A Secret Life (30 page)
Authors: Benjamin Weiser
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Germany, #World, #True Crime, #Espionage
Early on, the Reports and Requirements Staff used a half-dozen Russian translators and five Polish ones for the Gull material. Some of the Russian material was so complex that it took a full day for a translator to complete one and a half to three pages. It eventually became clear, as Kuklinski’s materials poured into the agency, that more translators would be needed. Robert Lubbehusen, a veteran Soviet specialist who had succeeded Katharine Hart as chief of the staff, brought on several Russian-language specialists. His deputy, Hal Larsen, who oversaw the Polish translators, added more of those as well. Larsen borrowed one from CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service, an office that translates international news reports. The translator was supposed to stay for several weeks; he ended up joining the staff.
Some afternoons, when the Polish translators needed a break from their often tedious work, they would convene in the file room, where they kept a bottle of mead in the bottom drawer of a locked cabinet. They looked for any occasion, such as birthdays and holidays, for a toast. One day, Larsen opened the door and found the group in a circle with their glasses raised.
“What’s the occasion today?” Larsen asked.
“Rosh Hashanah!” the translators shouted back. Larsen smiled: Not one of the translators was Jewish.
Much of the intelligence Gull was providing was highly technical and included military terminology that did not appear in any of the CIA’s reference books. Over time, the translators developed a glossary of Russian and Polish terms derived solely from Gull’s documents. The thousands of pages of English translations were later scanned into a computer in the translations branch; the system allowed the huge volume of material to be searched by individual word or topic.
On January 14, 1980, Kulikov, Gribkov, and other top Soviet officials returned to Warsaw for Poland’s formal ratification of the wartime statute. Kulikov had hoped to secure the signatures of all Warsaw Pact leaders in a single ceremonial session, but Romania had refused to participate, so he decided to visit each East bloc capital. The Polish leadership appeared in full force and met with him for two hours and forty-five minutes, two hours longer than scheduled.
After the meeting, the Poles and Soviets met in strict secrecy in the small conference hall in the Central Committee building to sign the wartime statute. Kuklinski presented the documents for the signatures. Later, he packaged fourteen rolls of film with his letters to the CIA about the ratification. Kuklinski wrote that his role in “this deplorable act” had been limited to verifying that the documents presented for signing had not been altered from what Poland had originally agreed to. After the document was approved and signed by the other Warsaw Pact countries, Kuklinski said he would try to photograph it for the CIA. He wanted to forward “a true copy, containing each word, period, and comma.”
He also noted that he had received a black Volga as a new official car, and he provided the plate number. Warsaw Station could observe him as he commuted to work, making the turn from Ulica Pulawska onto Rakowiecka between 7:40 and 7:55 A.M., or at midday, when he often went home for a meal with Hanka. “I always sit on the front right seat next to the chauffeur,” he noted.
Kuklinski said he believed he had again misplaced a roll of film. By his own calculation, he should still have six unexposed rolls, but he could find only five. He was also having trouble concentrating at work and admitted he was making mistakes he never made before. He sent greetings to Daniel and thanked the retiring translator, Stanley Patkowski, for the gift of the flask. The “present gave me tremendous satisfaction,” he wrote.
After two aborted attempts to deliver his package to the CIA, Kuklinski finally made an exchange on February 17. In a letter to him, the agency asked about Afghanistan, where Moscow had just sent 90,000 troops, inquiring if the Polish leadership knew how long the Soviets intended to remain there and what their long-term role would be.
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Kuklinski’s recent materials on the T-72 tank were “of immense value to our common cause,” the CIA wrote, and it also covered the usual security issues. The letter reassured Kuklinski that his materials were being handled “with the greatest possible discretion” and advised him to be careful about signing for documents.
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Kuklinski’s recent materials on the T-72 tank were “of immense value to our common cause,” the CIA wrote, and it also covered the usual security issues. The letter reassured Kuklinski that his materials were being handled “with the greatest possible discretion” and advised him to be careful about signing for documents.
“We would rather occasionally miss some important information than have your name registered for a document for which you cannot explain your need,” the agency said.
The CIA encouraged Kuklinski to continue commenting on the sensitivity of documents he provided so that the agency could adjust its handling procedures accordingly, and it thanked him for his expression of concern about the American hostages in Iran. “Fortunately, we can tell you that none of those persons with whom you have worked are involved.”
On February 21, 1980, Warsaw Station cabled headquarters that given Kuklinski’s continuing stress and his grief over the death of his friend Barbara, the CIA should work to alleviate the pressure on him. The “best way to do this is to write him more personal letters from ‘Daniel,’” the station wrote, “the only real [CIA] officer Gull knows well, and whom he probably pictures in his mind as he composes his messages to us. Effort and difficulty in regularly writing Daniel letters [are] far outweighed by good they will bring Gull (and us).”
Meanwhile, Sally Boggs, the CIA counterintelligence officer who had conducted the 1978 inquiry into whether Gull’s materials had been leaked within the intelligence community, was retiring in February. Before leaving, she prepared a memo on security issues in the case for a colleague who had undertaken a broader review of Polish operations. Her colleague incorporated her observations in a memo to senior officials in the Soviet Division, expressing concern about control of the Gull intelligence, especially those documents that had limited distribution in Poland and to which Gull had access because of his position.
“The single gravest hazard in this case probably always will be the one inherent in any operation producing unique high priority hard intelligence―control of the product,” the officer wrote. “Once ‘positive’ intelligence reports of which Gull is the source are in the hands of the consumers it is virtually impossible to know whether the controls will be respected or whether the reports will be mishandled, discussed with inappropriate individuals, leaked, or misused in some other way which could adversely affect Gull’s security situation.”
He advised assigning someone to monitor day-to-day operational decisions, Polish counterintelligence efforts, and dissemination and specific use of Gull’s materials.
I have spent most of the last four months reviewing compromised and ongoing Polish operations. (We prefer examining cases while they are still active for whatever guidance can be given to prevent their compromise.)...Considerable CI [counterintelligence] attention is presently being devoted to Polish operations. However, given the present bleak personnel situation in this Branch and our commitment to support the other IO [internal operations] branches, there are limitations on what we can do with regard to Gull. We will of course pay as much attention as possible to the case, which is obviously one of the Division’s best. It would be of help if outgoing cables were coordinated with us.
The officer recommended that a review session be held to consider what steps, if any, might be taken to protect and enhance Gull’s security. He said that such sessions had often been held in the past and had proved useful. “But, insofar as I know, none have taken place since August 1979,” he wrote.
By April 1980, Sue Burggraf had completed a full year in Warsaw Station, and after some initial tension with her colleague, Ted Gilbertson, they had grown close. (Gilbertson had clumsily welcomed her when they first met as if she were a secretary.) Both officers were single, and their social lives were limited. Only fifty to sixty people worked in the embassy, and most of the diplomats were married. There were also strict rules on which foreign diplomats they could socialize with or date. As a result, they tended to see the same friends in the same hang-outs: the American Club in the embassy, the Marine House bar across the street, and bars in the Canadian and Australian embassies, which were nicknamed “Eager Beaver” and “Fluffy Duck” respectively. Some CIA managers were leery about sending single or divorced officers into the East bloc because they might be susceptible to entrapment. The standing joke among CIA officers was “Sleep NATO.” Burggraf became friends with several Marine guards and also fell in with some singles in the Australian Embassy.
Like all new officers in Warsaw, Burggraf and Gilbertson had been told they could not execute street exchanges for the first six months. But Burggraf had become infuriated when, after six months passed, the station chief still barred her from going out alone to make exchanges; Burggraf assumed it was because she was a woman. Finally, she was allowed to make a solitary exchange with Gull. Headquarters cabled Warsaw Station saying Kuklinski should be told that a single female officer was being sent out “because they draw less surveillance. So he should not be surprised or put off should a singleton female officer appear for an exchange.”
Burggraf, who was just over five feet, five inches, felt like a contortionist during her first moving-car delivery. In the momentary gap in surveillance as she made the final right turn, she had to shift the Fiat into low gear to avoid stalling and dim the high beams to parking lights, both to signal her arrival and to keep from blinding Gull as he tried to read her license plate. As she glided up to him, she then had to reach over to roll down the passenger’s window, all the while watching in the rearview mirror, and hand over the package.
After an exchange, Gilbertson and Burggraf would wait until the next morning to take the package from Gull into the embassy. The placing and reading of signals also had to be mastered. Sometimes Burggraf would drive past one of the sites where Gull would leave his chalk marks, and she would find her view blocked by a parked car or van. She could not slow down, because the brake lights would signal a trailing SB car that she might be up to something. So she would return later on foot to check for the signal. Luckily, she found a greengrocer near the embassy, and she began to leave the office at lunchtime for shopping trips.
Burggraf and Gilbertson, like everyone in Warsaw Station, spent much of their time casing potential sites for future exchanges. Once they found a promising location, they would prepare a written description, a sketch, and instructions for both the case officer and Gull. The instructions explained precisely where Gull was to arrive, stand, and leave and which alley or gate would serve as his escape route. Each site was photographed. Because the officers could not leave their car, they took pictures through the car window or used a concealment device, though they could not risk looking through the viewfinder for fear of being seen. Thus even a slight tilt of the camera could mean a wildly missed shot. Burggraf, who became expert in the station’s darkroom, frequently teased Gilbertson for the quality of his pictures:
Hey, you’ve got a picture of the sky!
Hey, you’ve got a picture of the sky!
Warsaw Station would eventually produce a kind of architectural drawing of the site, with lines designating roads and railroad tracks, arrows to show the traffic flow, and other lines, in red and blue, for approach and escape routes. Each proposed site was then sent for review to Langley and Gull. At headquarters, the sites were studied for suitability, and Kuklinski could also veto a proposed location if he knew, for example, that it was too close to the home of a Polish official or a known SB surveillance post.
On the surveillance detection runs that Gilbertson and Burggraf made in Warsaw, they usually carried a bottle of water. The idea was that if they were in an accident or were stopped by the police or SB, they could quickly try to douse any incriminating material in the car, such as a letter written on water-soluble paper.
When Burggraf went on an SDR, she left the embassy at 5:00 P.M., when virtually everyone else was leaving for home. Since the exchanges with Gull took place at about 10:00 P.M., she had five hours to “clean” herself of surveillance. As she began driving on an SDR, she would turn on the radio and listen for the scratchy sounds of SB transmissions, which could be heard on the FM dial. She could also hear them through a small earpiece she wore under her hair. A receiver was held in place in the small of her back by the waistband of her clothing. After a few hours in the car, the device could become painful, as it dug into her back.
Gilbertson, too, memorized various routes around Warsaw, including the so-called break-off and recovery points, such as certain bars, where officers could have a plausible reason to stop. Initially, Warsaw Station ordered its officers to spend three or four hours on SDRs, including a mandatory restaurant stop for “break-off and recovery.” As surveillance began to intensify, the rule was three or four hours without the stop. On weekends, when many exchanges were scheduled, the officers were to drive all day.
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