  Conversation No. 36

  Date: Sunday, September 15, 1996

  Commenced: 11:15 AM CST

  Concluded: 11: 37 AM CST

  RTC: Ah, good morning, Gregory. Been to church early today?

  GD: No, haven’t been to church for some time. Yourself? I mean some
one who lives on Cathedral Avenue ought to have some nearby inspiration.

  RTC: No, I get out very seldom these days what with my hip problem and I do have a balance issue. Asthma makes me short of breath sometimes. Never mind that. Anyway, I was looking for some papers on the Vietnam business….for addition to my book on that sorry time…and I found an analysis of the flying saucer business we talked about. I pulled it out for you. On the Vietnam business, I’ve finished the manuscript long ago but I keep thinking that I ought to put more documentation with it. Stupid dreams because I can never publish it. Had to sign that paper, you know. Bill has looked at it and thinks it would become a best seller but I am not going to give it to him in spite of what he thinks. Trento would love to lay his hands on it. He wouldn’t publish it, of course, but would run to Langley for that pat on the head and another nice pen set. Joe does love to collect pen sets and get those loving pats on the head.

  GD: Could I look at it, Robert?

  RTC: Ah….I might consider it but you couldn’t use any of it while I am still kicking. But anyway, this Roswell business…and oh yes, one in Montana about three years later…now the Company had nothing to do with any of this but we did get a copy of an official and very secret report, not because we cared about a spaceship wreck or little green men but because of the methodology used in containing and negating the story. Too many people knew about this so the cover-up had to be through and intense. It was a sort of primer for us. We improved on it, of course, but it was an excellent foundation for other matters.