The field of dreams in international spying scandals always seems to be some secluded park in suburban Virginia.
These apparently include Lewinsville Park in leafy and upscale MacLean, where a package stuck under a footbridge on Aug. 19, 1991, should have included a glossy photo of the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.
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That’s where, according to an FBI affidavit released last week, senior agent and counterintelligence specialist Robert Hanssen stuck a diskette for his chums at the KGB “on which he discussed communications plans and provided information about classified technical and operational matters.”
If that somewhat nebulous claim doesn’t force you to lose sleep, it is immediately followed by this spine-chilling revelation about the onetime Chicago cop:
“On this diskette, he also discussed how the Soviet Union could benefit from a thorough study of the period of Chicago’s history when the city was governed by Mayor Richard J. Daley.”
In exchange, the package from the KGB to a man they supposedly knew only as “B” contained $20,000. It’s a sum that presumably could have bought off virtually the entire, easily compromised Chicago City Council under either Daley or his son, Richard M. Daley, the current mayor.
But, amid the possibly hyperbolic, self-important FBI claims about Hanssen’s deadly deeds, and the agency’s claims of brilliant handiwork in catching him 16 years after he began toiling for the bad guys, I shuddered at the prospect of our enemies fully digesting Chicago history (a prospect even missed in John le Carre novels).
But, exhibiting rare modesty, I sought counsel from Daley cognoscenti. The question was obvious, and I do hope is addressed in the damage review to be run by William Webster, a usual suspect for a “blue-ribbon” panel chairman because he has headed not just one but both of the nation’s security-challenged agencies, the FBI and CIA:
What might folks in the Kremlin have learned if Hanssen, whose springboard into international intrigue was a brief stint on the Chicago police force, followed through and passed along “a thorough study of the period of Chicago’s history when the city was governed by Mayor Richard J. Daley”?
(This important, distinguishing note: Out of a principled aversion, I dispensed with using Hanssen’s full middle name, Philip, in the first reference above. I thus shirked the media inclination, shared by the Tribune, to reflexively use middle names in announcing a) the election victory or swearing-in of a new president b) the arrest of a mass murderer or c) the uncovering of an alleged spy. It is unclear why we do not similarly treat d) Nobel or Grammy winners e) the most valuable player in the NBA All-Star Game or f) crooked Fortune 500 executives who rip off shareholders and exit with seven-figure severance packages.)
Michael Beschloss, presidential historian and Chicago native: “In Chicago there was a degree of organization and effectiveness and decorum under Daley that the Soviets could only have dreamt of.
However, one does find in the case of Richard Nixon and his book, “Six Crises,” he talks of the Soviets with a certain respect, since a leader could get something done, which was interesting for an old anti-communist like Nixon. There was an underlying envy. Nixon said that Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev reminded him of Mayor Daley in that anything he wanted done, he got done. But he did say those things during a time, in 1973 and 1974, when he was feeling most beleaguered. When he sent an order to the bureaucracy, he felt that Democrats foiled it.”
Leon Despres, former Chicago alderman and Daley nemesis: “I said back then that he was a municipal authoritarian executive. If his methods had been applied nationally, over the Soviet Union, he would have been a national authoritarian, like the Stalinist or fascist rulers. He showed how you gather all the strings into one hand, so that all the patronage went through his office. But there was nothing he did that the Soviets didn’t do more severely. And, of course, he did engage in espionage on the people around him.”
Michael Flannery, political reporter, WBBM-TV in Chicago: “This reminds me of how, in August 1974, I was sent by the Sun-Times to be understudy for City Hall reporter Harry Golden Jr. in covering Mayor Daley’s final campaign. `This is going to be just like covering the Kremlin,’ Golden told me. “Unfortunately, most of those who talk about what happens behind closed doors in Daley’s inner sanctum don’t know, and most of those who do don’t talk.’ “
Elizabeth Taylor, Tribune magazine editor and co-author of “American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation”: “He was a master at being an autocrat, but there was also a goofy quality. Would the Soviets admire a regime that spied on nursery schools, one of the things the Police Department’s “Red Squad” did, spying on Studs Terkel’s kid’s nursery school? And the spies were kind of bumblers
“In the 1968 Democratic convention protest, people he sent to City Hall to spy on the protesters were clean-cut kids totally out of place. It was absolutely obvious. Everybody said when they were being tailed, they knew it. It would be funny to admire that. But you can, ultimately, admire the Tito-esque quality of Daley, balancing many different interests and staying in power.”
Dick Simpson, University of Illinois at Chicago political scientist, former leader of City Council opposition during later Daley and Michael Bilandic years: “Milt Rakove, one of the foremost scholars of Chicago politics, often compared the Cook County Central Committee to the Politburo, meaning both systems were closed, both had insiders with everybody jockeying for position under Daley, just as one had under Stalin, Khruschev and others.
“Would the Russians learn something? Maybe. Daley did use the Police Department for spying and a spy would appreciate how he kept dossiers on people like Adlai Stevenson, Leon Despres and myself and used agents provocateur to disrupt and make it difficult for candidates to run against the party.
“Could they have really learned something terribly useful? In terms of operations? No. There are enough differences between operating a machine in Chicago and running a completely totalitarian regime. But I’ve just written “Rogues, Rebels and Rubber Stamps: The Politics of the Chicago City Council from 1863 to the Present” (Westview). If that had gotten into the hands of the Soviets, it would have helped them.”
Eric Engberg, CBS News Washington correspondent and Chicago native: “He ran a government that got the garbage picked up, got the streets swept, encouraged businesses to develop the inner city so there would be good restaurants to go to and had well-tended parks to take your kids to. I’ve been to Moscow, and it has none of these things. It is clear the Russians did not pay him the attention he deserved.
“C’mon, do you think that if Brezhnev and the old guard leaders had set up a government the way Daley had that there would be a guy like [Vladimir] Putin in charge today?
“Do you remember the pictures of that bad guy with the birthmark, [Mikhail] Gorbachev, coming back to Moscow after the putsch attempt failed in 1991? This befuddled, somewhat shaken man coming down the steps of the airplane at the Moscow airport, after the military brass and fading Commie bosses tried to overthrow him. Do you remember how white-faced and shaken he was as he tried to explain things to the public? That pretty much represented the end of Gorby’s power.
“Can you conceive of Daley standing in front of the Morrison Hotel and looking as befuddled, weak and out of control as that guy? No. He kept his hands on the levers of power right up until the very end.
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“You know, if the Communist Party had anywhere near the backbone and control of the Chicago Machine, those guys would still be running the country today.”
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Tribune Washington bureau chief James Warren co-hosts “Unconventional Wisdom” with Michael Tackett of U.S. News & World Report at 7:05 p.m. Sundays on WGN-AM 720.