28

AS THE PRELUDE TO A COUPLE OF BAD WEEKS FOR MY FATHER AND FOR ME, Nikita Khrushchev took off his shoe one afternoon at the United Nations and began to hammer on his desk with it. That same date, October 12, Robert Maheu received word in the morning that the pills to poison Fidel Castro had reached their final destination in Havana. I had an odd reaction. I began to wonder whether some mute sensor in the Premier’s brain was telepathic and Khrushchev had stirred into anger without quite knowing why. If such speculation came under the head of what my father called “freestyle thinking—costs nothing, accomplishes nothing,” I could still hear the echo of that shoe. In my ear, it tolled like a bell announcing the end of Castro’s life; in advance, I mourned him and concluded that Castro had betrayed something grand in himself. Such contemplation of one’s enemies produces rich melancholy.

Of course, he was not exactly dead, not yet, and my work continued, and my nights with Modene. I never slept during those weeks without expecting a phone to awaken me with an announcement of Castro’s demise, but the phone never rang.

At the end of the third week in October, a letter, via pouch, came from my father. It was not Hunt’s habit to pass by my cubicle first thing in the morning, but the old Chief-of-Station instinct may have been working. Hunt, in fact, was sitting in my chair, the letter held between two fingers as I came in. Standing up, he passed it over to me wordlessly. The heading read: ROBERT CHARLES EYES ONLY.

“May I ask whom this is from?”

It was within his prerogative to ask. Technically speaking, anything that passed under my eyes belonged to his eyes as well. I might run a small and secret operation, but I was not supposed to keep it secret from him, not on demand.

“Oh, well, it’s Cal’s,” I said. “He likes to correspond in this fashion. Uses it for personal correspondence.”

“Is that really so, Robert?” He called me Robert whenever we were at Zenith. I called him Ed. Howard deemed it necessary.

“It’s true, Ed.”

“Well, it’s also unheard of. I could bring your father up on charges.”

“What are you saying? Come on!”

“I wouldn’t, of course. But a Senior Officer has to set an example.”

“I won’t pass that remark on to him.”

“No, of course not. It’s something for me to bring up with the man if I feel so inclined.”

“I wouldn’t bring it up at all.”

Hunt looked furious at my impertinence, and then he shrugged. “One more rogue elephant on my watch.”

“Nothing to worry about,” I said. “It is personal correspondence.”

When he was gone, I read the letter. Many another important message has become no more than a line of summary in my memory, but I recall all of this letter. It is burned into my brain by the livid attention I gave to it; I could not help but shudder at the thought of Howard reading it.

Oct. 25, 1960

Start BONANZA on RETREAD. No need for personal contact yet. Just have him dig into RETREAD’s accounts. If, as I expect, they are spread over several banks, BONANZA may have to contact a few friends in rival institutions. This is not an uncommon practice among young bankers, I can tell you. (They never know where they’ll be looking for work next.)

That, son, will constitute the good news. Now, prepare yourself for a shocker. But first, let me describe the messenger. Richard Bissell, one’s immediate boss these days, is an impressive figure of a man. Not for physicality, mind you. He is a big man, but I could bounce him off a wall. It is his mentality. He is at home in fine and contemplative halls of mentality. You are familiar with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on 110th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in New York? Of course you are. St. John’s is a wondrous center for meditating upon the monumentality of thought itself. And to me, Dickie Bissell is the embodiment of that spirit. I want you to picture him. He is six feet six at least, imposing in height even for you or me, and, for fact, when you are sitting down with him, he still seems somewhat overhead. At a desk he will listen to person after person most attentively while he bends paperclips slowly and thoroughly in his long white fingers. Otherwise, he gives you all his attention, his head towering above his pale long hands—Rick, I have to tell you they are as white as good breeding itself, an odd remark to make, except that when I was a boy, that’s how I saw good breeding—pale, long hands. Bissell keeps toying with paperclips as if they are tactics and operations, little endeavors down on the plain, so to speak, particularities, and he, great massive white man, hovers above, great white massive brain power embodied in white, puffy establishment body—Lord, he is the archetypal dean of Harvard, huge, gentle, wholly removed from all the goddamned dirt of operations. His features are delicate. Son, he’s almost beautiful in the chiseled perfection of his chin, his lips, his nostrils, and the shaping of his eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

Well, isn’t the above just as pretty a piece of writing as I’ve ever sent your way? Did I tell you that for a year after World War II, I thought of trying to become a writer, then gave up? All that rich personal material from OSS, but I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. Besides, writing gets you looking at your wife out of the corner of your eye. About the time Mary would remark, “It’s getting to be picnic-weather time again,” I would be ready to add, “she said,” so I decided to put my art into my letters, ha, ha.

At any rate, here I am resolutely straying from the point. I have reason: Bissell, whom I obviously could revere (if only he didn’t have a bit of potbelly, but a thunderously good boss all the same), called me over from Quarters Eye to K Building this morning and handed me a memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to Richard Bissell.

During recent conversations with several friends, Giancana stated that Fidel Castro was to be done away with very shortly. When doubt was expressed regarding this statement, Giancana reportedly assured those present that Castro’s assassination would occur in November. Moreover, he allegedly indicated that he had already met with the assassin-to-be on three occasions. Giancana claimed that everything has been perfected for the killing of Castro, and that the “assassin” had arranged with a girl not further described to drop a “pill” in some food or drink of Castro’s.

Bissell looked at me and said, “All right, Cal, how did Mr. Hoover obtain such information?”

Son, if you ever get in one of these situations—sooner or later, we all do—start by enumerating all personnel in the know. It gives you time to think. It also separates out the likely possibilities. I started by naming the Director, which produced a baleful look from Bissell. “The Director,” he said, “is not associated with this. Begin with me.”

I didn’t argue. After Bissell, I came next. We could trust ourselves. Then Sheffield Edwards. Ditto. It was Bullseye Burns’ turn. He had been an FBI man but could probably be vouched for. Besides, he had not been at the Fontainebleau.

“Your son,” said Bissell, “is touchy ground for us. But I will accept your evaluation. Can you vouch for him altogether?”

“Yessir,” I said. “One hundred percent. That is one good young man.” (I did not tell him that the family vice is hyperbole.)

Which left Maheu and our three Italians.

“I see no reason for Maheu to play a double game with us,” said Bissell. “It might sweeten future associations for him over at the Bureau, but look at how much he loses here if the job doesn’t come off.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said.

“Is Roselli sincere in desiring citizenship?”

“Maheu swears to that.”

Which left Giancana and Trafficante. We agreed that I needed a sit-down with Maheu to go over their bona fides.

The key to the problem is, how much has Hoover really picked up? Bissell’s thesis is that so long as the FBI does not know of our relation to Giancana, Hoover’s memo cannot hurt us. Yet why is Buddha sharing his information with the Agency? Does he have more, or does he wish us to believe he has more?

When Maheu came up to Washington, I learned that Giancana has a girlfriend named Phyllis McGuire. She’s one of the McGuire Sisters, who sing on TV for Arthur Godfrey. There was some sort of gutter splash a year and more ago when Julius LaRosa and Dorothy McGuire were getting a little too open about their hanky-panky, at least for Godfrey’s taste—that monumental hypocrite! Godfrey couldn’t live without fast and fancy sex is what I happen to know, but won’t let his minions enjoy same. Remember? He said Julius LaRosa was lacking in humility. If this country ever goes under, it will be for needless, egregious hypocrisy. At any rate, the McGuire Sisters are lively girls apparently. Phyllis owed, I was told, a marker in the neighborhood of $100,000 at the gaming tables of the Desert Inn; Giancana was gallant enough to tear it up for her. What a nice way for a romance to begin! Our Giancana, Maheu now assures me, is close to insanely jealous of Phyllis McGuire. It seems the lady has a soft spot for one Dan Rowan of the comic team of Rowan and Martin—can you keep up with these people? Maheu’s first hypothesis is that Giancana told Phyllis about the Castro project in order to impress her; then Phyllis, in her turn, told Rowan. Somewhere in all those links, the FBI has a taping, and it could be on McGuire.

Now to Maheu’s backup thesis: Giancana is deliberately shooting his mouth off to any number of cronies. Reason: He wishes to sabotage the operation. Motive? Maheu shrugs. Giancana might be advertising his ties to the Agency in order to get the Department of Justice off his back. He is certainly not to be trusted.

Next comes Maheu’s read on Trafficante: For years, Santos was the mob’s number-one man for gambling operations in Havana, and still has the best networks there. After the revolution Castro kept him in jail with a suite of rooms, a TV set, visitors, special food. It sounds like one hell of a protracted negotiation. Trafficante’s claim is that he promised the moon to Castro, but has not delivered since he got back to Tampa. So, he is anxious to eliminate the big Cuban before the compliment is returned. All the same, I suspect that Castro is doing business with Trafficante, and Toto Barbaro is in on it. Just an intuition here, but I have come to trust such instincts.

Let us get to your role. I have, as you may have noticed, more than filled your need to know. Do take exceptional care of this letter. Indeed, give it to the shredder if you do not have an endroit. Or get one. They’re worth the expenditure. For years, I confess to you, I’ve had a safe deposit box in a remote little bank up north. Another in Boston. One in Washington, of course. Think on these lines. If you can preserve my letters, do so. Some decade, long after I’m gone, Agency barriers may come down, and you might want to do a memoir of your old man. Assuming he’s worth the portrait. If so, these letters will help to flesh it out. For today, and this week, however, I believe you do have real need to know all this, since I will be less easy to reach. My next ten days have to be spent on direct military matters. I can tell you that working with Joint Chiefs staff is about as agreeable as transferring from Yale to Indiana State.

In my absence, stay close to Maheu. He and I came separately to the same conclusion: We need a tap on Phyllis McGuire’s phone in Las Vegas. It will enable us to know whether she is witting. Maheu suggested the Agency do the job, but I cannot chance any of our people being implicated should something go wrong, so I told Maheu that the ball, like it or not, was in his court. After all, what kind of private detective is he?

Later

Ay, caramba! Maheu called to tell me Giancana is going to quit unless we lay in a tap on Rowan. Sammy is obsessed with McGuire’s possible infidelity. He must find out. Why not put the tap on McGuire, you may ask, but my assumption is that our guy doesn’t want his calls to Phyllis monitored. Rowan, therefore, it must be. Maheu next proceeded to entertain me with an imitation of Giancana expressing his sentiments: “If this tap comes in with the goods, I will cut Rowan’s balls off and glue them to his chin. I will give him a fucking goatee to go with his mustache.” “Is it,” asks Maheu, “Rowan or Martin who has the mustache?” “Who gives a fuck?” answers Giancana. “I’ll cut off his nose and shove it up his ass.”

I’m left with the cold assessment that this is a risky caper. You will find, I think, that the larger one’s stake on a job, the more a surrealistic element is likely to pop in. Here we are waiting on tiptoe, day after day, for news that the big tree has fallen in Cuba. Yet, in the midst of such unholy anxiety, up pops the little Eyetalian demon and swears to become a veritable Abaddon—O ye angels of the bottomless pits! I hate everything about this Giancana business. My disaster warning system (which used to advise me from a half mile off that an irate husband was on his way back to the very connubial bed I was in the act of despoiling) now tells me to beware of this one. Rick, stay on top of it! Maheu is only intermittently forthcoming, so don’t hesitate to ask tough questions. Get him to review his safety factors before we give the go-ahead on the job. Fill me in directly by pouch.

Yours from sleepless Halifax

Oct. 28, 1960

Great Caliph Halifax—

I don’t know if Maheu is a bad man or a fine man. I have seen a good deal of him in the last couple of days, but he is simply beyond my reach. A ponderous yet velvet dimension resides out there. One knows when one is outmatched.

I limit myself, therefore, to focusing each new question on the gap left by Maheu’s answer to the previous one. We make progress, but I am sure he sees me as some sort of pill to be taken on the hour.

Nonetheless, I have learned this much: Trafficante and Giancana are certainly devoting time to the Havana op. Sammy, of course, has a good deal of other business here in Miami, as does Traff in Tampa, so it isn’t as if they labor full time in our interest. Still, our agent has arrived in Havana with the medicine. Much depends on whether this former girlfriend can become Fidel’s sweetheart again. Her American-based boyfriend, Frank Fiorini (who fought with Castro in the Sierra Maestra and is now associated with some very hardcore hoodlum Cuban exiles in Miami), has passed on to Maheu the information that El Caudillo sleeps heavily after making love, snores, and in the past was not wholly satisfactory to the girl’s olfactory senses. (At least so she has told Fiorini.) It seems Castro’s cigar breath is offensive.

God, we hang on these details as if they were the relics of a saint!

I give the above to bring you up to date on our off-shore venture. Now, for Vegas. I have imparted your concerns to Maheu and he assures me that the job will be relatively safe. For one thing, we will not tap the telephone. A spike-mike, no larger than an eight-penny nail, inserted in the baseboard near the phone will record whatever the target says on the phone, and in addition we will hear any conversation that takes place in the room. In addition, we are not breaking the federal and Nevada statutes that forbid wiretaps. No law exists against eavesdropping from an adjoining room, even if it is by way of a spike-mike.

Perfect, I tell him, but what if the man doing the installation is caught?

Maheu gave me an interesting rundown on the precautions to be taken. For one thing, the operator will occupy a suite in the same hotel. He will remove the lock to the door between his living room and bedroom, and bring it to a selected locksmith in Vegas who can then fashion a master key for all the guest rooms in the hotel. Now our operator can knock on the target’s door, and if there is no answer, open it. He will have an assistant standing by to whom he will hand over the master key. The assistant will spill a few drops of whiskey on the operator’s suit, and take off down the hall while our operator enters target’s room and proceeds to make the installation, after which he sets the door button on lock and leaves. If for any reason target should happen to enter the room while the operator is there, the cover story will go as follows: Our operator is drunk (indeed he reeks of booze), he doesn’t know how he got into the room, the door must have been open, he displays his own room key, and wanders out. If it is a house detective who interrupts him, the routine will be similar except that a hundred-dollar bill is likely to change hands.

“What happens,” I asked Maheu, “if security comes in suddenly and there is our man on the floor with all his tools out?”

“That is a contingency which a skilled operator would not allow to evolve,” said Maheu. “His tools are small and carried in loops on the inside of his vest. The drill is no thicker than your finger, and the screwdrivers have flat handles. It’s a jeweler’s kit, you could say. Only one tool is kept out at a time.”

“What about sawdust?”

“Carefully gathered up as soon as it is created, then disposed of via the toilet fixtures.”

“Couldn’t the operator be on his knees,” I ask, “using a drill on the baseboard just at the moment security comes in?”

“Not at all. The door to target’s room will be on the chain. No one, therefore, would be able to enter without a chain-cutter. Our operator will have time to pick up his tool, stow it on his person, go to the door, unhook the chain, and commence impersonating a drunk.”

“But,” I persist, “if there is a body search, the tools will be discovered.”

“Yes, but a body search is not the most likely of contingencies.”

“Still, it could happen.”

“There are no final guarantees.”

“What would eventuate if there is discovery?”

“Well, there can be no legal charge against the operator for the spike-mike. The case comes down to breaking and entering. Since neither the lock nor the door is broken, a good Vegas lawyer ought to be able to get it thrown out of court. Of course, the operator has to stand fast. We’ll get a good fellow.”

Maheu is planning to use the DuBois Detective Agency in Miami. The operator will be a man named Arthur Balletti. Neither DuBois nor Balletti is to know any more than that they have been hired by Maheu, and he has provided them with the target’s room number.

Maheu’s precautions do impress me. Given our need to keep abreast of who is telling what to whom, I would vote for a go-ahead. Under the circumstances, reasonably safe.

ROBERT CHARLES