Free Operation Solo by John Barron Page A

town and tell them that doctors think they can cure Morris if he goes to the Mayo Clinic and stays there long enough. I’ll say these famous doctors and this famous hospital cost a helluva lot of money, and Morris is dead broke, so we’re asking our old comrades for donations to save his life. Almost none of those assholes will contribute a dime. But no one will ever say he didn’t contribute.” Jack noted that the solicitation also would provide a pretext to call on party people and begin restoring relations.
    The treatment and new medications administered at the Mayo Clinic transfigured Morris. Color returned to his face, he gained weight, he spoke firmly and walked easily, and he could converse
for hours without tiring. Doctors predicted that, if he adhered to the prescribed regimen of diet and exercise, and increased his exertions only gradually, he should be able to resume normal activities in six months or so.
    To Freyman, the change in Morris’ spirit was even more pronounced than in his body, and he understood why. The party had stripped his life of meaning and purpose, and thereby deprived him of incentive to recover. His decision to cooperate with the FBI restored purpose, and he left the hospital eager to start anew, to lose himself in a new cause.
    In New York Jack threw out the bait little by little: Reports from the Mayo Clinic were encouraging. It looks like Morris is going to recover. Morris is up and about. I talked to him on the phone last night, and he sounded great. Morris is out of the hospital, and he’s walking a mile a day. Morris wants to go back to work, and in a few months he’ll be strong enough.
    In 1954, the party underground bit.
    Morris telephoned Freyman at a number reserved for him. “An anonymous caller just ordered me to be at a certain telephone booth on the North Side by 2:30 P.M. and to wait there for a call,” he reported. “I don’t know who it is or what it’s about. I’ll go and contact you as soon as I can.”
    Superiors demanded that Freyman at once put Morris under surveillance so they could identify anyone he might meet. Freyman absolutely refused. “Someone is using classic tradecraft, so he will be looking for surveillance,” he said. “If he detects it, we lose the whole case. If Morris meets anybody, he’ll tell us.”
    At about 2:35 P.M. the phone in the booth rang and the same anonymous caller instructed Morris to come to a room in the Sovereign Hotel.
    The man awaiting him there was Phillip Bart, who had been organizational secretary and chief security officer of the party, and who now was a leader of the underground. He welcomed Morris as an old friend and began an interrogation to ascertain if what Jack said about his recovery was true and whether Morris was bitter about being deposed as editor.
    Morris said that though he had not fully regained his strength
and stamina, doctors assured him that he would and he felt good. He was also grateful for the donations that made possible his treatment at the Mayo Clinic. Certainly, he harbored no ill will toward the party. Because of his health, he could not possibly have continued working at the paper. Besides, there was no room in the party for pettiness.
    Then was he willing to resume party work in the underground?
    What sort of work?
    â€œThe Reserve Fund is exhausted and we have to have money,” Bart said. “To get money, we must reestablish contact with the Russians. You were always close to them. Could you put us in touch?”
    Morris promised to try and asked, “How can I reach you?”
    Bart said that because he always was on the run, he relayed and received messages through Betty Gannett, who had been office manager at party headquarters in New York. She was of insufficient rank to be prosecuted, and Morris could safely deal with her.
    As if by afterthought, Morris mentioned that efforts to contact the Russians might entail