Chapter 3 started of with the CIA's expression of joy towards the knowledge that Kuklinski was able to offer them. Kuklinski sent a letter to the CIA saying that he "wanted to be sure he was not taken alive and asked for 'a pill, which would help me to resolve the matter in a critical moment'" (67). Gull, Kuklinski's given code name, was asking for a suicide pill and he reiterates this desire in later conversations, saying, "he would rather die the death of 'a silent hero' and not confess any details..." (86). Kuklinski realizes the gravity of his situation and that he cannot give away any hint towards his secret dealings. His efforts would hopefully reward his country in the end, and he needed the pill so that, if the time was necessary, he could end his life quickly and painlessly.
The rest of this section focused on techniques that the CIA developed to be able to pass on packages of importance to their agents, or double agents, without those agents being caught and "extinguished". The CIA needed techniques to keep Kuklinski alive and the basic techniques of safe drops and invisible ink were starting to fail. This was due to tightened security by the secret service in Poland, East Germany, and the rest of the Soviet territory. These methods that were developed by David Forden and they included the brush pass and car pass. The brush pass was when a CIA employee brings a package under something such as a raincoat and distracts any possible onlookers by shifting the coat to the other arm as he hands off the package to the agent. Forden's main job was to find the routes of the SB and KGB, the Polish and Soviet secret service. He found patterns that did not suit the brush pass and thus developed the car pass. “Forden had notice as he drove around Warsaw that the SB tended to stay sufficiently behind him that if he made a right turn, there was a short gap before he saw the SB car make the same turn. Within that gap, he felt, there was enough time to make a quick handoff to a source through the car window” (81). These passes were made successfully to Kuklinski and other agents in Poland shortly after it was authorized. These were the precautions that Gull and the CIA were taking to make sure that Gull would survive for the longest period of time without being found and, most likely, executed. They had individuals specifically designed to drive in a car with American plates and moniter the SB and KGB's patterns.
This is the extent to which the CIA went to keep Kuklinski safe and operable, and it's pretty amazing.
Weiser, Benjamin. A Secret Life. 1st. New York: PublicAffairs, 2004.
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2 comments:
I think you did a good job explaining the extent the CIA would go to, to keep their country safe. Having to invent new passes and being willing to commit suicide must be extremely hard. I now have a better appreciation for the things they have to go through.
You chose a great quote to show what great lengths this spy will go to protect his country. I was very interested to learn the CIA uses such tactics as invisible ink. Great job I am interested to learn the rest of the story.
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