Why had the Old Man placed such trust in Jamal? Rogers asked himself. Why had this relatively junior intelligence officer been singled out and given responsibility for Fatah’s most sensitive operations? Perhaps because the Old Man couldn’t trust anyone his own age, who might be a potential rival.
Suspicion was the universal sentiment of the Arab world, Rogers believed. This was the land of the stab in the back, a culture that believed the admonition: “Fear your enemy once, fear your friend a thousand times.” The bond of friendship among Arab men was intense, but it never lasted. Confidences were always betrayed, pledges of trust and fidelity always broken. Look at Islam. Within a few years after the death of the Prophet Mohammed, his followers were at daggers, hatching assassination plots against each other. The same problem had afflicted Arab politics ever since. The suspicions and rivalries were so intense that it was difficult to trust anyone long enough to build something solid, like a political party or a nation. An Arab man trusted only one other man completely: his son. Even his brothers were potential rivals. The Old Man had no son. But he had Jamal.
The rest of the PRQ Part II summarized operational details. It was obvious that agent PECOCK had access to Fatah’s most important secrets. The only question was how to run him.
Here Rogers made a recommendation that he knew would upset headquarters. PECOCK should be regarded initially as an asset, rather than a controlled agent. He should be encouraged to believe that the CIA accepted his definition of the relationship-as “liaison” between two potentially cooperative intelligence services-and didn’t view him as an American agent. Rogers drew on the conversations in Kuwait. He noted that the young Palestinian had been directed by the Old Man himself to work with the United States. The agency should appear to accept this approach. It should enhance PECOCK’S stature and encourage the fiction of a two-way relationship, by providing him with a regular flow of low-level intelligence that might be useful to Fatah. There was a strong chance that PECOCK could eventually be recruited in the usual way, paid a stipend, and run as a controlled agent. But only if the agency was patient.
“We shouldn’t get greedy,” Rogers stressed in a cable to Stone that accompanied the PRQ. “The operation may collapse if we insist at the outset on complete control and reliability. We should make no effort to buy or compromise PECOCK, and we should not, at this point, ask him to submit to a polygraph.”
For now, recommended Rogers, the Palestinian should be handled discreetly. The Lebanese contract agent who had spotted him and helped develop the case should continue as the courier and intermediary. His cover as a Lebanese leftist with strong pro-Palestinian sympathies would give him easy acesss to Fatah without arousing suspicion. Rogers should meet regularly with PECOCK, but outside Lebanon whenever possible.
Rogers included, as appendices, summaries of his sessions with Jamal in Kuwait, along with summaries of Fuad’s meetings in Beirut. He gave the bulky file to Hoffman, who reviewed it and sent it to Langley.
“You’re going to lose on this one,” Hoffman warned Rogers before sending the PRQ on its way. “You have me half-convinced that you can recruit an agent who isn’t really an agent. But you’re not going to convince them.”
“Why not?” asked Rogers. “What I am proposing makes perfect sense. It will give us what we want, without the risk of blowing the operation.”
“Because they are stupid,” said Hoffman. “In the way that only very smart people can be stupid.”
“Why?” asked Rogers, genuinely puzzled.
“Something happens to people at Yale, I think,” answered Hoffman, picking at his teeth with a wooden match.
“They become convinced that it’s only because of a few people like them that the world isn’t a hopeless mess. They think the world’s problems stem mainly from the fact that there aren’t enough rules and regulations-and well-educated gentlemen to enforce them. That’s where they come in. They are the rulemakers, standing guard against chaos and disorder. And that’s why they’re going to say no to your proposal.”
“Why?”
“Because it violates the rules.”
“But what I’m recommending makes sense.”
“Don’t waste your breath on me, sonny,” said Hoffman. “I just work here.”
18
Washington; April 1970
Rogers was summoned to Washington three weeks later. The Operational Approval branch didn’t like his plan of action. Neither did John Marsh, the operations chief of the NE Division, who urged Stone to recall Rogers for “consultations.”
It was the first real rebuff Rogers had faced in a career that, until then, had been a steady progression of successes and commendations. Hoffman tried to assure him that being summoned home was part of the game, a rite of passage in mid-career. They didn’t take you seriously in the front office until they had hauled you on the carpet and given you a lecture. Anyway, Hoffman said, if Rogers wanted to play it safe, he should have chosen another career.
Hoffman was kind enough not to add: I told you so. But Rogers could hear him thinking it anyway.
Rogers dreaded the trip. He was edgy at home with Jane, distant in their final few nights together, restless and temperamental even around the children. He didn’t like being second-guessed, especially by people who hadn’t recruited an agent of their own in years. He also didn’t like to be reminded that he was in mid-career, no longer a prodigy, exposed to attack from people back home who regarded him as a threat or a rival. Rogers liked to keep his life in neat compartments. The biggest one, called work, had suddenly passed out of his control.
Rogers tried to relax on the airplane. He had a few drinks. He thought of his athletic exploits in high school. He reminisced about old girlfriends. He reviewed in his mind some of the intelligence operations for which he had been commended in the past.
On the Paris-Washington leg of the flight, Rogers struck up a conversation with an attractive French woman, blond and blue-eyed, in her mid-thirties.
She was carefully coiffed and dressed in an expensive tweed suit. When she moved, Rogers thought he could hear the rustle of her undergarments.
Rogers asked the woman why she was travelling to America. Business or pleasure?
“Pleasure,” said the woman, drawing out the syllables of the word. Rogers heard the sound of silk and satin as she adjusted herself in the seat.
“Any plans?” asked Rogers.
“We shall see,” said the woman.
She was the wife of a French industrialist, she explained. A flat on the Isle Saint-Louis, too many parties, too many responsibilities. She was tired of Paris and wanted a holiday in America.
Rogers found the woman overwhelmingly attractive. When she leaned forward to talk to him, he could see the fine white powder of her makeup, the gloss of her lipstick, and the fullness of her breasts. She had the perfect manners of a woman kept for the pleasure of a refined and wealthy gentleman.
As they were leaving the plane, Rogers, without quite knowing why, asked for the name of her hotel.
The woman blushed and averted her eyes but said quietly, “The Madison.” She handed him a card with her name: Veronique Godard.
“Shall I call you?” asked Rogers, taking the card.
“As you like,” said the French woman, closing her eyes as she spoke.
Rogers was staying at a cheap hotel in Arlington where the agency booked people who were home on TDY. He checked in, called several friends to announce his arrival, and took a stroll across the Key Bridge to Georgetown.