Read Online The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal by David E. Hoffman - Free Book Online
Authors: David E. Hoffman
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USSR desk, from the lowest clerk to the crusty old chief, were all crying,” Olson remembered. “It was because we lost trigon . We knew trigon was gone.” 10
Peterson later learned that Ogorodnik had been arrested at his apartment. He was stripped to his underwear. Knowing the KGB would be eager to learn every detail of his work with the CIA, he offered to write a confession. They handed him his pen, and he bit down on the barrel with the cyanide capsule inside. He died on the spot, before the KGB could learn any more. 11
3
A Man Called Sphere
O n the long trip home, Marti Peterson struggled with the unanswered questions. She didn’t know why the case had fallen apart. Her surveillance detection run had been long and thorough, and she had seen no signs of the KGB, yet they were lying in wait at the bridge. Even after they grabbed her, they still didn’t know she was CIA; she had eluded them for two years. So how did they figure out the precise time and place for the dead drop? Was there a slipup? Was there surveillance she didn’t see? A communications leak? Did Ogorodnik make a mistake? Or something worse? 1
Peterson left Moscow quickly in the clothes she was wearing the night of the ambush. In Washington, she bought a new dress. On Monday, July 18, less than seventy-two hours after the debacle in Moscow, she walked up the steps to the main entrance of CIA headquarters at Langley. In her new identification photograph taken that morning, she is smiling, a bit hesitantly, her eyes clear and bright. The debriefings revived the same questions she had asked herself about Ogorodnik’s missed meetings, the deteriorating quality of his photographs, the inexplicable events in the forest, and the woman with the ponytail. Then, in a corridor at headquarters, she saw Fulton, her mentor, for the first time since he had left the Moscow station. They embraced and fought back tears, no words to speak the sorrow they felt.
On the seventh floor of CIA headquarters, Peterson entered the large office suite of Admiral Stansfield Turner, the new director of central intelligence, who after four months in the job was still finding his way. Turner had a very forceful public presence, but in private he was cordial and reserved. He sat down at the head of a long conference table, dismissed the CIA officer who had brought Peterson, and motioned to her to take a chair at his right. After she recounted everything that had happened, Turner asked her to accompany him to meet President Jimmy Carter at his regular briefing the next day. There would only be nine or ten minutes to tell her story.
On Tuesday, they entered the Oval Office. On the coffee table in front of Carter, Peterson placed a replica of the black asphalt chunk used to hold the secret messages for Ogorodnik and the CIA’s site sketches, to help illustrate what happened. The president was engrossed by her account. At one point, the national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, spoke up, filling in details, such as the name of the agent, Ogorodnik, and the name of the Moscow railroad bridge where she had been ambushed. Brzezinski, whose father had been a Polish aristocrat and diplomat in the anticommunist Polish government before World War II, devoted his career as a professor to chronicling the decline of Soviet communism. He knew perhaps better than anyone in the room how valuable and unusual this spy had been. “I greatly admire your courage,” Brzezinski told Peterson as she was leaving. Ten minutes had stretched to more than twenty. Peterson left the Oval Office alone and had to ask a White House secretary how to find her way out to the street. Later that day, Turner sent her a breezy, handwritten thank-you note. “You are the only person who has stood face-to-face with the KGB and the President of the United States all within three days,” he said. “I admire and congratulate you.”
But privately, Turner was brooding about her expulsion. The events in Moscow meant
Peterson later learned that Ogorodnik had been arrested at his apartment. He was stripped to his underwear. Knowing the KGB would be eager to learn every detail of his work with the CIA, he offered to write a confession. They handed him his pen, and he bit down on the barrel with the cyanide capsule inside. He died on the spot, before the KGB could learn any more. 11
3
A Man Called Sphere
O n the long trip home, Marti Peterson struggled with the unanswered questions. She didn’t know why the case had fallen apart. Her surveillance detection run had been long and thorough, and she had seen no signs of the KGB, yet they were lying in wait at the bridge. Even after they grabbed her, they still didn’t know she was CIA; she had eluded them for two years. So how did they figure out the precise time and place for the dead drop? Was there a slipup? Was there surveillance she didn’t see? A communications leak? Did Ogorodnik make a mistake? Or something worse? 1
Peterson left Moscow quickly in the clothes she was wearing the night of the ambush. In Washington, she bought a new dress. On Monday, July 18, less than seventy-two hours after the debacle in Moscow, she walked up the steps to the main entrance of CIA headquarters at Langley. In her new identification photograph taken that morning, she is smiling, a bit hesitantly, her eyes clear and bright. The debriefings revived the same questions she had asked herself about Ogorodnik’s missed meetings, the deteriorating quality of his photographs, the inexplicable events in the forest, and the woman with the ponytail. Then, in a corridor at headquarters, she saw Fulton, her mentor, for the first time since he had left the Moscow station. They embraced and fought back tears, no words to speak the sorrow they felt.
On the seventh floor of CIA headquarters, Peterson entered the large office suite of Admiral Stansfield Turner, the new director of central intelligence, who after four months in the job was still finding his way. Turner had a very forceful public presence, but in private he was cordial and reserved. He sat down at the head of a long conference table, dismissed the CIA officer who had brought Peterson, and motioned to her to take a chair at his right. After she recounted everything that had happened, Turner asked her to accompany him to meet President Jimmy Carter at his regular briefing the next day. There would only be nine or ten minutes to tell her story.
On Tuesday, they entered the Oval Office. On the coffee table in front of Carter, Peterson placed a replica of the black asphalt chunk used to hold the secret messages for Ogorodnik and the CIA’s site sketches, to help illustrate what happened. The president was engrossed by her account. At one point, the national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, spoke up, filling in details, such as the name of the agent, Ogorodnik, and the name of the Moscow railroad bridge where she had been ambushed. Brzezinski, whose father had been a Polish aristocrat and diplomat in the anticommunist Polish government before World War II, devoted his career as a professor to chronicling the decline of Soviet communism. He knew perhaps better than anyone in the room how valuable and unusual this spy had been. “I greatly admire your courage,” Brzezinski told Peterson as she was leaving. Ten minutes had stretched to more than twenty. Peterson left the Oval Office alone and had to ask a White House secretary how to find her way out to the street. Later that day, Turner sent her a breezy, handwritten thank-you note. “You are the only person who has stood face-to-face with the KGB and the President of the United States all within three days,” he said. “I admire and congratulate you.”
But privately, Turner was brooding about her expulsion. The events in Moscow meant
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