Autumn in Oxford: A Novel

by Alex Rosenberg

  “The CIA asked me to get in touch with you. They need you to go back to Finland, just for a week or so.”

  “Wait a minute. The CIA? How did they even know I was in town?”

  “They arranged it with Dr. Franklin.”

  “You mean there’s no job at Howard? It was just a ruse to get me to Washington? Why didn’t you just call me or come to New York?”

  “Tom, it’s not me. I left the OSS before the CIA was even created. But it’s a nightmare world we’re living in just now. The agency is afraid you might be under surveillance in New York.”

  “From whom?”

  “They didn’t tell me. But let’s assume it’s Soviet agents. You know too many of the people who’ve been arrested as Soviet spies lately.” I nodded. “The CIA figured you wouldn’t want to speak to them anyway. That’s one reason they asked me to meet you.”

  “Spill it, Taylor.”

  “It’s a long story, but there’s another whole intelligence fiasco going on.”

  “You mean besides the one in New York?” I couldn’t help remarking on the atom spy case.

  “Yup. This one is in England. A couple of Brits turned Soviet agents have been detected by MI5, British counterintelligence, and they’re on the run: names of Burgess and McLean. They were right at the top of MI6 and had access to the identities of most of the British agents in Russia. Now the Brits have to get their people out, or at least the ones who haven’t been detected yet.”

  “How?”

  “They figure that Finland is the best route out. But the Brits have no network there.”

  “Can’t the Finns help them?”

  “Tom, you were there long enough to know that won’t work. The Finns are too frightened of the Russians to ever do anything overt against Soviet interests. Plus, every ministry in the Finnish government has been penetrated by Soviet agents. That’s where you come in. Remember your old friend Risto Paattinen?”

  “Sure. Still going strong?”

  “Well, the people in the Finnish Ministry of Defense who put us on to him in ’45 think he can help. But only if an American makes the contact. He can’t trust a Finn, and neither will the network round Leningrad.”

  “So, why me? I haven’t worked for the OSS in five years; I was fired for being a very ex-commie. Besides, the OSS is defunct. Can’t the CIA find another messenger boy?”

  “Not one who speaks Finnish like a Finn and who their military intelligence trusts. Apparently your successors were cowboys. The Finns won’t work with anyone but you, and that’s flat.”

  “So, I’m indispensable only when I am indispensable. What exactly am I supposed to do?”

  “You have to go in, make contact with Risto, and help bring out the British agents.”

  “How soon?”

  “You leave from Andrews Air Force Base tomorrow.”

  “But my passport? What’ll I tell my wife?”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick envelope. “Everything you need and enough Finnish krona to kit yourself out. They’ll tell your wife something. Maybe the FBI wants to question you about atom spies; I don’t know.”

  I couldn’t help myself laughing.

  I was gone for ten days. All I had to do to find Risto was go back to the bar he’d taken me to that first time in January 1945. On my second visit, a note was passed to me, telling me where to meet him, in a new town, Imatra, at the Finnish-Russian border. I had enough CIA cash simply to buy a car, and I drove through the night along empty roads north and east, into a very early morning sunrise.

  As I drove by a vast paper mill on the outskirts of Imatra, a hitchhiker appeared. As I bore down on him, I recognized Risto. It was all too smooth, I thought. Someone was watching me, or maybe watching over me.

  “So, Tom.” He shook my hand warmly. “Keep driving north out of town and take the first right turn into the woods.” As I drove, he briefed me. “We’re going to bring two men and a woman out. They’ve been hiding for a week in Enso. The Russians renamed it Svetogorst after the Finnish government handed the town to them in ’44. But it’s still mainly Finns.”

  “A town Finland handed to the Russians in ’44? No choice, I guess.”

  “Not unless they wanted to be crushed by the Red Army. But that’s why the locals won’t trust the Finnish government for a moment. You’re going to have to act like an American. Don’t even speak Finnish; just show wads of dollars.”

  “I’ve got even better, Risto. Gold coins.”

  Forty-five minutes later we stopped the car at the end of a dirt track surrounded by stunted pines. “We’re going to take a walk across the border and find ourselves in Enso, uh, Svetogorst.” It was a hike of about an hour through marshy ground and unmelted snowbanks. Our route was marked by long tongues of standing water, through what the Russians called tiaga. Then, suddenly, above us there were power lines, and I knew we were nearing the town.

  “Isn’t this dangerous, Risto? Just walking into Russia? If we’re caught we’re certain to be shot as spies.”

  He laughed. “Don’t worry. This place is so far out of the way and so dense with Finns, the only way the Soviets will make it secure is by complete resettlement. That’ll probably happen. The locals are certainly all going to leave.”

  “What’s keeping them?”

  “Well, things are not much better yet on the other side of the border. And here there’s socialism. So they’ll wait awhile longer.”

  It was the middle of the day in a village that looked almost completely deserted. “Where is everyone, Risto?”

  “The men are in the forests probably, or down at the river. If the women are out at all, they’re tending kitchen gardens. Don’t worry; the MGB is a hundred kilometers away, staying dry and warm.” The MGB was Russian state security. A few years later they changed their name to KGB.

  By this time we had come into a clearing and were approaching a lonely ramshackle building. Risto knocked casually and spoke in Finnish. An older woman opened the door and invited us in. Then she left quietly.

  There, sitting at a kitchen table sipping tea in glass cups, were two men and a woman, all of them dressed not in the rough kit of farmers and fishermen, but in the dark suits and long coats of city dwellers, but soiled and wrinkled, as if they’d been sleeping in them. They rose as we entered, breathed a collective sigh, and all began to gabble in Russian. Risto and I both put our hands up. In Finnish he said, “I don’t speak Russian,” while I said the same thing in English. Suddenly all three were speaking English.

  I put my hand up again. “One at a time.”

  The woman was about forty-five, with severe features and hair pulled back tight from her face. Evidently she spoke the best English. The other two subsided, and she began to talk. “You are American? We can’t trust Finns.” I nodded. “Prove it,” she demanded. Slowly I withdrew my CIA-provided passport and passed it to her. She looked at it, and the date. It was only a few days old. “Too new. You are Finn or Russian.” She spoke a word in Russian, and one of the men took out a small pistol.

  I looked at him a little more closely. He was pudgy and hirsute, badly in need of a shave. The striped double-breasted suit he’d been living in had been fashionable in the West during the war. He certainly looked uncomfortable holding a gun.

  This was my cue to get serious. I spoke slowly. “If I were Russian, you’d all be dead by now or surrounded by border security troops.” She nodded in grudging agreement. “And if I am going to turn you over to the Finns, you don’t have a better alternative anyway. But, as it happens, I’m not.” I took the passport from her. “I’m an American spy. That’s my picture but not my real name. I got the passport just for this assignment.” I turned to Risto. “Can we get moving? I am not happy in the Soviet Union.” I spoke in Finnish, and the woman asked me to translate. I did. She smiled, and all three rose, buttoned up and belted their coats.

  As we were about to leave, Risto reminded me, “Leave the gold coins you brought on the table. I
t will be appreciated.” I was glad to lighten my load.

  By the time we were across the border and back on the road to Imatra, it was dusk. “Tom, let me off where you picked me up.” With three strange Russians in the back seat, I was not happy to part with him. We shook hands and then hugged before he stepped out of the car.

  I turned to the three Russians. “Next stop Helsinki.” Their silence was ominous. And it lasted through the six and a half hours it took to get to the outskirts of Helsinki.

  The first time we saw a sign that read HELSINGIN KESKUSTA, the third passenger in the back sitting right behind me finally spoke. “What is that sign?”

  “It says ‘Helsinki City Center,’” I replied.

  The man said something in Russian, to which the other two replied, nodding their heads and agreeing “Da.” Suddenly the man sitting right behind me had his handkerchief around my neck, very tightly. The woman told me to pull over, and the pudgy fellow drew out his pistol. When we came to a stop, the handkerchief around my neck was loosened, and the woman began to speak. “We will not go to Helsinki. You will drive us to Turku, and then we all take the ferry to Sweden. Now! Otherwise we will shoot you.”

  “Seeing as I have no choice, let’s go. I warn you, the crossing is rough. You’ll get seasick.”

  They laughed, the laughter of relief.

  It was four hours to Turku, and there was a sailing that night. During the twelve-hour crossing of the Baltic, none of the three would trust me alone outside the car. Each of the men left the car once for the toilet and took me with him. The woman never left the car. The farther away from Finland the ship traveled, the more relaxed the three Russians became, until in the dawn they began to feel as though they really were going to make it. It was only then that I realized that they were still frightened that the ship might turn back.

  “Look, friends, perhaps you have not noticed. This is a Swedish ship. You have been under Swedish sovereignty for about nine hours, ever since we left Finnish territorial waters.” I held up the ferry ticket. “See the three yellow crowns on the blue field? Swedish colors.” I passed the ticket to the woman. “Now, can we go up to the second-class lounge and have some breakfast?”

  We were all squeezed into a booth, sipping coffee and munching on Swedish breakfast rolls. We had even exchanged names. They were Zludmilla, Vladimir, and Boris.

  Vladimir, who had handled the pistol so uncomfortably, asked, “You will bring us to British embassy? Yes?”

  “If that’s where you’d like to go.”

  They nodded vigorously.

  Then Zludmilla spoke. “So, you go back for the American agents?”

  I looked at her blankly. “American agents? Are there any to take out of Russia? I wasn’t told about anyone but you.”

  She looked at the others.

  Boris, the thin man who had almost garrotted me, spoke. “Yes, the American agents that were going to be rounded up along with us British ones.”

  “How do you know?” My question was urgent.

  Boris looked at Zludmilla.

  Then she spoke. “Thomas, we are MGB, communication department Leningrad. We read all the cables, telexes, messages from Moscow Center. I was on duty when the arrest orders came in.” She looked at the other two. “That is how we knew that someone had betrayed the networks. It was our names and a half-dozen others in Leningrad region. I alerted Boris Ivanovitch and Vladimir Sergevitch.” The patronymics momentarily confused me. “We didn’t even know the others were agents until we saw the list of names. But we destroyed the message from Moscow Center and sent our MI6 control a message to get us and the American agents out.”

  “Why do you think they were American agents?” This wasn’t my concern exactly, but I was growing anxious.

  “Well, next to our names was the word angliyskiy, and next to the others it said amerikanskiy.”

  I had to travel back the way I had come, on military flights. It wasn’t hard to arrange once I showed my passport to the embassy in Stockholm. When I arrived at Langley Air Force Base, I was met by someone who flashed CIA credentials, handed me an envelope of cash, and asked for the passport. I gave it to him and then said, “I need to be debriefed. Something happened that has to be reported.” The courier asked no questions, merely nodded, and I followed him out to an unmarked car.

  We drove into DC and parked at a nondescript building near the Mall. The only thing the driver ever said to me was, “OK, follow me. Don’t get lost. There are no signs on the doors.”

  We entered the building, moved up and down stairs, along corridors, making turns through a maze of temporary structures built into the formerly open space in the closed courtyard of what was a prewar federal office building. Finally we found ourselves in front of a door and some seats. I was bidden to sit while the courier knocked and entered. A few minutes later the man came back, ushered me past secretaries in an outer room, and into an inner office. Then my courier moved behind a desk, at which a man in a three-piece suit was sitting.

  The man seated at the desk looked at me from underneath bushy eyebrows. His hair was white, as was his mustache; he wore a bow tie and was chewing on a pipe, whose smoke filled the room. He did not introduce himself or otherwise betray interest in me beyond the word, “Well?”

  “I’m back from an operation in Finland.”

  “I know that. I arranged it for the Brits. Tell me what you need to say. I’m busy.”

  Having not been invited to sit, I remained standing before him and repeated the last conversation I’d had with the Russians. When I finished, the two men looked at each other. Then the man at the desk looked back at me. “Sit down.” He indicated a chair behind me and to my right. “Now, repeat everything you just said, and anything else you remember.”

  My memory is good, and the brief conversation in the buffet on the ferryboat had replayed itself enough times to make me word perfect.

  The man at the desk leaned back, loosened his tie, and said to the other man, “Explains a lot, Bob.”

  The younger man must have been distracted, for his question—“Why didn’t the Brits tell us, Mr. Dulles?”—earned a look of fierce reproof. My interrogator had evidently not wanted me to learn his name either.

  The question the younger man asked was one I had pondered all the way from Stockholm. I was pretty sure I knew the right answer. And I was going to give it them, whether they wanted it or not. “It’s pretty obvious. Either MI5 decided not to pass on the information, or whoever they did pass it on to here decided to sit on it. Someone in London or Washington wanted to roll up your network in Leningrad.” I had said “your” instead of “our.” It lost me what little welcome I had received. And my next thought made them furious. “Maybe there’s a double agent here or in London who stopped you getting your people out.”

  The man at the desk picked up a phone. He glared at me in a rage. Then he said, “Keep that thought to yourself, or you’re a dead man.” Before dialing he barked, “Get him out of here.”

  Now, Miss Silverstone, recall what I’d been told by Taylor Cole just before my little Finnish adventure about the two senior people in British intelligence defecting to the Soviet Union, Guy Burgess and Donald McLean. Both of them had worked in Washington during and after the war. Did either of these two have access to the names of British or American agents in the Soviet Union? Someone in MI6, British intelligence, or MI5, counterintelligence, would have known.

  When I got back it turned out that Professor Franklin did want to hire me after all. And Barbara was happy to move to Washington.

  I had been at Howard for a year when serious witch-hunting began. It didn’t matter how young you were when you joined the party or how long ago you’d quit. There was always someone ready to make trouble. It was a lucrative business. Finding out about someone’s past and selling the information to the highest bidder was an industry that didn’t need Senator McCarthy’s stimulation. It became quite profitable since the Korean War got going, the Rosenbergs were fou
nd guilty, and the two Cambridge spies defected to Russia. There was likely to be a commie under every bed, and no one could sleep safely at night till they were extracted and burned at the stake.

  In 1956, the Democrats regained control of the US Senate, and by seniority, the racist Senator from Mississippi, James O. Eastland, became chair of the Internal Security Subcommittee, the US Senate’s version of HUAC—the House Un-American Activities Committee. It was the fixed notion of most Southern whites that the movement for racial equality was a communist conspiracy. Of course, for a long time in the ’20s and ’30s they had been right. That’s why I had become a party member. But by the time of the Supreme Court school desegregation decision in 1954, Southern politicians were about the only ones who still thought the civil rights movement was just a communist conspiracy. Maybe they didn’t really think so, but they said it often and at the top of their voices.

  In the spring of 1957, Professor Franklin turned up in my office one day. He was always quite formal. “Good morning, Dr. Wrought, may I sit down?”

  “Please do, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, Wrought, I have had some good news, but I am afraid it may not be so good for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve been asked to become the chair of the history department at Brooklyn College in New York.”

  I smiled and then said something so funny we both laughed for a few minutes: “First Jackie Robinson, then John Hope Franklin. These things always seem to get done first in Brooklyn.” Both of us knew that Franklin would be the first Negro chairman of an academic department in a “white” university. I rose and offered my hand, which he shook firmly. We both resumed our seats.

  “How does it affect me, sir?” I ventured.

  “Well, ever since you arrived, I’ve been pressured to fire you, or at least not reappoint you, by the board of trustees. I’ve refused. But in the last six months, since Eastland took over the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, it’s gotten a lot worse.”