Paul Vidich - Coldest Warrior, The

Acknowledgments

T he Coldest Warrior is based on the case of Frank Olson, who died sometime around 2:30 a.m. on November 28, 1953, when he fell or jumped from his room on the thirteenth floor of the Statler Hotel in New York City. The New York Medical Examiners report contained that ambiguous description of how Olson came to land on the sidewalk early that morning, and it was that description that shaped how Olsons death would be viewed over three decades. Olson, forty-three at the time of his death, was a highly skilled Army scientist who worked at Fort Detrick, Maryland, a top secret U.S. Army facility that researched and tested biological warfare agents. He had been accompanied to New York by Robert Lashbrook, a CIA employee, who worked in the Agencys Chemical Branch. Olsons flag-draped coffin was lowered into its vault in Linden Hills Cemetery on December 1, 1953, three days later. His body had been embalmed in New York and transported to Frederick in a sealed casket. My aunt Alice, Franks widow, was told that disfiguring injuries suffered in his fall made it ill advised to hold his funeral service with an open casketthe first of many, many lies that she was told over thirty years.

I am deeply indebted to Franks two sons, particularly Eric, his eldest, for providing a wealth of information that he collected over a lifetime in his search for the truth about his fathers death. Most importantly, I witnessed the torment of a family from whom the CIA had withheld the terrible circumstances of Olsons death.

Several books and magazine articles were indispensable sources of information about the Frank Olson case. They are: David Kairys, Philadelphia Freedom: Memoir of a Civil Rights Lawyer (University of Michigan Press, 2008); James Starrs with Katherine Ramslan, A Voice from the Grave: A Forensic Investigators Pursuit of the Truth in the Grave (Putnam, 2005); Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, The United States and Biological Warfare (Indiana University Press, 1998); Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time (Citadel Press, 2004); William Colby, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA (Hutchinson, 1978); H. P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake (Trine Day LLC, 2009); Michael Ignatieff, What Did the CIA Do to His Father?, The New York Times Magazine, April 1, 2001; and Ted Gup, The Coldest Warrior, The Washington Post Magazine, December 16, 2001. The Frank Olson Project website provided numerous original source materials, as did transcripts of hearings held by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1977.

Several characters in the novel quote or paraphrase other works. They are William Shakespeare: It is a wise man who knows his own child and His tongue is now a stringless instrument; Paul Celan: Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language; Harold Pinter: Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.

My agent Will Robertss enthusiasm for the book was critical in helping it find its place in the world, and Ion Mills, my UK editor, served as an indispensable champion and advocate. Pegasus Books Katie McGuire embraced the story with enthusiasm and expertly polished the text. I am grateful to the books early readers, who provided insights and suggestions that improved the text in large and small ways: Rae Edelson, Bruce Dow, Marc Levin, Andrew Feinstein, Emily Bestler, my brother Joe Vidich, and my fellow writers in the Neumann Leathers Writers Group: Mauro Altamura, Amy Kiger-Williams, Aimee Rinehart, Dawn Ryan, and Brett Duquette. Brendan Cahill, Elizabeth Kostova, Milena Deleva, Lauren Cerand, Joseph Kanon, Michael Harvey, Helen Phillips, Susan Isaacs, Kevin Larimer, and Elliot Figman and his colleagues at Poets & Writers have been gracious with their support and encouragement. And thanks to my sons, Arturo and Joe, who have helped me understand the few things that matter and the many things that dont. And to my wife, Linda, partner, teacher, muse, and collaborator once again. She encouraged me to write the book and helped shape it.

ALSO BY PAUL VIDICH

An Honorable Man

The Good Assassin

Washington, D.C.

1953

A solid man of average height, not yet thirty years old, stood in the ninth-floor hotel room and placed the telephone in its cradle, ending a difficult conversation. His tuxedo was at odds with the rooms drab, charmless atmosphere, and he brushed hair from his forehead with the unconscious gesture of a man whose sense of entitlement was rattled. He walked to the window, sipping from the two fingers of scotch hed poured into a paper cup, and gazed at the dark clouds that blanketed the resting city. A curse slipped from his lips: Shit.

Phillip Treacher pondered the lie that he had just told his wife to explain why he wouldnt be joining her that night at the presidents Thanksgiving gala. He misled friends, misrepresented himself to neighbors, and regularly carried out assignments that required him to go dark or use an alias, but this was his first lie to his new wife.

She knew he worked for the CIA, and she had come to understand in the first months of their marriage that when he came home in a sullen mood, there had been a problem at workand she knew not to ask. They had established boundaries for their conversations, and his grimace was a signal that he couldnt answer her questions. But when he drank heavily at dinner, she guessed that a Soviet double agent had died and his harsh interrogation had been a success.

Treacher had tried to soften the blow by starting the conversation with a few questions about inconsequential thingsher gown back from the tailor for the weekend gala. Does it fit? And gossip about who would be at the White House and who would not. Casual chat that he kept up heroically until she interrupted. Whats wrong? Where are you? He said something unexpected had come up and he wouldnt be able to make it. Her silence was the longest of their marriage, and without saying more, he knew she would ask the question that he couldnt answer. He felt a terrible responsibility to keep her in the dark about an urgent national security matter of acute sensitivity.

He considered letting her hold on to her shock and anger, but he felt the need to offer a plausible explanation that she could tell other guests who asked why shed come alone. Ive been called out of town. Regret, guilt, remorse. These were the feelings that he permitted himself in the moment of his deception. But he had not considered, even for a moment, describing what he was doing a few blocks away in the Hotel Harrington.

Treacher stared at the black telephone. He drained the scotch from his paper cup and crushed it in his big fist. Too short for college basketball, too light for football, too slow for baseball, he had tried tennis, track, even fencing, before he settled on Yales rowing team, which was a good match for his strong hands. He still raced one-man sculls at dawn before his late-sleeping wife, Tammy, woke, and he got an hour of grueling exercise on the Potomac before going to the office. Treacher tossed the crumpled cup into the wastebasket and turned his attention to the silvered smokiness of the rooms two-way mirror.

Between two queen-size beds there was a night stand with a forest green bankers lamp, a telephone, and the afternoons tabloid, which had been folded in thirds after having been read and discarded. A middle-aged man sat on the bed nearest the window. He wore a gray suit jacket, but he had no tie, slacks, shoes, or socks. He was morosely slumped half undressed on the edge of the bed, cradling his head in his hands. Quiet now, Treacher thought.

Treachers immediate thought was that this man, Dr. Charles Wilson, couldnt possibly be a national security threat, couldnt possibly be dangerous. He moved closer to the two-way mirror and saw that the quiet man was now deeply agitated. Dr. Wilson looked at his wristwatch, then stared at the telephone for a long time, visibly impatient and upset. He glanced at his watch again. His face was drawn and pale. Treacher thought the unthinkable and shuddered. The judgment winged across his consciousness: