Free A Very Private Plot by William F. Buckley Page A

His design was clearly dramatic. He cleared his throat. “Of course, we know about many covert activities, for instance those that were exposed by the Church and Rockefeller Committees in 1975. But they were, for the most part, idiosyncratic in character, like the business of poisoned cigars for Fidel Castro. We know that you have engaged in many covert operations, and we have an idea what some of these were. Indeed we know that you were discharged from the CIA in”—Blaustein consulted a folder—“in 1957 for failure to give the Agency notice that a high-tech satellite unit was being shipped across to the Soviet Union—”
    â€œI don’t know where you are headed on this matter, Mr. Blaustein. But the reason I did as I did in 1957 is complicated, and had to do with sparing the lives of two Soviet scientists who had defected. What is your point in bringing the matter up?”
    â€œMy point is that we have information about some of your activity, but we don’t have the information we most want—information which, in the opinion of Senator Blanton, would conclusively establish the need for an end to this kind of thing.”
    â€œMay I make a diplomatic point?”
    â€œWhy of course, Mr. Oakes.”
    â€œIt really isn’t very … endearing of you to refer to what I have devoted my life to as ‘this kind of thing.’”
    â€œI apologize. I have no training as a diplomat. I should have said, ‘the kind of thing to which you have devoted your quite extraordinary skills.’”
    â€œYou could say that about Goebbels.”
    â€œWhy don’t we then, as they say in court, just strike that phrase?”
    â€œYou will not succeed in erasing from my memory your having used it. And anyway, I am not a juror, for you to instruct what to remember, and to forget.”
    Blaustein reddened, paused. And then began again. “I have been authorized by Senator Blanton to say that he is prepared, in his capacity as chairman of the committee before which your contempt was executed, to call the U.S. Attorney and ask him to suspend the arrest order for thirty days, during which he will advise the Senate that the contempt has been purged.”
    â€œSo what is expected of me, in exchange for my liberty?”
    â€œ The full story of Cyclops .”
    Blackford was genuinely astonished.
    Who? How? Where? When?
    He said, as matter-of-factly as he could manage, “What brings you to use that name?”
    â€œSuch knowledge as we have been able to assemble about … Cyclops.”
    â€œYou will need to catch me up on the matter.”
    â€œIt is precisely we who need to be caught up on the matter. Who was he? What was the nature of the CIA’s dealings with him? And what was the disposition of the Cyclops operation?” He leaned forward. “We know this much: That you were the officer in charge of dealing with him. And that the late William Casey left no notes, nothing whatever, that so much as mentioned the Cyclops operation. Nor have we come upon any officer in the Agency now, or active in it ten years ago, who admits to knowing anything about Cyclops.”
    â€œWhat causes you to believe that I have a link to this … this Cyclops?”
    â€œThat much the committee has established. That and more, but not enough.”
    Blackford shrugged his shoulders. “Why is it so important to you, Mr. Blaustein?”
    â€œBecause—because, Mr. Oakes, we intend to demonstrate to the Congress that the Cyclops operation might have resulted in … a nuclear war.”
    Blackford touched his lips with his tongue. He knew that a lifetime’s practice in the histrionic arts was quite sufficient to handle Blaustein in any way Blackford chose, intending any effect. It was therefore a careful calculation that led him to respond as he did. Tomorrow at this time, he said to himself, I will be behind bars thanks to the manipulations of