The Intelligence Analyst
by Frank Thomas Smith
Jim Tate was kicked out of Military Intelligence unceremoniously, and he wanted to know why. I was reminded of Jim's story when reading about and sympathizing with Bradley Manning, that private-first-class who sent all the so-called “secret” information to WikiLeaks. I was reminded of how stupid, that's the best word for it, but one could also say inept, bureaucratic, clumsy and a whole list of adjectives from the thesaurus to describe the United States Army – or, probably, any army. It's just that my experience is with the American version. Just think: a private-first-class sitting in front of a computer somewhere in the desert in Iraq with access to the electronic messages sent from embassies all over the world to the State Department in Washington. Note, however, that Manning is an “intelligence analyst”. Why does he have such an important sounding MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) and still be only a Pfc? It's because he's intelligent and maybe he knows a foreign language, it doesn't matter which one; the path to being an intelligence analyst is to know a foreign language. They give you IQ tests when you enter the army, and if your IQ is higher than a baboon's they call you out of formation for duty as something cooler than an infantry grunt.
What I'm about to tell you happened to Jim Tate when there was still a draft and therefore much smarter people were in the service; in fact draftees were often so much more intelligent than officers that it was embarrassing. I could tell you some anecdotes to prove it, but now isn't the time. Maybe later.
It was like this. Back in the fifties, the United States was engaged in a big ugly war in Korea. Not as big and ugly as Vietnam, but ugly anyway. Jim and I were drafted and went to the Army Language School in Monterrey, California instead of Korea. Lucky us, right? Right. We both scored high on the IQ test, so they sent us to the School. We hadn't known each other previously, he being from New York and I from L.A. But we couldn't help becoming friends because our karma put us together in a twin-bunk cubicle in the barrack. Jim studied Russian and I German for a year and we were then sent to Germany as Intelligence analysts to fight the cold war – a much more comfortable one than the hot one in Korea.
One night over German beer with a kick, Jim told me why he chose to study Russian. “It was Dostoyevsky,” he said, “The Brothers Karamazov, the most beautiful book I ever read. Do you remember when Ivan and Alyosha are talking and Ivan tells him about the children who suffer and it's God's fault, if He even exists?” I nodded, having read the book hurriedly as an assignment in college, and not remembering much. “And then comes The Grand Inquisitor? God, and to think I grew up Catholic,” he went on between gulps of beer. “Dostoyevsky puts it all on the line right there in that chapter. If Christ were to come back the Church wouldn't even recognize him, for god's sake, I mean they couldn't, he'd screw everything up for them, the Church, probably even with new stuff, revelations and stuff.” He paused and looked at me like he wanted to choke me into understanding. “And,” he went on, “I thought: God, if I could only read this book in Russian! And that's what I'm doing...trying to do, that is, I mean it's not easy.” That will give you an idea of what kind of guy Jim Tate was.
From our unit's “safe house” in Frankfurt I recruited sources (spies) to send to Berlin, then on to East Germany to check on Russian troop movements. They came back, were debriefed and the information – most of it completely useless – was forwarded to the Order of Battle section, in the U.S. Army occupied I.G. Farben building, also known colloquially as the I.G. Hochhaus, where Jim Tate worked. For once the army had got it right, albeit accidentally: both of us were relatively happy doing our respective jobs, which corresponded to our temperaments. I recruited German spies to send to the East Zone and Jim analyzed the information they brought back.
But one day the axe fell...began to fall, that is. The Commanding Officer of the 7982 Europe Liaison Unit was a Capt. Olshevski. He spoke Polish because his parents were immigrants from Poland - is how he got into Military Intelligence. Officers were in M.I. for one of two reasons: they spoke a foreign language or they were fuck-ups – or both. Olshevski was both. He must have been about 30, 35 at the time, which for us was ancient, with a pot belly and permanent sweat stains under his armpits, even in winter. He always wore suspenders, which made it worse. Jim was working in the “shithole” at the time, what we called the room where papers from Russian army garbage were analyzed. The Russian soldiers in East Germany didn't have toilet paper, so they used anything available, the result being that some of the documents to be analyzed had done all-purpose duty. Most of it was personal letters to mommy or girlfriends with an occasional military document of no importance thrown in.
Olshevski called Jim into his glass-paneled office, where he sat all day like a Polish Buddha signing reports prepared by others.
“You committed a serious error and a security breach, Tate,” he said to Jim who stood before him with his hands in his pockets. We didn't wear uniforms so standing at attention was out, but...
“Take your hands out of your pockets!” Capt. Olshevski yelled. “So according to the rules of summary court-martial, I'm sentencing you to one week confined to quarters.”
Jim had only a vague idea of what a Summary Court-martial is, but looked it up afterward:
A summary court-martial consists of one commissioned officer, and may try only enlisted personnel for non-capital offenses. The punishment which may be imposed depends on the grade of the accused. In the case of enlisted members above the fourth pay grade, a summary court-martial may impose any punishment not forbidden by the law except death, dismissal, dishonorable or bad conduct discharge, confinement for more than 1 month, hard labor without confinement for more than 45 days, restriction to specified limits for more than 2 months, or forfeiture of more than two-thirds of 1 month’s pay. In the case of all other enlisted members, the court-martial may also impose confinement for not more than one month and may reduce the accused to the lowest pay grade, E-1. The accused has the absolute right to refuse trial by summary court-martial. The accused does not have the right to representation by an attorney. The accused does have the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witnesses and produce evidence, and to testify or remain silent.
So the only way a grunt like Jim could really defend himself was to refuse the Summary Court-martial and request a more serious one – a Special court-martial. A week confined to quarters meant nothing because we lived in civilian apartments with no guards or uniforms in sight, so Jim could come and go as he pleased. The East German spies knew who we were of course, but at least we kept up appearances.
“What did I do?” Jim asked. A perfectly reasonable query.
“That's all, Private,” Olshevski said, emphasizing Jim's rank to remind him that he was a cockroach in the army scheme of things. “unless you want a Special Court.”
Jim certainly did not want a special court which, if found guilty, could result in serious jail time – at least not before pondering the situation, so he slouched away.
That night we discussed the situation together with George Abrahamian, an Armenian immigrant to the U.S. who spoke colloquial Russian and several other languages – and despised both Russians and Turks – and was a great asset to the shithole translation team. He thought there must be a conspiracy behind Jim's punishment for something he didn't do. We were all agreed that Jim could not have committed an error serious enough to warrant punishment without even being told what it was, and a security breach was out of the question. So what was Olshevski's real motive? We didn't know. Finally we agreed that it wasn't worth worrying about. Jim ignored the confined to quarters ruling, which was unenforceable anyway, and life went on. But not for long.
Three months later, Jim was surprised when arriving to work in the I.G.Hochhaus to find an envelope on his desk with his name on it and “Private and Confidential” stamped in red letters. Inside were his new “orders” - a transfer, effective immediately, to Special Headquarters Unit, 2nd Armored Division, Bad Kreuznach, Rheinland-Pfalz. This was serious. Jim looked through the wall of Olshevski's glass palace in time to see his C.O. lower his eyes to some paper on his desk. No point talking to him, Jim thought, he must be behind it. He walked down the corridor to Staff Sgt Roland's work room, a large room with its the walls covered with transparent plastic marked in grease pencil with Soviet military unit designations. Roland was the heart and soul of the unit. When he was asked how long he'd been in Frankfurt, he always answered “forever”. He knew the Soviet military displacements and order of battle by heart and could detect the slightest deviation or lie by a source. Jim showed him his orders. “Know anything about this, sergeant?” Actually they were drinking buddies. Sgt Roland went to a local Bierhaus every evening to escape from his wife, Jim went once a week. Roland talked about anything that came into his head – classified or not – once he had a few beers. His southern accent was so thick though that the East German spies who frequented the place couldn't understand him.
Sgt Roland glanced at the orders with bloodshot eyes, frowned and shook his head. “Fuckface,” he said, meaning Captain Olshevski. “You must be on his shitlist.”
“Yeah, but why?” Jim asked him
Sgt Roland shrugged. “You don't know? neither do I. You can try Colonel Hough,” (the M.I. area commander). He handed the orders back. “Probably won't do no good, but you could try.”
Jim tried. It didn't do any good.
So Jim went to Bad Kreuznach. What else could he do? In the army when you get orders, you obey them! But before leaving he met with the other two musketeers and we vowed to get to the bottom of the conspiracy against Jim and, while at it, screw Capt. Olshevsky. Much depended on what kind of outfit Jim was going to – one that played soldier all the time or one that relaxed most of the time: both military variations were distinct possibilities.
We needn't have worried. If Military Intelligence is a home for fuck-ups, the Special Headquarters Company in Bad Kreuznach was the geriatric version of same. A bunch of such extreme fuck-ups that they couldn't even be trusted in M.I. Basically they did the laundry for the 2nd Armored Division. Not to mean that they actually did the laundry; they organized and supervised a militia of Polish refugees who did the actual work. The unit had about fifty men – not counting the Poles – including two full colonels, a Lt. Colonel, a gaggle of captains (no lieutenants – too young), a warrant officer, the rest sergeants – and now one Pfc who happened to be an intelligence analyst, just like Pfc Manning. The First Sergeant, who ran a twenty percent loan racket on the side, was suspicious: What was an intelligence analyst doing in a laundry company? Actually everyone was nervous, from the colonels on down. Jim could easily be there to spy on them.
Lt. Colonel Moultrie Banks was happy though. As you may or may not know, the army divides its functions into eSes: S1=Command, S2=intelligence, S3=Operations, S4=administration. Lt. Colonel Banks was S3 officer, but there was no S2 officer, because there was no intelligence. So when Banks saw that Pfc Jim Tate was an intelligence analyst, he recognized the opportunity for himself to become S2 as well as S3. The problem was that they had nothing to classify Secret, let alone Top Secret. Jim solved that problem, though. On going through the S3 files, he found instructions from European headquarters in Heidelberg for the evacuation of dependants in case of a Russian attack. All dependants should always have their gas tanks at least half-full (or half-empty? Jim thought) and keep a week's supply of non-perishable food on hand, warm clothes, etc., etc. Jim went to Lt. Colonel Banks:
“Colonel,” he said, “this is sensitive stuff. It should be classified at least Top Secret.”
Lt. Col banks knit his brow, then smiled at what he thought was Jim's naivete. “I agree that it's sensitive," he said. “But we send this out to all dependants and we can't very well grant them all Top Secret clearances, now can we, Corporal?” Jim had more than enough time in as a Pfc to be made corporal, and Lt. Col. Banks did not like having such low ranking underlings. Amen.
“Of course not, sir,” Jim replied. “But the routes, the evacuation routes! If the Russkies knew them, they could attack our wives and children from the air before they reached the coast. The dependants don't need to know the routes until the last minute. 'Need to know', you know?”
Actually even Jim was surprised to find that our brilliant military minds planned to have the dependants drive their own cars through Germany and France to the French coastal harbors where they would board ships and thus escape the Soviet hoards. Everyone in Intelligence knew that if the Soviets decided to invade West Germany they could do so successfully in a very short time. That was common knowledge. But it was also common knowledge that the Soviets had no interest in starting a Third World War with the United States. Either way, Jim saw it as an opportunity. “These routes should be classified, colonel,” he said.
Col. Banks rubbed his chin instead of his brain and said, “Do you think so Corporal? What level?”
“Top Secret, no doubt about it, sir.”
“Of course, you're right,” he beamed. “It shows the value of having an intelligence analyst on the team.” He looked at Jim and frowned. “How long have you been a corporal?”
“Oh, not too long, actually,” Jim answered with automatic, but in this case mistaken, distrust.
“You'll be a sergeant soon, son, take my word for it. Wait here.” He marched out the door and down the hall toward the CO's domain, and into the Adjutant's office. An adjutant is basically the Commander's secretary, in this case a Captain, so Col. Banks just walked in. After fifteen minutes he came back to his office where Jim was having a smoke blowing the smoke out a window. He flipped the butt out when he heard Banks' cowboy boots clicking back down the hall.
“We're in business, Sergeant...” Jim didn't bother to correct him, surmising that he'd just been promoted – or would be very soon. “Colonel Strong agrees with us that these documents must be classified Top Secret. And that an S2 section be set up with me as staff officer and you as NCO-in-charge. Good work, Sergeant, so now write me up a memo – a draft of course, I'll decide – about procedures and budget necessities.”
Jim Tate was the right man for the job of inventing a new bureaucracy out of nothing. A Top Secret stamp with ink pad and a filing cabinet were necessities, but much too cheap for the new S2 section to be shown the respect it deserved, or rather the respect Lt. Col. Banks wanted it to be shown. Therefore, Jim's brainstorm was this: a safe-room. It was to be constructed of bombproof materials alongside the S2/S3 noncom's (Jim's) office, with a steel-plated door to which only Jim and Col. Banks had keys. “Er...do you have a Top Secret clearance, Sir?” Jim asked him.
Lt. Col. Banks opened his mouth like goldfish and gulped: “How the hell do I know. Find out, Sergeant.”
It turned out that Lt. Colonel Banks had only a Secret clearance, which was normal for field grade officers not in M.I. It meant that Jim outranked him in that respect. It also meant that the only one with access to the Top Secret documents in question was Cpl soon-to-be-Sgt James Tate, thus making himself indispensable, something he had been unable to do in Frankfurt or, rather, hadn't recognized its importance for staying out of the infantry. He told Lt. Col. Banks to apply for a Top Secret clearance so he could also have a key to the safe room.
---
I haven't yet mentioned one very important element of this story. You may have guessed: the love angle. Jim bought a Vespa, one of those Italian scooters which were cheap and reliable, on which he came to Frankfurt almost every weekend – and it wasn't to see me. Hanna was a German girl he'd met at the Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschafts-Klub and he'd fallen hard. That was the reason his transfer to Bad Kreuznach affected him so strongly: it meant he could only see Hanna on weekends instead of almost every day. Actually, I had much to do with their relationship. You see, groups like the German-American Friendship Club are great places to recruit sources. After all, the Germans who went there were already susceptible to Americans. Remember that all this was prior to Vietnam and American soldiers were loved – not necessarily respected as soldiers, the Germans were much better at that, but loved as protectors against the Russians and the inventors of blue jeans.
Hanna was, in fact, one of my sources. She had been to East Germany several times and had brought back the usual information: Russian vehicle numbers. If a truck or a tank bore a certain number, we knew it belonged to a certain Soviet division and was where it was supposed to be. If it belonged to a unit that was supposed to be in Poland and it was reported near Potsdam, it meant either the unit had moved or the source was lying. That's why we demanded photographic proof. Most sources did it for the money and would lie if they could get away with it. Not to help the Russians, but to avoid the danger of being caught. Having to take photos naturally increased the danger and the amount of money we had to pay them.
I had invited Jim to the Club, or rather told him about it, because anyone could go. I warned him that if it was a good place for us to recruit spies, it must also be good for the East Germans to do the same. We both laughed. What a stupid game! In fact I had three sources from the club, the other two being German males – one I suspected of being an East German spy. That's why I was staying away from the club: if one of my sources was on the dark side, he could suspect every other German member and..and...and. When Jim found out that Hanna was working for me, he demanded that I drop her. He was worried that she was in too much danger. She was originally from the East and although she never went back to her hometown, it was always possible that she could be recognized somewhere else. I was reluctant so Jim said he was going to tell her that he knew and she should stop. That was a no-no, because if I reported him for it he'd be in deep shit. But he knew I wouldn't do that, so I gave in and told her she was out of the game. I told my captain that she wanted out.But Jim had not forgotten Capt. Olshevsky. He insisted that revenge was not his motive, but that there was something fishy about Olshevsky wanting to get rid of him without a motive for it. So one weekend a few months after Jim had been transferred we decided to follow Olshevski when he left the office in the Hochhaus, on the remote chance that we'd find out something to explain the fishiness. We did.
Olshevsky left the Hochhaus late, probably the last one out, carrying an attaché case. Jim remembered that he habitually arrived somewhat late in the morning and was always still in the office when everyone else left. Not unlike the Captain of a ship. We expected him to go by car to the officers' housing area, but he walked down Eschersheimer Landstrasse about ten blocks until he came to Mozartstrasse, where he turned left. Jim and I, both graduates of the M.I. surveillance course, knew enough not to hurry to the corner, in case the target had suspicions that he was being followed and was waiting to confront us with a “Gotcha!” But no, I was on the other side of the street and strolled past the corner first. I looked left and saw Olshevsky standing before an apartment building entrance. Apparently he had just rung a bell and was waiting for an answer. Finally he pushed open the door and entered the building. I signaled to Jim to come ahead.
“He went into that building,” I told him, pointing.
“Which one?”
“That one, third from the corner.” He didn't move. “What's the matter?”
“That's Hanna's building, Frank.”
“Hanna?” I said stupidly. “Oh yeah, Hanna...well, coincidence?”
“Don't believe in 'em.”
“Does she know you're in Frankfurt?” I asked him.
“No, she expects me tomorrow. I wanted to reserve tonight for Olshevsky.”
I didn't know what to say next, but Jim did. “I'm going in, got a key.”
I held his arm. “I don't know if that's a good idea, Jim.” But he pulled away. “I'll go to the stairs above her apartment, so if he comes out of it I'll see him and he won't see me.”
“And what if he does?”
“Fuck him.” It was the first I heard Jim Tate curse. “You wait outside, okay? Check where he goes.”
I couldn't help wondering what I'd do if he stayed all night, but agreed. Jim opened the building's front door with his key and entered. Luckily at the other corner there was a small park, like a plaza, with wooden benches, so I went there and sat where I could see the front door of the building. It was getting dark but visibility was still good and the street was well lighted. I closed my eyes for a few moments and wondered what the hell was going on and how it would end.
Ten minutes later Olshevsky came out of the building, looked right and left, right at me in fact, but I was just a guy sitting in the park at a distance. He walked back the way he came and when he turned the corner I hurried after him. When I got to the corner I crossed the street and saw him hurrying back toward the Hochhaus. Just then Jim left the building, so I motioned him to hurry up so we could trail Olshevki in duo as we had coming. Jim ran to the corner and we followed Olshevsky back to the Hochhaus parking lot, where he got into his car – a Mercedes Benz – and drove off. I hopped onto my motorbike and followed him to the housing area and saw him enter what I assumed to be his own apartment.
I then drove to the Bierhaus where Jim and I had agreed to meet if we were separated. He sat in a booth with a half liter half empty glass of potent German beer on the table. He didn't look happy. I ordered a beer for myself from Hilde, the buxom waitress who had a much coveted job in a bar frequented by G.Is who were great tippers compared to Germans.
“He came out of her apartment,” Jim finally said, staring at his beer.
“Wow! Did he see you?” He shook his head. “Where'd he go?”
“Home.” He still didn't look at me. “What are you gonna do?” I asked.
“Tell her...” He looked up at me with funny eyes. This wasn't his first beer. “I mean ask her.”
“Ask her what?”
“If she's shacking up with fuckface,” he yelled. “What the fuck do you think I'm gonna ask her.”
“Well,” I said, not helpfully, “it'd explain why he wanted to get rid of you. But I thought you were.”
“What?”
“Shacking up with her.”
“No, she lives with her mother...she says...so I rented a room in Sachsenhausen where we meet on weekends and during the week after my work and before hers...she works nights at the public radio station.”
“Thanks, Frank,” he said, and left.
Later he told me what happened when he confronted Hanna with what he saw that same day – Olshevski entering and leaving her apartment. It happened something like this.
“I thought you were coming tomorrow,” she said when she opened the door to him.
“Well I'm here now. So can I come in?”
“Yes, of course.”
He followed her into her room. “Is your mother home?” he asked.
“Yes, I'll introduce you if you like. Why don't you sit down? What's the matter? Are you drunk?”
“No.” He took her hands. She was almost as tall as he. “I've got to ask you something, Hanna.”
She released her hands and put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips. “If you ask me to marry you when you're drunk I'll say no,” she laughed.
“How do you know Captain Olshevski?” Jim said, bluntly.
“Who?”
“Olshevski.”
“I don't know any Olshevski...I don't think. Does he go to the club?”
“Don't lie to me, Hanna.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw him walk in here an hour ago.”
She sat down heavily in an overstuffed armchair. “Oh, him.”
“You mean you don't even know his name?” Jim said incredulously.
“Not his real one.”
Jim didn't see himself get pale, but he felt it, and sat down on the couch in front of her. He saw her look over at a desk with a typewriter on it and a thick manila envelope leaning on it.
“His name is Captain Alexander Olshevski and he was my C.O., the one who got me transferred outa here.” She was looking at her hands in her lap, as though she wasn't interested in the name.
Jim, preoccupied with his own anger, didn't notice the tears in her eyes until they spilled gently over her bottom lids. He couldn't help himself, he walked across the room to her, fell on his knees and lay his head in her lap. She caressed his head. “Do you love me, Jim?” she said in German. “I mean really, really?”
“I do, Hanna, I really do,” Jim said, half crying now himself.
I don't know how long they kept affirming and reaffirming their love for each other. Finally Hanna told Jim to look at the envelope on her desk. He did so. It was actually sealed with sealing wax. “Open it,” she said.
Inside were photographs of Top Secret Situation Reports sent by the Frankfurt OB section of MI – Jim's old unit – all signed by Captain A. Olshevski, including attachments, exhibits, the works. The section's daily activities for the past week.
“He left these here?” Jim asked her. The fog was gradually lifting from his mind, revealing a disturbing reality. Hanna nodded.
“Why?”
“Because I'm the link to his handler.”
“And his handler is...?” he asked, but she shook her head.
Instead of being devastated by the shock of learning that the love of his life was an East German or Soviet spy, Jim was actually relieved if not outright happy that she was not having an affair with his nemesis, Captain Fuckface Olshevski. Nevertheless, the situation was serious, he realized as it gradually sank in.
“What are you going to do?” Hanna asked him. He wished he knew. Turn her over to the German or, worse, the American authorities, was out of the question. But by not doing so he was in deep shit, potentially at least, unless....
“What do you do with this stuff,” he asked her, “I mean how do you pass it on?”
“Tomorrow morning I go for a ride on my bike to the Stadtswald when I place it into a drop, a tree hollow actually, and I don't know what happens to it next.”
“Obviously it gets picked up.”
“Obviously. Give me a cigarette, won't you?”
After they both lighted up, Jim said, “So you're an agent for the Stasi, Hanna?” - Stasi being the East German security agency, their CIA. She nodded. There was a knock on the door and Jim jumped. But it was only Hanna's mother, who was duly introduced to Jim, who bowed and mumbled that he was charmed to meet her.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked them. “I made some Strudel. I'm sure you'd liked some Herr Tate...warm?” It was impossible to refuse, so they waited in silence until she returned with the tea things and strudel – except for Jim's question: “Does she know?” She knew.
Jim wanted Hanna to go to the German authorities and confess everything—but:
“I can't do that Jim, they'd want to know about my comrades here and on the other side. I'd have to tell them everything, be a traitor, and I can't do that.” There were no tears now, she was firm. “I'm a communist, Jim. I know that's a bad word for you, and I know that the German Democratic Republic and the Soviet Union have become corrupt, and I hate them for it. But I will never be a capitalist, something I feel is far worse.”
The conversation went on and on...into the night and finally bed. They decided shortly before or after climax.
Jim was determined to expose Olshevski. Why did he do it? Hanna supposed he did it for money, which was most likely paid into a numbered Swiss account. They needed more time. So tomorrow, Saturday, Hanna would put Olshevski's envelope (a new one, the old one having obviously been opened) in the usual drop in the Stadtswald. Then Hanna would go to the German CIA equivalent. They call it the Defense of the Constitution Office. She would tell them that she was recruited by the Stasi by force when she was already in the west. They said her mother, still in the east, would suffer if she didn't cooperate. Now, however, her mother has also defected – and would be present during the interview as proof. She didn't know anything else, she was a unwilling tool, a puppet. They probably wouldn't believe that story, but they would certainly want to check the part about her receiving classified documents from “an American intelligence officer” whose name she did not know. They would be able to check it out. Which they did.
The following Friday when Olshevski rang Hanna's doorbell a woman he did not know opened the door. She told him that Hanna was sick and she was her temporary replacement. Please come in, said the spider to the fly. Olshevsky was suspicious because he hadn't been told in advance, but what the hell, he thought, these people are like that. Like what? He placed the attache case on the table as always, opened its false bottom and removed the thick envelope. He turned to leave and found the door blocked by two plain-clothes policemen, who turned him over to the Defense of the Constitution folks. If still alive, ex-Captain Olshevsky is most likely in a military stockade somewhere, after serving a sentence in Germany for spying against the Federal Republic a.k.a. West Germany.
In order to protect them from Stasi revenge, Hanna and her mother were given new identities in Bavaria. That was even farther from Bad Kreuznach than Frankfurt, but Jim solved the problem in his usual resourceful, but in this case extreme, manner. He married Hanna. After his military service ended, he stayed in Germany and studied philosophy at the University of Munich, financed by the G.I. Bill of rights. Hanna and her mother opened a cabaret called the “Dreigröschen Cabaret” after Brecht's Threepenny Opera, which eventually became the “in” watering hole for Americans as well as Germans who could afford it. For the most part, the Americans were not aware that Bertold Brecht had always been a dedicated communist.
The Dreigröschen Cabaret in MunichAs I said, Jim Tate was kicked out of Military Intelligence and he wanted to know why. Well, he found out, didn't he? I think it's worth wondering what would have happened if he hadn't been kicked out, or if he hadn't cared about knowing why. Everything would have been different in many people's lives – Jim's, Hanna's, her mother's, Olshevski's, even mine – but that's another story.
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