THE SPYMASTER OF MONTE CARLO: 17) A SHIRT FROM CHARVET

A Throwback Thursday Memoir of Intrigue & Lunacy

December 2004-January 2005

I returned to Washington D.C. just before Christmas to roll up my sleeves with a CIA team assembled to put into action the issues made known to Prince Albert and me when we visited their headquarters and met with senior management two months earlier.

Straight off, the team informed me that Director’s Goss’s pledge to protect the prince, and Monaco, was now accepted as "agency doctrine." As such, they said, it was given “high priority.”

(When I told Clair George about the so-called Goss Doctrine, he shook his head in awe. “Your boss,” he said, “will never understand or appreciate what you’ve done for him.”)

It was a good session, everyone at CIA gung-ho, trying to please the new director.

We brainstormed excellent ideas on how to proceed operationally, including an idea for working jointly with MI6 to meet some of our objectives.

But protocol dictated that everything (from me and by those at headquarters) be channeled through Paris and approved by LIPS, the weakest link in this short—three-link—chain.

And this would prove fatal.

While in Washington, I offered to meet with FBI Supervisory Special Agent Charles McGonigal and his colleague from the LA field office, even though they still did not have signed paperwork from the U.S. Attorney General confirming they could speak to me, an expatriate American resident in London.

We met anyway and caught up on MING, the former USAF colonel under investigation for espionage.

The prince and I spoke by phone just after Christmas. I updated him on my trip to Washington and asked if he had any new requirements as we entered 2005.

“Yeah,” he replied, “find out where all the good-looking women are.”

Find out where all the good-looking women are.

I'll pause here for a brief reflection.

I have a 46 year-old spoiled brat of a client who never grew up and cannot think beyond his dick or his next date.

And I'm being "assisted" by an intelligence agency believed by the world to be omnipotent but in fact is... well, keep reading for many weeks to come.

At this juncture, I probably should have cashed my chips.

But the Laugh Quotient was, by now, so high that I had to stick with the program for its sheer entertainment value.

And things were about to get even funnier, if more pathetic.

Because on January 6th, I boarded the Eurostar and glided through the channel tunnel for a meeting with LIPS, the CIA's station chief in Paris.

And nothing, at this point, was more comical than LIPS.

For a start, his choice for lunch —Café Lenotre, on the Champs Elysees—sucked to high heaven: It featured big picture windows, from which we could be easily observed, and tables arranged elbow-to-elbow, for effortless eavesdropping.

LIPS chose it, of course, for its proximity to the U.S. embassy, to the total detriment of our privacy.

He, very clearly, felt rushed and, even worse, somewhat constipated by how well things had gone with my strategy session with his colleagues in Washington.

LIPS wanted to make his points and leave. His mind was elsewhere; specifically, on a briefing he was scheduled to deliver that afternoon to the ambassador, who had just returned from winter holidays.

LIPS told me he wanted to “streamline” i.e., focus solely on his relationship with the prince, which was to say, block all of the operational projects his headquarters' colleagues had formulated and were so enthused about as part of the high priority “Goss Doctrine.”

Essentially, LIPS wanted to do nothing more than meet Albert once a month for a pointless chat.

He shot down any talk of CIA working jointly with MI6 to meet objectives of mutual concern.

He quashed our plan to bring the CIA’s “national treasure,” Phil R, to Monaco to meet with me, as Phil had requested.

He told me the MING file, which his predecessor, Bill Murray, had taken under his wing to keep the Bureau jazzed, was no longer of any interest to him and, by extension, the agency.

“Does that make sense?” asked LIPS, after shooting down the whole program we’d assembled during two full days in Washington.

No, it makes no sense at all, you freaking fool. You are a waste of my time and my boss’s money.

It is almost as if Pat N. was doing his utmost to sabotage the wishes of DCI Porter Goss and his Goss-lings.

An interesting incident took place following my lunch with Pat:

I left my hotel, Le Meurice, for a stroll to Place Vendome, where I sauntered into Charvet, the elegant men’s chemiserie, and ascended one floor to peruse their fine shirtings.

I was the sole customer.

A pretty sales assistant named Natalie handed me a shirt to try on.

I was in the dressing room when she parted the curtains and peeked in.

“Do you have a friend who’s looking for you?” she asked.

“No,” I replied.

She whirled around, with me glancing over her shoulder to see whomever was looking for me.

But that person had fled. Fast.

It was clear to me what had happened: The French DST had seen me lunching with LIPS, wondered who I was—and trailed me thereafter.

(I bought the shirt.)

The time had obviously arrived for me to present myself to one of the French intelligence services, make them aware of what I was doing and propose a liaison relationship.

I broached this with one of our retainers, Jerry G, who'd been CIA station chief in Paris.

Jerry felt the DST (domestic security) was the right service with which to make contact, offering this caveat: On the surface, the DST would be amenable. But since I am American they would perceive my presence as an encroachment of their domain and eventually try to discredit me.

My view: Anyone disgruntled by our work could take a number and get in line.

And they'd have to be patient.

Because after a quarter-century of reaming everyone from the KKK to the KGB, the queue wasn't short.