Ghostwriting, Editing, Publishing, and Screenwriting Services In The United States And Abroad P.O. Box 1898 / Mt. Pleasant, SC 29465-1898 USA Call toll-free: 1 (800) 876-6202 / Fax: +1 (843) 881-1899 / From overseas: +1 (843) 881-6080 Electronic mail: dickcote@bookdoctor.com |
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Authors who use literary collaborators all share a common characteristic: they have a story which needs telling, but they don't have the time or the specialized writing
skills to complete the project alone. This was the case with a ghostwriting assignment I completed for National Press Books, Inc., of Bethesda, Maryland. The project: fly to Moscow, interview an accused spy and edit his manuscript for publication -- all in 45 days!
During his nine years in
exile, Mr. Howard maintained his innocence and wrote his memoirs. The manuscript arrived at
the publisher's office months after the agreed-upon deadline, and it soon became clear that major
work would be necessary before it could be published.
Safe House is the compelling memoir of Edward Lee Howard, the only American CIA officer ever to seek political asylum in the former Soviet Union. After a successful business management career, Mr. Howard was hired and trained by the CIA for its most prized espionage assignment: Moscow Station. In 1983, For reasons never made clear by the CIA, he was fired just days before taking his post, and subsequently returned to work as an economist in the private sector. In 1985, a defecting Soviet spy accused him of selling U.S. intelligence secrets to the
Russians. Hours before he was to be arrested, he eluded a 65-man FBI surveillance team, fled to Moscow and was granted political asylum.
The writing challenges:
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Mr. Howard was skittish about meeting with me. Afraid of assassination by the CIA and having suffered many bad experiences at the hands of Western journalists, he was reluctant to deal with a new face on short notice. I spent a week faxing him detailed information about myself, my personal life and professional background so that he could get to know me well enough to trust me with the most intimate details of his dangerous and difficult life.
What I did:
The results:
The rewritten manuscript was delivered on time to National Press on June 30, 1994. The author and publisher were both highly pleased.
Mr. Howard wrote from Moscow, "I received the revised manuscript and am very pleased with it. Many thanks! You really polished it and kept the spirit of the original text. The ten days we spent getting to know each other paid off."
Mr. Alan Sultan of National Press Books, Inc., wrote me, "You really did a great job on Safe House, Dick. We were very pleased that you finished it on time, and we look forward to using you again."
Safe House was cleared by the CIA and was released for sale on March 24, 1995.
Synopsis: Here is the riveting autobiographical account of the only CIA agent ever to defect to the KGB. Before he was to assume a CIA post in Moscow, Howard's routine polygraph test showed deception. When he discovered the agency planned to arrest him, he fled--commencing what the Albuquerque Journal called a "life of intrigue worthy of a Tom Clancy novel."
Midwest Book Review: It may read like a spy novel; but this is a practical true-life account which reveals how one Ed Howard was wrongly accused of espionage. CIA man Howard was on the fast track when a routine lie detector test condemned him. FBI harassment after he was defrocked from his position continued, and Howard eventually was forced to flee to seek asylum in Russia. From abroad, he argues his case.
Publisher's Weekly: "Howard wants to come in from the cold, perhaps weary of the ``relocation package'' Russia bestowed on him when he defected there a package comprising an apartment he describes as luxurious, a dacha, automobiles, trips, expense-paid visits from his family and other perks. After being fired from the CIA in 1983 for failing a routine polygraph test virtually on the eve of his departure for a Moscow assignment, Howard found a state finance job in New Mexico. Before long, though, the FBI began questioning him about espionage, so one September day in 1985, he rang the bell at the Soviet consulate in Helsinki, seeking asylum. According to Howard, the KGB, who would later become his saviors, set him up as a straw man to protect Aldrich Ames when KGB agent Vitaly Yurchenko defected to the U.S. that same year (he defected back to Russia three months later)and revealed the existence of, but did not name, a Soviet mole in the CIA. With that the hunt was on for Howard, a hunt that causes riddles aplenty in these pages. Focusing largely on his life in Russia, Howard, who is given to posturing, does not emerge as particularly trustworthy, and he further strains our credulity with his portraits of his KGB minders as nannies who indulge his every whim, especially Vladimir Kryuchkov, the former KGB head who was ousted for colluding in the failed 1991 putsch. Howard is now prepared to plea-bargain with the U.S., and here he sets out the conditions under which he would leave his safe house: He agrees to face espionage charges but wants New Mexico to waive a violation of his probation a probation he incurred by shooting up a car in a drunken brawl. 20,000 first printing." February 27, 1995
SAFE HOUSE:
The Compelling Memoirs of the Only CIA Spy
to Seek Asylum in Russia
By Edward Lee Howard
[Ghostwritten by Richard N. Côté]
Copyright © 1995 by National Press Books, Inc.
By mid-afternoon I had made up my mind to escape. I told Mary that I might be gone a few days, weeks, months or even up to a year, but that our families would take care of her and to have faith in our reunification. I had no idea of where I would go, but it would be better if she didn't know my destination anyway.
Mary had tears in her eyes, but said that she understood my reasons. I only hoped that my prediction would come true: that I would be taking the whole mess with me and that she and Lee would be left in peace.
I fabricated the jack-in-the-box dummy at home on the morning of my escape. It was a crude but effective, made from a sawed-off broomstick with a coat hanger for the shoulders, my wife's styrofoam wig holder for a head, and a disguise wig I had left over from my CIA training. The jib was dressed in a beige, Calvin Klein field jacket and a solid-color baseball cap.
I wrapped the jib dummy in my raincoat, took it into the garage, opened the car door and put it into the footwell on the passenger side of the car. I also disconnected the brake lights, so that they would not flash when we slowed down for the jump.
I decided that dusk would be the best time to escape and that we should use a trip to town for dinner as our cover for the jump. Mary called a babysitter to come by the house about half past five and we set about planning the affair in detail. The jib jump was scheduled for about seven-thirty.
I spent my last half hour at home playing with Lee and chatting quietly with Mary. I told her to expect some initial harassment from the FBI if I escaped, but that she should get a good lawyer to fight them if they persisted. After all, I reasoned, their fight was with me, not with her.
I had a last-minute brainstorm which, I hoped, might buy me some additional time. I made a tape recording of my voice, and the plan was that if everything went well and my jump wasn't detected, Mary could call Dr. Dudelczyck's answering machine and play my taped voice over the phone. My taped message said that I'd see him again next week. It was designed to give the FBI phone tap operators reassurance that I was still at home and keep them off my trail. It evidently worked.
The babysitter arrived I had to say good-bye to Lee. He seemed to sense something was wrong and started crying. After hugging him one last time I walked to the car, my own eyes streaming with tears. I got into the passenger seat, put on my baseball cap, and Mary drove us to Alfonso's, a piano bar on Canyon Road.
On the way, we were amazed to find absolutely no surveillance, and we wondered where on earth they were. I wanted surveillance to see us go into town and come back so that they would not come snooping around my house before Monday when I was due to start work. You get an eerie feeling when you expect surveillance and you don't see it. You like to know where your tails are. At the restaurant we ordered hors d'ouevres, but we were both too tense to order main dishes. Our surveillance had still not shown up, and I was worried.
I came up with an idea. Knowing that my home phone was tapped, I had Mary go to the phone and call the babysitter. She told her that Lee had suffered a slight fever that day, and that we were at Alfonso's on Canyon Road and we could be reached at such-and-such a telephone number if needed.
Within ten minutes, the FBI tail's car cruised by the restaurant, and a few minutes later, a blonde agent with glasses came in, went to the bar and ordered a Coke. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and I thought, "Okay, he's here, I'm back in control."
We rose, I put on my baseball cap again and got into the passenger seat. Mary drove. We headed from Canyon Road towards Old Pecos Trail. Mary took a wrong turn and I swore a couple of words, but immediately felt ashamed. I probably wouldn't see her for a long time, and that I had been focusing entirely on my escape -- completely ignoring her dilemma and feelings. I was watching my wristwatch, noting the sunset, rehearsing the execution of my jump, the exact route, the distance between our car and the tail car -- scores of details. But I was ignoring the important part: that I was leaving my wife of ten years, the love of my life, and in a few hundred yards, I had to jump.
Back at Camp Peary, both Mary and I had practiced the jib jump over and over again under the watchful eyes of the instructors, who yelled and screamed at us until we got it right. Now was the moment of truth.
We neared the junction of Canyon Road and Old Pecos Trail, near St. John's College in Sante Fe. This was where the road dipped, turned to the right, with substantial hedges planted on the right side. As we came to the jump point, I turned and looked at Mary. Her face was serious, and her eyes were moist with tears. Our marriage and our love were both on the line.
"Goodbye, babe," I said, and Mary slowed to five miles an hour. I moved to the outboard side of the seat, flipped up the dummy, put my hat on it, opened the door, jumped out and shoved the door closed as I jumped. I tried to hit the ground running but landed hard and rolled into the bushes.
It was to be nineteen months before I saw Mary or Lee again. Much to the amazement of us all, our reunion would be in Moscow.
My arm throbbed with pain as I scrambled to hide myself behind a large hedge. From my hiding place I watched Mary continue down the road, satisfied that the pop-up dummy did its job. My escape and evasion instructors from the Denied Areas Operations Course at The Farm would have been proud of me, I thought. A strong rivalry exists between the CIA and the FBI, and the Agency always relished beating their FBI counterparts -- as I just had.
Within a minute the young FBI tail in the sport coat from Alfonso's restaurant drove by me. He did not slow down, but appeared to speed up in an effort to close the gap between himself and Mary's car. I waited in the bushes another five minutes, then set out at a brisk jog towards my office in the state capitol building.
First I gathered the clothes and overnight bag which I had sneaked in earlier that day. Then I typed a letter of resignation to my boss, Phil Baca, citing personal reasons and requesting that all my salary and pension funds be given to Mary. Finally, I wrote a hasty good-bye note for Mary, which I put in a separate envelope along with my resignation letter. I tried to make it sound like she was unaware of my escape plans. I hoped that she would be able to tell the FBI that I went for a mountain hike and didn't come back. I left the letters on Phil Baca's desk.
These tasks took about fifteen minutes and it was nearly 8:00 P.M. when I ran out of my office to catch the limousine at the Loretto Hotel three blocks away. As usual, the airport limo was a bit late. I boarded with one other passenger. I cursed to myself when I remembered that the limo made one more hotel stop before leaving Santa Fe: the Hilton Hotel, where the FBI interrogation and surveillance team was headquartered! The driver opened the car doors and we waited in front of the hotel for about five minutes -- an eternity to me as I slumped nervously in the back of the limo. No other passengers boarded and the limo finally drove off. I heaved a sigh of relief but continued to watch for surveillance.
The limo arrived at the Albuquerque airport shortly after 9:00 P.M. I called home, but by prearranged plan, I said nothing to Mary when she answered. If my escape had gone undetected, she was to answer normally; if my escape had been detected, she was to answer in an irritable voice. Her answer was normal, but I could detect a great deal of emotion in her voice. I owed her much credit for my escape. Weakened by the emotional encounter, I hung up and went quickly to the airline counters.
I thought there would be a 9:30 PM Southwest Airlines flight to Dallas, but my information was out of date. Instead, the only plane which left that night was a United Airlines flight to Tucson, which I barely made. I still had no idea about my ultimate destination. All I knew was that I wanted to be a long way from Sante Fe.
The flight to Tucson was nearly empty. At the Tucson airport, I paced the airline counters for almost an hour studying my options. There were no more flights that night, so I focused on departures the following morning. But where to?
Mexico? No, that was too obvious, too much a cliché.
Miami en route to South America? I still had friends in Costa Rica, Colombia and Peru.
Europe, where I had once lived as an adolescent?
I couldn't decide, but checked into the airport hotel to think things through.
After a light meal and a couple of beers, I went to my room and played with the red hair dye I'd bought earlier that day in Santa Fe. Ultimately, I decided that it would draw more attention to me than it would disguise my appearance.
I used my room phone to call several toll-free airline reservation numbers and finally made a reservation with TWA to Copenhagen via New York. "Why not have some fun?" I said to myself. I had never been to Copenhagen, and I knew the FBI would start their search by checking all my previous residences. It was late -- nearly 2:00 AM -- before I went to sleep.
I presented myself early at the TWA counter for my 8:00 A.M. flight to New York and Copenhagen. I reserved a business-class seat and charged it to my TWA Getaway credit card. I chuckled about what the FBI would think when they saw my Getaway card invoice.
TWA had no business-class service from Tucson to New York, so they gave me a first-class seat. I boarded early, anxious to get out of the departure lounge where I could have been identified. A tanned, silver-haired gentleman took the seat next to mine and I immediately recognized him as Lee Marvin, one of my childhood heroes.
I was too shy to make conversation with him.
I stared out the window as we flew east over New Mexico to St. Louis. My thoughts were with Mary and Lee, down there somewhere.
About an hour out of Tucson, I started reading The Hunt for Red October, which I'd bought at an airport newsstand. Lee Marvin eyed the paperback.
"Its a pretty authentic piece of writing," said Marvin. "Look up front and check out all the places he got his information."
We chatted about the book and our travel plans. He was bound for Israel to make a movie; I said was flying to Copenhagen for business. It took my mind off my troubles for a while, and I'll never forget meeting my hero from "The Dirty Dozen." I asked for his autograph and he signed a blank postcard.
During our brief stop in St. Louis, I mailed the postcard to Mary. It was later confiscated by the FBI -- a memento, I like to think, of my escape.
We arrived at Kennedy Airport in New York just after five. These were anxious moments -- I feared that the FBI could be wise to my escape. I later learned that Phil Baca had come in to the office on Sunday evening. He called the FBI when he read my resignation, and by 9:00 PM on Sunday -- when I was already halfway to London -- the FBI knew that I had resigned. Hours later, they knocked at Mary's door and discovered I was gone.
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