Former U.S. spies want to come in from the cold
By ALAN FREEMAN
WASHINGTON — They claim to be the spies who were left out in the cold by their handlers at the CIA. And now they’re fighting back.
Going by the pseudonyms of John Doe and his wife Jane, a pair of onetime defectors from a former Soviet bloc nation took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday in an effort to force the CIA to pay them the lifetime compensation they say they were promised years ago.
It’s a story worthy of a Cold War spy novel by John le Carré or Len Deighton, full of alleged coercion by the Central Intelligence Agency that led to a stint of espionage on behalf of the Americans and resettlement of the spies under new identities in the United States.
Years later, the “Does” assert they were left in the lurch by their CIA handlers when Mr. Doe lost his job at a bank and the couple needed cash to survive.
The CIA wrote him back that they appreciated his service but that “budget constraints” precluded any more payments.
As for the CIA, it doesn’t want to talk about the case, arguing that a Supreme Court ruling dating from a Civil War espionage case automatically bans the courts from hearing lawsuits over alleged espionage contracts.
In that case, the estate of William A. Lloyd sought to recover compensation for spying he had done behind Confederate lines on behalf of President Abraham Lincoln in 1861. The court threw the case out, saying the nature of the contract was secret for national-security purposes.
“Both employer and agent must have understood that the lips of the other were to be forever sealed respecting the relation of either to the matter.”
That same principle still exists, the government argues.
“There’s something about an espionage relationship that you understand you have no protected status under the law,” acting U.S. Solicitor-General Paul Clement told the court yesterday.
But the lawyer for the Does, David Burman, said the case is not about state secrets but about whether the executive branch of the U.S. government has the right to renege on a contractual arrangement.
According to Mr. Doe’s brief in the case, he was “a high-ranking diplomat” for a country considered an enemy of the United States during the Cold War.
He and his wife were posted to a third country, where they approached a U.S. official and asked to defect.
CIA agents then got involved and held the couple for 12 hours, allegedly using “intimidation and coercion” to turn them into spies, after which they were promised a haven in the United States.
The Does say they reluctantly agreed to become spies and eventually were brought to the United States, where they were given new identities and false backgrounds.
The Does were provided with housing, health care and an annual stipend reported to have started at $20,000 (U.S.) a year and peaked at $27,000.
Then Mr. Doe found a job at a bank and the payments began shrinking and finally disappeared.
In 1997, after a bank merger, Mr. Doe lost his job and went back to the CIA seeking resumption of the payments but was told there was no money in the espionage kitty for him.
Unable to find a job and attempting to cut his losses, Mr. Doe and his wife went back to their home country in the Eastern Bloc, but returned to the United States when they realized that they could face imprisonment or even the death penalty if their old spying activities were discovered.
They sued the CIA in 2000 and were successful in the lower courts, but the CIA appealed.
Wesley Wark, a historian and espionage expert at the University of Toronto, said in an interview that resettlement issues related to former spies have always been a major challenge for intelligence services.
Prof. Wark said many of these spies’ lives have been distorted by the clandestine work they have done, and they place a very high value on themselves to their masters, even when that value has declined.
Canada’s most famous spy, the Soviet defector Igor Gouzenko, had huge conflicts with his handlers over the years, Prof. Wark said.
“Igor Gouzenko was an absolute nightmare for the RCMP” as he made repeated demands for more money, more protection and more gratitude once he had been given a new identity after his post-Second-World-War defection.
Because nothing is written down in these arrangements, the personal relationship between the spy and his or her handler is essential. Prof. Wark suggested that in the case of the Does, their handlers have probably long since retired or even died, “so they have nobody to go to bat for them.
“I’m sure the case is unprecedented and I’m sure the CIA dislikes the publicity,” he said.
Richard Aldrich, an espionage expert at the University of Nottingham in Britain, said that defectors have a notoriously short shelf life for the intelligence services that give them a haven.
“Defectors are typically one-shot operations and their value declines very rapidly,” but the only way to persuade people to defect is to promise to take care of them for the rest of their lives.
“It’s actually very difficult to resettle someone from an Eastern bloc country inside Britain or the United States or Canada,” he said. “All of them have a great difficulty adjusting to a free society.”
But Prof. Aldrich said that he doesn’t see any problem for U.S. national security if the couple’s case is allowed to proceed, noting that a considerable amount of the information on the CIA’s Cold War operations is already in the public domain.
A ruling by the court is expected in June.
ATTENTION READERS
We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully InformedIn fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion.
About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy