The Main Enemy by Milton Bearden (epub e reader txt) 📕

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Langley, September 25, 1990

The meeting was a setup, but I was probably the only person who knew it. Over the last few weeks, there had been rumblings about what to do with East Germany once it was reunified with the Federal Republic of Germany. Politically, the Bush administration had made the cold calculation that it would drive for the absorption of East Germany into West Germany—with the new Germany solidly in NATO—even if it harmed Gorbachev’s standing at home. If hard-liners returned to power in Moscow, at least German reunification would already be a fact of life. Now we were faced with the administrative challenge of working out a division of labor in a reunified Germany.

Now that a final agreement had been reached and the date for formal reunification was set for October 3, just days away, bureaucracies all over the Western world were scrambling to catch up with the new reality in Germany, and the CIA’s Directorate of Operations was no exception. Throughout the Cold War, East Germany had been SE Division’s turf, and West Germany had always been handled by the DO’s European Division. Reunification raised a bureaucratic dilemma: Which division should be in charge of intelligence operations in the new Germany?

There was, in fact, no solid rationale for keeping East Germany under my purview, beyond the fact that the Soviet Western Group of Forces still had almost four hundred thousand troops on East German soil. But few people in SE saw it that way—especially the ones working on East Berlin.

Burton Gerber was known to be the most fastidious of DO barons when it came to matters of turf and responsibility. He neither encroached on another’s turf nor allowed encroachment on his. He and I hadn’t spoken much since I’d taken over the SE Division, though we’d had cordial, if stiff, exchanges at the weekly DDO staff meetings. He’d shared with me the deep emotional impact November 9 had had on him as he’d seen the Wall coming down, and I’d shared my own, similar feelings about that night in Berlin. Now he’d called a meeting to discuss how he and I could pursue our separate and legitimate tasks in East Germany after reunification less than ten days off.

Gerber had about four European Division officers with him, including line operations officers and administrative specialists. I brought John O’Reilly, whom I’d moved into the front office to manage division resources and plans. The atmosphere was expectant rather than tense as we exchanged cordialities and took our seats across from one another.

Gerber seemed to want to avoid confrontation. He opened the meeting with a statement on the parallel nature of our interests and the fact that we all worked for the same leader, the DDO. He was certain that we could work something out, perhaps move incrementally toward a realignment of responsibilities.

“Burton,” I said after listening for a few moments, “why screw around with all this? In eight days there will be one Germany. It will be in Europe and in NATO. It belongs in Europe Division. If you want it, it’s yours. Have your personnel people talk to mine and let’s work out a handover without any silliness.”

There was a prolonged silence as my words sank in. Then Gerber, always the gentleman, thanked me for my suggestion and said he would check with the DDO and set things in motion. I didn’t tell him I’d already told Dick Stolz that I planned to hand over East Germany. He would be responsible for a united Germany while I’d be watching over the Soviet Western Group of Forces still garrisoned in the eastern zones.

Paul Redmond was traveling when the meeting took place, and I hadn’t briefed him on my plans before he left. When he learned what I’d done, he exploded. “Why the fuck did you give Burton East Germany?” he said. “We’ve got a lot to do over there.”

“Because it was the right thing to do,” I snapped. “For chrissakes, Paul, in a week it’ll be part of the Federal Republic. Why do you want to hang on to it?”

“Because it’s fun, that’s why.”

I could see that Redmond meant it. He wasn’t just being his usual prickly self, this was deeply important to him. That exchange summed up the growing rift between me and my deputy. In the year since I had returned to the SE Division, I had begun to worry that Redmond and some others on the division staff were stuck in a time warp. Couldn’t they see that the revolutions that had swept across Eastern Europe would inevitably change the CIA’s mission? The sad truth was that the SE Division’s insular subculture didn’t want to let go of the Cold War. As Redmond said, it had been too much fun.

My problems weren’t limited to Paul Redmond. I’d picked up enough of the rumblings from Steve Weber and John O’Reilly to know that not everyone had been happy to see me take over from Gerber. The hard-liners in the division were dug in, Weber told me. They didn’t believe the changes in Eastern Europe would hold, and when the pendulum swung back, they were convinced we’d be caught off base. Weber counseled patience with the East Europe group. Most of them were feeling that the world they’d lived in for so many years had ended—they were sitting next to a safe full of dead drop site diagrams for Prague, Budapest, and Warsaw, and I was telling them those folks were our new friends. They’d come around, he said, just give them time.

O’Reilly was less sanguine about the hard-liners handling the Soviet Union. Get rid of them, had been his summary advice. Send them off to counterintelligence, where they’d be happier.

Both men were right. And I decided I’d have to start with Redmond.

Karlshorst, East Berlin, October 2, 1990

The leaves, caught in an eddy, swirled over the cobblestones and into the courtyard beyond the sullen Red Army soldier standing guard at the entrance to the Museum of Capitulation