The African Interviews (Part 2)

 

 

Note: This is the second of a two-part series. 

Part 1 can be read here:  THE AFRICAN INTERVIEWS (PART 1)

 

Each of us has our own secrets.  Things we’ve done we later regret.  Moments in our lives we’re not proud of.

I’m about to tell you one of mine.

……………

There are two kinds of jobs.  Some which you apply for.  Others that come to you, seemingly out of nowhere.  They just happen.

This one just happened.  It came to me unexpectedly — and to this day — I have no idea exactly how or why.

My home telephone rang.  The voice on the line identified himself as someone who worked for the South African Government.  It was a friendly voice.  Cordial even.  He knew I was unemployed and looking for a job.

Being out of work sucks.  I’d sent out several resumes.  However, I don’t ever recall applying with the South African Government.  It’s pure speculation now, but perhaps a generic advertisement was placed in the “Help Wanted” section of The Washington Post and then someone plucked my resume out from among those that responded.  Who knows?

South Africa was undergoing changes that were truly revolutionary.  The repressive state policy of Apartheid was taking its final deep desperate breaths but was by no means expunged.  If anything, those who benefited most from the old order were still in power.  Although the government did transform itself by official decree in 1990, most of those who still worked in South Africa’s foreign service (and related intelligence agencies) were holdovers from the bad old days.  No doubt, these were some real ball busters.  A government doesn’t simply change all of its personnel overnight and it took many years to ultimately make South Africa and its diplomatic corps far more reflective of the actual racial and cultural makeup of the nation.

Indeed, anyone who had more than a few years of experience working as a South Africa diplomat was almost certainly part of the old establishment.  That didn’t make necessarily make them racists.  But they were part of an evil system.  These old-timers knew with looming changes that were coming, they would soon going to be out of jobs.  That is unless they did something drastic about it.

Sometime later I learned South African intelligence (who took cover as diplomats) hired domestic agents to go around and spy on anti-Apartheid activists who were living and working inside the United States.  Since South Africa had only a small number of actual diplomatic positions, the intelligence on this was outsourced.  They decided to hire (I presume) Americans sympathetic to the cause who might provide useful information — not necessarily on American citizens, but those engaged in the anti-Apartheid movement, such as South African exchange students, business people, and political activists.

READ MORE HERE ABOUT HOW SOUTH AFRICAN INTELLIGENCE CHANGED IN 1994

Had I ultimately taken a position working for the South Africans, my role would have been perfectly legal.  As long as I wasn’t divulging classified information, I could be employed as a sort of “investigator” for a foreign government.  By the way, you can be certain a fair number of people do exactly this now — working for foreign governments inside the U.S.  Moreover, it’s not necessarily adversarial nations that employ the most “resources.”  It’s usually allied nations.  I’d also be remiss were I not to add targets have changed significantly over the past 20 years.  Now, most spying is related to high-tech and economics.

The telephone voice asked if I was interested in learning more.  I was.  We agreed to an “interview.”

Of all the job interviews I’ve had, this one was the most bizarre.  I was instructed to meet a man inside the lobby of the Hilton Hotel in Springfield, Virginia.  This was located about ten miles outside the District.  My meeting was to take place at 8 pm (at night).

“I will meet you in the lobby,” the man announced.

“How will I know you?” I asked.

“I will be carrying a copy of Time magazine in my right hand.”

This was starting to read like a page right out of a John le Carre novel.

Eight o’clock at night?  In a suburban hotel?  With a man holding a copy of a magazine?

What was I getting myself into?  Was this a setup?  Was it a test?  Was the man really South African?

Of course, I went to the meeting.  How could I not?

It was a weeknight.  The hotel seemed nearly empty.  At least, there was practically no one in the lobby.  At 8 pm sharp I was standing inside the Hilton gazing around for a man holding onto a magazine.

8:05…..no man.

8:10…..no man.

8:15….still, no man.

I began walking around.  Had I understood the instructions correctly?  Perhaps he said “out in front” of the lobby.  Maybe he said “anywhere but” in the lobby.  I ran through every possible scenario in my mind.

8:20….no man.

8:25….no man.

The man was now close to a half-hour late.  I found it impossible to imagine a foreign intelligence officer would bungle the time so badly or be late for a meeting like this.  So, I decided to do something unusual.

Might the man have requested that *I* be the one carrying a Time magazine?  Perhaps I was supposed to be giving off the clue of identity.

I raced into the gift shop and purchased a copy of Time.  The next few minutes would have been hysterical had I not been the clueless idiot.  Each time I saw any kind of man that looked like he might possibly be my contact, I approached and made it obvious that I was holding a magazine.  Each approach was so over the top that those I sought out must have thought I was making a pass at them.  It was like an old Jerry Lewis movie.  Finally, at nearly 8:45 I was about to leave when I saw a man in a grey suit looking straight ahead holding onto a magazine.

I moved slowly toward the target, trying to make out the cover.  What in the hell was I going to do or say if instead — he was holding a copy of Newsweek?

I got lucky.  The man reached out his hand towards me and I shook it.  He did not give his name.  Never.  Not by phone.  Not in person.

The man informed me that a hotel room had been properly set up in advance where we could talk in privacy.  We rode the elevator to one of the upper floors.  Moments later, I was sitting inside a very normal-looking hotel room at a round table.  There were two chairs.  The man took one side of the table.  I sat at the other.

“Would you like some fresh fruit?” he asked.

“Fruit?”

The man had ordered a full tray of fruit in advance — cantaloupe, watermelon, apples, oranges.  There was also a large platter of vegetables — like carrots, celery, cauliflower, and so forth.  Then, there were several fresh bottles of mineral water displayed on the table.  I suppose the man had an expense account and wanted his prospective “recruit” to feel welcome.

“No thanks,” I replied to the offer of fruit — realizing this basically meant all that nice food would completely go to waste.

The man was smooth as silk.  And the accent.  During the course of our discussion, he never quite revealed exactly what he wanted or what the South Africans were up to in the U.S.  Most of the interview was about my personal background, my experience working at the State Department, and my views on various political events.  At the time, I had no strong convictions about South Africa one way or the other so that probably made me an attractive candidate for recruitment.  Soft clay is the easiest to mold.

I knew that I’d face some kind of test at some point on this night.  That’s what these meetings are really arranged for.  Handshakes, smiles, and niceties are all designed to set up the real test which is designed to see how far the prospective recruit might go, and to what limits he (me) might be willing to exceed.  My test was simple and to the point.  Could I remember the personnel I’d known while working at the American Embassy in Bucharest?  Furthermore, did I know any other names of diplomats from other nations I could share with him, including any personal information about them?

Here’s a fact you already know.  Governments spy on each other.  They all have massive rooms (no doubt, computerized now) with files on everyone in the world who might potentially serve as a resource.  Even some errant low-level official who worked in Romania four years earlier might eventually be assigned to South Africa, or somewhere else on the continent.  And, that low-level staffer might eventually develop into someone much more important later.  So, stocking the files with intimate details and having information on that person might eventually prove beneficial.

But this meeting wasn’t about getting out some old phone book and sharing old stories.  It was an acid test designed to see what I might be willing to do for them.

Things eventually came to a close and we parted ways in a polite fashion.  I already knew long before leaving the hotel room that this would be my last encounter with that man and the South Africans.  Before leaving, he reminded me one last time to try and provide the names of former officials with some personal details “in a week or so.”  He then gave me a business card with a phone number on it.  No title.  No official seal of the South African Embassy.  Just a phone number.

I never dialed that number.  I never heard from anyone again.

That’s one job I’m glad I didn’t get.

Postscript:  In 1993, I finally did accept a job with the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey, where I worked for the next six years.