Weekend Reminisce: Little Brushes with Treason's Salesmen

The more I read about Snowden, the more I am convinced he participated in a sophisticated Russian/Chinese intel operation. He is not, in my view, some heroic whistleblower. Whatever one might think of NSA activities at home, and the Obama misadministration's grotesque and criminal misuse of the NSA, FBI, DOJ, IRS, DEA, ATF, USPS, BLM, EPA, CIA, and so forth, running to the Russians and the Chinese, enemies of democracy and liberty, and blowing apart a zillion dollars worth of legitimate intel gathering by the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, is tantamount to treason. I won't budge from that position. I say this although my stomach churns when Obama, Holder, and Kerry talk about protecting national interests and secrets.

OK, let's talk about the lighter side of the treason business.

In my three-plus decades of assignments, I had my own little run-ins with the purveyors of treason. A few I can't discuss, but a couple are long enough in the past, and, perhaps so stupid, nobody will mind if I do.

One of my first was in New York. Working for Ambassador Walters at the US Mission to the UN, I served mostly in the Third Committee, which handled all sorts of social issues, most notably human rights. By far, the most contentious of the Committees, it was the one where the Reagan administration had decided to take a stand on Soviet abuses of human rights and to push back against the leftist agenda of increasing social and economic "rights" at the expense of traditional civil and political ones. Our stance put us at odds with the Soviet bloc, of course, but also with many of the Europeans, and nearly all of the so-called Non-Aligned.

There was one large Latin American country which recently had elected a leftoid government. That country's Ambassador to the UN and his staff were decidedly of the "progressive" variety. On paper, however, they were still a friendly country; I invited one of their new officers out for lunch. The lunch went fine, although it got a bit tense when we discussed the MidEast, Castro, Western "imperialism," and the "nonaligned. A few days later, he invited me to lunch, basically a repeat of the first meal, with one little difference. He apparently had the impression that my willingness to see him twice in two weeks meant I was for sale, or at least rent.

While we drank our coffee after the meal, he launched a sales pitch for treason. He proved not the most subtle of barkers.

"OK. We now know each other, and you know what I need from you."

"No, what do you need?"

"You know, you know." He arched his eyebrows.

"I don't know. What do you want?" I was getting the feeling that this was going in a weird direction.

"You work for Walters, right"

"Yes."

"I need his secret documents."

I thought he was joking and laughed, "Sure, you need his 'secret documents'. How many do you need?" I sipped my coffee, and then stared at him over my glasses.

"Yes, here is the list." He handed me a paper that had on it, no kidding, a typed tasking for me, "Provide all secret papers."

I wish I had kept that paper, but handed it back, and said, "How about another cup of coffee, instead?" He got up with one of the angriest expressions I have seen, and stormed off--without paying for the lunch to which he had invited me. We never spoke again. I reported this weird encounter and, I assume, the people who needed to do so kept an eye on this odd bungling, budding spy.

Another "brush with treason" came when I worked on the US delegation to the summer session of the UN ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) in Geneva, Switzerland. Geneva is a beautiful city, but deadly dull. There are only so many times that one can take a walk along the lakefront, look at the millionaire stores, or go for a drive in the countryside.

We worked long hours at the ECOSOC; under Reagan, we were aggressive on the social and economic front pushing resolutions praising the private sector, calling on countries to encourage private entrepreneurs, trying to bat down absurd resolutions against Israel, rooting out the Marxist/progressive slant that certain countries sought to slip into definitions, etc. It was fun.

We initially had not realized how seriously the Soviet bloc took the Third Committee, the Human Rights Commission, and the ECOSOC sessions; those were places where propaganda campaigns were tried out, slogans introduced, where the lefties tried to alter the very meaning of the language used in international law and discourse. We were pretty good; we had a solid cadre of very conservative, well-read FSOs who spoke a range of languages, had a great grasp of history, and were convinced that the USA could beat the USSR. All of us were big fans of Ronald Reagan and would have done anything for him. Everybody was an excellent public speaker, speech-writer, drafter, and joke-teller. Quite frankly, we ran circles around the Soviet-bloc types who generally did not respond well to humor--especially at their expense. The Soviets, the dour Lavrov among them, were not amused, and tried a variety of tactics at the Human Rights Commission and the ECOSOC to knock us off our game. One was the KGB "Rabbi," a funny story I will tell in a subsequent post, and another was bringing in some some intel talent from both the Soviet Union and the bloc countries.

One intel operative I remember quite well was a very "sophisticated Bulgarian," who I thought looked much like Peter Lorre. Our folks had warned me about him. He clearly was tasked with getting to me. He would lose no opportunity to get close and try out some "humor," usually some badly translated Bulgarian joke which did not make much sense in English. He wanted to talk about human rights, my latest speech, how he had once visited Israel, how the Bulgarians had saved their Jewish population from the Nazis, how much he liked American jazz and blues . . . perhaps I would be interested in going to a jazz concert, he knew a few girls, etc. I avoided him.

One Saturday, however, Peter Lorre trapped me in a nice French restaurant, Café de Paris, where I had slipped away to have a bistec ala parisienne, and read the International Herald Tribune, while my wife shopped at the H&M. He had followed me. Sitting down at my small table, with no warm-up, no chit-chat, he bluntly insisted that I go fishing with him on the lake. He had rented a boat; we would be out all day, just the two of us. Adjusting his glasses, looking at his watch, he insisted that I had to go with him "Right now!"

I put down my IHT, and asked, "Why would I do that?"

He was getting nervous, "I have an interesting proposition for you."

"I see." I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my plastified 3X5 card. "Well, let me tell you that I am not homosexual. I am not in debt. My salary is just fine. My wife has not left me. I don't have or want a mistress. I am not interested in children or prostitutes. I am not in trouble with my career. I vote for Reagan. I think Communism is the same as Nazism. You cannot blackmail me. You cannot buy me. You have no proposition that I would find interesting unless you're defecting. My steak is getting cold. My wife will be here soon. I am going to have to tell her that I have to go back to the Mission, ruining my day off, to write a report to our security people on this conversation with you." He glared at me, got up, slapping the table with his hand, spilling my water, ruining the IHT--never let it be said that I have not suffered in the battle against Communism.

Peter Lorre did not bother me again. Others on our delegation had much more colorful encounters than mine with the Soviet intel squads, but those are their stories to tell.

Ah, the good ol' days . . .