Deadly Deceits (5 page)

Every free evening our group would gather in the recreation room/bar to drink beer, play pool or ping-pong, or just to sit around and shoot the bull. Jimmy came to these gatherings in his own special uniform. He wore a floppy black Army hat and a dark camouflage suit with a webbed military belt in which he carried two large hunting knives. After a few beers he would get wound up and would practice his exits from the aircraft “door,” using chairs in the room. Later he would jump out the recreation room window, shouting “Geronimo!” Jimmy's primary weakness—though in our capacity as PMers it was considered a strength—was his distaste or perhaps even a fear of being boxed in. After a few hours of inside classroom sessions he became agitated and restless and would hurry outside at the first opportunity.

At the culmination of the parachute training we jumped three times from a C-47. Many of the football behemoths in
our class found the World War II chute too small for then heavy frames and smashed into, rather than floating down on, the plowed landing strip. We had been warned of the mathematical possibility of something going wrong in the jumps—a cigar roll chute that doesn't open correctly; a landing in a tree; and a Mae West, where a shroud line crosses over the top forming, appropriately enough, two smaller bulges rather than one large canopy. All of these things happened, but fortunately no one was seriously hurt.

Our training also included moving and operating in small units and crossing a simulated Iron Curtain border; learning to assemble, disassemble, and fire a whole assortment of foreign and domestic pistols, rifles, and sub-machine guns; and practice in firing the bigger weapons such as bazookas, mortars, and grenade launchers. Second to the parachute jumps in danger and excitement was training in explosives—the characteristics and use of TNT, C-3 and C-4 plastic, and dynamite. We were taught to use various exotic detonators such as pressure release, push-pull, delay, and slow fuse. We learned how to shape and place explosives to cut bridges and to blow up generators and other installations. Creating a dust explosion using ordinary materials required a little more expertise, but we all seemed to master the technique.

Near the end of our demolition course, a new group of trainees arrived and we old hands decided to initiate them by booby-trapping their barracks. We used the various push-pull triggering devices loaded with powerful military firecrackers. We tied trip wires to door handles and bed springs. It was a lot of innocent fun, except that one demolition “expert” went to the extreme and booby-trapped a john. He concealed a pressure detonator with the firecracker under a toilet seat. The surprised occupant was nearly castrated and the toilet bowl was smashed. The instructors took an exceptionally dim view of the perpetrator's abilities and judgment. They believed this to be a deadly serious business, knowing only too well what we did not yet fully understand: we were preparing to be warriors.

The training culminated in a comprehensive problem utilizing all that we had learned. On that occasion, after escaping from jail and surviving in the mosquito-filled swamps, I found I was too exhausted to go case an enemy security service
barracks as required. Fortunately for our group, Jimmy Moe volunteered. While we rested, he moved undetected across several miles, cased the installation, and returned. He was then ready to travel right back with us to “attack” the site. The man had remarkable stamina.

Although a few students considered Jimmy Moe to be a little weird, he did seem to have all of the attributes that were desirable in a PM case officer. He was aggressive, in superb physical shape, he knew how to survive, and he was fierce in his attack on the sentry. His Marine Corps experience proved his courage under fire. He knew weapons and explosives, and he could move undetected across hostile territory. He demanded an outdoor life and could never endure the more prosaic existence of an embassy-based intelligence case officer. However, and probably most important, as required of all DDP officers, he saw situations in black-and-white certainties. He was not worried about nuances. He did what he was told and did not ask questions.

The rest of us failed in various ways to measure up to the high standards set by Jimmy Moe, but most fell into the desired general mold. I personally could take or leave it. I still longed for the job of the debonnaire spy master and most assuredly did not want to spend the rest of my life jumping out of airplanes. As we left Camp Peary, we wished each other well and eagerly looked forward to our first assignment. We were unaware that over the years we would meet again in different, and in many cases, tragic circumstances.

2. JAPAN AND THE PHILIPPINES:

INNOCENTS ABROAD

IT was May 1, 1953, and I was on a street corner on the outskirts of Tokyo with my arms outstretched making a noise approximating that of an airplane. I was surrounded by a throng of curious Japanese who stared in silence at this weird
gaijin
who had so obviously flipped. No one seemed to comprehend my one Japanese phrase, “Haneda doko desuka?” (where is Haneda?), which I kept shouting between revving up my motors. Since I could not speak Japanese, I could not explain that I was on my way to Haneda Airport to pick up my wife and daughters and had got lost. Seeing no flicker of comprehension on the faces around me, I jumped back into the Agency station car and took off in the direction of the last plane I had seen in the air. I was worried, first, that Norma and the children would arrive at the airport in this strange land with no one to meet them and, second, that there might be trouble with the Japanese on the street. For this was May Day, and the Agency had predicted that the Japanese Communists might make trouble for Americans. Just a few days earlier the United States military command had issued orders restricting all troops to their bases on May Day.

I followed the high trail of airplanes on a zig-zag course through the narrow back alleys of Tokyo suburbs and the streets through the adjacent industrial complex. Finally I came to a main road with a sign in English and Japanese pointing the direction to the airport. In a short time I arrived at Haneda. Luckily the Pan American Trans Pacific Stratocruiser flight was late.

I sat down on a bench near the gate where my family would be arriving. As I waited, I began to think about my life
with Norma, my wife. We had first met in the summer of 1946 at a youth gathering at the Normal Park Presbyterian Church on the South Side of Chicago. Norma was sitting with a group of her friends, her blonde hair combed over her forehead in low bangs. She reminded me of Lana Turner. After the youth meeting broke up, I hitched up my courage, penetrated the cortege of her friends, and asked if she would join me for some ice cream. To my lasting joy, she said yes. This was a special occasion, so I took her to a locally famous ice cream parlor on 63rd Street under the overhead El tracks. It was then that I decided I wanted to marry her. After two years of dating on summer vacations and weekends away from Notre Dame, we were married. One daughter was born in Chicago and another a year later in Dayton, Ohio, where I was line coach for the University of Dayton Flyers.

Thinking back on it at the airport, I realized that although we had been married five years, we had never really established a settled, comfortable family life. I had left Norma and the kids in Chicago to go off to the Green Bay Packers training camp. Then after being cut and working for Montgomery Ward, I had rushed off to Washington in response to that fateful cable. I had spent three months there without my family. I wanted to wait until I was accepted before moving them, and after I received the security clearance it had taken another six weeks to locate affordable and suitable housing—a small, rundown frame house two miles outside of Cherry-dale in Arlington, Virginia. Those had been lean days. My GS-5 salary amounted to about $4,000 a year, barely enough to meet expenses. We had harrowing but memorable times attempting to balance a budget ravaged by breakdown spasms of my 1941 Ford coupe.

At the lowest point in our financial planning, we found we had a dime surplus. Norma desperately needed some hairpins and we all wanted some fresh lettuce. The lettuce won out. This was before Christmas 1952. We, of course, did not have enough money to go out to celebrate the holidays but looked forward to a present we had received from Norma's parents. The shape of the package indicated a bottle of wine or whiskey, and an accompanying package obviously contained long, slender items, which we assumed were swizzle sticks. This would be our celebration. Christmas Eve after the kids
were in bed, we opened the present—it was a pencil sharpener and some pencils.

Following the orientation and basic operations courses, Norma and I had been separated again during the three-month-long PM training at Camp Peary, but I had managed to spend a month with the family before being transferred to Japan. I had been alone again here for three months before our housing officer located suitable quarters for the family. The numerous separations made me pause. I wondered if a career with the CIA would mean a life of transiency and separation from family, and if so, how it would affect Norma and the kids and me.

One marital problem had immediately sprung up when I joined the Agency—the restrictions of secrecy. As soon as I was hired, I signed the secrecy agreement. It said, among other things: “I do solemnly swear that I will never divulge, publish or reveal either by word, conduct or any other means such classified information, intelligence or knowledge, except in the performance of my official duties and in accordance with the laws of the United States, unless specifically authorized in writing in each case by the Director of Central Intelligence.” I honored this agreement to the nth degree and refused to tell Norma any more than was absolutely necessary. It was as if a wedge had been driven between us, and I worried what to do.

I felt that I could not discuss my work with my wife because it was both illegal to do so and, according to authorities, a threat to national security. In addition to not telling what I was doing, I had refused to tell our parents what agency I was really working for. This kind of secrecy disturbed both Norma and me. We were just as upset that we had to lie constantly to our neighbors and friends. The most normal question, after all, was “Where do you work?” We had found it easier back in Cherrydale not to get too friendly with neighbors because it was impossible to sustain the cover that I worked for the
[two words deleted]
. As a consequence we had slowly restricted our contacts to Agency friends. This was our first experience of the self-imposed isolation that allowed Agency employees to lose touch with the viewpoints and the information shared by the broader American population, whose interests we supposedly represented.

I had found that Norma had an unshakable sense of what is right and good. She intensely disliked lying to our friends
and relatives and had made it an article of faith never to deceive the children, a vow she had to break because of my employer. Norma, of course, knew I worked for the Agency, but I kept all details of the training to myself. She felt alone and had no nearby friends to lighten the sense of isolation. I had moved her to an out-of-the-way house in Virginia, refused to discuss my work with her, told her not to tell anyone that I worked for the CIA, and then had taken off for three months training at some mysterious site, leaving her all alone with two young daughters, unreliable transportation, and an extremely tight budget. Worse than that, I had returned from the training and advised her that we were going to Japan, and had taken off again—still without revealing details of my work. All of this had caused long, bitter arguments. Norma felt that she had an equal right to know what was happening in our lives and that my actions indicated I did not trust her. I silently agreed, but could not bring myself to break the secrecy agreement.

After all these problems and separations, I hoped that now our married life could really begin. I had found a beautiful house a few blocks from the Emperor's summer palace in Hayama overlooking Sagami Bay on the Pacific Ocean. Our financial woes were behind us. The Agency paid for all the rent and utilities and had given me an enclosed jeep for my personal use. I had been promoted to a GS-7 and while in Japan my salary was augmented by a 20 percent “differential,” an amount paid to compensate for the supposed differences in expenses between living at home and living in Japan. All our medical expenses would be taken care of by the government. We could buy all food, clothes, and essentials at the PX and commissary with their more than reasonable prices (a bottle of good bourbon cost only $1.25). The relief from the pressure of financial worries, the home on the ocean, and the many Agency friends in a rather close society all seemed to guarantee a new, happier life for us. We might even consider trying for the son I wanted to have.

“Pan American Flight One arriving at Gate 14.” They were here. My older daughter, four-year-old Peggy, broke away from her mother and was racing toward me with Jean, the three-year-old, close behind. They called out, “Daddy, Daddy.” I grabbed them up, hugged them, and ran toward Norma, who appeared overjoyed to see a familiar face. We
formed a single unit as I clumsily hugged and kissed Norma while holding the girls in my arms.

After we got the suitcases and loaded the car, we headed toward our new home and life. The girls' eyes lit up when they saw the Japanese garden dotted with tiny pine trees and carefully spaced clumps of bushes. Hanayo and Sammy, the maid and gardener I had hired, came hurrying out to the car. Sammy was all smiles and carried the luggage into the house. Hanayo was shy, but she and the girls quickly decided they liked each other. I took Norma and the girls on a tour of the place, showing them the foyer where the Japanese leave their shoes, the ancient crankup phone, the moveable lattice-work doors covered with rice paper, and the yard as long as a football field. From the balcony I pointed out Mount Fuji, majestic and snow-capped, off in the distance. The girls were excited and intrigued at all of the potential hiding places the house offered, especially the bomb shelter downstairs. Norma could not believe the size of the place and was particularly pleased with the completely tiled Japanese bathroom and the huge kitchen.