I did not relish the prospect of briefing the FBI on the Tisler affair. There was more than a hint, in the way Hoover had handled the case, that he hoped we would fail to resolve the suspicions about a spy inside MI5, so that he could use it as a pretext for recommending to the President that the intelligence exchange with Britain be terminated. I hoped that the previous visits Hollis and I had made would do something to smooth my path.
I was accompanied by Harry Stone, the MI5 liaison officer in Washington. Harry was as genial a soul as you could ever meet. He had once been an Irish international rugby player, and shared with Hollis a love of the golf course and an almost professional handicap. Everyone liked Harry, primarily because he saw his job as basically a social one, but he was unsuited in temperament and intellect for the modern age of satellite and computer intelligence which was dawning in Washington in the late 1950s.
Harry hated meeting Hoover, and took a simple approach when a confrontation could not be avoided.
"Take a tip from me, Peter, old chap, let him do the talking, don't interrupt for God's sakes, and remember to say 'Thank you very much, Mr Hoover' when he's finished. I've booked us a nice table for lunch. We'll need it."
We swept through the archway at the front of the magnificent, triumphalist FBI mausoleum. We were met by Al Belmont, the head of FBI domestic intelligence, and his deputy, Bill Sullivan, who handled the Communist desk. (Sullivan was found dead in the mid-1970s while shooting duck in New England. He is thought to have been murdered. ) Belmont was a tough, old-fashioned "G-Man," as FBI men were once known, who had been with the Bureau from its earliest times. Sullivan was the brains to Belmont's brawn (but Belmont was no fool); both believed in the virtues of the stiletto rather than the Magnum. Belmont had many enemies, but I always got along with him. Like me, he had suffered a difficult childhood. His father was shot in a street brawl, and his mother worked day and night to save enough to put him through law school. Hard work and unswerving loyalty to "the old man" brought him to the top of the FBI.
But for all the outward toughness, and the seniority of their positions, both men were cowed by Hoover. Such unswerving loyalty was, I felt, positively unnatural. Of course, they admired Hoover for his achievements in the early years, when he turned a corrupt and incompetent organization into an efficient and feared crime-fighting force. But everyone knew Hoover suffered from God disease, and it seemed odd to me that they never acknowledged the fact, even privately.
I discussed the Tisler affair and the technical implications of RAFTER with both men for most of the day, until it was time to meet Hoover. We trooped down a maze of corridors, past an endless procession of Identikit young FBI officers, well scrubbed, very fit, well suited, closely cropped, and vacant-looking. The FBI offices always reminded me of sanitary clinics. Antiseptic white tiles shone everywhere. Workmen were always busy, constantly repainting, cleaning, and polishing. The obsession with hygiene reeked of an unclean mind.
Hoover's room was the last of four interconnecting offices. Belmont knocked, and entered the room. Hoover stood behind his desk, dressed in a piercing blue suit. He was taller and slimmer than he appeared in photographs, with wrinkled flesh which hung off his face in small drapes. He greeted me with a firm and joyless handshake.
Belmont began to describe the reason for my visit, but Hoover cut him off sharply.
"I've read the report, Al. I want to hear Mr. Wright tell me about it."
Hoover fixed me with coal-black eyes, and I began to outline the discovery of RAFTER. Almost at once, he interrupted me.
"I gather your Service is now satisfied about the intelligence provided by our Czech source...?"
I began to answer, but he swept me aside.
"Your security organizations enjoy many facilities here in Washington, Mr. Wright."
There was more than a hint of a threat in his voice.
"I have to advise the President of the United States when those facilities raise questions about our national security. I have to take a close personal interest in a case like this, particularly in view of the recent problems the United Kingdom has suffered in this area. I need to know I am on firm ground. Do I make myself clear?"
"Of course, sir, I understand perfectly..."
Harry Stone busily studied his shoelaces. Al Belmont and Bill Sullivan sat to one side of Hoover's desk, half hidden in shadow. I was on my own.
"I think you will find in my report..."
"My staff have digested your report, Mr. Wright. I am interested in the lessons you have learned."
Before I could answer, Hoover launched into a passionate diatribe about Western inadequacy in the face of the Communist onslaught. I agreed with many of the sentiments; it was just the manner of the telling that was objectionable. Inevitably the subject of Burgess and Maclean came up, Hoover sounding each syllable of their names with almost prurient venom.
"Now in the Bureau here, Mr. Wright, that sort of thing could not happen. My officers are thoroughly screened. There are lessons to be learned. Do I make myself clear?"
I nodded.
"Of course, Mr. Hoover," chimed Harry Stone.
Hoover fixed me with a sudden stare.
"Total vigilance, Mr. Wright. Total vigilance. The lights always burn here in Bureau headquarters."
He stood up abruptly, signaling the end of the meeting.
The day after my ordeal with Hoover, I lunched with James Angleton, the CIA Chief of Counterintelligence. We had met once before on my first trip to Washington in 1957, and I was struck then by his intensity. He had a razor-sharp mind and a determination to win the Cold War, not just to enjoy the fighting of it. Every nuance and complexity of his profession fascinated him, and he had a prodigious appetite for intrigue I liked him, and he gave enough hints to encourage me into thinking we could do business together.
Angleton's star was fast rising in Washington in the late 1950s, particularly after he obtained the secret text of Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin from his contacts in Israel. He was one of the original wartime OSS recruits, and was trained in the arts of counterespionage by Kim Philby at the old MI6 office in Ryder Street. The young Yale intellectual struck up an instant friendship with his pipe-smoking English tutor, and the relationship deepened when Philby was posted to Washington as Station Chief in 1949. Ironically it was Philby who first detected the obsession with conspiracy in the fledgling CIA Chief of Counterintelligence. Angleton quickly acquired a reputation among British Intelligence officers for his frequent attempts to manipulate to his own advantage the mutual hostility of MI5 and MI6.
I taxied over to Georgetown. I could see why so many Washington government officials lived there, with its elegant red brick houses, tree-lined streets, bookshops, and cafes. When I arrived at Harvey's, Angleton was already sitting at his table, a gaunt and consumptive figure, dressed in a gray suit, clutching a large Jack Daniel's in one hand and a cigarette in the other.