Operation Solo Page 9

  Later in the summer they moved to an outpost overlooking Panmunjan, where truce talks were taking place while fighting raged unabated everywhere else. The United Nations and communist commands had agreed that neither side would fire into a demarcated zone around the negotiating site. But the Chinese sneaked artillery into the no-fire zone and each night lobbed shells at Boyle’s bunker. Some rounds exploded on the mountainside in front of him, others on the slope behind him where troops were dug in. Hearing an anguished call for a corpsman, Boyle ran along a trench and came upon an American marine struggling to press his intestines back into his stomach, completely ripped open by shrapnel, and held him while he died.

  Boyle had pinpointed exactly the location of the Chinese batteries in the no-fire zone, and back in the bunker he called for fire upon them. The fire direction center radioed back words to the effect of, “Sorry, those coordinates are in the no-fire zone.” He waited and then called for fire on fictitious enemy forces not far outside the no-fire zone, and shells from marine howitzers soon struck quite near the positions he had specified. But Boyle told the fire direction center that they were off target and radioed a string of adjustments which marched the barrage right onto the Chinese guns inside the zone. Once the first howitzer and its ammunition erupted in flame, he radioed, “You’re on target. Fire for effect.” Spectacular fireworks from detonating Chinese artillery and munitions lit up the night sky until Boyle radioed, “Targets destroyed. Cease fire.”

  By morning, the marine command had figured out what happened; Boyle was ordered down from the mountain. A jeep screeched up, and an irate lieutenant colonel jumped out. “Did you order those rounds into the no-fire zone last night?”

  “I did, sir.”

  “Did you know you were firing into the no-fire zone?”

  “I did, sir.”

  “Do you realize you have created an international incident?”

  “Sir, I don’t know about that. I know that those particular batteries won’t be killing any more marines, sir.”

  The Chinese could not protest without admitting their treachery in violating the truce zone, and Boyle heard nothing more about the incident.

  Shortly before dusk on October 3, 1952, Boyle and his men climbed into a bunker on Outpost 3 about a mile and a half forward to the front lines. The men they relieved left hastily, hoping to reach the MLR before darkness, and Boyle was trying to organize the outpost and find the maps when the Chinese initiated one of their fiercest offensives of the war. Boyle’s service record told Freyman something of what transpired next and why he was decorated on the battlefield with a Bronze Star. The citation accompanying the medal said:

  For heroic achievement in connection with operations against the enemy while serving with a Marine division in Korea from 3 to 5 October 1952. Serving as a forward observer attached to a Korean Marine Corps battalion, Second Lieutenant Boyle displayed exceptional courage, initiative and professional skill in the performance of his duties. He was on an outpost 1,500 yards forward of the Main Line of Resistance when the enemy launched a heavy attack on the position. For a period of 30 hours he was subjected to intense enemy artillery and mortar fire but refused to leave his position until the enemy had been repulsed. During the action he called and directed friendly artillery fire on the enemy, and the accurate fire he adjusted inflicted approximately 400 casualties on the hostile troops. He expressed complete disregard for his personal safety, and repeatedly exposed himself to devastating enemy fire in order to make more accurate evaluations of the enemy dispositions and troop movements. Second Lieutenant Boyle’s actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

  E.A. Pollack

  Major General, U.S. Marine Corps

  Commanding (1st Marine Division)

  Boyle subsequently volunteered for even more dangerous duty as an aerial observer spotting over enemy territory from a light, slow, unarmed, and unarmored single-engine aircraft. Freyman noted that between January 3 and 17, 1953, he flew twenty low-level missions and received the Air Medal for “courage and devotion to duty,” which the citation said were “an inspiration to all who served with him.” He made more than 180 additional flights over Chinese and North Korean lines, each lasting about four hours. After ground fire incapacitated the pilot on one mission, he brought the plane back and landed it safely even though he never had any flight training. Before he left Korea in April 1953, the Marine Corps awarded him four more decorations.

  Boyle’s record in the FBI was also impressive up until his outburst at the inspector. He had worked as a street agent only eleven months when the FBI promoted him to headquarters and made him a supervisor at age twenty-six. In Freyman’s experience, that was unheard of. Yet Boyle had justified the decision by excelling in the demanding, frustrating, and lonely work of cryptanalysis.

  In sum, Freyman saw in Boyle a young man with great talent and promise. Of course, he would have to behave.

  In part because Boyle still looked young enough to be a college student, Freyman assigned him to investigate youthful radicals. Following two suspected bomb throwers, he drove onto the University of Chicago campus. Students photographed his car, identified him as an FBI agent, and raised howls of protests against this “Gestapo-like” intrusion into academe. Freyman tried to conceal the incident from headquarters, then minimize it, then put it in the best light. As a result, both he and Boyle were reprimanded.

  Still, he did not give up on Boyle. Two agents assisted Freyman in working with Morris, and when one was transferred, Freyman had an idea. Morris most respected people of high intellect; Boyle had that. SOLO required mastery of complex and arcane subjects; in cryptanalysis, Boyle demonstrated such mastery. The operation presented constant challenges; Boyle had responded more than well to challenges.

  The senior agent-in-charge of the Chicago office at the time was James Gale, an old-time Bureau man who believed in delegating authority to subordinates, and he approved Freyman’s proposal that Boyle be assigned to SOLO. Headquarters fairly raged and vetoed the assignment. “I’m running this office, and I’ll use the men you send me as I think best. You sent me Boyle,” Gale retorted, and he prevailed.

  When they first met, Morris was almost sixty, Boyle only thirty-three. Initially, he treated Boyle formally, even brusquely, but his attitude changed as he discerned those qualities that Freyman had seen.

  Boyle surprised him by his extensive knowledge of the operation and of him personally, knowledge acquired from intense study of all 134 volumes of the SASH/SOLO file. Morris was delighted that Boyle on his own started studying Russian at night school so that he could read Soviet publications and documents. And Boyle’s willingness to take calls at all hours and listen to his analyses of new developments in the Soviet Union pleased him. As their relationship came to resemble that of a patient professor and an apt pupil, Morris began to teach Boyle about the Soviets and their mentality. “You must think like they do. Thoughts govern actions.”

  Just before Christmas 1961 Morris attended a dinner party in a Chicago suburb, and the hostess introduced him to a beguiling widow, Eva Lieb. To her, he seemed a dapper, cultured, and courtly man, and his stories of foreign travel interested her. There also seemed to be about him an air of mystery that further fascinated, and she found herself hoping he would invite her to a New Year’s Eve dinner. Instead, he called in early January, and she suggested he visit her home in Evanston. They sat by a fire and talked happily for hours. Morris once got up, led her to a window, and pointed to a small red-breasted robin perched in the snow that obviously delighted him. Eva thought, Anyone who would pay so much attention to a little bird must be a very nice person, kind and sympathetic.

  Morris and Eva started seeing each other often, and he decided he better let the FBI know. “I cannot live without a wife,” he said to Freyman. “I need to find a noncommunist communist.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I think I’ve found one. She’s a s
ocial worker who used to be on the fringes of the party. But she was just anti-Nazi, not really procommunist.”

  Verbal rockets rained down from headquarters. How could the Chicago dunderheads allow the FBI’s most prized asset to fool around personally with a damn commie, much less think of marrying her?

  “We can’t repeal the laws of human nature,” Freyman replied. He did agree that Eva should be thoroughly investigated.

  As Boyle put it, “Our orders were to find out everything about her down to the color of her toothpaste.” They found that Eva came from a patrician family, had earned a degree in sociology from Northwestern University, and married a distinguished chemist who died in a laboratory explosion.11 She received substantial compensation from his employer, apparently invested it wisely following advice from a banker brother, and developed financial acumen of her own that enabled her to help others through social work. She had moved in communist circles, but there was no record of her having been a party member; and the results of the investigation of her political views tended to match those Morris gave. Friends characterized her variously as “loving,” “witty,” “gutsy,” “learned,” and “every bit the lady.”

  “I don’t see how he or we could do better,” Freyman remarked. “Of course, she will have to become an asset. We’ll let 58 handle that.”

  While the FBI investigated, so did Morris, the party and, for all we know, the KGB. He took her on leisurely Sunday afternoon drives in the early spring into the countryside of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. “Look at how beautiful and healthy our country is and how much it is doing for most people,” he said. “Do you love America and all it stands for?”

  The question struck her as silly and she might have laughed had not his eyes so directly and seriously stared into hers. “Well, of course. Doesn’t everybody?”

  On another drive, she spoke up, “I’m about to marry you, but except for the fact that you are a wonderful man and I love you, I know almost nothing about you. What do you do?”

  “I’m in business. Don’t worry. I have a good income from investments.”

  “What kind of business is it that takes you to China and Russia?”

  She silently noted that his response was not an answer. “I’m thinking of starting a new business with my brother Ben. We think there’s money to be made and good to be done by selling uniforms and other things nurses need by mail order at prices lower than they can get them retail. I’ll take care of the finances, advertising, and marketing, but we’ll have time for each other and we can travel.”

  “Will you take me to Rome? I’ve studied Italian. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to throw coins into the fountain at Trevi, make a wish, and see if it comes true.”

  “I’ll take you. But not until October.”

  Freyman, Morris, and Dick Hansen, to whom Boyle was a junior partner, held a council, and all agreed on the principles or strategy. It was absolutely essential that Gus Hall and the ID (as among themselves they now called the International Department of the Central Committee) approve the marriage as one made in communism and accept Eva just as they accepted Morris. As so often happened, Morris’ concept of tactics ruled.

  “I’ll tell Gus I want to marry this lovely lady who is a woman of means and has a solid political background. I’ll tell him that just to be sure, I’d like for him to take a look at her himself. Eva can charm snakes out of trees, and he’ll like her, and more important he’ll smell money. Then I’ll tell him that I’d feel more comfortable if the party or maybe even the ID checked her out. Gus can’t investigate his own fingernails, and the ID won’t care whom I marry. It thinks women only exist to cook, clean, and serve men. Once Gus approves, he and they will be stuck with their decision, and no matter what happens everyone will always defend the decision.”

  Morris brought Hall to Eva’s home, whose oriental carpets, tapestries, art works, leather-bound books, antique furniture, fine crystal, and china proclaimed to him that Eva was just what Morris had said—a cultured lady of means. Nothing so interested Hall as the “For Sale” sign Eva had planted in the front yard in anticipation of moving in with Morris after their marriage. He mused aloud. An elegant house like this surely would command a high price. Maybe Eva would consider donating a small part of her imminent largesse to his “club” which, like her, did all sorts of good works for the needy.

  Afterward, Hall sent her three or four small “wedding” presents and cards encouraging her marriage. They married May 31, 1962. The newlyweds wrote a gracious note to Hall and accompanied it with a $10,000 check for his “club.” Eva did not remember and available records do not disclose whether the FBI ever reimbursed them for the patriotic and, as it turned out, productive bribe.

  Soon after the wedding Jack went to Moscow for operational consultations. During 1961 KGB officers had met him five times in Westchester County and given him a total of $370,000. In anticipation of larger transfers, the KGB wanted to plan with him more sophisticated means of scheduling and conducting meetings. Jack also gleaned prized intelligence from talks with members of the International Department: The Soviets intended to expand and fortify the Berlin Wall while avoiding actions that might provoke war, they regarded President Kennedy as inexperienced but “sagacious,” they believed they could now “direct” Cuba, and they were about to instigate a worldwide “peace” campaign to depict the United States as a menace to everybody. Sino–Soviet relations continued to worsen.

  Morris and Eva boarded a plane for Rome October 16, 1962, and she was surprised to find that he had purchased first-class tickets. (Later, she learned that Hall, the proletarian, insisted that he and his “secretary of state” always fly first class at party expense.) She dropped a coin in the fountain of Trevi, and Morris asked what she wished. “That we have a long, happy, and successful life together.”

  After a week or so Morris appeared nervous and restless, and she asked him what was wrong. “I have business in Moscow. I think we should go on.”

  The lavish and deferent reception accorded them in Moscow surprised and perplexed her. A man named Nikolai (Mostovets) who seemed to be a friend of Morris and to whom people obsequiously favored, ushered them past customs into a limousine and finally into a three-room hotel suite. Shortly, a pretty woman knocked, introduced herself as Victoria, and in flawless English announced that she would be Eva’s interpreter and escort for the duration of her visit. While Morris tended to unexplained business during the day, Victoria and a chauffeur took Eva to museums, galleries, special stores, and dining rooms in what she thought were private clubs. When she returned to the suite, brandy and chocolates were by the bed. Almost every evening, they were guests of Nikolai or Aleskei or other Russians, all of whom acted as if they were close friends of Morris. “Why are we being treated so royally?” Eva asked him.

  “Because you are a queen.”

  Instead of proceeding directly through Europe to the United States as she expected, they stopped for four days in Prague, where Morris again had unexplained business. (He represented the American party at the Twelfth Congress of the Czech Communist Party.) Then he insisted on spending a few days in Zurich where he wrote a great deal, took solitary walks, and made cryptic telephone calls to the United States. The plane tickets Eva had seen listed flights from Zurich to New York to Chicago. Morris produced new tickets that took them to Los Angeles. There, as in Moscow and Prague, they walked straight past customs and immigration inspectors without submitting to baggage checks or questions. Morris told a porter to leave their luggage by the curbside and hailed a taxi. As they got in, Eva exclaimed, “We forgot our bags!”

  “Don’t worry. They’ll be taken care of.”

  About an hour later in a spacious room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, Morris said, “Eva, I want you to meet some special friends of mine. I know you’ll be surprised. I want you to know that I love and trust you and I’m sure you’ll always do what’s right.”

  Instead of going into the corridor, he led h
er through a door of their room that opened into an adjacent room. Two of the handsomest young men she had ever seen rose; one was blond with blue eyes, the other had an abundance of perfectly trimmed coal-black hair, bushy, black eyebrows, and equally dark eyes which, Eva in her reminiscences said, “all at once, danced, flirted, reassured, and warned.”

  “Eva, this is Dick Hansen and this is Walt Boyle. They are with the FBI. And now I must tell you, so am I.”

  Boyle, who had investigated her and knew everything about her “down to the color of her toothpaste,” addressed her as “Mrs. Childs.” “You’ve joined what we hope and believe is the most exclusive club in the world. From now on, you’re one of us; you’re a member of a new family and a special team.”

  In that instant, Eva understood that her life had changed profoundly and irrevocably. Suddenly, the odd questions Morris had asked her, his unpredictable and inexplicable actions in Europe all made sense. Do you love America and all it stands for? From now on, she would share his secret life and all the stress and danger it entailed. She thought, Well, if I’m going to be a spy, I will try to be a good one.

  The next day, the FBI listed her in top secret files as CG-6653S*.

  six

  INTO THE KREMLIN

  BOYLE DROVE FROM THE airport hotel to the Los Angeles field office of the FBI, commandeered a crypto machine, and, alone in a cubicle, transmitted to Washington the first summary report of the mission. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 had traumatized the Soviets. The resolve exhibited by President Kennedy and the United States astonished and dismayed them. Some were accusing Khrushchev of suicidal recklessness by emplacing missiles in Cuba in the first place.