The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames (63 page)

President Reagan and Nancy Reagan walk by sixteen caskets at Andrews Air Force Base. “Nancy and I met individually with the families of the deceased,” the president noted in his diary. “We were both in tears—I know all I could do was grip their hands—I was too choked up to speak.” Ames was the only victim Reagan had known personally.
Courtesy of Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Yvonne Ames at Andrews Air Force Base, standing with her brother, a U.S. Navy officer. She was not told which casket contained Bob’s body. “Bob’s death fractured our family,” she later explained. “It’s like when you take a photograph and rip it. You can try to piece it back together, but it’s never the same.”
Courtesy of Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Imad Mughniyeh (left) with Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah. Ali Hassan Salameh recruited Mughniyeh into Force 17 in the 1970s. But by 1983 Mughniyeh was working for the Iranians in Beirut—and he was thought to be involved in the U.S. embassy bombing: “When in doubt, and we are always in doubt about this, blame Mughniyeh.”
As-Safir
newspaper, Beirut

Imad Mughniyeh with his mother. He operated in the darkest of shadows. A former director general of the Mossad described Mughniyeh as “very shrewd, very talented … He was the liaison between Hezbollah and Iran.”
Courtesy of
Al-Akhbar
newspaper, Beirut

On February 12, 2008, Mughniyeh was assassinated in Damascus when the headrest in his booby-trapped Mitsubishi car exploded. “Mughniyeh was assassinated by the Israelis, with intelligence on his whereabouts furnished by the CIA.”
Associated Press

General Ali Reza Asgari, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard intelligence officer who defected to the United States in 2007. According to Mustafa Zein, it was Asgari who recruited Mughniyeh and planned the 1983 truck bomb attack on the U.S. embassy. “At the unclassified level, I cannot elaborate on the issue,” said a U.S. intelligence official.
Corbis Bettmann

The last photograph of Bob and Yvonne, Christmas 1982.
Courtesy of Yvonne Ames

  
1
“It was noted that this was a big day …”:
Charles Englehart, e-mail to author, May 20, 2012.

  
2
“Okay, let’s get a bus …”:
Ibid.

  
3
“I’m proud to say that it was my idea”:
Frank Anderson, e-mail to author, May 17, 2012.

  
4
“We the soldiers …”:
Thomas L. Friedman, “Rabin and Arafat Seal Their Accord as Clinton Applauds ‘Brave Gamble,’ ”
New York Times
, September 14, 1993.

  
5
President Clinton “took Mr. Arafat in his left arm …”:
Ibid.

  
6
We were at Bob’s gravesite
”: Frank Anderson, e-mail to author, May 17, 2012.

  
7
“He was no Lawrence of Arabia”:
Henry Miller-Jones, “A Remembrance of Bob Ames,” unpublished op-ed, ca. May 1983, courtesy of Miller-Jones.

  
8
“He came to know kings …”:
Ibid.

  
9
“Everyone credited Ames …”: Lindsay Sherwin
, interview, March 22, 2011.

10
“There was a moment of silent prayer”:
Charles Englehart, e-mail to author, May 20, 2012.

11
“We were all quietly excited”:
Ibid.

  
1
“rock-bottom American-ness …”:
Henry Miller-Jones, “A Remembrance of Bob Ames,” unpublished op-ed, ca. May 1983, courtesy of Miller-Jones.

  
2
People prided themselves:
Nancy Ames Hanlon, e-mail to author, June 12, 2013.

  
3
“He used to devour books”:
Philadelphia newspaper clipping, “Local Mother Mourns Hero Dead in Blast,” n.d., ca. April 1983, Yvonne Ames papers.

  
4
“There was no money for that”:
Nancy Ames Hanlon, interview, September 7, 2011.

  
5
“never one to travel in crowds”:
Helen Ames, quoted in “Local Mother Mourns Hero.”

  
6
“Bob was always talking about Gola”:
Jack Harmer, e-mail to author, September 21, 2010.

  
7
“Ames was a great player”:
Robert S. Lyons, “1954 La Salle NCAA Basketball Champions,” speech delivered at the Second Annual Induction Ceremony of the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame, April 8, 2005.

  
8
“I’m not talking to you …”:
Bob Ames, “Don’t Let the Shower Drip,” short story, n.d., courtesy of Yvonne Ames.

  
9
“The other sports can be fun”:
Ken D. Loeffler, “I Say Basketball’s Our Best Game,”
Saturday Evening Post
, December 19, 1953.

10
“to bring order out of chaos”:
John R. Rasmuson, ed.,
A History of Kagnew Station and American Forces in Eritrea
(Asmara: Il Poligrafico, 1973), p. 48.

11
“I do not believe we have a more remote station …”:
Ibid., p. 64.

12
Top Secret Codeword:
George E. Matthias, e-mail to author, July 26, 2011. Matthias was a veteran of Kagnew. “Top Secret Codeword” was a security classification term in use in 1957, but it has been long since retired.

13
Many of the men at Kagnew Station:
Rasmuson,
History of Kagnew Station
, p. 63.

14
“Fine-looking soldier!”:
Joel Wilson, e-mail to author, July 31, 2011, with attached handwritten memo from his father, John Wilson.

15
“After a week or so of this bullshit”:
George E. Matthias, e-mail to author, July 26, 2011.

16
“and see the world”:
“Local Mother Mourns Hero.”

17
“repo man”: Lindsay Sherwin
, interview, March 22, 2011.

18
Liv Ullmann:
Miller-Jones, “A Remembrance of Bob Ames.”

  
1
“Dear Mom, I have been offered …”:
Ian Shapira, “At Memorial for Iran-Contra Figure Clair George, CIA Colleagues’ Loyalty Endures,”
Washington Post
, October 16, 2011.

  
2
“Initially, I couldn’t picture him as CIA”:
Nancy Ames Hanlon, interview, September 7, 2011.

  
3
“Nixon looked horrible”:
Yvonne Ames, interview, November 19–20, 2010.

  
4
one woman: whn
, veteran DO case officer, memo to author, part 1, January 12, 2011.

  
5
some sixteen thousand employees:
John Ranelagh,
The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), p. 21.

  
6
“a high tolerance for ambiguity”: whn
, memo to author, part 1.

  
7
“It was the first time I learned …”:
Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, September 22, 2012.

  
8
“The course was a relic …”:
Robert Baer,
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002), p. 32.

  
9
Kirkpatrick made it clear:
Thomas Powers,
The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 65.

10
“Although we became almost intimately familiar …”: whn
, memo to author, part 1, January 12, 2011.

11
“But the other side of the coin …”:
Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, March 10, 2012.

12
just in case “any questions arise …”:
Secret CIA cable, Washington to Tehran, August 3, 1979, Documents from the U.S. Espionage Den, vol. 56,
http://ia600409.us.archive.org/10/items/DocumentsFromTheU.S.EspionageDen/v56_text.pdf
.

13
There had to be trust:
Powers,
The Man Who Kept the Secrets
, p. 115.

14
“The successful and satisfactory conclusion …”: whn
, memo to author, part 1, January 12, 2011.

15
“Jungle Operations Course”:
Yvonne Ames, e-mail to author, April 11, 2012.

16
“the cowboy era”:
Said K. Aburish,
A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elites
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), p. 135. Aburish interviewed Critchfield in 1994.

17
Washington “was terribly dependent …”:
Duane R. Clarridge, e-mail to author, March 16, 2013.

18
“the only man who ever used the CIA for cover”:
Said K. Aburish, “Lost Victories: The CIA and the Middle East,” 2004, p. 3,
www.iiwds.com/said_aburish/a_lostvictories.htm
.

19
“People tended to go there and stay there”:
Peter Earnest, interview, March 16, 2011.

20
When the CIA was established:
Ranelagh,
Agency
, p. 28.

21
“Helms and Ames were very much alike”: Lindsay Sherwin
, interview, March 22, 2011.

22
Dick Helms was an enigma:
Powers,
The Man Who Kept the Secrets
, p. 290.

23
“From the outside, espionage …”:
Ibid., p. 23.

24
“Friends said he carried away …”:
Ibid., p. 24.

25
“Just because a document is a document”:
Kim Philby,
My Silent War: The Autobiography of a Spy
(New York: Modern Library, 1968), p. 200.

26
“To do the best job he can …”:
Powers,
The Man Who Kept the Secrets
, p. 140.

27
“the soggy mass of morality”:
Ibid., p. 141.

28
“We’re not in the Boy Scouts …”:
Ibid., p. 143.

29
“Our best Russian agents …”:
Richard Helms, “We Believed in Our Work,” speech delivered at the Veterans of the OSS Dinner, Washington Hilton Hotel, Washington, DC, May 24, 1983,
www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/45/we_belv_wrk.pdf
.