The Envoy

by Edward Wilson

  Kit sat down and propped his briefing folder on the floor against a chair leg; he didn’t want to defile the empty expanse of gleaming table. He looked at Foster and was surprised by how much he had aged. He knew that he was the older brother by five or six years, but the age difference now seemed ten or fifteen. Allen was fiddling with his pipe: the pipe and his moustache made him look distinguished in a British academic sort of way. The press called him ‘the gentleman spy’ and he liked to live up to the persona. Allen knew he looked better in profile, and tended to pose that way for photos. But when he looked straight at you, with those cold eyes magnified by those frameless glasses, he looked exactly like the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov. For an eerie moment, the resemblance was so stunning that Kit half thought that Foster was playing an elaborate practical joke and had substituted his Russian counterpart in his brother’s place. But as soon as Allen Dulles spoke, he turned American again. ‘We were just talking about your dad. He was the most solid of the Georgetown gang and we miss his counsel greatly.’

  If you miss him so much, thought Kit, why didn’t you send a wreath? No body had been recovered, but there had been a big requiem mass at the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore. The truth, Kit knew, was that his father had become a marginalised figure, a wilderness voice spouting soft-hearted views about détente and disarmament. Kit felt a flush of paranoia. Was the reference to his dad an accusation? Did Allen Dulles think he was sprouting inherited dove feathers? Kit put on a smile that carrieda hint of irony, of betrayal. ‘We miss him too.’

  ‘How’s your mother getting on? Clover says she’s taken up painting again.’

  ‘She’s fine. She says she’d like to spend six months a year in France – she loves painting the rivers of Charente and she’s researching a book on Berthe Morisot.’ Kit immediately felt like an ass for mentioning his mother’s book: neither of the Dulleses would have heard of the female French impressionist. Kit feared he was coming across as a pantywaist.

  The younger brother finally managed to light his pipe. ‘You know, Kit,’ said Allen, getting down to business, ‘we’re worried about Downing Street.’

  Kit looked at Foster for confirmation. ‘You mean Eden?’

  The Secretary of State nodded and the younger brother answered, ‘Not just him, but mostly him. Your latest reports highlight concerns about the Prime Minister’s health. Anything new?’

  ‘Yes, I finally managed to access Eden’s medical records.’ By ‘access’, Kit meant a break-in to photograph documents. Once again he had used Stanley, the same operative who did the Ministry of Supply job. Stanley, an artful South Londoner in his late fifties, was an unfathomable well of talent: electrician, safe-cracker, cat burglar, spotter of ringed gee-gees and loving grandfather. He also had the most trustworthy face Kit had ever seen. The private clinic, where the Prime Minister’s medical records were filed, was a Stanley masterpiece. He broke into the clinic the night before and faulted the electrical system. Before parting, he left a message on the receptionist’s desk in perfect handwriting titled ‘Re: Electrical fault’ and asking her to ring his own telephone number. The next morning the receptionist assumed the message was from a colleague and rang the number. By the end of the working day, Stanley hadn’t quite finished the ring main circuit, but was more than happy to stay on to get it done. They left him a set of keys to lock up. As soon as the staff had left, Stanley cracked the safe containing confidential patient information and started snapping away with the 8x11mm Minox camera.

  ‘Well,’ said Foster, ‘are you going to enlighten us?’

  ‘It seems,’ said Kit, ‘that the original 1953 operation was botched even worse than we had thought. Sure, a cholecystectomy isn’t the sort of thing you do for a merit badge in first aid, but a competent surgeon should have managed …’

  Foster looked puzzled. ‘What is a cholecsyt …?’

  ‘Removal of the gall bladder,’ said Allen, winking at Kit.

  ‘It ought,’ said Kit, ‘to have been a fairly routine operation, but the knife slipped and Eden’s bile duct was severed. This is a big mistake. The duct drains bile and other waste material from the liver directly to the small intestine. If the bile duct isn’t connected up, it leaks poison into the system and eventually kills the patient. So a couple of weeks later, there was a second operation to ligate the duct and save Eden’s life. But this was just a temporary solution because it meant the poisons would backlog in the liver causing malignant jaundice, acute atrophy of the liver and death.’

  ‘So why,’ said Foster, ‘is Eden still counted among the living?’

  ‘I don’t know. You would have to ask the FBI.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Foster was genuinely perplexed, but his brother kept winking at Kit.

  ‘There was a third operation that took place in June ’53 in Boston, the one in Massachusetts. The surgeon was Dr Richard Cattell, a world renowned repairer of biliary ducts. As you know, sir, the CIA are not authorised to carry out covert operations in the United States. If you want to know the outcome of Eden’s Boston op, you’ll need to ask the FBI to carry out a black bag job on Cattell’s clinic. I know the Feds can do this, but they need written permission from the Attorney General.’ Kit was teasing. Everyone knew that interagency rivalry between Hoover’s FBI and the CIA was so poisonous that such cooperation was unthinkable.

  ‘Calling on your impressive medical knowledge,’ said Allen, ‘what do you think happened?’

  Kit smiled. ‘I suppose Cattell repaired Eden’s bile duct by carrying out an end-to-side hepaticojejunostomy using a 16-F rubber Y-tube as a stent.’

  ‘Did you just make that up?’

  ‘No, I telephoned my sister – she’s a medic and knows about Cattell’s work.’

  Allen let out a sigh and turned to his brother. ‘Isn’t it typical, Foster? The Brits whinge about us, but when they make a botch of something it’s the American cousin who has to repair the damage, be it on the operating table or the battlefield.’

  Kit looked out the window over the London skyline. There were still many empty gaps: demolished bomb sites waiting to be rebuilt. The words of Allen Dulles, and his pompous arrogance, made Kit want to scream abuse at his bosses.

  ‘What really concerns us,’ said Foster, ‘and the President has mentioned it too, is Prime Minister Eden’s state of mind. Is he mentally and emotionally fit for the job?’

  ‘That’s a good question. According to his medication records, the Prime Minister regularly takes dextroamphetamines. This is a stimulant that produces a feeling of energy and confidence. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to do his job. Cattell’s operation saved Eden’s life, but he never made a full recovery.’

  Foster cut straight to the point. ‘Has the Prime Minister ever seen a psychiatrist?’

  ‘No, definitely not. But whether or not he should see a psychiatrist is a different question.’ Kit was immediately ashamed of his cheap wisecrack. Anthony Eden had lost two brothers in the First World War and a son in the Second. He himself had won the Military Cross in 1916 for saving the life of a wounded sergeant in no-man’s-land. Neither of the Dulles brothers had ever heard a shot fired in anger. As for Eisenhower, the President may have heard angry shots but only from a distance and from the safety of a rear-echelon headquarters. The Dulleses might have scorned Eden’s foreign policy, but neither brother spoke a foreign language. Sure, Allen could order a meal in French and a schnapps in German, but Eden was fluent in both languages as well as Persian. The Prime Minister could also tell stories and swap proverbs in Arabic – and was confident enough in Russian to converse over a dinner table.

  ‘If,’ said Foster, ‘the Prime Minister had to be replaced, whom would you recommend?’

  Kit smiled wanly. The principle that diplomatic missions were to abstain from interfering in the internal affairs of the host nation was Geneva Convention bullshit. ‘Well, there are only two horses in the race: Butler and Macmillan. And Macmillan, I am sure, would be the
one more conducive to US interests.’

  Foster was nodding approval. ‘And,’ said Allen, ‘he has an American mother.’ And Kit was pleased too. The most important part of his job was telling his bosses what they wanted to hear.

  ‘Tell us more about Eden,’ said Foster, leaning forward. For the first time, Kit was rocked by a whiff of stench from the Secretary of State’s appalling bad breath. Was he a ghoul that ate corpses for breakfast?

  ‘Sometimes, he gets pretty weird in cabinet.’

  ‘Explicate.’

  ‘Tears, tantrums, paranoid outbursts about his ministers ganging up against him. He also has an annoying habit of making late night phone calls. Eden is an inveterate worrier.’

  ‘How do you know these things?’

  Kit took a notebook out of his jacket pocket, wrote down the name of a minister he had compromised in a honey trap and passed it to the Secretary of State. The security situation was a sensitive one. But Kit wasn’t worried about a British or Russian bug. The FBI carried out anti-bugging security measures on a routine basis with the best expertise and technology in the world. The problem was the FBI itself: the Bureau almost certainly left behind their own listening devices. Therefore, it was perfectly all right to discuss secrets and sensitive issues you didn’t mind sharing with the FBI – but the identity of Kit’s horny minister with strange preferences was not one of them.

  Allen smiled when he saw the name on the note, then said, ‘Can we move on to the press issue? There doesn’t seem to have been much progress.’

  ‘Well, sir …’

  ‘We’re not very happy, Kit.’ The Secretary of State pulled a newspaper cutting from his jacket pocket and pushed it across the table. ‘We don’t want any more of this.’

  Kit looked at the clipping. It was a front-page editorial about nuclear policy from Britain’s best-selling tabloid. Each question was starkly highlighted: ARE WE TO SIT PASSIVELY WHILE GRAVE DECISIONS ARE TAKEN IN WASHINGTON? ARE WE TO WAIT FOR OUR FOREIGN POLICY TO COME TO US FROM ACROSS THE ATLANTIC? WHOSE FINGER DO WE WANT GUARDING OUR TRIGGER? AT LEAST LET IT BE BRITAIN’S OWN FINGER.

  ‘What are we going to do about it?’ The Secretary of State was still speaking. ‘We’re not asking you to subvert a British newspaper – we merely want the American point of view to be fairly represented.’

  ‘The British press,’ said Kit, ‘is not an easy culture to influence.’ He knew he couldn’t say more: he could see Foster had gone into high-minded Methodist preacher mode. It would be a waste of time telling him how you could pop down to the King and Keys and buy any hack for a double whisky, but two hours later they write the opposite of what you want. They don’t understand the principles of bribery. It was different in South America: you could buy a newspaper and the print works for the cost of a second-hand Ford.

  Allen weighed in. ‘Look, Kit, my brother must be thinking about what Cord Meyer has managed to pull off back in the States. Operation Mockingbird is a great success. Cord has more than four hundred journalists in the bag – and not just hacks, some of these guys are Pulitzer Prize winners. We think you could do something like that here.’

  Kit knew it was impossible, but he didn’t say a thing because you only tell them what they want to hear. He was saved further embarrassment by a knock on the door.

  Foster looked up. ‘Come in.’

  A WAC, Women’s Army Corps, cipher clerk entered carrying a telex message. ‘A cable from Washington, sir.’

  Foster took the message, looked at it and said, ‘Thank you, corporal. It doesn’t need an immediate reply.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Kit watched Allen eye up the cipher clerk’s calves and ankles as she left the room. The Director looked up and winked at Kit before turning to read the message.

  Kit looked at the Dulles brothers while they pored over the cable. He realised he had not only sold his soul to the devil, he had financed the mortgage too. Why? MICE again: it wasn’t the money and certainly not the ideology, but both ‘E’s’ – ego and excitement. He liked the sense of power; even over life and death. It was an ugly vice, but an addictive one. Maybe if he’d been bigger framed and better at sport, maybe if he had been a successful lover, then he wouldn’t be here.

  Kit left his inner thoughts to eavesdrop on the hushed conversation between the Dulleses. The cable was from Eisenhower and it was about the forthcoming visit of Khrushchev and Bulganin to England. The President wanted the Secretary of State to ‘sound out’ the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister on their agenda for the Soviet visit – and to show ‘US disappointment and concern’ over any suggestion of ‘negotiations’ that excluded Washington. Kit knew that things were heating up. There were serious differences between the two allies on Cold War policy. The Americans were for military and political containment; the British policy was for détente and diplomacy.

  Allen Dulles looked up and smiled. ‘By the way, Kit, thanks for those budget figures you sent us on British nuclear research. That was a fine piece of work. It confirms our views that the Brits have decided to go all out for a hydrogen bomb.’

  ‘Which,’ added Foster, ‘is in our view a big mistake. Britain simply doesn’t have the economic and industrial base to develop her own independent nuclear deterrent.’

  ‘The best strategy,’ said Allen, ‘is to frighten the shit out of them about the Russian threat so that they’ll beg us to move more of our own bombs here.’

  The making of foreign policy, thought Kit, is not a pretty business. It’s a selfish amoral trade. As an envoy, the interests of your closest ally don’t mean a thing; your job, your only job, is to further your own country’s national interest. You don’t just fuck your enemies; you fuck your friends too.

  ‘Kit,’ said Allen Dulles, ‘you seem lost in thought.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Tell us more about Philby. From our side of the Atlantic it all seems most bizarre.’

  ‘Philby,’ Kit laughed. ‘Everyone knows that Kim is the third man: the press know it, Parliament knows it, Graham Greene knows it – who the hell do you think Harry Lime is supposed to be?’

  It wasn’t Philby, but the hypocrisy that made Kit laugh. While Nazi bombs were raining down on London in 1940, the Dulles brothers were corporate lawyers brokering lucrative investment deals for wealthy clients with the German war machine. Treason wasn’t a word carved in stone, it was a dye that came out in the wash. Kit hid his feelings and smiled at the Director.

  ‘It seems,’ said Foster, ‘that the only people who won’t admit that Philby is a traitor are the British government. I’ve heard that he still works part-time for MI6. Astonishing.’

  The Cambridge spy ring – Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, allegedly Philby and at least two others who were still undercover – was the reason why London was the only US Embassy in the world that had FBI agents in permanent residence. The Burgess-Maclean spy scandal was a running sore that showed no signs of healing. On matters of high security, like nuclear weapons, US officials would never trust their British counterparts again – and the FBI was there to make sure of it.

  The Secretary of State leaned forward with a grave face, the loose folds of flesh about his throat quivered as he spoke. ‘Is Philby a pederast, a sodomite?’

  To Kit’s ear, the biblical expressions seemed echoes from the paternal pulpit of the Dulles childhood. ‘Philby,’ he replied, ‘is definitely not homosexual. Who knows what he does in bed with his wife and girlfriends – I’m not sure it’s relevant.’

  The Secretary of State didn’t seem satisfied. ‘They are, you must admit, a strange bunch.’

  Kit wondered whether if by ‘they’ he meant the spies, the sodomites or the British in general. He decided not to comment.

  ‘Listen,’ said Allen, ‘we’ve got to have lunch with the Foreign Secretary. But before we go, can you tell my brother about that party you went to in New York last year?’

  Kit touched his ear and mouthed, ‘Bugs.’

  ‘Don’
t worry. Go on, tell us the whole story and don’t leave anything out.’

  Kit could see that Allen Dulles wanted to make mischief. The Director knew that their conversation was being recorded by the FBI and he wanted to create a little havoc. Kit didn’t like playing the court jester, but this was part of the job too. ‘I’ve got a classmate who’s a lawyer married to an extremely wealthy heiress. They have a penthouse on the Upper East Side where they throw some wild parties. If I’m in town, I get invited. The people you meet at these parties are always rich, always glamorous – and usually beautiful. I feel like an intruder, but I like watching what goes on.’ Kit whispered to Allen, ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘Go on, Kit, back to the party.’

  ‘It was a good party, but I sensed something in the air – a hint of something sordid. As I implied, these parties often have an edge. I’m not a puritan, but …’

  The Director nodded.

  ‘I could tell there was something there that made me uneasy – and I don’t just mean cannabis, cocaine or furtive fellatio in a cloakroom. These things are, in their own way, normal.’

  ‘Not in the US Embassy, I hope,’ said the Secretary of State.

  ‘Not to my knowledge, sir.’

  ‘Let him finish, Foster.’

  ‘There were two young men there that didn’t seem to belong – eighteen, maybe younger. They both had fine blond hair and bad teeth. I couldn’t tell where they came from: they spoke only to each other, but there was something in their manner that was coarse. They kept to themselves in the shadows – and after a while I forgot they were there. I didn’t like the atmosphere and thought about leaving, but then Porfirio Rubirosa turned up. I guessed it was him when I saw the Hispanic caterers begin to chop their knees with the sides of their hands.’

  ‘Why were they doing that?’ said Foster.

  Allen sighed, ‘You are one of life’s innocents, Foster. It’s Spanish sign language for someone with an enormous cock – in this case, Ambassador Rubirosa.’