January 1991
Harry Schultz was ready to meet Clair George and me in Monaco after first meeting his financial newsletter deadline. This fax (his favorite mode of commo): “Let’s meet at the Hotel Metropole [across the street from his hideaway]," he said. "Three p.m."
Although we had already been working for Harry for over three months, Harry had never communicated with Clair, only me, and thus could not be certain Clair wasn’t still working for the CIA and had come to rendition him back to the United States.
Why USG should want to rendition him was way beyond us and probably a product of acute paranoia.
In any case, Harry and Clair took to one another immediately.
Harry was discriminating, but he had a weakness for funny, charismatic people who showed him respect.
Clair, conversely, felt comfortable with everyone, whether a prince or a homeless bum. Clair knew how to work people and make them like him, trust him. He was, after all, a man who built a career—an extremely successful one—based on conning people to betray their countries by revealing sensitive state secrets.
Harry, upon arrival, looked absurd in several layers of clothing in contrasting colors, including a tartan vest and quirky tie. His hair was greasy, unwashed, and his skin deathly pale. He told us he suffered from vertigo.
Clair sympathized and empathized, as only Clair could.
Accompanied by Joy, a rather joyless lass from northern England who had evolved from clerk to concubine, Harry took a full two minutes to decide where everyone should sit. He was partly deaf in both ears, one worse than the other, so placement to him was paramount.
Harry relied on "topic lists" penciled onto a pad of paper with items such as “What did you mean by this?” referring to an insignificant phrase on a two-month old fax and “Why can’t we do something more drastic to Loony?” (the codename Harry had given his Texan tormentor.)
“What do you have in mind?” I asked whimsically.
“Let’s send him subscriptions to pornographic magazines,” suggested Harry.
“Hell, Harry, he’d probably like that,” I said. “He just needs monitoring. He’s really not that big of a threat to you.”
Had I wanted to make a fortune, I’d have told Harry that Loony was a huge threat. But Clair and I were scrupulously honest in our dealings with clients, unlike many “rainmaker” charlatans that operated in the arena of problem resolution.
“Loony thrives on your attention,” I added. “Ignore him and he’ll buzz off.”
We sat in the Metropole lobby for three long hours ticking off Harry’s agenda. Then we decided to have dinner.
I suggested Le Texan, a chance to jump into blue jeans and swig Heineken from the bottle.
But Harry would have none of it, insisting on hosting us at the nearby Hotel Hermitage, where Russian noblemen spent long winters a century before. We would re-group at 7:30.
Hermitage—all of Monte Carlo—was a ghost town with war expected any minute, and whatever war meant. Saddam Hussein had threatened the worst for Israel (all he could muster were dud Scuds) and Europeans perceived the ramifications as ominous.
Consequently, we were the only patrons inside Hermitage’s restaurant.
Harry, clearly, had never learned the French habit of choosing a restaurant by how busy it is. The ambience in was opulent but their salmon tasted and chewed as if it had been cooked a week earlier, refrigerated and microwaved.
Harry talked about the significance of numerology. He made us tell him our birthdates from which he determined our lucky numbers.
When dessert arrived, he returned to his agenda, a few items still uncrossed.
“Do you really think we shouldn’t do something to Loony?” said Harry.
I rolled my eyes, tired for sitting many hours and winding up with frightful food. I bluntly asked Harry if he wanted to play games or truly resolve his problem.
He grew timid, retreated, and it was past midnight when we finally parted.
Back at my apartment, my answering machine played a telephone message from Bob F., a New York City lawyer, calling from Zug, Switzerland.
As Clair and I were in Europe, might we undertake a side-trip see his client, Marc Rich?
Clair could scarcely believe his ears when I phoned him at his hotel, Loews. But he was very game.
It meant having to cut Harry short.
When we met Harry next morning, again at The Metropole, he had added a new slew of frivolous items to his "topic list." He slowly plodded through them, milking each trivial point for very much more than each was worth.
I tapped my foot, slapped my knee, and tried to bring each item to speedy resolution.
But Harry wasn’t interested in resolution, speedy or otherwise. He wanted to vent.
“Now, when you said in a faxed report two months ago that Loony works at an x-ray lab, what exactly did you mean?”
He was really saying: I paid for you guys to fly out here. I want my money’s worth.
Finally, he suggested lunch as a means of concluding our sessions with him.
The last item on his agenda was UFOs. He wanted us to find one, along with some aliens, if possible.
We broke bread in the Metropole’s terrace restaurant. It went slow, oh so slow, until I could take no more. I hadn’t yet packed and needed to close down my apartment.
Finally, I excused myself, leaving Clair to draw a curtain.
The former spymaster ultimately broke free by telling Harry he had to fly off on a secret mission, something about "imminent war"…
We flew to London, already dark past 3:30 in the afternoon, atrocious traffic, bumper-to-bumper all the way into the West End, the Cavendish Hotel on Jermyn Street.
At 6:30, I met my parents in the hotel bar, clean-shaven and garbed in a double-breasted navy blazer, earning good money as an international problem solver.
Clair joined us briefly for a Scotch and soda, his pre-dinner tipple, and charmed my parents like he charmed everyone before joining someone he knew from his former employer.
I took my parents across the street to Green’s Champagne Bar and treated them to a bang-up meal. They wanted to see me the following morning, but I could not, whispering, “We have to wake early and fly to Switzerland for the day.”
Clair and I had to drop in on Marc Rich.
So how was it that Clair George and I were about to drop in on U.S. fugitive Marc Rich at his lair in Switzerland, to which he had fled seven years earlier after being indicted on 65 counts of tax evasion, wire fraud and racketeering?
The genesis:
A few months earlier, I took a good long look at Rich’s situation and determined that he personified our ideal high-L.Q. (laugh quotient) client.
Rich did not want to be wanted by the U.S. Government. Aside from running the risk of being captured and thrown in jail, it hampered his travel schedule and cramped his lifestyle.
I thought, just maybe, we could help him make a deal with the right folks in DC.
And I thought Rich would want that too, because the main purpose of money is to set you free, not imprison you.
As we understood it, Rich had the run of Switzerland, Spain and Israel and could only pray his private jet never ran into engine trouble in between those countries.
Back when Clair was Deputy Director of Operations for CIA he worked closely with Howard Safir, Director of the U.S. Marshal Service, to determine how they might legally pluck Rich from an international corridor (a gray zone in an airport), an operation that precludes having to go through an extradition process, so long as the host country gives permission.
This was the same Curved Frisbee Doctrine that had been applied to CIA renegade Edwin Wilson in the Dominican Republic—and which the FBI would try to apply to ex-CIA rogue/fugitive Edward Lee Howard.
Clair and Safir had so thoroughly bugged Marc Rich—presumably through NSA intercepts—that they knew his precise whereabouts at any given moment.
But Rich, cagey and ever security-conscious (and protected by ex-Mossad bodyguards), always managed to outfox them.
At my urging, Clair telephoned Safir for advice on how to contact Rich.
Tilt! (As Harry Schultz would say.)
Surprise, surprise—Safir, retired from USG and operating in the private-sector—was on retainer to a Washington, D.C. law firm that was trying to arrange a deal allowing Rich to return to the U.S. without serving jail time.
This was my first brush with Washington’s Revolving Door Syndrome:
Persons whose job it once was, as senior government officials, to put criminals behind bars, now, in private practice, hired themselves out to the same criminals to help them remain free.
(If that sounds swampy, well... welcome to the real world.)
Clearly, Safir had no reason to assist us.
So after reading a biography of Rich entitled Metal Men, and learning that the only thing Rich respected was balls, which he called “tomatoes,” I wrote him a ballsy letter with tomato sauce:
Dear Marc,
Wealth is supposed to set one free. That should be its fundamental purpose: unload burdens, not create them. But in so many instances, it does the exact opposite, though I don’t suppose you need a lesson in this.
I went on to suggest his lawyers had no real incentive to resolve his problems because doing so “would be like killing the goose that laid the golden egg.”
Weeks passed.
One month later to the day, I received a telephone call: “Hi, my name is Bob F. I’m a lawyer in New York and I represent Marc Rich. You wrote a letter to Marc?”
“Yes, I did.”
“He asked me to meet you. I expect to be in Washington next week. Would it be convenient to meet on Wednesday morning?”
I phoned Clair immediately.
“You’re pulling my leg.”
I assured him I wasn’t.
“Never in a million years,” said Clair, “did I think you’d get a reply to that letter.”
Bob F phoned Tuesday to say he would not overnight in Washington after all; could we do a quick meeting at National Airport?
Clair, I quickly discovered, eschewed any kind of airport rendezvous.
“Tell him airports are a pain in the ass,” he instructed. “I don’t want to talk to him while he’s checking in bags and looking at his watch. Say we’ll take a pass and come see him at his office in Manhattan.”
(Clair was a great believer in visiting people where they worked. He told me he was able to learn a lot about a person that way.)
Bob F phoned on the day to say he’d finished other meetings earlier than expected and could meet us in town.
Clair, meantime, was "floating around" downtown with no way to reach him. I left a message on his home phone machine; he called within minutes and suggested we meet Bob F at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. He promised to be there as near to 4 p.m. as possible.
I arrived at 3:50, abiding Clair’s rule: Always arrive early to scope out the scene.
Clair was already floating around the place. We sat in the lounge and ordered a pot of Earl Grey tea.
Bob F arrived a few minutes later. He recognized me immediately, explaining he had acquired a copy of my 1982 book, Strike for Freedom! The Story of Lech Walesa and Polish Solidarity.
Bob F smiled behind a straight face. He had just been to Annapolis on a deposition regarding a special kind of screw used by the Pentagon. Clair countered with a quaint story about spark plugs.
Then Bob F got down to business. “You wrote to Marc, my client.”
“Yes,” I said.
Silence.
“I have a copy of your letter,” said Bob F. “Aside from the fact that you pointed out lawyers are leeches, you seemed to indicate that you might be able to help my client.”
He smirked and winked, as if to say, Now we’re gonna find out what makes you guys so damn smart.
“How, exactly," he added, "do you think you can be of help?"
Clair seemed to enjoy my predicament. “Robert?” He gestured at me with both arms. (Clair always talked with his arms.)
I squirmed. Perhaps my letter was a little too ballsy.
“Clair, I defer to you,” I gestured back, adopting the mannerisms of my esteemed mentor.
Clair launched into a spiel, throwing his arms generously through the air as if conducting a symphony of secrets. Eloquently, with a conspirator’s hush, he described the kinds of things we already did for clients and how, generally, we might be of assistance to Marc Rich.
“We’re not lawyers,” Clair said more than once, meaning that we were not constrained by bar rules.
But Bob F was interested in specifics. “You must have something in mind?”
“No, really nothing,” said Clair, honestly. “We ‘re just a couple of guys with good intentions and good contacts.”
Bob F listened patiently, nodded, and said, “You’re being extremely vague, which is what I’d expect.”
Clair and I looked at one another and shrugged.
Then I reiterated in my own words what Clair had just said, saying, essentially, that we were different from the A-1 detective agency because we were creative.
Bob F still looked somewhat constipated.
“I have a problem,” he said, “and I guess I’ll be up front about it. Your letter seemed to indicate that you could be of specific help because of something that’s happening. I’m not hearing that from you.”
Clair and I looked at one another and shrugged again.
“Look,” Bob F continued, not buying such glibness. “You must have had something in mind when you wrote this letter.”
“No,” said Clair. He looked at me.
I shrugged a third time.
“But the date on this letter. October 30th. Something must have prompted you to write a letter on this date.”
We both looked at Bob, somewhat amused, because that date meant nothing to either one of us.
“Tell me what it is you know,” Bob demanded in minor exasperation. “What is it that caused you to write Marc a letter on October 30th?”
Clair threw up his arms. “We don’t know anything.”
I looked Bob F directly in the eye and gave him a knowing smile. Not that I had any idea what he was talking about, but, at this point, I was enjoying myself. The date I wrote that letter seemed extremely significant to him but truly meant zilch to me.
Bob F finally concluded that even if we knew what he thought we knew, which we didn’t, we weren’t going to admit it.
“Help me here,” he said, practically begging to know what he thought we knew. “The boss is going to ask me questions about this meeting. And I don’t have any specific answers.”
Clair reiterated what he’d said earlier about guys with good intentions and good contacts.
Somewhat bewildered, Bob F excused himself and departed for the airport.
Equally bewildered, Clair and I saw him out the door and returned to our table.
“Well,” said Clair, “that was worth the price of a pot of tea. What happened on October 30th?”
I shook my head. “Beats the hell out of me.”
Clair pulled a KLM airline ticket from the pocket of his raincoat. “I’m flying to Amsterdam tomorrow," he said. "I’ve got to meet someone about exfiltrating some people out of Kuwait.”