The Soviet Ambassador’s request was unusual, highly so, in that it was repeated, tough, and insistent Although representing a supposedly revolutionary country, Soviet ambassadors are usually meticulous in their observance of diplomatic procedures, originally devised by Western capitalist nations.
David Lawrence repeatedly asked over the telephone whether Ambassador Konstantin Kirov could not talk to him, as U.S. Secretary of State. Kirov replied that his message was for President Matthews personally, extremely urgent, and finally that it concerned matters Chairman Maxim Rudin personally wished to bring to President Matthews’s attention.
The President granted Kirov his face-to-face, and the long black limousine with the hammer-and-sickle emblem swept into the White House grounds during the lunch hour.
It was a quarter to seven in Europe, but only a quarter to two in Washington. The envoy was shown straight to the Oval Room by the Secretary of State, to face a President who was puzzled, intrigued, and curious. The formalities were observed, but neither party’s mind was on them.
“Mr. President,” said Kirov, “I am instructed by a personal order from Chairman Maxim Rudin to seek this urgent interview with you. I am instructed to relay to you his personal message, without variation. It is:
“In the event that the hijackers and murderers Lev Mishkin and David Lazareff are freed from jail and released from their just deserts, the USSR will not be able to sign the Treaty of Dublin in the week after next, or at any time at all. The Soviet Union will reject the treaty permanently.”
President Matthews stared at the Soviet envoy in stunned amazement. It was several seconds before he spoke.
“You mean, Maxim Rudin will just tear it up?”
Kirov was ramrod-stiff, formal, unbending.
“Mr. President, that is the first part of the message I have been instructed to deliver to you. It goes on to say that if the nature or contents of this message are revealed, the same reaction from the USSR will apply.”
When he was gone, William Matthews turned helplessly to Lawrence.
“David, what the hell is going on? We can’t just bully the West German government into reversing its decision without explaining why.”
“Mr. President, I think you are going to have to. With respect, Maxim Rudin has just left you no alternative.”
PRESIDENT WILLIAM MATTHEWS sat stunned by the suddenness, the unexpectedness, and the brutality of the Soviet reaction. He waited while his CIA Director, Robert Benson, and his national security adviser, Stanislaw Poklewski, were sent for.
When the pair joined the Secretary of State in the Oval Office, Matthews explained the burden of the visit from Ambassador Kirov.
“What the hell are they up to?” demanded the President.
None of his three principal advisers could come up with an answer. Various suggestions were put forward, notably that Maxim Rudin had suffered a reverse within his own Politburo and could not proceed with the Treaty of Dublin, and the Freya affair was simply his excuse for getting out of signing.
The idea was rejected by mutual consent. Without the treaty the Soviet Union would receive no grain, and they were at their last few truckloads. It was suggested the dead Aeroflot pilot, Captain Rudenko, represented the sort of loss of face the Kremlin could not stomach. This, too, was rejected. International treaties are not torn up because of dead pilots.
The Director of Central Intelligence summed up the feelings of everybody after an hour.
“It just doesn’t make sense, and yet it must. Maxim Rudin would not react like a madman unless he had a reason, a reason we don’t know.”
“That still doesn’t get us out from between two appalling alternatives,” said President Matthews. “Either we let the release of Mishkin and Lazareff go through, and lose the most important disarmament treaty of our generation, and witness war within a year, or we use our clout to block that release, and subject Western Europe to the biggest ecological disaster of this generation.”
“We have to find a third choice,” said David Lawrence. “But in God’s name, where?”
“There is only one place to look,” replied Poklewski. “Inside Moscow. The answer lies inside Moscow somewhere. I do not believe we can formulate a policy aimed at avoiding both the alternative disasters unless we know why Maxim Rudin has reacted in this way.”
“I think you’re referring to the Nightingale,” Benson cut In. “There just isn’t the time. We’re not talking about weeks, or even days. We have only hours. I believe, Mr. President, that you should seek to speak personally with Maxim Rudin on the direct line. Ask him, as President to President, why he is taking this attitude over two Jewish hijackers.”
“And if he declines to give his reason?” asked Lawrence. “He could have given a reason through Kirov. Or sent a personal letter. ...”
President Matthews made up his mind.
“I am calling Maxim Rudin,” he said. “But if he will not take my call or declines to give me an explanation, we will have to assume he is himself under intolerable pressures of some kind within his own circle. So while I am waiting for the call, I am going to entrust Mrs. Carpenter with the secret of what has just happened here and ask for her help through Sir Nigel Irvine and the Nightingale. In the last resort I will call Chancellor Busch in Bonn and ask him to give me more time.”
When the caller asked for Ludwig Jahn personally, the switchboard operator at Tegel Jail was prepared to cut him off. There had been numerous press calls seeking to speak with specific officers on the staff in order to elicit details on Mishkin and Lazareff. The operator had her orders: no calls.
But when the caller explained he was Jahn’s cousin and that Jahn was to have attended his daughter’s wedding the following day at noon, the operator softened. Family was different. She put the call through; Jahn took it from his office.
“I think you remember me,” the voice told Jahn.
The officer remembered him well—the Russian with the labor-camp eyes.
“You shouldn’t have called me here,” he whispered hoarsely. “I can’t help you. The guards have been trebled, the shifts changed. I am on shift permanently now, sleeping here in the office until further notice—those are the orders. They are unapproachable now, those two men.”
“You had better make an excuse to get out for an hour,” said the voice of Colonel Kukushkin. “There’s a bar four hundred meters from the staff gate.” He named the bar and gave its address. Jahn did not know it, but he knew the street. “In one hour,” said the voice. There was a click.
It was eight P.M. in Berlin, and quite dark.
The British Prime Minister had been taking a quiet supper with her husband in the private apartments atop 10 Downing Street when she was summoned to accept a personal call from President Matthews. She was back at her desk when the call came through. The two government leaders knew each other well, and had met a dozen times since Britain’s first woman premier came to office. Face-to-face they used Christian names, but even though the super-secure call across the Atlantic could not be eavesdropped, there was an official record made, so they stayed with formalities.
In careful, succinct terms. President Matthews explained the message he had received from Maxim Rudin via his Ambassador in Washington. Joan Carpenter was stunned.
“In heaven’s name, why?” she asked.
“That’s my problem, ma’am,” came the Southern drawl from across the Atlantic. “There is no explanation. None at all. Two more things. Ambassador Kirov advised me that if the content of Rudin’s message ever became public knowledge, the same consequences to the Treaty of Dublin would still apply. I may count on your discretion?”
“Implicitly,” she replied. “The second thing?”