Before long, we had rising waves of security procedure, and some rose to high tide and never went down again. In every corridor were armed guards. At night, it was impressive to see them stalking the halls. For years there were none of us who did not lock every last piece of paper in our safes, and put whatever needless notes were left into the paper-shredder, but if one was in a hurry to get out after work, we deposited trash and empty milk cartons in our private safe to be disposed of in the morning. Reprimands for leaving any kind of paper behind were too serious.
I do not know what else it accomplished, but it gave gravity to our labors. Each piece of paper that one handled took on a density more palpable than ordinary paper until sometimes in the outside world, reading a magazine or merely handling a piece of stationery for an ordinary letter, one would be struck with its ineffable lightness, and so much so that years later on reading Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, I thought immediately of the difference between papers that were secret and full of their own weight, and the lightness of free paper that you could throw away without any concern larger than that you might not be totally tidy. Certainly there were enough official notices to dispose of. Each day, through all those months of July, August, September, and October of 1961, bulletins came into every office to describe progress on the new building.
One hot day in August, an all-office memo on particularly stiff beige bond paper was distributed to every cubicle at Langley:
NEW BUILDING, TOILET FACILITIES
While adequate for the transition period, toilet arrangements, after full personnel-investment of the New Building is completed, may prove inadequate. To anticipate the contingency that distressed individuals could form up in long lavatory queues, a time-consuming and stressful procedure, this directive is now issued to sanction personnel afflicted by inadequate queue lead-time to exercise free and fair use of the shrubbery contiguous to the circumference of the main building.
WARNING
Despite the concerted efforts of Agency gardeners, said shrubbery has not yet been wholly checked-out for poisons oak, sumac, and ivy, which flora have been known to initiate exacerbated tinglings in mucous-bearing enclaves. A picture is therefore attached to this bulletin of the most prevalent of these plants, the Rhus vernix, commonly termed poison sumac, a.k.a. poison dogwood. Full view and profile appended should accelerate process of recognition thereby avoiding itchy implosions of said mucous target zones which, once aroused, can prove counterproductive to those research projects requiring sedentary work postures for sustained periods.
Old Rice and Beans Cabell, soon to leave the Agency, may have been giving vent to the hurricane of foul spirits left in him by recollections of Quarters Eye, for he pushed Security to find the authors of the prank.
Our culprits turned out to be two Junior Officers in Training, former members of the Harvard Lampoon, who had joined the Agency together, trained together at the Farm, and were now to be discharged side by side.
On the top and seventh floor, Mr. Dulles’ office had become as deluxe as government standards would permit. It was paneled in walnut, thickly carpeted, and the nonstop sequence of picture-glass windows gave us a vista of the hills rolling out from our CIA estate. Mists rose from the Potomac. Early in the morning one could watch that mist come in off the river.
Mr. Dulles’ secretary, a formidably dear old lady, instituted a tradition of feeding the birds who visited the seventh-floor patio. Before long, the three baboons guarding the Director’s office were assigned by her to clean out the feeders each morning. Other daily rituals commenced. The Director, who had worked for years to raise Langley, seemed to know, as we installed the last details of his office, that he would not inhabit his seat for long.
I suspect he was not all that happy with the realization of his dream. He did not really move over from E Street until his new office was wholly completed, and even then, by the end of summer it was evident that he would invest his new quarters in not much more than ceremonial fashion.
Occasionally I would be invited to ride along in his limousine and he would speak cordially of my father, and express his pleasure that Cal and Mary were together again, a piece of news I had barely received myself in a postcard, but for the most part, the Director was like a man in mourning. If he could rise sufficiently to be cheerful for a minute or two, he rode for the most part in a silence close to stupor.
On September 28th, he accompanied John McCone to the Naval War College at Newport, and there President Kennedy announced at the graduation ceremony that Mr. McCone would be the new Director of the Agency. Howard Hunt, who had been working busily in Mr. Dulles’ old E Street office on the official history of the Bay of Pigs, happened—lucky Howard!—to be along with Mr. Dulles on the drive back to Boston after the ceremonies at Newport. It came as no surprise to me that they traveled without conversation, Mr. Dulles’ gouty foot up on a stool and pillow. Finally the Director did remark, “I am tired of living sub cauda,” upon which he fixed Hunt with a look, and added, “Hunt, you are the Latinist. How would you translate sub cauda?” “Well, sir,” said Hunt, “not to be rude, but I believe it means more than its literal translation. I should say a good English substitute might be ‘under the cat’s tail.’” “Yes, excellent,” said Dulles, “but it’s the cat’s bum, you know, that I’m referring to,” and then, as if he were all alone in the car, he said to no one in particular, not to Hunt, the chauffeur, nor even to himself, but to the gods, I would wager, of admissions waiting on the next stage, “The President said to me in private that if he had been the leader of a European power, he would have had to resign, but in America, since he can’t do that, it must be me. That’s all very well, but don’t you think Robert Kennedy might have been asked to step down as well?”
Toward the end of October, shortly before John McCone was installed as the new Director, Mr. Dulles did make the full move to Langley and hobbled around like a wounded buffalo for a couple of weeks. I had a feeling that he hated the place, and wrote a letter to my father in which I said as much. Cal responded in surprisingly strong language.
Oct. 10, ’61
Yes, son, I took the tour of Langley before I left and couldn’t agree with you more. I sometimes wonder if, under it all, Allen has no comprehension of how important is architecture for making the man. I fear for us at Langley. The I-J-K-L was certainly dreadful, but one could get fond of all those falling-down shacks and barracks. Allen lost sight of the prime point—charm has to be preserved. I-J-K-L may have been full of old pull-chains and quirky corridors and hideouts and secret closets from which you could exit into an adjacent hall, but that creaking old mess was, at least, ours. Langley is going to be memos and meetings. Technical collection is going to get more and more of the budget, and working with good agents will become a lost craft. Farewell to chamber music. Hello, Muzak!
How could Allen have done this to us? The poor man knows so much and finally didn’t know better.
Now we have McCone. Bechtel, Inc. A compact man. Short. Light hair. Blue eyes that you will find to be as cold as ice. He wears steel-rimmed eyeglasses. I would suspect his heavier product does not come out in turds, but slices.
It had been a reasonable letter until now, but I had learned that when my father made references to excrement, we were going to move from urbanity to maniacality.
As you gathered from my postcard, Mary and I are together again. It’s not love, I suppose, so much as the deep inroads of habit. After twenty-five years, giving up a wife is as bad as cutting out drink and cigarettes. In fact, it can hardly be done. I’m very fond of the girl, as you know—she’s my big white whale. I went back to Japan to push that little Japanese businessman right out of her life, but do you know, it’s horrendous, she won’t admit it, although I can divine as much, but there was some kind of unholy letch between them. It becomes obsessive for me on occasion, that damned little Japanese bugger all over her front and back with his kamikaze war cries, the little son of a bitch. I get hatefu
l to Mary when I think of it.
This is one hell of a thing to pass on to one’s son, but you, Rick, are the only soul who may have the decency not to laugh at me for too little. I am worried about keeping full control of my temper. I had a hell of a shock a couple of months ago when Hemingway committed suicide. God Almighty, I beat him once in arm wrestling at the Stork Club, on a night in 1949, and I feel, therefore, one part in a thousand responsible, for he saw the light in my eyes and I saw the misery in his. Sherman Billingsley nearly eighty-sixed me for lèse-majesté.
In any event, Ernest’s death is the worst thing. Suicide with a shotgun in the mouth! I’d like to think it wasn’t really a suicide. He probably had cancer, and you know the cure for that. No doctor would dare to admit it, but I know. It’s to dare your death, night after night. Look at the evidence. There was Hemingway, singing songs all evening and cheerful with his wife Mary. Then, blasto! Goes alone to a room and blows his brains out? No. He had to have been playing with it for nights. Exploring all the no-man’s-land between life and death, the places where the dread fog gathers. I propose that that brave man went in every night, put the barrel of the shotgun in his mouth, reached down for the trigger, and pulled it ever so gently into no-man’s-land. If he went too far with the squeeze, he would be dead; otherwise, he might gain a little life. A species of cancer cure. The doctors can go flog themselves as far as I’m concerned, but that is what Ernie was doing, daring death, and he probably got away with it for many a night. Then, on July 2, he dared to pull that trigger a little too far. He couldn’t do anything physical anymore, not really, not ski, not box, might have had his pecker down below the horizontal, but, by God, he could still dare death. That is my hope. My secret fear is that he just crapped out and blew it all up. Son, I’ve been dogged-down by these deaths. Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Dash Hammett, now Hem. It’s taking its effect. It makes me hate that son of a bitch Jack Kennedy even more. I don’t want to be too damn bigoted, but the fact is you can’t trust Catholics—there could have been some esoteric Vatican tie-up between Kennedy and Castro. There, I’ve said it. Castro had a religious boyhood, did you know that? Research him in SOURCES, cross-check him in VILLAINS. He and Kennedy in cahoots would explain why Fidel is always holding an ace to our king.
I know I rave, but the wrath builds up. Until I screw that little Jap right out of my thoughts, I am simply not getting the benefit of being back with Mary. Do you understand it? I never missed her very much. I missed the habits, the dull habits most of all. I missed playing double solitaire with her—that, somehow, was able to anchor all the mischief I was enjoying outside. Now, I have to wonder what there is worth protecting.
Rick, I’m probably going to pick up my pen tomorrow and apologize for this letter. You may as well know, son, we Hubbards have a vein of mixed bile and madness. Even the Headmaster. He used to whip the stuffings out of me—didn’t I for good cause deserve it!—but as you ought to know, we Hubbards do our best to keep it under cover. For good cause. The output, once expressed, is too god-awful.
Miss you, good roommate.
Dad
I was beginning to fear that I now understood why my father, years ago, had been so eager to have my head operated on.
3
I HAD A FEW PROBLEMS OF MY OWN. THE FIRST WAS TO DECIDE ON THE next step in my career. Every time I considered cutting loose from father and godfather, recollections came back of early days in the Snake Pit. There were hours when I did not feel ready to get anywhere on my own.
In any event, the question persisted: What was I to do next? Before he left for Japan, my father had indicated that some kind of operation was going to continue against Castro, but did I wish to go back to a Miami that would be bereft of Modene?
I could apply, of course, for Paris, Rome, Vienna, or London Station. They might, however, be too prestigious; I could end up as a flunky at such posts. Besides, my preference did not have to be honored. I could also find myself in Iceland or Palma de Mallorca.
Whether I was well regarded in the Agency or not had to be, of course, the salient question, and the answer was not automatic. Despite all his obvious abilities, Porringer must have finally irritated Howard a little too much, because, last I heard, Porringer had chosen to apply clear across the Branches, the Divisions, and even the Directorate of Plans, and was now buried in the Directorate of Intelligence. It was what happened, in effect, if you had to apply to Personnel for assignments.
In the circumstances, I decided to seek Howard out. My father’s eminence was, after all, under a cloud, and Harlot had been noncommunicative. I did not know what kind of job Howard might be able to offer, but who else was there? I did not wish to go to David Phillips, and Richard Bissell was not only in disfavor, but too high for me to make a call upon his time. If I had been wise in these matters, I might have approached Richard Helms. The word (as I could have learned by calling Arnie Rosen) was that Helms would be DDP once Bissell walked the plank. Helms, after all, had stayed clear of the Bay of Pigs.
Well, I was not witting. I did not understand that Richard Helms might right now be selecting his cadres of young officers for that powerful future. Rosen would have known, Rosen would have been ready for Helms if willing to engage the risk that Harlot might be permanently offended.
These were, however, subtleties beyond my modest instincts for advancement. I had to content myself with inviting Howard Hunt to a drink after work.
His immediate tasks for Dulles now completed, Howard was out at the Domestic Operations Division on Pennsylvania Avenue performing “interesting initiatives” for Tracy Barnes. When I responded that this sounded “unclarified,” he said, “Let me put it that the Domestic Operations Division was established only after a considerable internecine struggle.”
“Can you tell a fellow more?”
He could. The DOD was ready to take on projects that “are unwanted elsewhere in the CIA. I am the Chief of Covert Action in the DOD.”
“I don’t know if I’m getting much picture of the working day.”
“Small-fry stuff. Support for books and publishers we think are in need of a helping hand.”
When I was silent, he added, “Milovan Djilas’ The New Class, for instance, put out by Praeger.”
“It sounds easy,” I said.
“It is. I have time these days for family, for friends, and for a second career. You see, I’ve been approached by Victor Weybright who, in case you don’t know, is the editor in chief of the New American Library. He wishes me to write an American counterpart to the James Bond novels that New American Library already publishes. I took up the idea with Helms and he agrees this might not be disadvantageous in the vein of public relations. I’m starting what I will call the Peter Ward series. Under a nom de plume, of course. David St. John.”
“A good name.”
“It’s taken from David and St. John Hunt. My sons.”
“Of course.” I swallowed my drink. “That is all you do down at DOD?”
“For now.”
Were we to order two more drinks? I would be paying, and I wanted value. “One is tempted to ask what you are waiting for.”
“I can only repeat,” said Howard, “that we take on the projects unwanted elsewhere in the CIA.”
We left on that. It was only when I woke up in the middle of the night that it became absolutely clear to me that Hunt had passed on no more than his cover story. The Domestic Operations Division, if I was to take my guess, must be engaged in special activities concerning Cuba.
Two days later, a telegram came to my apartment. It said: SIGN UP ON NO STRANGE SHIPS. GLOBETROTTER.
It occurred to me that Howard had spoken to Tracy Barnes, who, in turn, must have discussed my merits with Montague. I hardly knew whether to be pleased or wary that not all interest had been lost in Herrick Hubbard.
If I have been giving a portrait of the kind of low ruminations my mind, when unhappy, is capable of producing, I will say that the inanitions of my mood, which ha
d lasted through all of this despondent spring and summer, were relieved at a stroke—I am tempted to call it a coup—by one phone call, make it two.
The morning after receiving the telegram from GLOBETROTTER, my phone rang just as I was on my way to Langley, and the voice of a woman, mechanically muffled by several thicknesses of handkerchief, spoke into my ear. I could not be certain I knew her, not instantly; the voice was as blurred as a record turning too slowly. Besides, the conversation was finished before my ear was ready.
“Call me in twelve minutes at the following number: 623-9257. Please repeat.”
“623-9257.” I could not believe it, but I saw an orange wall in front of which was a green table bearing a blue lamp. A man with a black jacket, green pants, and red shoes was sitting in a brown chair. “623-9257,” I said again.
“It is now 7:51. You will call me at 8:03. You will employ Bell hygiene.”
“Message received,” I said. “8:03. Bell hygiene.”
“Ciao.” The phone clicked.
I could not believe it. In training, it had been one’s dream to be ready, always ready, for such a moment.
I began to laugh. The woman could be no one other than Kittredge.
I had not felt as merry since the bulletin on the uses of Langley shrubbery had crossed my desk.
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