A Secret Life by Benjamin Weiser Read Free Book Online

embraced again. The technical officer arrived with a carburetor for Kuklinski. They agreed to meet again in Ostend.
     
     
     
     
    That weekend in Warsaw, a CIA officer named Ed Schooley 3 got into his battered British Singer and went for a drive known as a surveillance detection run, or SDR. Warsaw Station had received a “flash” cable from headquarters describing a potentially significant military official who was volunteering information elsewhere in Europe. Schooley was given Kuklinski’s name and address and asked to visit his apartment building, and then to scout for a location where the first meeting could be held. Headquarters wanted a site that had not previously been used. “We want it new, fresh; we want it up in his area,” Schooley was told.
     
    It was not unusual for Schooley to go driving on weekends, and he had built regular trips into his routine. For example, on Fridays, he regularly borrowed 16-mm movies from the defense attaché’s office, which gave him an excuse to return them to the embassy on Sundays. That day, Schooley made his meandering SDR around Warsaw in an effort to establish whether he was being followed by the SB, the Polish secret police. CIA officers were trained to carry out their missions even when there was surveillance, but it was important to know whether it was there. As he drove, Schooley glanced frequently into his rearview mirror and eventually concluded that he was “clean.” He headed toward Kuklinski’s neighborhood, a place an American driver with diplomatic plates would ordinarily not go, and parked several blocks away. He then began to case the area on foot, but as he reached Kuklinski’s street a woman called to him from a window above, asking what he was doing.
     
    Schooley had become convinced that a favorite pastime of elderly women in Warsaw was to lean out of apartment windows and watch people on the street. Schooley, who was dressed informally and wearing a light jacket, said he was trying to find an address. He called out a nearby street and number. The woman pointed. Schooley thanked her and began to walk away, but then he slipped behind a building and returned, trying to avoid being noticed. Finally he found Kuklinski’s building, set back from the street. In the lobby, he scanned the mailboxes and found Kuklinski’s name. He examined the box to see if it could be opened without a key, which would make it a good dead drop, or place to leave messages for Kuklinski, but it was locked. Schooley considered trying to find Kuklinski’s apartment, but decided it was more important to locate a site for their first meeting.
     
    As he walked around Kuklinski’s neighborhood, Schooley came upon the Powstancow Warszawskich cemetery. He entered and started to look for the correct configuration―a double right turn and an escape route. He soon found an area that seemed promising. It had a row of bushes and a path that crossed the road through the cemetery. There was only one flaw: The road looped back to the entrance. That violated a cardinal rule about the layout of operational sites: For security reasons, a CIA officer was supposed to enter and leave by different routes. If the officer was being followed, he could leave directly, drawing any trailing cars with him, while the source could scurry away on foot.
     
    But it was late and Schooley needed a site. With enough of a gap, the looping road would still work. He counted the number of steps from the entrance to where the exchange would occur, which he would include in his written description. He then prepared a cable for Langley. The information would be routed to Henry and Lang for discussion with Kuklinski.
     
     
     
     
    The next two meetings, in Ostend and Brussels, went smoothly. When the Powstancow Warszawskich cemetery was suggested to Kuklinski as the site for their first exchange, he was elated. It was an historic location, the hallowed burial ground for victims of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. He