Victims of Victory : In the harsh light of reality, old spies must face up to old lies

It’s assumed that all secret agents or spies lie as a matter of course and calling. But it’s also hoped, if not assumed, that our spies--the good spies--lie only to foreign governments, to the media, to the executive branch, to the American people but never, under any circumstances, to the U.S. Congress.

If a good American spy knows that something really rotten is going on--say, a U.S. Marine lieutenant colonel trafficking in arms with one unfriendly country while using the profits to provide weapons to the rebels of another unfriendly country--then our good spy is legally bound, when asked, to tell Congress all he knows about this neat idea.

If he doesn’t, he could be suspected of lying and find himself in federal court facing perjury charges. And this is exactly where Clair E. George, a respected 35-year veteran of the CIA, now finds himself at the end of a brilliant career that put him in charge of covert operations worldwide.

Apparently, George’s defense, much simplified, will be that he was doing his extremely difficult job as best he could and may have missed whatever devilment Col. Oliver L. North was up to. How this will go over with a Washington jury is impossible to predict--especially when one juror claims to have never heard of the CIA.

George’s problems are not endemic to the United States. Throughout Europe, the Middle East and in what used to be the Soviet Union, the Cold War’s end has turned the espionage industry inside out. Some agents are forsaking political espionage for the more lucrative industrial brand. Yet, Germany is still determined to try four top East German spies--but not famed spymaster Markus Wolf, who liked to plant his agents in former Chancellor Willy Brandt’s retinue. Marcus has fled to Russia and won’t return to Germany unless he gets immunity. Meanwhile, there are rumors in Britain, France and Italy that agents with mind-sets frozen by the Cold War will soon be fired or pensioned off.

In Germany itself, it’s expected that the I-was-only-doing-my-job defense will also be used in the trial of Erich Honecker, former leader of what was once the German Democratic Republic. Honecker has been indicted for manslaughter in the death of at least 49 East Germans who were killed while trying to sneak over or under the Berlin Wall.

Three months after the wall came down, in 1989, Honecker fled to Moscow where, at first, he was welcomed, or at least tolerated, until President Boris N. Yeltsin came to power in 1991. Yeltsin wanted nothing to do with him. So Honecker, who had once granted asylum to numerous Chileans fleeing the repressive Pinochet regime, called in a few markers and took refuge in Chile’s Moscow embassy.

After months of pressure on Chile by Bonn, Honecker was turned out of the embassy, flown back to Berlin and jailed in a Moabit prison cell, which he shared for a while with a 40-year-old Gypsy awaiting trial for armed robbery. Moabit prison is the same jail where the Nazis stuck Honecker in the 1930s, before sending him off to a concentration camp for 10 years.

Germans appear divided over what to do about Honecker--even though his dreaded Stasi secret police kept dossiers on at least 5 million of East Germany’s 18 million citizens. Some Germans seem most miffed by the $9 million Honecker is said to have embezzled from state funds to pay for imported big-ticket luxury items for himself and his cronies.

Honecker’s wife, Margot, was expected to return to Berlin with her husband. Instead, she flew to Chile to join her daughter. Even more unpopular than her husband--if that’s possible--Mrs. Honecker is said to have forced East Germans who made failed escape attempts to offer up their children for adoption.

There is speculation in Bonn and Berlin that Honecker will never come to trial because he knows too much rotten stuff about certain German and European politicians who, only five years ago, were rolling out red carpets to honor their fellow statesman.

But with a 40% unemployment rate in what was East Germany, most of its residents are far more interested in finding jobs than in following the trial of what one Leipziger called, “An old stupid man who should just go somewhere and die quietly.”

Honecker is a trophy of the Cold War’s end. All over Europe, aging secret agents have had their reasons for living snatched away virtually overnight. Yesterday’s spymeisters become today’s scapegoats, their only remaining weapons are the embarrassing secrets about their prosecutors, or the friends of their prosecutors, that may have been prudently squirreled away for just such an emergency.

If Honecker’s secrets are damaging enough--providing he has any--he might never come to trial and simply linger on in prison until he dies--or until he, his crimes and his secrets fade from memory and a new and younger German government gives him a cheap suit and 50 deutsche marks, opens the prison gate and tells him to get lost.

The case of George is far different and there’s virtually no comparison save for the common defense of I-was-only-doing-my-job. In years past, George would probably not have been brought to trial, so fearful was the government that the KGB might glean damaging information from such testimony--or that top secrets might be revealed or lives of valuable assets endangered. Such too-knowledgeable suspects have often been kept off witness stands before.

But if George did commit the crime of lying to Congress, he did so at a most inopportune time--when the Russian bear is in full retreat. This permitted Congress, shocked that anyone would ever lie to it, to demand justice.

Or, in the words of Lawrence E. Walsh, the Iran-Contra affair’s independent counsel: “It is not a crime to deceive the American public, as high officials in the Reagan Administration did for two years while conducting the Iran and Contra operations. But it is a crime to mislead, deceive and lie to Congress when, in fulfilling its legitimate oversight role, the Congress seeks to learn whether Administration officials are conducting the nation’s business in accordance with the law.”

The chief witness against George has been Alan D. Fiers Jr., who once worked under George at the CIA and is now a registered lobbyist for W.R. Grace & Co. Fiers admitted lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra mess. But in a plea-bargain arrangement, he agreed to cooperate with the prosecution and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

After he finished accusing George of lying to Congress about not knowing of North’s seamy enterprises, the tall, husky, balding Fiers, who once played football for Woody Hayes at Ohio State, began to weep.

His tears drew little sympathy from the aging spies who occupied the first two rows of the courtroom and were a kind of silent cheering section for George. Some of the older ex-secret agents were apparently veterans of World War II’s roistering Office of Special Services, the CIA’s precursor. A few of these living monuments wore hearing aids and carried canes.

Although most of the superannuated spies had come out of sympathy for George, others came out of curiosity, and some were there for the pure history of it--the first-ever opportunity to watch a pair of high-ranking ex-CIA officials call each other liars in a federal courtroom.

It’s expected that George will make use of what some are already calling “The Preoccupation Defense,” which goes something like this: I was so busy doing my terribly important, terribly demanding job all over the world that I never noticed any of Ollie North’s mischief. Another possibility is The Sheer Ignorance Defense, an interesting variation that goes: I was very, very busy doing my job and the Iran-Contra stuff was all run out of the White House and nobody in my shop knew anything about it except Bill Casey--and he’s dead, thank God.

George came to the CIA in 1955, at the height of the Cold War, and stayed on until it was over. He came to the agency when the old OSS swashbucklers still ruled. In time, he became a swashbuckler himself, rising to the top of the promotion ladder through ability, intelligence and, one hopes, attention to detail.

“He has that remarkable combination that the agency seeks,” retired Ambassador Richard Vieta once said. It’s “a personality which exudes trust and friendliness, but in fact is duplicitous as hell.”

Most administrations, Republican or Democrat, lie to Congress if they have any sense of self-preservation. Ronald Reagan lied to Congress time and again, and most of the members seemed to love it, even when they caught him at it.

Whether or not he’s acquitted, George, like Honecker, is a trophy of the Cold War’s end. And it’s safe to say that neither would be where they are today if the Russian bear hadn’t fled over the mountain.