A Very Private Plot Page 9

  Stepping out of his car, Casey greeted Blackford. “Black, you got any input for the session on Soviet investment in their strategic defense operation?”

  “I’m up on it,” Blackford replied. “If the figures you get from our analysts are way off, I’ll tell you.”

  “That’s what the President most wants to shove at Gorbachev in Geneva.”

  “Yes. I’d have guessed that.” The two men walked into the main entrance and went separately to their offices before convening for the 9 a.m. senior staff session, which focused primarily on arming the President with arguments to use in defense of his Star Wars program.

  The Deputy Director reported the Agency’s estimate that the Soviets were currently spending “over twenty-five billion dollars” in developing their own strategic defense, hardly consistent with their disparagement of the U.S. effort. Casey looked over at Blackford, who nodded his head slightly: the figure was right. “Okay,” Casey said, “and that’s a nice round figure. The President will like that much of it.” He got up. “See you around,” he said to his five primary assistants. He signaled Blackford to stay on.

  “How is it going with the Stingers?”

  The Pakistanis had received a threat from Gorbachev, delivered through his ambassador in Karachi: If Pakistan’s General Zia didn’t stop conveying U.S. Stingers to the Afghan rebels, the Soviet government would devise a “suitable means of retaliation.”

  “We’ve set up an alternative delivery route, in case Zia gets cold feet, which I doubt he’ll get.”

  Casey nodded. “He told State he wanted indemnifications.”

  “He’s had those.”

  “Arhhreuh!”

  Blackford had got used to the emunctory sounds distinctive to the Director. The consensus was that the sound he had just now emitted meant: “You’re-goddamn-right.”

  Blackford said, “I think the last time around we promised to give Zia Detroit. Or was it Illinois?”

  “He can have New York, far as I’m concerned,” Casey nodded. Blackford left the room and went to his own office.

  He then undertook his Monday morning ritual. He went to the computer and wrote into it his personal code. He painstakingly tapped in a second code he had committed to memory five years ago. The technician who had written it into the tele-computer had kept no record of the operation. The key to opening the line of communication rested exclusively in Blackford’s memory.

  It was still gripping to recall, even after almost five years, the corner of the little café in Paris where the startling arrangements had been made. The Soviet’s terms were explicit. Blackford Oakes, and only Blackford, would cue in to receive information. He would do this unfailingly once every week. The communications link, to fortify security, would be only one-way: Cyclops could relay information to Oakes. Oakes could not communicate with Cyclops, except through an emergency procedure in Moscow, which, if used, might jeopardize the continuation of the contact. It was not, for that reason, an ideal arrangement. But during the fifty-eight months that had gone by, much vital information had come in. And none of it had proved deceptive.

  Cyclops was a laconic communicator. He did not use more words than he needed to use. But, experienced as he was, Cyclops knew how many words Blackford would need in order to put the information to use. Blackford was never shortchanged.

  Sometimes two weeks would go by with the screen entirely blank. But Cyclops would never let a third week go by. To do so might give the impression that he had been detected. If there was nothing on week number three to report, the screen would ring in merely the one word: “Okay.” Blackford had had an Okay the preceding week. It had been three weeks since Cyclops reported that an extra one hundred Soviet scientists had been diverted to Krasnoyarsk, to augment the force at work on a defense shield.

  Blackford completed the coding and stared now at the screen. He could feel his heart beating. He reached over to the desk and grabbed a legal pad. He wrote down the exact message from Cyclops. Word for word. He then closed the circuit, electronically blocking it, and went to his desk chair. He tore off the top sheet of paper, brought out his scissors from the desk drawer, cut the sheet of paper in half, discarded the blank bottom, then folded and refolded the top half. He pulled out his wallet and stuck the paper between the bills. He thought deeply for a full half hour, and then dialed dear, reliable Kathy in the White House. Fifteen minutes later his private line rang. Kathy. The meeting was set: 5:45, and yes, the President agreed that no one else would be in the Oval Office, just the two of them.

  Ronald Reagan had worked closely with Blackford, most recently on the Grenada operation. He liked Blackford’s directness, and his capacity to laugh, spontaneously and easily. He knew that Blackford had himself engaged over the years in covert activities, some of high importance. And he knew that several of his commissions had been directly supervised by John F. Kennedy and, later, by Lyndon Johnson.

  He had been told that Oakes quit the Agency in 1964, protesting Executive ambivalence over the Vietnam war. This identification mark greatly appealed to Reagan, who during the Vietnam years had assailed the Democratic administration for failure to define a coherent policy. “It would have made a very bad movie script,” he once said to Blackford as they waited in the Situation Room for news that the marines had landed in Grenada. “You can’t do what we did. LBJ managed to betray both our allies in Vietnam and our soldiers in the field.”

  Reagan had paused. “Well, ‘betray’ is a pretty tough word. Managed to let them down. That sounds more presidential, doesn’t it, Blackford?” The President smiled.

  Blackford said yes, it sounded more presidential and “less like Ronald Reagan.” Reagan liked that, and a few weeks later Blackford and Sally were invited to dine with the Reagans and the Caseys in the private apartments.

  As he approached the Oval Office, Blackford thought back on his first visit there, led to President Kennedy by his brother the Attorney General. He took a republican pride in the room’s modest dimensions. Five White Houses, someone had observed, would fit inside the Czar’s Winter Palace. But it was perhaps exactly that, its modesty, that gave it its unique emanations. Blackford was never really ill at ease, but he was not insensitive to the magnetic pull of supreme authority. He was now in one of two rooms in the world from which instructions could be issued to launch a nuclear strike.

  The President was seated, wearing a dark blue suit with the traditional white of a handkerchief showing above his breast pocket. He was reading a document that lay on his desk. He motioned Blackford to the chair at his side.

  “Did I tell you about the scene in this room just after LBJ won his landslide in 1964?” the President asked. Blackford shook his head, No. “Well, it was the day after, and his visitors were Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. And Lyndon leaned back like this”—the President leaned back exaggeratedly in his desk chair—“and said, ‘Just think! Between the three of us, we’ve probably screwed the majority of the American people!’”

  Blackford laughed. In fact he had heard it. It was funny all the same, and Reagan knew how to tell it. There was just a hint of a Texas accent when he imitated Johnson.

  Reagan turned to him. “You got something?”

  Blackford nodded. He reached for his wallet. “I have to tell you something first, Mr. President. This agent I’m going to quote to you works exclusively through me. He won’t authorize anyone else to know his identity or read his messages, and he’s been giving us valuable information, none of it ever proved wrong, for almost five years.”

  Reagan nodded.

  Blackford unfolded the paper. “Here is exactly what it says: ‘Blackford: I link with a small band of skillful determined young Russians who plan the assassination of M.G. No date set. If you instruct me to turn them in, use emergency access. I know and respect them and will give them over to torture and execution only if requested by President of the United States in cause of international peace. I trust you to share this information with him exclusively
. Cyclops.’”

  “Oh my goodness!” said the President. “Oh my … Oh my goodness …”

  He looked up at Blackford. “You say I cannot consult anyone about this? Oh my.” The President paused. “Let me ask you this. You are head of covert operations. Are you absolutely certain that there is no American involved in this operation to get Gorbachev?”

  “I’m certain that nobody working for us is involved. I mean, no American working for us. It’s entirely possible that one of our assets in Moscow is involved, but if so, it is not with our knowledge, let alone consent.”

  “You would be the final authority in knowing this?”

  Blackford told him that no covert operation was undertaken without his knowledge of it. “Or, for that matter, your knowledge, Mr. President.”

  “Yes, yes. Gee whiz. This is a tough one.”

  Then suddenly, “You know, Blackford, you gave your word.” He smiled. “I didn’t give mine.”

  “No. But I did tell him he could trust me. Still, I can see your point, Mr. President. I myself would have to refuse to talk to anyone about Cyclops’s message—for instance, I couldn’t even tell Bill Casey about it, because that is our, well, sacred understanding. But I can’t bind you.”

  “No,” the President was talking to himself now. His voice was low, his head turned toward the center of his desk, his right hand gripping a pencil and scratching aimlessly on a notepad.

  “No, you can’t, that’s right. This is a hell of a situation. I mean—I mean, we’re not involved in any way, that’s vital. But is it our responsibility to protect a foreign tyrant from his own people? Is that a diplomatic obligation?… Maybe if the foreign tyrant was an ally? But we’re hardly talking about an ally, and it’s a country that’s waging aggressive war against Afghanistan, spending twenty-five percent of its GNP to threaten the free world. No, not an ally, for Pete’s sake.”

  He looked up at Blackford. “Well, if I’m not supposed to consult anybody else, I am still free to consult you, aren’t I? What do you think?”

  “Mr. President, to quote you, that’s a hell of a situation, me being the only person whose opinion reaches you.”

  The President’s reply was suddenly sharp. “I am asking you your opinion.”

  “It would be to leave the matter alone.”

  The President sighed. He said nothing for a full minute. And then, the bounce of only a half hour earlier completely gone, “I’ll get in touch with you tomorrow. Good night, Blackford.”

  “Good night, Mr. President.”

  The President was not in touch, the next day, with Blackford.

  And Blackford did not use the emergency access procedure to be in touch with Cyclops.

  CHAPTER 14

  NOVEMBER 1985

  No. He shook his head at the steward, “No more, thanks.” He took a cursory bite of the remaining apple pie but then put down his fork and dipped his finger into the teacup, lifting it out quickly—it was too hot. He remembered that Tip O’Neill had told him something he had got from Frank Sinatra. He liked to demonstrate it to friends and visitors, but at this moment he was quite alone in the master cabin. So he would content himself to demonstrate it yet again to himself. He lifted the same cup of tea, its temperature too hot for his finger, and put it up to his lips, sipped, and swallowed. The throat tissues did not flinch. There. That was the whole point—that whereas it is natural to suppose that your mouth and throat are infinitely more sensitive than your hardened index finger, the reverse is true!

  He should have demonstrated to Gorbachev. How to stay out of hot water! Next time, maybe.

  Next time! Ah yes. Now there would be not only one next time, but two next times! Old George Shultz had said to him in Washington that never mind the missiles, never mind the missile testing, never mind the Star Wars, if we could get Gorbachev to agree to another summit, this summit would be a success. Well, Gorbachev had agreed not only to a second summit, but to a third summit.

  Some things are really that simple and you don’t need a staff of two hundred people to set them up for you. I said to him, Let’s just you and me—and the interpreters, of course—I don’t much like his interpreter. He tries too hard to convey the feeling of Gorbachev’s words. He overdoes it. He could use a little time in pictures. Because Gorbachev says something in a loud tone of voice doesn’t mean the interpreter has to yell his head off when he interprets it. I don’t suppose I can do anything about that. Might start a war. (He smiled. And then he was solemn again.) Two more meetings with Gorbachev, one in Washington, one in Moscow.

  Provided Gorbachev is alive.

  Oh, I have prayed for guidance on this one. And I keep saying to myself, “Sic semper tyrannis,” maybe the only three words of Latin I still remember—no, I remember “Semper fidelis.” Anyway, if ever there was a tyranny, that’s the history of the Soviet Union. And Gorbachev, even if he is willing to come and talk to me in Washington and willing for me to go to Moscow to talk to him, what is he doing in concrete terms about that tyranny?

  He picked up a clipping on the table, an article by Richard Pipes. Professor of Sovietology at Harvard. Former head of the Soviet desk in his own National Security office! And what had Dick written? “There is nothing that the Soviet government and Gorbachev have done to change its policies in any fundamental way. They are still arming at a pace that is frightening—both conventional and nuclear forces—they are still in Afghanistan, they are still doing all the things they have done until now. They are still arousing hatred against America inside the country. So I really don’t see why one should believe that anything has changed.”

  It was fine of Gorbachev to grandstand in October about how he would cut one third of his force of SS-20s. And how many’s he got? Two hundred and something SS-20s—Bud Mc-Farlane always uses exact numbers, drives me crazy. I could remember 225, 250, 275, but it isn’t easy to remember something like 243. Marlene Dietrich tells a wonderful story about Hitler. Hitler didn’t have any idea about numbers, what was the important number, what was the less important number. So in one of his speeches, Marlene said—I wish I could imitate her imitating Hitler—he said, “And what is mohrrr, the Churman steel industree has increased its production in chust one year from forty million five huntred and sixty thousand tons, to eighty million five huntred and SEVENTY-FIVE TONS!” Funny. So anyway, in the first place we don’t know whether Yes, Gorby will reduce his theater weapons, or No, Gorby won’t reduce them. But if he does, that means he is … well, down to about 150 SS-20s. Enough to take out every city in Europe bigger than Stratford-on-Avon. Big deal.

  But Shultz is right, Gorby has moved. Up until this summer he refused to have any more disarmament conferences unless we removed our Pershings and cruise missiles from Europe. The sheer nerve of those people! And then what he keeps calling our “space weapons,” and how they are designed for aggressive use, and I say to him, Look, you’ve got a lot of weapons that are designed for aggressive use, and you’re engaged in an act of aggression right now in Afghanistan—

  And he says they are not designed for aggressive use, so I say, Look, how, just how, can I ask the American people to believe me when I tell them that you won’t believe me that our strategic defense is just for defense, but I am supposed to believe you when you say that all your … nuclear weapons—I’d have said exactly how many he has, except I always forget—are purely defensive? That awful interpreter shouted out Gorby’s response, but I think he got my point, because he didn’t say it again.

  But I mean, if there ever was a tyrant, continuing their killing way, he certainly is one, and if there is a movement of citizens in that tyranny to do away with that tyrant—yes, execute him, which according to Oakes is what that little group plans—why should I do something about it? It would be different if beginning next month, on the first day of every month, Gorbachev promised to institute one of our freedoms in the Bill of Rights, one after another. Let me see, that means, beginning in December—one, two, three …—by September
they’d have the Tenth Amendment. Forget it, we don’t observe the Tenth Amendment, so we shouldn’t make him do it. By August, the Soviet Union would be a nation of free people. But the point is he has no program that edges away from that tyranny, and though I kind of … like the guy, it just isn’t any of my business to provide him with bodyguards against his own people.

  There. I said that the right way. It’s not my business to provide him with bodyguards against his own people. Suppose the people who tried to kill Hitler had started their operation before the war with England broke out and suppose that somebody went to Churchill and said, Look we’ve found out about a small band of resisters who are plotting to kill Hitler. Would he have done anything about it? Exactly. Exactly. I remember in Man Hunt when Walter Pidgeon had Hitler at his mountain hideout right in the crosshairs of his rifle—my heavens, how we all wish he had squeezed that trigger! Turn in Walter Pidgeon because he intended to shoot Hitler? That’s crazy!

  He had made up his mind. He pushed the buzzer. Instantly a steward materialized. “I think I’ll try to get a little rest.”

  “I’ll get your bed prepared, Mr. President.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.’ The President picked up the International Herald Tribune and read about the conference he had just left.

  CHAPTER 15

  SEPTEMBER 1986

  Nikolai was surprised by the letter from the Ministry of Electrotechnical Industry and Equipment. Evidently such computers as were in use in Moscow had resolved that Nikolai Trimov, with his graduate degree in electrical engineering, would be more valuable to the People exercising his skills as an engineer than teaching English to teenagers. Effective September 8, he was to report to the deputy assistant of the MEIE at 28 Ogarova Street at 9 a.m. No word was given on the matter of a replacement. “Well,” he said to Andrei as they prepared to view what passed for the television news, “I guess I’ll just have to tell old Landau that he has to come up with another teacher.”