The Coldest Warrior Read online

  “We can’t sue,” Greenburg said. “You signed a full release.”

  “I didn’t sign anything.” Antony looked fiercely at his mother. “You made that choice.”

  Gabriel stepped forward. “There is an alternative. You never saw the body.”

  A gasped release of breath came from Maggie. She looked at Gabriel, appalled. Her face had drained of color, and her voice quavered. “I can’t bear the idea of disturbing him. I can’t imagine what we’d find that is worse than what we know.”

  Antony stared into the night—sullen and silent.

  Gabriel would later learn that Antony and his mother had had this conversation before, and it had never gone well. She was not prepared to exhume her husband.

  Antony turned to his mother. “Fell or jumped. Wouldn’t you like to know which?”

  Maggie received her son’s sarcasm defiantly. There was a long awkward silence. Maggie was comforted by her daughter, who spoke for the first time. “It’s time to move on,” Betsy said. “We know enough.”

  Antony threw his hands in the air, exasperated. He shouted, “We don’t know anything!”

  Maggie stared at her firstborn, her eyes swelling with tears, then looked at Gabriel. “What about you?”

  Gabriel pointed at the collage of documents on the floor. “These won’t tell you anything. You’ve figured that out for yourselves. I think it’s the right thing. I know a forensic pathologist who can do the examination.”

  Maggie looked around the room. She was alone. “Fine,” she said.

  GABRIEL DROVE BACK to Washington late. Rain had begun to fall, and the steady rhythm of the wipers sweeping the windshield numbed his unsettled thoughts.

  Jumped or fell. The cadence of the phrase echoed in his mind. The alternative explanations of Wilson’s death were hard to reconcile. Each implied a vastly different man in the final moments of life. One a freak accident. The other the choice of a disturbed mind. Neither fit the man he knew. He stopped at a gas station on his way home and used the pay phone to make a call.

  “We have a body to bring up,” he said when the voice came on the line.

  12

  Testimony

  Russell Senate Office Building

  Gabriel looked toward the front of the packed Senate hearing room at Herb Weisenthal, who sat alone in an aisle seat near the front, a small, hunched man waiting for the hearing to begin.

  It was ninety-eight degrees at 2:30 p.m. on that July afternoon, a record for the day. Inside the hearing room it was even warmer for the senators who sat on either side of the subcommittee chairman and fanned themselves or turned to the large standing fan that had been brought in to compensate for the failed air-conditioning. Tall windows had been opened for air, but the tepid breeze did nothing to relieve the stifling heat. Someone had turned off the large pendant chandelier and the brass wall sconces to eliminate heat gain, giving the darkened room the illusion of cooling shade. Curious spectators had removed jackets and opened collars, and the national press seated at the base of the dais sweated profusely.

  The chairman wore a charcoal-gray suit that barely contained the weight he’d gained in his years of Senate service, but his bulk and jowls added to the commanding presence of a man known for his imperturbability. His dense eyebrows arched as he listened to an aide, and then he looked out to the crowded room, tapping his microphone.

  Gabriel was seated away from the aisle near the rear, looking to see who he knew and who he should avoid. That’s when he heard his name called. Three late arrivals made their way toward him, begging their way past seated men and women.

  “I gave up on you,” he said, removing a newspaper spread across three chairs.

  Antony took the chair next to Gabriel, and the next chair was taken by Seth Greenburg. Antony pointed to the third man who sat in the last seat.

  “You know Neil Ostroff.”

  “We’ve met,” Gabriel said. He stared at the man who’d published his photo on the front page of the Times. “I thought your mother was coming.”

  “She’s in the hospital.”

  Gabriel was surprised by Antony’s callous tone.

  “Serious?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the chairman said into his microphone. He brought down his gavel when he failed to get the room’s attention, and he struck twice more, firmer and louder. His voice boomed, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been informed that the air-conditioning will remain out, but we will proceed. This is the Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research. We will hear the testimony of Dr. Herbert Weisenthal. If that’s not why you’re here, you might want to leave for a cooler spot.” He saw two people make their way to the exit. “Always a few,” he said, eliciting laughter. “Dr. Weisenthal, please come forward.”

  Gabriel watched Weisenthal rise from his chair. He was a slight man and visibly uncomfortable at being so publicly on display, a difficult thing for any reluctant witness but especially hard for an old spy. The prospect of testifying before a television audience clearly weighed on him. His face was drawn, and his black business suit starkly set off his pale complexion. He was joined at the witness table by an attorney. There were the formalities of swearing in, the offering of written testimony, and the attorney’s brief statement on behalf of his client.

  Photographers were crouched at the base of the dais. Weisenthal didn’t shy away from the cameras or hide his face, but nor did he smile.

  The room was packed with congressional staffers; several men like Gabriel from the intelligence community, including George Mueller, who stood taller than many others taking seats; and conspiracy buffs, curious to get their first view of the spy whose Technical Services Staff had made the poisoned cigar intended to kill Fidel Castro.

  “Mr. Chairman,” Weisenthal said. “I have placed a statement in the record. I want this committee to know that I am not here as the beggar Lazarus to plead understanding. I come unwillingly under subpoena, proud of my work record. But I will endeavor to answer any questions that will help clarify the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. Wilson.”

  “Thank you. Yes, we have your statement. We appreciate your cooperation.” The chairman consulted his notes. “Dr. Weisenthal, when did you join the CIA?”

  “1947.”

  “It was the CIA then?”

  “It was the Central Intelligence Group. The CIA was formed in 1948.”

  “What were you hired to do?”

  “I had received a PhD in agronomy from the University of Wisconsin. I joined the Chemical Branch and became its chief. We were concerned with biochemical weapons programs, and we evaluated psychotropic hallucinogens that could be used by our adversaries against us. Programs I ran, which have been identified by the press—and I might add, mischaracterized by them—were Bluebird, Artichoke, and MKULTRA. I worked with the Army staff at Fort Detrick, where I became acquainted with Dr. Wilson. I continued to work in the CIA in various capacities until I retired.”

  “What year was that?”

  “1973.”

  “And then what did you do?”

  “My wife and I sold our house, and we traveled for two years. We took up residence in India, where we volunteered our time in a leper hospital. We returned earlier this year, and we live on a small farm in Virginia. I provide speech therapy to children in the local public school.”

  Gabriel felt Antony become restless. “What’s his point?” he whispered. “‘I’m a good man now’?” Gabriel put his hand on Antony’s knee to calm him, and in looking at Antony he saw that Neil Ostroff was looking around the room to see who he knew. Their eyes met. Only the senator’s voice took Gabriel’s attention back to the proceedings.

  “Let’s go back to 1953. You put LSD in Dr. Wilson’s after-dinner drink at Deep Creek Lake, did you not?”

  “I did.”

  “Ten days later, he committed suicide while under your care.”

  “That’s correct.” Weisenthal paused for a m
oment. “I think you can understand that it was a difficult period for me. It was a great tragedy, and in the weeks that followed we consulted medical experts to help us decide whether to continue the program. It caused me a lot of personal anguish. I considered resigning from the Agency.”

  “Dr. Weisenthal,” the Republican senator from Missouri interrupted, “I’m sure it was quite difficult for you, but why in God’s name would you give an untested drug to a top scientist?”

  “We were concerned, Senator, what would happen if one of our men was kidnapped and drugged while traveling overseas. If so, what would he say? Could he be made to speak? The late 1940s and early 1950s were terrible war years. The Soviet Union and the Red Chinese had developed chemical agents to control human behavior. We knew the Soviets had tried to corner the market in LSD, which was then produced in one Sandoz plant in Switzerland.”

  The chairman brought down his gavel forcefully to quiet the room. “Sir,” he said. “What was Dr. Wilson working on? What could he betray if, as you feared, he was abducted by the Soviets?”

  “I can’t get into the specifics of that.”

  Weisenthal’s attorney pulled the microphone from his client. “Senator, if I may, my client retired, but he continues to be bound by the Espionage Act, the National Security Act, the Defense Secrets Act, and various laws.”

  The chairman raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Did you ever lie in the course of your work?”

  “Sir?” Weisenthal replied.

  “Lie. Deceive people about what you did or what you knew?”

  “We all lie, sir. It’s a trivial thing, to claim at a party you’ve been to Beirut when you haven’t. It does no harm, and it was part of my job.”

  “Can we expect truthful answers from you today?”

  “Where I can answer I will do so, but as my attorney attested, I am bound by law.”

  “Good to know you abide by the law.” The chairman consulted his papers. “I have here a newly uncovered letter of February 12, 1954, from the director of Central Intelligence criticizing your judgment administering LSD to an unwitting Dr. Wilson without proximate medical safeguards. The letter says you violated his civil rights. By this letter we know that the highest levels of the CIA knew of Dr. Wilson’s drugging after it happened, and you got reprimanded.”

  “Sir, is that a question?”

  “Were you reprimanded?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s turn to the question of records. You destroyed your files before you retired. Can you tell us what you destroyed and why you felt it necessary to destroy them?”

  Weisenthal adjusted his reading glasses and cleared his throat.

  Antony leaned forward. “I want to hear this.”

  “It’s a long answer, if I may. In late 1972 and 1973, I began to destroy files that I felt would not be useful to my successor or were superfluous. There were two reasons for this. The Agency had a burgeoning paper problem, and I destroyed those files that were no longer of any use. Second, there were sensitive files with names of prominent scientists and physicians whose work we’d confidentially funded. The careers of those individuals, and their reputations, would be severely damaged if their association with the CIA became known. I destroyed those as well.”

  “Did you keep the destruction certificates?”

  “No. It would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it, to destroy documents but keep destruction certificates with a record of what was destroyed?”

  Unbelievable, Gabriel thought. So calm and so completely, implacably assured.

  “You did this on your own accord?” the senator asked.

  “Others were involved.”

  “Who?”

  “My associate Dr. Ainsley was one. The deputy director was one.”

  “Did he order the destruction?”

  “Certainly not. I brought up the topic. I outlined the reasons that I just shared with you, and he concurred.”

  “How did you do it? Burn, shred, bury?”

  “The job was left to Dr. Ainsley.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s deceased.”

  Gabriel heard Weisenthal’s clever parsing, and he recognized how masterfully he’d shaded his actions. His seeming openness was a trick and his contrition an intentional subterfuge. Untouchable, Gabriel thought. There were no incriminating files, and none would be found. There would be no files to impeach his testimony. The only records of the past were locked in his mind. Gabriel saw a small man stuck in his beliefs, incorruptible. Untouchable.

  “Just a few more questions, Dr. Weisenthal.” The chairman’s voice became folksy. “You testified you were the one who put LSD in Dr. Wilson’s after-dinner drink.”

  Weisenthal looked over his reading glasses. “Yes, I said that.”

  “I may be repeating myself. That’s a condition of my age and a prerogative of my office.” The chairman raised a piece of paper and waved it. He looked directly at the witness, and his voice deepened. “You knew everyone at Deep Creek Lake and everyone at the Hotel Harrington.”

  Weisenthal seemed confused, and he hesitated.

  “Dr. Weisenthal, I am asking you if you knew everyone who was involved. You ran the project. You were reprimanded for it. Did you know everyone who was involved?”

  Weisenthal turned to his attorney.

  The chairman read from the paper in his hands. “Can you tell me who Nick Arndt is? The name Nick Arndt. Does it jog your memory?”

  “No. It doesn’t.”

  “You do not recognize the name Nick Arndt?”

  “That’s correct, sir.” Weisenthal was quieter and less certain.

  The chairman lowered his reading glasses and looked toward the witness. “Mr. Nick Arndt was in the Hotel Harrington that night. You testified you knew everyone involved, but now you testify you don’t know who Mr. Arndt is. You can’t have it both ways. Either you knew everyone or you didn’t. Would you square that circle for me?”

  “I haven’t seen the document you are holding. I don’t know who the man is or if he was, as you say, a part of the project. Let me remind you, this was a very long time ago. May I see the memo?”

  “It’s not a memo.”

  Antony looked at Gabriel and nodded at Greenburg. “He found it.”

  The chairman raised the paper. “I have here a copy of the Hotel Harrington’s guest registry of November 26, 1953. Mr. Arndt was registered in room 918, adjacent to the room occupied by Dr. Wilson. The two rooms were connected by one of those see-through mirrors. And we have this record. Did you forget to destroy it? Or perhaps someone in the hotel saw something and kept a record.”

  Gabriel took a deep breath. Secrets are restless things. Secrets come out. The invitation in the Bible. A name in a hotel registry.

  “You have no memory of this Mr. Arndt?” The chairman’s voice filled with rounded vowels, enjoying his capacity for mockery. “No idea who he was or why he was in the safe house. No idea at all. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that a yes? We couldn’t hear you.”

  Weisenthal spoke louder. “Yes, that’s a yes.” He took a plain handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow.

  “You may be excused, Dr. Weisenthal. We have no further questions today. You remain under subpoena, and you should not leave Washington. Let me remind you, sir, we need to come to terms with our past. We are not a nation that rewrites its history. Ghosts of our past want to rest.”

  Weisenthal leaned into his microphone. “Mr. Chairman, if I may. I would like this committee to know that I considered all my work, at the time it was done in the circumstances of the Cold War, to be extremely difficult, extremely sensitive, but, above all, to be extremely urgent and important. The Berlin airlift showed us the danger posed by the Soviet Union. We urgently sought ways to know if our people, in the event of capture by the enemy, could resist interrogation. What was happening in the early 1950s was a dangerous replay of what happened in the late 1930s. The Soviet Unio
n was ruthlessly intent on expanding its totalitarian power and taking over the world as the Nazis had a decade earlier. I realize that it is difficult to reconstruct those times and that atmosphere in this hearing room today.”

  Weisenthal placed his reading glasses in his jacket pocket and gathered his papers. He rose from the witness table, reclaiming his dignity. Sympathetic applause from a few in the room was met by loud honking scorn from a larger number of people, and in that moment the supporters of the CIA and their numerous indignant opponents were a snapshot of American public opinion.

  Antony Wilson had jumped from his chair and planted himself in the aisle, blocking Weisenthal’s path to the exit. Antony was a head taller than Weisenthal, but the intensity of their expressions was the same and attracted a few people who stopped to look.

  “I’m his son.”

  Weisenthal allowed a smile. “I see a resemblance to your father.” He nodded at Antony’s hands. “I’m so glad you haven’t brought a gun. Last night I had a dream that you came to the hearing and shot me.”

  Antony was momentarily speechless.

  “This is my wife,” Weisenthal said, pulling forward a tall, kindly woman. “Mary Thomas. Dear, meet Charlie’s son.”

  The woman’s hands were gnarled from gardening, her hair bleached porcelain white. She wore simple sandals and a saffron-colored sari she had cinched with a knotted string belt. A likeness of Buddha hung on her neck.

  “We were big fans of your father,” Weisenthal said. “He was a committed scientist, a pleasant man, but those were difficult times. We all made mistakes.”

  Antony resisted the seduction of the man’s affectionate tone. “You expect me to believe you gave my father a powerful, untested drug to see what would happen? He was a scientist, for Christ’s sake. The whole idea that you would put a top scientist at risk to test a hypothetical makes no sense.”

  “That is what happened,” Weisenthal replied.

  Antony snapped. “The whole story makes no sense.”

  “Look,” Weisenthal said calmly. “Your father and I were alike. We cared about our country. We were concerned about our survival. We found ourselves in a war effort applying science to new weapons. Our work was urgent and sometimes unpleasant. The Korean War showed us how much was at stake, and we may have gone too far.”