A Spy's Journey

by Floyd Paseman

  Julie continued debriefing the terrorist about a plot to assassinate several members of the CIA in an adjoining country. She left him in the care of a local guard while we checked out as much as we could about his information. What came back confirmed indeed that this fellow had accurate—and disturbing—information about this plot. Although he claimed not to be a part of the plot, he did admit that he was originally in on the planning. We did not want this fellow to go loose, wandering about the country. By this time, he had met me as well as Julie, since we had to ferry messages and instructions back and forth due to the urgency of the information obtained during the debriefing. Consequently, the terrorist could identify both of us as CIA officers.

  I was in touch with several officials of the local internal service—both security and counterintelligence officials. I gave them the nuts and bolts of the walk-in, and asked if they could place surveillance on the terrorist when he left our facility (they could not legally arrest him since he had committed no crime in the host country). They did better than that. He was seen being picked up by two officers of the local service. We never asked any questions after that—and I learned only upon my departure that they had detained him until both Julie and I were safely out of the country.

  I never forgot the value of having friends in the local service. We had managed to thwart the plot against our officers in another country, and the good relationships we had in the host country protected both Julie and me. I also never forgot how courageous she was and how professionally she handled this as a junior officer. I still maintain that our female case officers are there to do all the jobs we ask of the male officers. Most female CIA officers I’ve worked with are outstanding and courageous, and would be offended to be asked to stand aside for any reason whatsoever.

  But amidst all of this scrutiny, Julie continued to be a great and original prankster. I recall one case of a lead she had developed, a Chinese man with the surname of Hong. She did the usual reporting, cabling information back to headquarters, and discovered that the man’s name was really Hung, not Hong. To the great merriment of the troops, and in the hopes of slipping one by the boss, Julie drafted the correction in a cable to headquarters. I was on my toes that day, and her cable, titled “Hong is really Hung,” was altered before being sent out, much to the disappointment of Julie and the troops.

  In another stunt, Julie went to one of the local live fish markets and had a huge live carp mailed to one of the embassy senior officials on her birthday. The official received a knock on the door and was asked to sign for a big, heavy package. When she took the present into the house and removed the outer wrapping, she found a large carp swimming around in a cellophane bag. I never did learn the fate of that carp, but Julie successfully repeated the prank several times.

  In yet another legendary caper, Julie persuaded a number of us to be accomplices in her prank. We had a mutual friend, a female consular officer who, while on a tour of duty, had not seen her husband for nearly a year. Julie learned that the husband was due in country, and that the consular officer was going to the airport to meet him. So our ringleader made arrangements to have a young elephant put inside the official’s home while we gathered and awaited the couple’s return. Meanwhile, the elephant’s handler had his hands full with the elephant, which didn’t want to go into the house. The elephant ended up wrapping his trunk around the telephone and electrical wires and pulled them both down. This disabled the couple’s air conditioning at a time when temperatures were over 100 degrees. The elephant also left huge deposits of dung on the front porch. The couple returned home, but we didn’t jump out and yell “surprise.” Boy, were they aggravated, but after some time the consular officer even forgave us.

  Julie saved her best for me. To this day, she continues to insist that what occurred was not intentional, but good sources in on the planning of this one tell me otherwise. Our chief asked me to brief and care for the senior counterintelligence official of a major European ally who was passing through the country and wanted to exchange views. The chief asked me to make arrangements to go to dinner with him. I grumbled a bit back in my office and suspected out loud that the guy was going to ask me to go to the local bar and nightlife district with him, which I did not want to do. Julie wandered by and told me that a club had just opened near where we were going to dinner and gave me the card of the place, Johnny’s Place. It promised on its marquee, “A good time for everyone.” I didn’t say anything, but stuck the card in my pocket. After work that day, I went down to the restaurant, met the fellow, and exchanged some thoughts on our business. He was in fact the chief of counterintelligence of his service, a rather high-ranking official.

  Sure enough, as soon as dinner was over and I bid my farewell, he hemmed and hawed and said, “I say, old fellow, I hear there’s some pretty exciting nightlife in this town. I would be very grateful if you would take the time to give me a tour of some of the more racy spots.”

  Just what I didn’t want to do. Then I remembered the card I’d placed in my pocket. I took it out and told him that I would meet him at Johnny’s and have one drink with him. Since he was being driven and I had my own car, we agreed to meet at the bar. Traffic turned out to be horrible that night, and to make matters worse, I couldn’t find the side street the bar was supposed to be on. If I couldn’t find it, how would he?

  By the time I had gone around a complex set of one-way streets nearly 45 minutes had passed, and still no sign of the bar. As I came back around, I noticed a large house with a neon sign that said “Johnny’s Place” with an arrow pointing down a dark alley. I illegally parked my car and hustled down the dark alley. Sure enough, there was the sign, Johnny’s Place. I went inside, and it was nearly pitch dark. I sat down at the bar and ordered a double Scotch. As the music cranked up, I could see in a mirror some dancers on a stage behind me. I took a long pull on my drink, turned around, and nearly choked. On the stage were five or six male entertainers, dressed in women’s underwear, gyrating all over the stage. I looked to the side and saw that there were no women in the place—it was a gay bar. I jumped up and ran out of the door, and the doorman ran after me yelling, “Sir, sir, we have little boys upstairs!”

  “Get away from me, you pervert,” I shouted. I got in my car and drove home to consider the options: first, the CI chief may not have found the place; second, he may have found the place and like myself was uncomfortable there; third, he may have found the place and liked it. I then considered the fourth option—he was disgusted and would call my chief in the morning to report this development. After a sleepless night, I went to the office the next morning and got a call from the fellow.

  “Say, terribly sorry, but I couldn’t find the damned place. I wanted to apologize for leaving you stranded there, but I finally just went back to my hotel. Very sorry.” I accepted his apology and hung up the phone only to see Julie and several others standing in the doorway.

  “How’d you like the place?” she said, and we all laughed for hours.

  I was later to become involved in the sad drama of locating living prisoners of war (POWs) in Vietnam. This was to be a growth industry of substantial size, and at times borderline exploitive of the unfortunate families who harbored what would turn out in each case to be a false hope of finding their loved ones alive.

  The first volleys of the CIA-and-DIA-(Defense Intelligence Agency)-are-hiding-evidence-of-live-sightings mantra that would haunt us for over a decade began with several publicity-seeking congressmen leveling the charge. Word came out to our large intelligence community that everyone involved in the collection of intelligence was to pull out all stops in finding information about any living POWs. This kind of pressure inevitably leads to fabrication in the shadow world of intelligence. In this case, one of our defense attachés debriefed a contact who provided him with bones that he claimed were human remains that he had acquired. He sold these to the attaché along with some other details of location and so forth. The attaché decided to send the bones ho
me for inspection and unfortunately just put them in a paper bag and sealed them in a diplomatic pouch that was heading out on its long and meandering way home.

  All hell broke loose when headquarters found out about this. The defense attaché got a screamer from his headquarters about the insensitive handling of this. And all members of the American intelligence community received personal orders from the ambassador that henceforth, all such remains would be handled with respect and would be dispatched directly back home, with an escort. This was the beginning of numerous POW task forces.

  When I was the chief of the East Asia division a decade later, we were still responding to fabricated reports of live sightings of POWs. This was the beginning of a very trying time in which we routinely had walk-ins with duplicated dog tags, ID cards, and bones, expecting payment. Within months, we had quite a collection of duplicate tags, ID cards, and other relics—all evidence to be checked out piece by piece. During the course of a decade, not one living POW turned up from all this intelligence and evidence. This broke the hearts of many families, but made the career of at least one congressman, who exploited the families for his own political gain.

  And, related to this, I had my first encounter cleaning up after a bad operation. A retired lieutenant colonel from the Green Berets had made a reputation mounting rescue operations in search of POWs in Laos. He had gotten a lot of publicity, with absolutely no results. He made several fruitless trips out to the area, generating only protest from the local government concerning his illegal activities, but no POWs. On one occasion, his outfit reported that he was engaged in a firefight with Laotian troops after barely crossing the Lao border, a reckless and pointless action.

  Every officer has his share of nut cases. My favorite was a walk-in I interviewed. After hustling him out of sight so he wouldn’t be seen if he did have important information, or if he might have potential to become a reporting source, I went through the early drills: Did he know anything about a harmful attack against U.S. interests or U.S. persons? Could he verify who he was? The Q & A session was routine and uneventful until I asked him, “What information do you have for us?”

  He leaned back, opened his mouth wide, and said, “You see these back teeth? The Russians are sending radio signals out, and my teeth receive them. I can tell you anything you want to know by walking by the Russian embassy and listening to their conversations. I want to be a spy.” I did the normal checking, and we didn’t have anything to back up his story. I thanked him for his efforts and sent him on his way. I then sent a cable out to warn other CIA facilities about the fellow in case he showed up there, which he did—at several other locations.

  One other episode nearly ended my career. My headquarters had just selected me for a new assignment. I was, to say the least, very pleased. It would come with a promotion into the senior intelligence service ranks, and signaled that headquarters considered me ready to be a top-ranking officer.

  Before it took effect, one of our most senior officers came through the area on a routine trip, and our chief held an informal reception for him, which was a terrific opportunity for our younger officers. While chatting over cocktails, the senior officer noted that I had been in a particular country on my previous assignment and asked what I thought about the ambassador there. With my guard down I answered, honestly, “He’s a real horse’s ass. He never understood what was going on in his own country, and he didn’t have a clue how to use the good intelligence we were providing.”

  The officer erupted. With his face reddening, he shouted, “You are talking about the closest friend I have on this earth.” At that point, everyone but the two of us left the immediate area—including our chief. I have always had one inviolable rule—no one will shout at me. So, I looked at him and said, “I’m sorry you have such a horse’s ass as a good friend, but what I told you was the truth. If you wanted to hear something else you should have told me he was your friend before you asked the question.” The chief came over, and things went downhill from there. He led the officer away, and I left early.

  TEN

  HOME AGAIN—EAST ASIA

  1985–1988

  I had been assigned to a senior position in one of our most prestigious and important operational components in East Asia Division as a China operations expert. Things had been going well for me. I was active and in a good managerial position that still allowed me to deal directly with my real love, espionage.

  Shortly thereafter, we had an agent in an African country who had done exceptionally well for us, but the country was in the midst of civil war. Our agent had been offered exfiltration (secretly getting him out of country for his safety), but he chose to stay in place and report. We decided I should meet him in person, present him with a medal for his service, let him know we were appreciative of his decision to remain in place, affirm our willingness to exfiltrate him, and review our plans for that emergency.

  For operational reasons, I was to travel in “black”—that is, in another persona. Unfortunately, we twice overflew our airport in the country’s capital. When we discovered it had been closed in the fighting, we decided to land at a remote military airport several hours outside the capital. It turned out that this airport was in the hands of Russian troops who were supporting the Marxist government against the rebels. The airline informed us that we had the option of staying there until the capital airport reopened or flying back to our point of embarkation. I fussed around, stating that I was there as a private businessman and that my business there was apolitical. They let us into the hut at the airport as they considered what to do.

  I needed to get into town, so I asked the local Soviet commander if there were some way I could get into town. He offered a handful of us a ride on a Soviet military truck that happened to be taking reinforcements into the city. He warned us of the possibility of rebel ambush, adding that he could not vouch for our safety. Because I had to get into town, I took the risk and rode with the Soviet troops. The risk was worth it because I had made a commitment to an agent who had taken greater risks for us. I have to admit I was worried, but I was also faintly amused at the thought of a Soviet commander transporting a CIA officer into town to meet an agent. The two-hour trip turned out to be uneventful, and I made the meeting with the agent. When I presented him the medal he actually wept. I explained to him that, since the medal had his name on it, we had to take it back and keep it safe for him. He understood, and went on to further distinguished service to the United States.

  I was working with an exceptional chief in 1985 when we discovered the first case of one of our own spies working for the Chinese Intelligence Service. On November 24, 1985, the Year of the Spy, the FBI arrested Larry Wu-tai Chin, a CIA employee, and charged him with espionage.

  I received a call on Sunday evening, November 24, that the arrest was imminent. I was instructed to begin to compile a list of the kinds of questions we would ask him about his spying activities. I worked most of the evening.

  Chin, born in Beijing, was a naturalized U.S. citizen whose espionage dated at least back to 1949. He had been working in some capacity for the United States since 1943, when he was an interpreter for the U.S. Army. During the Korean War, he had been sent to Korea to interrogate Chinese POWs. Already a Chinese spy, he was hired in 1952 by the CIA to monitor foreign news media, radio, and television programs for intelligence analysis. He served at a number of broadcasting sites and at various posts around CIA headquarters. Not to understate the case, he did massive damage to our China programs. Along the way, he admitted to receiving at least $180,000 for his treason, but our estimate was that he had received over half-a-million dollars. The investigation also uncovered the fact that he and his wife owned at least six condos and one house.

  Chin appeared relatively cooperative when his trial began in January 1986. He was convicted of espionage, conspiracy, and tax evasion on February 7, 1986, and faced the possibility of two life-without-parole sentences, plus 83 years for good measure.

  On
the evening of February 20, I was told to be prepared to go the next morning to the jail in Alexandria, Virginia, where Chin was being held. I was to go with an FBI representative to begin preliminary questioning to do a damage assessment.

  But I never got the opportunity, because that same evening Wu-taiChin committed suicide. Rather than betray his Chinese intelligence handlers, he had put a plastic bag over his head and suffocated himself.

  Wu-tai Chin wasn’t the only one who was brought to justice that year. In an incredible series of espionage events, the following transpired:

  • In early 1985, KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky was rescued by the British Intelligence service from under the noses of the KGB in Moscow.

  • On May 17, Edward O. Buchanan, USAF, was arrested for spying for the Soviets and East Germans.

  • On May 19, John Walker, former navy petty officer, was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union and running a major espionage ring. Shortly afterward, his son, brother, and close friend were also arrested.

  • On July 11, CIA employee Sharon Marie Scranage was arrested for spying for the Ghana Intelligence Service.

  • On November 2, KGB defector Yuri Yurchenko re-defected to the Soviet Union.

  • On November 21, Jonathan J. Pollard, a naval intelligence analyst, was arrested for spying for Israel.

  • On November 24, Ronald Pelton, former National Security Agency analyst, was arrested for espionage.