Agents of Innocence

25

Beirut; Fall 1970

Hoffman came into the office the morning after the Lebanese election waving a copy of An Nahar, the leading Beirut newspaper. A banner headline across the top of the page proclaimed: “The Voice of the People Has Spoken.” Beneath it was a front-page editorial, lauding the victory of the new president, who had been elected by parliament the previous day by one vote.

“Can you believe these assholes?” said Hoffman to his four senior officers as they sat down in the conference room for one of their infrequent staff meetings. Hoffman was in a bad mood: red-faced, mean-tempered, a menace to anyone unlucky enough to get in his way. He brandished the newspaper at Rogers.

“The guy wins by one fucking vote and they’re calling it the voice of the people!” said Hoffman. “Imagine what they would be saying if he had won by two votes.”

“Sore loser?” asked Rogers.

“Hell, yes,” said Hoffman. “It cost us plenty to buy the old gang of thugs. Now we’ve got to start all over again.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, chief,” said the station’s senior political analyst. He was a beady-eyed man who looked as though he should be wearing a green eyeshade.

“No doubt,” said Hoffman. “Everything seems to be more complicated than I think it is. All I want to know is who won and who lost.”

“That’s just the problem,” said the analyst. “It’s very hard to tell. The old political establishment has been swept out of office, to be sure. But that doesn’t mean there are clear winners and losers. The Sunni Moslems might seem to have won, since the new president has the support of most of the Sunni leadership. But the new president also has the support of some of the Christian militia leaders who were being squeezed by the old regime. So you see, it’s really rather complicated.”

“Bullshit,” said Hoffman.

“May I suggest the real problem with this election?” ventured Rogers.

“Oh please,” said Hoffman. “Absolutely. By all means.”

“The real problem with this election was that both sides couldn’t lose.”

Hoffman tilted his head, squinted his eyes at Rogers, smiled with elaborate politeness, and silently clapped his hands. Rogers looked at the round-faced station chief. Sitting in his comfortable, overstuffed leather desk chair, he looked like Humpty-Dumpty.

“Now then, boys and girls,” said Hoffman. “Since you’re all such political experts, perhaps you can help the United States government figure out where we stand with the new leaders of this miserable excuse for a country.”

There was silence.

“Any volunteers?”

“Yes, sir,” spoke up a new member of the station named York Harding. He had arrived in Beirut two months earlier, following a stint in Vietnam, and he wore his hair in a crew cut. York Harding was what grade schoolers call an “eager beaver.”

“Yes, Mr. Harding,” said Hoffman.

“The election of the new president offers us a real opportunity for political action…”

“The election of the Squirrel,” interjected Hoffman.

“The Squirrel?” queried Harding, totally mystified.

“That’s what I call the new president, Mr. Harding. And do you know why?”

“No, sir,” said Harding.

“Because he looks like one, you idiot! He’s a furry little bastard whose cheeks always look like they’re full of nuts. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sorry I interrupted you, Mr. Harding. Pray, continue.”

“I think the election of, uh, the Squirrel gives us a new opportunity to find a middle ground in Lebanon. A third force, between the Christians and the Moslems.”

“A third force, eh?” said Hoffman, stroking his chin.

“Yes, sir.”

“How long were you in Vietnam, son?” asked the station chief.

“Eighteen months, sir,” said Harding.

“And you were a political action officer out in the countryside. Teaching the peasants about farming and medicine and self-government, and maybe a little throat-slitting on the side. Am I right, Harding?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, spare me your Vietnam bullshit, will you, Mr. Harding? We may have problems here in Lebanon. But we are not yet at the total monumental fuck-up stage. You get me?”

“Yes, sir,” said Harding.

“And if I ever hear the words ‘third force’ again, I’m going to throw you out the window.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And don’t call me ‘sir,’ you cross-eyed little son of a bitch.”

Rogers looked at Harding. The young case officer’s eyes were moist. Rogers decided it was time to draw the bull away before he further wounded his young prey.

“Chief,” said Rogers, “I think Harding has a point. There are opportunities created by the election of a new president. Let’s face it. The incumbents were running a glorified police state. The country was under the thumb of the Deuxieme Bureau, which made life easy for us. But the Lebanese, evidently, got sick of it.”

“Sooooo?” said Hoffman.

“So we shouldn’t shed any tears for the old gang.”

“That’s very touching,” said Hoffman. “I’m ashamed that I’ve been so insensitive.”

Rogers ignored Hoffman’s sarcasm and pressed ahead.

“The problem is polarization,” Rogers continued. “If extremism continues among Christians and Moslems, the whole country will begin to unravel. Harding is right. The only hope lies in some kind of middle ground. What we should be discussing is whether we-the embassy-are ready to get serious about creating an alternative to extremism.”

“I can answer that for you right now, boys and girls,” said Hoffman. The answer is No. N-O. No fucking way.”

“Then that makes it simple,” said Rogers. “If we aren’t going to intervene to help the good guys, then we should at least try to keep track of the bad guys-the militias, terrorist cells, secret organizations. Find out what they’re doing, and to whom.”

“Motion proposed,” said Hoffman. Without waiting for anyone to respond, he pounded the table with his fist.

“Agreed!”

Hoffman turned to other subjects: details of the station’s operations; plans for making contact with members of the new government; guesses about who the new president would appoint to run the Deuxieme Bureau; discussion of what Hoffman should tell headquarters in the cable he had to send later that day; and finally, a new scheme that Hoffman had devised for conducting surveillance in crowded areas that would, in theory, eliminate one person from each surveillance team. Eventually the station chief pushed his over-stuffed chair back from the table and adjourned the meeting.

“Thank you very much, boys and girls,” said Hoffman. “Class dismissed.”

The Squirrel, as Hoffman called him, took office in September and immediately began a purge of the Deuxieme Bureau. The first thing he did was change its name. It was no longer the Deuxieme Bureau, simply the Military Intelligence Office.

A symbolic house-cleaning came several months later when the new prime minister, a moon-faced Sunni Moslem who smoked big Cuban cigars and wore a fresh carnation in his lapel every day, led a raid on the Deuxieme Bureau’s telephone-tapping facility. The tappers, housed in the central PTT building in downtown Beirut, had run a notorious operation that regularly monitored several thousand telephones. It was an outrageous violation of civil liberties, everyone agreed. Dismantle it! In the enthusiasm of the new regime, nobody thought to mention that the government was losing its best means of keeping track of the deadly political germs that were infecting Lebanon.

At the end of the year, the Squirrel took the inevitable last step. He replaced General Jezzine as head of the Lebanese intelligence service and quietly (though not so quietly that it wasn’t the talk of Beirut) instructed the Ministry of Justice to begin investigating whether the general had violated the law in certain practices of the Deuxieme Bureau.

General Jezzine, whatever his faults, was not stupid. He left the country a week after he was fired for what was described as a vacation in Geneva. Since it was well known that he maintained a house there and a large bank account, it was assumed that the general wouldn’t be back any time soon. Rogers visited General Jezzine in his village the day before he left. He came to make a simple request. The American Embassy wanted access to Jezzine’s files.

The general was curt and evasive. His files had all been confiscated by the new head of the intelligence service, the president’s man, he said. Jezzine himself couldn’t even get access to them now. He had taken a few personal papers with him, to be sure. Nothing of any importance. And those already had been shipped to Geneva. So there was nothing, alas, that he could do to help his dear friends, the Americans.

“I am touched by your concern,” said the general sardonically as he ushered Rogers to the door. “Pity that it did not come a bit sooner.”

The Squirrel’s regime soon became mired in corruption. It was the revenge of what the former president had called “the cheese-men.” A health minister who tried to reduce drug prices ran into a wall of opposition from friends of the president who monopolized the drug trade. The pharmaceutical magnates simply withheld drugs from the market-public health be damned!-until the minister gave up and resigned.

A public works minister who attempted to rebuild the country’s primitive road system lasted only fifteen weeks. A finance minister who advanced the novel theory that the government should collect taxes and audit its books was rebuffed. The president’s own son was installed as telecommunications minister and began soliciting bribes that were enormous, even by Lebanese standards.

It was get-rich-quick time in Lebanon. Rapid inflation turned peasants into land speculators and created a new class of overnight millionaires. The government became a free-for-all. In this climate of ambition and avarice, the Lebanese lost what little respect they still had in public institutions. The public stopped believing that what was left of the Deuxieme Bureau would maintain order, or that the army would keep the Palestinian commandos in check. Instead, the Lebanese turned increasingly toward the private militias that were forming ranks throughout the country.