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MOLEHUNT |
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Epilogue On May 26,1989, Peter Karlow, accompanied by his wife, Carolyn, drove to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, for the ceremony. It took place in a briefing room on the seventh floor, near the office of William H. Webster, the Director of Central Intelligence. Webster looked on as Richard F. Stolz, Jr., the DDO, presented the agency's Intelligence Commendation Medal to Karlow. Stolz, the chief of all clandestine operations for the CIA, was an ordinary-looking man with heavy horn-rimmed glasses. In his dark blue suit and red tie, he might have been an insurance executive presenting an employee with a gold watch at a retirement party. [1] In addition to the small bronze medal, Karlow also received a large blue leatherette binder with the gold seal of the CIA on the front. Inside was a two-page citation that went with the medal. "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA," it began, above the CIA seal with eagle and shield, "To all who shall see these presents, greeting: This is to certify that the Director of Central Intelligence has awarded the Intelligence Commendation Medal to Serge Peter Karlow for especially commendable service." The text said the medal was awarded to Karlow "in recognition of his more than twenty-two years of devoted service to the Central Intelligence Agency. He distinguished himself in a series of increasingly responsible assignments both at Headquarters and overseas. Mr. Karlow demonstrated inspired leadership, operational wisdom, and good judgment throughout his career, reflecting credit upon himself, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal service." The citation was signed by William Webster. Karlow remembered Stolz: "He was a junior officer when I was in Germany." And although Stolz was never photographed in public, a CIA photographer was on hand this day to record the presentation. Later, Stolz inscribed a copy of the color print: "For Peter Karlow, in small recognition for an outstanding professional career of a great gentleman, Dick Stolz, May 26, 1989." Karlow hung it on the wall. Except for Stolz, there was a new cast of characters at the CIA. None of the officials who had driven Karlow from the agency twenty-six years before attended the ceremony. They were all long gone. But one of Angleton's successors as chief of counterintelligence, Gardner R. "Gus" Hathaway, came to the presentation. "I guess he wanted to get a look at me," Karlow said. "I had a brief chat with Gus. I had mixed feelings about having him there." [2] There was a party afterward, at the International Club of Washington, on K Street, and many of Karlow's old friends and retired colleagues came. Trapper Drum was there, from the Technical Services Division, Reid Denis from Berlin base, Peter Heimann from Bonn. And Richard Helms. "Everyone there was relieved," Karlow said. Many of his former colleagues had refused to believe he was anything but a loyal American, but until the director of the CIA ordered that Karlow be given a medal, the doubts had lingered. Smiling, one of the CIA men raised a glass and said to Karlow: "You've won, you beat 'em." But Karlow didn't really feel that way. He was not bitter, or angry, but he had waited twenty-six years for this day. When he left the CIA in 1963, he was forty-two. When he returned in 1989, he was a sixty-eight-year-old man. Certainly, he had done well in the private sector, and there was the compensation from the agency. But the mole hunt had robbed him of a lifetime. It had destroyed his career. It had accused him of treason. It had taken him away from doing the work he loved, for his country. He had already given his left leg, but it wasn't enough. Peter Karlow also had to give his reputation, and his best years. *** There is an emptiness to the New Mexico landscape. The rolling high desert north of Albuquerque has a special beauty, but it is the beauty of desolation, the barren hills relieved only by the occasional juniper or prickly pear cactus. Scotty Miler, living there, far from Langley, had plenty of time to look back. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. "I wish there was some way the government could lay all this to rest, because it's unfair," he said. "If you go into intelligence you have to expect you will be investigated, that there may be allegations about you." It had not been so easy for the mole hunters, either, he said. "Even while I was investigating these people I was obliged to deal with them on a day-to-day basis." That had created "a certain uneasiness." And what was his view, in retrospect, about the lives and careers that were damaged, that had been in his hands? "Regrettable. You're concerned -- have you been fair? It's regrettable that it has to happen. But you have to have a system if there is sufficient cause for suspicion ... You're trying to protect something larger than an individual. If there is one thing that you learn, it's that there are no certainties about who's going to be a spy." Miler stubbed out his cigarette and looked up. "As far as we know, none of these people we investigated turned out to be spies." Did that mean there was no mole? "No, I didn't say that," Miler replied. "It means we didn't find one." Scotty Miler's rear porch faced west, toward Arizona. To the north, the Sangre de Cristo mountains darkened the distant horizon. With his wife, Miler had come to New Mexico from Washington in 1976, "to get away from the long arm of the investigating committees." The Milers had set out hummingbird feeders on the porch, filled with sugar water. They loved to watch the aerial acrobatics of the tiny creatures, swooping and buzzing around the porch. But Miler's wife had died in 1988, and he was alone in the house with his memories, and the hummingbirds. There were fewer hummingbirds now, but they still came to feed. "On a good day," he said, "you can see twenty- five." _______________ Notes: 1. Stolz himself retired in December 1990. He was replaced, on January 1, 1991, by Thomas A. Twetten, former head of the CIA's Near East division and one of the officials involved in the events that led to the Iran-Contra scandal. 2. Hathaway retired in March 1990 after five years as chief of counterintelligence. He was replaced by his deputy, Hugh E. "Ted" Price, fifty-two, a short, sandy-haired man who favored tweeds and fiddled constantly with a pipe. Price, a Far East hand who spoke Mandarin Chinese, switched over to the job of assistant deputy director for operations early in 1991. His successor as CIA chief of counterintelligence was James Olson, a six-foot, slender, blond Iowan who several years earlier had served in the Moscow station.
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