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Painting: Papa Duke |
Flashback to January 22nd, 1988, the lobby of the Georgetown Inn, Washington D.C.
A figure with
a tan Burberry raincoat draped over his arm sits waiting to meet me. He stands and smiles broadly when I enter;
we shake hands and enter the restaurant for a chat over lunch.
Clair
George, then 57 years old, was in the process of leaving the Central
Intelligence Agency.
He had worked in the CIA's clandestine division for over 30 years and risen to its most coveted top job as Deputy Director for Operations.
He had worked in the CIA's clandestine division for over 30 years and risen to its most coveted top job as Deputy Director for Operations.
I was a 33
year-old literary agent; my specialty, packaging books by Washington insiders.
(I had found Clair through Jack Smith, a former CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence, who in retirement had turned to penning novels.)
(I had found Clair through Jack Smith, a former CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence, who in retirement had turned to penning novels.)
Clair had recently been in the news
in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal; his marginal involvement in that
arms-for-hostages operation had cost him his job.
You’d see photos of Oliver North and Richard Secord in The Washington Post, but Clair’s picture would always be a generic silhouette, as if to confirm the authenticity of his profession.
You’d see photos of Oliver North and Richard Secord in The Washington Post, but Clair’s picture would always be a generic silhouette, as if to confirm the authenticity of his profession.
The mystery photo now had a
face:
Bland doughy facial features, with a nose and mouth that resembled Marshall Matt Dillon (James Arness) from TV’s Gunsmoke; graying red hair, ruddy features and sparkling blue eyes. (A decade later, those eyes, which had seen so much, would dull from macular degeneration.)
Clair was about 5’9” and had the air of a man who could fit in anywhere without being noticed, unless he chose to be.
Bland doughy facial features, with a nose and mouth that resembled Marshall Matt Dillon (James Arness) from TV’s Gunsmoke; graying red hair, ruddy features and sparkling blue eyes. (A decade later, those eyes, which had seen so much, would dull from macular degeneration.)
Clair was about 5’9” and had the air of a man who could fit in anywhere without being noticed, unless he chose to be.
Naturally
curious, Clair was willing to meet me. He wanted to know all about my involvement
in the book publishing business, and what, specifically, I had in mind for him. He was funny, charming, and disarming.
I later
learned that the only reason he met me was because my pitch had amused his
wife, Mary, who acted as his shield during the first Iran-Contra news
frenzy. She was his telephone call
screener and front door gatekeeper. A
couple of national security correspondents from major news organizations had
even reduced themselves to threats when she would not allow them through: cooperate
with me, they told her, or else.
Mary
gave them short shrift as only Mary could.
Clair rarely spoke with the media.
Period.
But my pitch
was this:
How about writing a Spy’s Guide to Europe?
How about writing a Spy’s Guide to Europe?
Mary
thought my idea was charming. The gate
opened.
Mary and Clair had met at CIA
headquarters, where, as a young woman, she had worked as a secretary. He was immediately smitten by her, and barged
into her office to say, “I need to talk to you about this report. Over lunch.”
Mary left
the CIA upon marrying Clair; some of their happiest years were spent in Paris,
France, to which Clair was posted as a young CIA officer.
I explained
to Clair how book packaging worked:
I would help him write a detailed proposal, which I would submit to editors that specialized in the nonfiction espionage genre at five big publishing houses. We would, I was confident, be offered a contract, and Clair would write a book. If he needed a ghostwriter, this could be arranged.
I would help him write a detailed proposal, which I would submit to editors that specialized in the nonfiction espionage genre at five big publishing houses. We would, I was confident, be offered a contract, and Clair would write a book. If he needed a ghostwriter, this could be arranged.
Clair said
he would think about it.
Many months
later, we met again, this time for lunch at the swank Hay-Adams Hotel on Lafayette Square across
from the White House.
It was a good
meeting, as Clair was fine company, with an easy laugh and a great sense of
humor.
But it seemed he would never produce a tell-any, let alone a tell-all. Self-promotion was anathema to Clair. He truly was the perfect spy.
But it seemed he would never produce a tell-any, let alone a tell-all. Self-promotion was anathema to Clair. He truly was the perfect spy.
I was about
to move to Monaco, on the French Riviera, in search of new adventure, so it
hardly mattered to me anymore; I was happy just to have made the acquaintance
of this legendary spymaster.
In time, we
would travel to Europe together, on over twenty occasions, often aboard
Concorde, on assignment for our clients.
On every trip, whether during the coldest of winters, or once, to Santa
Fe, New Mexico, where it was 80 degrees and sunny, Clair always took his
Burberry trench coat.
Clair
George eschewed shopping. He certainly
was not self-indulgent—except when it came to Scotch whiskey, red wine and
bacon-cheeseburgers—and he may well have been the least materialistic person I ever
met, aside from my father. He did not
wear jewelry, not even a wedding band; to tell the time he wore a cheap, large-faced
round quartz wristwatch.
As far as I
can tell, Clair never stepped foot into any shopping mall in the Greater
Washington Area. If he needed a new
garment, he probably got it as a Christmas or birthday gift from his wife. And if he desperately needed new togs, he had
but one destination: Brooks Brothers,
which, conveniently, had a shop in Chevy Chase, a mile away from the George
residence.
Although
born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and raised in Pittsburgh, Clair became a
creature of Washington D.C. He wore the
uniform: button-down shirt (white or
blue), khaki trousers, and navy blue blazer, anchored with cordovan
loafers.
There was nothing pretentious
or fancy about his dress; he didn’t place a hankie in his blazer pocket. Clair once told me that, in all his life,
he’d never worn a pair of jeans. And he
was forever proud that he had once, between postings, driven his family (wife
and two young daughters) across the United States in an old Volkswagen Beetle.
During our
travels in Europe, Clair would window shop, if only because I window-shopped, while walking to and
from hotels and meetings. I once got him
to join me in the purchase of bespoke shoes at Foster & Son on Jermyn
Street in London. We had just landed a
billionaire client and we felt good about ourselves. It was the only self-indulgent purchase I ever
saw him make and, truth be known, I pushed him into it.
The
beautiful calfskin wingtips took three months and three fittings to cobble, at
a cost of about $1500.
When Clair finally got these spectacular shoes home to his modest
Westgate neighborhood in Bethesda, Maryland, he was so ashamed of himself over what
they’d cost, he told no one of their existence and never wore them; instead, he
hid them on a shelf inside his closet.
Clair never
forgot his humble roots, hailing from a poor coalmining town. He lost his father suddenly when he was a
boy, and always remembered the moment he and his sister were awakened by their
mother and told their dad had died. She
raised them by herself.
Clair became a
jazz drummer, joined the army, and trained at language school in Monterey,
California.
The Korean War ended just before he was scheduled to ship out and commence interrogation duty.
The Korean War ended just before he was scheduled to ship out and commence interrogation duty.
So instead,
Clair joined the Central Intelligence Agency, which was, in the mid 1950s, still in its infancy.
It would not have been an easy ride
for him, as the agency had become home to mostly silver-spooned Ivy-Leaguers.
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Aston Rowant, Oxfordshire, 1986 Photo: Erik Russell |
My old
friend Miles Copeland, an old boy from Alabama, once told me the reason he left
the agency soon after joining it on the heels of service in its wartime
predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, was because he felt insecure and
out of place surrounded by Yankees from Harvard and Yale.
But Clair
persevered and adapted to the ways of the privileged class, whose ranks so vastly
outnumbered him.
At CIA, he found his
niche.
Innately secretive, with
self-taught charisma, Clair was born to be a spy and a spymaster.
As he rose through the bureaucracy, proving his abilities again and again (and his courage, serving as station chief in Athens after his predecessor Richard Welch was assassinated), he lived by this creed:
“Keep them laughing half the time, scared of you the other half, and always keep them guessing.”
As he rose through the bureaucracy, proving his abilities again and again (and his courage, serving as station chief in Athens after his predecessor Richard Welch was assassinated), he lived by this creed:
“Keep them laughing half the time, scared of you the other half, and always keep them guessing.”
Politically,
Clair was a Democrat, and mostly liberal.
But he was also a professional.
Intelligence is apolitical, if occasionally corrupted by leaders who demand policy-oriented intelligence to complement their political views and bolster their objectives.
But he was also a professional.
Intelligence is apolitical, if occasionally corrupted by leaders who demand policy-oriented intelligence to complement their political views and bolster their objectives.
And
he was a master of obfuscation.
If pressured on a topic he preferred not to discuss, he’d throw out his arms and say, “It’s very complicated.”
And that would kill it dead.
If pressured on a topic he preferred not to discuss, he’d throw out his arms and say, “It’s very complicated.”
And that would kill it dead.