Lillian McCloy - Six Car Lengths Behind an Elephant: Undercover & Overwhelmed as a CIA Wife and Mother

SIX CAR LENGTHS BEHIND AN ELEPHANT

UNDERCOVER & OVERWHELMED AS A CIA WIFE AND MOTHER

Lillian McCloy

They arrive at a point in life having themselves, in their demanding and dominating (false) selves, lived a liewhere they mistrust almost everyone, look for the hidden meaning and motives behind even the most sincere statements of friends and loved ones.

Winston McKinley Scott, CIA Deep Cover Officer, Mexico

When you play on the street, its part of the game. I know that. Just dont ask me to like it.

Tess Trueheart to Dick Tracy

(1962-1964)

No Need to Know

Ive applied for a job with the CIA! Frank revealed over the phone with excitement. I took a number of tests today, and I have a psychiatric test tomorrow.

I couldnt take this seriously. Frank had just earned his masters degree in political science and international relations, graduating at the top of his class. In our discussions about the career avenues he might consider, where his particular skills would be most pertinent, we agreed that there had to be a branch of the government seeking someone with his background. He had consequently gone to Washington to apply for a job with the Foreign Service. One of the men conducting interviews had perused Franks rsum and thought he was a likely candidate for the CIA. Frank knew the CIA housed numerous departments and was immediately taken with the thought of being involved in one of them. I had no inkling that this news might be something I shouldnt talk about. I assumed he might work in an office job as a staff member in Washington. Being a spy was too ludicrous a notion and, as a matter of fact, did not even occur to me.

When Frank called with his news, I was having coffee with my friend Christine. We were both pregnant at the time, she with her first child and I with our second. She had been asking me what to expect when labor started and I told her that youll probably have false labor pains, because I was experiencing them myself. I was seven months into my pregnancy. Frank and I had agreed it was a safe time for him to be away and leave me on my own with our son John.

That same night, I had a dream so startling and frightening that it woke me up. I turned on the light and was horrified to discover that I was hemorrhaging. Afraid to move, my first thought was that I had to call my neighbor, Mary, who was not only a good friend but also a nurse. I had telephoned her only once before, because we were so accustomed to seeing each other daily, but on that one occasion, she had guests, so I had looked up her number in the phone book. Amazingly, I remembered and dialed the correct number, and Mary immediately came over and wrapped me in bath towels while her husband called the hospital and brought his car up front.

I was so weak that I had to lie down in the back seat. Guess what? I said as the car began to roll. Looks like Frank has a job with the CIA. I was going into shock, not recognizing the severity of my condition. I was shaking when we arrived at the hospital at four in the morning, and my doctor was waiting at the door with what appeared to be the entire hospital staff on alert. As I was put on a gurney and rushed to the room with the doctor beside me, I cheerfully said, Did you know that my husband has a job with the CIA? Thats nice, he said in a tone used to speak to children, as we tore down the hall. After being hooked up to equipment used for blood transfusions, I felt compelled to tell the nurse as well.

I was in full labor now, ho hum, and shaking with cold and good cheer. My doctor came in and told me there was no time to waste if he was going to save my life because my blood pressure had dropped dangerously. I had never seen him so stern. He said he had to perform a cesarean and that it would possibly sacrifice the life of my child. I said, No, no, no, thats absurd. Take me to the delivery room and Ill be fine. Without my permission, or Franks, he could not operate. He threw his hands with an I-give-up gesture, and I found myself hurtling down the corridor to the delivery room. Guess what? I told the orderly. My husband works for the CIA!

And Kristin was born. She was five pounds of perfect baby with a sweep of dark eyelashes. The nurses exclaimed at her beauty, and the doctor did an Irish jig. I was in a very good mood. Kristin was rushed to an incubator and I was put in a room, with transfusions dripping into both arms. My dear doctor came in, still in his scrubs, mask hanging under his chin. God, he said shaking his head, you scared me. He sat down with his hands on his knees, head bowed. By the way, I said, did I tell you Frank is going to be working for the CIA?

Franks cover was blown before he was hired.

At that time, I had never heard of the unbendable creed: No Need To Know.

Frank

Everything in Franks background had a common thread. It seemed to me that he had been courting danger from the time he was released from the confines of the family home. He had not been allowed to ride a bicycle until he was twelve years old (although at fourteen he was secretly learning to drive a car). His parents had coddled him to save him from the danger in the street and the danger in the world. When he was a child, if he had a head cold he was bundled up and taken to the doctor or even to the emergency room at the hospital. He was born late in his parents life and they treasured him. Their fears became an integral part of his life: Be careful. Dont cross the street. Watch for cars. Dont climb so high.

He was raised a Catholic, attending Catholic schools. His parents dreamed that hed become a priest and when he was an altar boy, he seriously pondered it. When he reached his teens, he knew he could not make the sacrifice, but he continued to say the rosary twice a day. In some cases, the fears of the parents are foisted on the child, but in Franks case, he was eager to break away, to take risks, and to experience what had hitherto been forbidden thrills.

Frank wanted to drive fast cars, buy an ocelot for a pet, and kiss a girl (in that order). Even kissing a girl appeared to be a dangerous experiment. He had a crush on the girl next door, a daughter of family friends, but was clandestinely watched by his father, who wanted to ensure that there would be nothing to confess to a priest. When Frank and the girl sat on a swing on the front porch, his father watched from the shadows of the street.

There was so much for Frank to rebel against. His new job covered all the bases.

Frank would have been the perfect selection for the college debating team. He was literary, articulate and witty, a voracious reader and a consummate politician in the truest sense of the word. But that was not macho enough. As an extracurricular activity, he chose boxing. When describing his first boxing match, Frank said his opponent looked like Bruno, the menacing and fearsome brute in the comic strip Popeye. Within three minutes, Frank found himself back in the locker room with a concussion. It was the beginning and end of his boxing career.

After graduating from college, Frank told his parents that he was going to join the Marine Corps and become a fighter pilot. His mother fell apart, begging him to reconsider, as I certainly would have done if our son had proposed such a move. It was a stunning decision for a college graduate with straight As and the entire world at his feet. There were multiple choices he couldve explored, but he was adamant.

Having obtained his degree in political science and international relations, joining the CIA under deep cover fit into his pattern. Upon being accepted, he was told that he could tell only one member of his family, and he chose his sister. I, too, told my sister. I didnt believe that there was a reality behind the plots of books and movies about spies, and I had never been interested in those books, but our parents would have been bewildered and frightened.