REMEMBERANCES OF A CIA WIFE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100030009-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 2011
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: March 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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ARTICLE APPEARED
ON P-E__
WASHINGTONIAN
March 1985
In the World of Espionage, Your Wife and Kids Are
So77?.eti772es Your Best Assets. Here Is a First-Person
Story f om a Woman Wio Has Come in f -om the Cold.
By, Bina Kiyonaga
With Rudy Maxa
remember my first secu;ry breach ga, his wife, and five children abroad so
zs the wife of a spy. ':miry years frequently. When we lived abroad. I
3P-so, my husband, a coven CIS-,grew accustomed to the dun Joe kept
agent, was on his first overseas
..?s., assignment, working undercover
as a Depar-u-nent of the Army civi?-
iul in Japan.
While visit.in a our home to speak to a
grout of CLA wives about the need for
secrecy, a security mar, from Washing-
ton excused himself, ostensibly to use
our telephone. He returned to my living
r oor:m wish a list of frequently dialed
numbers I kept by the phone. The first
dozen names on the list were of CIA
wives whose husbands worked under-
cover in T ok-vo. A iv child, servant, or
visi;er. said the security man, could
cop", the list. And you didn't have to be
Sherlock Holmes or James Bond to fig-
ur e cut the CD, connection.
I was embar, asked by my naivete, all
the more because 1 was supposed to be
the boss's wife and should have known
beter. As the young wif e of a new agent,
I was an amateur playing in the big
leagues.
For the text 25 years. I worked harder
z ii~:rc a lie. I lea,-ned how to explain
bl.~hely ^_, husband's absences when I
ot have ar\ idea Where he was 07
hat he was doing. I learned how to
z,-,s,-t7 our Chevy Chase neighbors and
c_e-s ; c asked what too!: Joe
under the front seat of our car.
And, in a way, I also learned to be a
spy. Before dinner parties, Joe often re-
viewed the Quest list with me and pointed
out a wife he wanted me to befriend
during the evening. I'd cultivate her and
perhaps arrange a brunch at a country
club. Or a shopping trip. Or I'd invite
her children over to play with ours. The
object was intelligence-gathering;
through family social events, Joe could
get to know the husband better.
It wasn't until Joe began losing his
battle against stomach cancer in 1977
that I learned why we had befriended one
cabinet minister or another. During his
Caret-,, Joe told me practically nothing
about his work. But in his final months,
Joe spent hours filling in the blanks of
our lives.
As an Agency employee, Joe was for-
bidden ever to write about his experi-
ences. As an Agency wife, I am not
bound by such an agreement. And it was
Joe's wish that someday his'. ae occupa-
tion be made known. "I want." he told
me, "to stand up and be counted. "
``When Joe died eight ve:_rs aso. a re-
port ter for the New York limes called me
to ask for information for his obir any. I
called a senor CLA official who told me
that no overseas agent had ever been
..surfaced.
I said that Joe. had-specie caiJv--asked -i
me to tell the truth about his livelihood.
The CIA official consulted with others
and called me back with per mission to
conrrrn Joe's Agency connection.
-It was a precedent-setting decision be-
cause; even in death, a spy isn't sup-
posed to blow his cover.
Joe Kiyonaga was born on Halloween
1918. I always loved that-a spook born
on Halloween. He wasn't your typical
CIA man who joined the Agency shoe Jy
after its inception in the late 1940s. He
wasn't 1-vv League; he wasn't rich. But,
like his Agency colleagues, he epito-
rnized the highest caliber of govern ment
servant.
Joe's parents emigrated from Japan
and settled on Maui, in Hawaii, where
his father worked in the sugar-cane
fields and his mother was a domestic.
Their only child walked four miles to
school every day and spoke fluent Japa-
nese. Not until high school, when Joe
boarded and worked as houscbov and
deriver for the headmaster, did he learn to
speak English well. The headmaster and
manners, and a benevolent home-eco-
nomics teacher in st ucted him in Occi
den aJ cuisine. dress, and-wits the hell.
CLIntaxed
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Joe Kivoraga, three years old in this
photo, grew up on Maui in Hawaii,
the son of two Japanese immigrants.
The headmaster of his high school
helped him shed his Pidgin English
and taught him Occidental ways.
"'hen-he grew up, he didn't wear a
sailor`outfit; he became an officer
in the US Armv fighting in Europe -
during World War U.
of a broomstick-how to dance.
He graduated from the University of
Hawaii's Teacher's College and, at 21,
chose American citizenship over Japa-
nese. After the Japanese bombed Pearl
Harbor, Joe and others petitioned Frank-
fin Roosevelt to let Japanese-American s
fight in the war, a controversial issue
that was settled when Roosevelt formed
the 442 Regimental Combat Team.
Composed entirely of Japanese-Ameri-
cans (except for the officers), the 442
emerged from World War II the most
decorated and most decimated regiment,
as the book and movie Go for Broke
would later recount.
Joe fought in Italy and France and
received a~battlefield commission and
was decorated for valor. He returned to
the United States upon his father's death,
just before V-J Day and just before he
was to be made a captain. With his GI ~
Ball benefits. Joe decided to become a
lawyer and began law school at the Uni-
versirv of Michigan.
met on a blind date on campus. It
was love at first sight.
1 grew up in Baltimore. My father
worked first as a financial reporter for
the Baltimore Sun and later for the Fed-
eral Land Bank. I attended Catholic
schools and had a pleasant, uneventful
childhood. I remember that I spent most
of my time waiting for something to hap-
pen. It finally did when my father joined
the Foreign Service and was posted to
Bogota, Colombia, as agricultural at-
tach? after I graduated from high school.
I visited my parents in Bogota, caught
hepatitis, and had to stay there for nine
months. It was my first time abroad, and
I liked it. I only agreed to attend the
University of Michigan in 1946 because
my older sitter lived nearby.
Michigan's law school hosted a din-
ner, and a mutual friend suggested I
accompany a first-year student named
Joe Kiyonaga. Because his named ended
with a vowel, I presumed he was Italian.
When I greeted Joe at my dorm, I Sawa
six-foot, four-inch Oriental man as
handsome as Cary Grant. When I shook
his hand. I knew he was why I'd been
born .
He couldn't afford dates, so we took a
lot of walks. I think I hun his studies. He
stayed in Ann Arbor for summer school
after his first year, while I came to
Washington to visit my parents at their
new home on 16th Street. But the law
didn't agree with Joe, and he decided to
quit, saying he'd rather be a first-rate
farmer than a third-rate lawyer-a debat-
able point in my book. At any rate, he
.called to tell me he'd stop in Washington
on his way back to Hawaii.
Three days after he landed at National
Airport, we were married at St. Mec-
thew's Cathedral. We borrowed my
father's Hudson, took a brief honey-
moon to 'Williamsburg, and shortly
thereafter I followed Joe to Hawaii,
where he'd found a job as a high school
assistant principal. In exchange for my
father's permission to marry me, Joe
promised to pay for the completion of i
my college education; I graduated with a
teaching degree from Joe's alma mater,
just two months before the birth of our
first daughter.
Hawaii was too small for us. Drive for
an hour and a half and you're right back
where you started. My father helped Joe
enter Johns Hopkins School of Ad-
vanced International Studies, and we
came back to Washington.
Finding an apartment proved difficult
-no one wanted to rent to a Japanese. (It
reminded me of the Jesuit I had talked
with before we married, who said a Cau-
casian having children with an Oriental
would be out of the question.) But near
Bailey's Crossroads we found an apart-
ment manager whose brother had been
an officer with the 442, and we were in.
For two years we lived on the cheap
with a baby and GI Bill benefits. When
Joe graduated, he had job offers from the
State Department and the new Central
Intelligence Agency. The CIA paid a bit
more, so Joe accepted the Agency's of-
fer to become a coven operative. He
locked the job up on the eve of our
second wedding anniversary.
We were broke. Our phone had been
disconnected, and I was pregnant with
our second child. But I borrowed enough
money from my mother to buy steaks,
champagne, and-flowers, and we cele-
brated Joe's new job.
As an Agency wife whose husband is in
coven work, you have to be very trust-
.ing. Either that or go crazy. It wasn't
easy to operate in the dark, not easy to
push worry, suspicion, and fear out of
your mind.
. I remember during the height of the
Korean War, my husband, dressed in
battle fatigues, disappeared from our
home in Japan for three days. I couldn't
call his office to see if he was safe. I
didn't know when he'd return. I didn't
know where he was, though I presumed
he'd gone on a mission to Korea.
Joe had this infuriating habit of walk-
ing through the door after a long or
difficult assignment and just smiling and
putting his finger to his lips to cut off any
questions. I'm naturally curious and
love a good story as much as the next
person, so it was never easy simply .to
pick up life where we'd left off.
During the course of Joe's career, we
were stationed in Japan, Brazil, El Sal-
vador, Panama, and then back to Brazil.
Between those assignments, we usually
spent a couple of years in Washington. I
came to the conclusion that a good Agen-
continued
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Law school at the University of Michi-
gan didn't much agree with Joe Ki-
yonapa, but one of the coeds did. He
met Bina Cady on an arranged date.
Shortly after this law-school snapshot
was taken. the couple wed in Wash-
ington and moved to Hawaii.
cv wife can,*t claim too much credit for
her hu b r,~'s success, but a bad one can
ruin him. Among the wives of coven
agents. there were two bad types: the
talkative ones and the suspicious ones.
In Pan2ma. Joe was the chief of sta-
tion. Zttzcned to `the embassy and in
charge o- all the CIA agents in the coun-
t-v. One day I hosted a luncheon for a
dozen .4,cency wives. Over salad, one
woman mentioned something about a
bugging operation in which her husband
was involved. That night I told Joe about
her conversation: he left the house im-
mediately. furious. He reprimanded the
agent and canceled the operation.
Then i'jere were the suspicious wives
who called their husband's office asking
%%-here he was and when he'd left. Ob-
viously. a covert agent stationed over-
seas has ample opportunity to philander;
he doesn't have to account for his time,
and there are safe houses that provide
handy trusting spots. Some agents took
advantage of such freedom.
In one case. a husband I know used his
work as a cover for an affair with a
stewardess for years. Not only did he
have plenty of time to spend with her; he
maintained that he was working-she
flew for an airline that served Commu-
nist-bloc countries, and he said she pro-
vided valuable information in bed. They
,eventually married.
But I like to think that kind of misbe-
having was the exception. The toughest
jot was assigned to deep-cover families
stationed abroad. In the case of agents
such as Joe, the American ambassador
knew of his double life-when Joe was
attached to an embassy, he kept an office
there as well as a private office else-
where for meeting people who wouldn't
want to be seen near the American Em-
bassy. Sometimes the host government
in friendly countries also knew Joe's real
mission.
Deep-cover agents, on the other hand,
operated as average businessmen or oth-
er professionals. They could not call on
the American Embassy or pull strings
with the host government to get them out
of a pinch. Their wives could not social-
ize or draw strength from other Agency
wives. They were truly out in the cold.
I never forgot Jack Downey and Dick
Fecteau. I met them in 1952, when we
were living near a Navy U-2 base near
Atsugi, Japan. It was Halloween, and we
were celebrating Joe's birthday with a
party in the base auditorium. I knew
all the CIA undercover families in At-
sugi. so it wasn't hard to spot the two
new faces at the party-two burly, hand-
some men named Jack Downey and Dick
Fecteau.
Downey, a Yale graduate, and Fec-
4. 77Z
Vii'.,.
L
At a height of six feet, four,inches, Joe
Kiyonaga didn't need an ID card to
be spotted in a crowd. Between over-
seas assignments, he was stationed in
Washington with the CIA; the State
Department was his cover. The mug
shot for this pass was taken in 1971.
teau, a Boston University graduate,
were new to the Agency and Japan. Bad-
former football players, they radiated
enthusiasm and charm. Downey was a
covert agent dealing with Chinese af-
fairs; Fecteau was in administration. -
When Downev Fecteau arrived in
Japan that year, the CIA was busy slip-
ping spies into Mainland China. Light
aircraft flew over China and dropped
Nationalist Chinese agents into the coun-
tryside. In extreme cases, they could be
picked up by lowering a harness by hand
crank from an airplane to the ground; it
sounds clumsy, but it worked.
One afternoon, the two Chinese who
normally operated the mechanism called
in sick, an unusual coincidence in retro-
spect. Joe needed a couple of strong
volunteers to fly out with the plane that
night. The ex-football players "volun-
teered" their help. Downey said he was
bored, and Fecteau was simply a good
sport. That night the Chinese militia shot
the CIA plane down.
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I noticed Downey and Fecteau's ab-
sence from the social scene and asked
Joe about them. Transferred, he told me.
1n.:aact..the CIA presumed. Downey and
-~ecieau had gone down with the plane. It
wasn't until "ears later. after we had left
Japan. that I learned by reading news
reports that they'd been captured alive.
And it wasn't until the early 197
0s. after
the CIA admitted the two men were
agents. that the Chinese released both
men from prison.
Fecteau survived the early stages of
brutal interrogation by reciting the
names-of his Boston university football
teammates when the Chinese demanded
the names of other agents. Downey was
terrorized but did have the presence of
mind to remember what he said. So
when an American Air Force officer was
released from the same jail, Downey
passed along a cryptic message to Joe.
"Tell Joe they know about Sam Mur-
ray," Downey whispered to the depart-
ing American.
The message meant a lot to Joe, who
realized that the ''Sam Murray'' to
whom Downev had referred was really
Samurai, the biggest operation against
Japanese Communists that the CIA was
covemly supporting. Knowing that the
Communists knew about Samurai was
invaluable information, and Joe began
phasing the operation out. When Joe
again met Jack Downey-two decades
later in Washington-he thanked him for
the tip on "Sam Murray."
Joe's job demanded that we live under
different rules than most Americans sta-
tioned abroad. The children, for exam-
ple, were forbidden to have friends sleep
over. Joe often met sources at our home
at night. Some of the people he met-
foreign nationals he'd recruited as
.agents-had well-known faces. and we
could not have them recognized as visi-
tors to our house.
For that reason we were careful about
the household help. Joe preferred ser-
vants who didn't speak English, so that
even if they happened to overhear a sen-
sitive conversation, they wouldn't un-
derstand it. Sometimes he tested them by
quietly coming up behind them and say-
ing, "Fire." We looked for cooks, driv-
ers. and maids who were smart but not
too smart. And their backgrounds were
investigated before we hired them,
though they didn't know their lives were
being examined by the CIA.
After the embarrassing episode with
the security man in Japan. I always
scrambled the names on our telephone
lists. mixing in CIA personnel with doc-
tors. teachers, and repairmen. I used
initials or first names. On the phone. we
avoided the use of last names. And when
someone called at an unlikely hour, we
didn't ask questions-we just passed the
message along to Joe and forgot about it.
Twice a year, electronics experts
from Washington swept our home for
listening devices (as far as I know, they
never found any), and Washington se-
curity specialists made periodic visits to
remind us of the need for caution. I did
notice that there seemed to be a relation-
ship between falling temperatures in
Washington and visits of home-office
types to the warm climes where we
lived.
Joe's one great failing was that he was
hopeless with things mechanical, includ-
ing the standard-issue camera from the
CIA. On our daughter Ann's high school
graduation night in Panama, we wanted
to have a picture of her in her gown. Joe
couldn't figure out how to work the flash
attachment. Not until years later did-Ih
learn he had gone to our bedroom,
closed the door, and dialed the number
reserved for emergencies-the "hot-
line"-which put him through to the
duty officer in Langley. The duty officer
talked Joe through the procedure for at-
taching and using the flash.
Telling the children about their fa-
ther's real work was alwz vs Joe's as-
signment. When they were young, the
children thought their father worked for
the State Department, which is what we
told our Chevy Chase neighbors and
stores that needed Joe's place of employ-
ment in order to establish credit or cash
checks. In fact, Joe had a cover address
and phone number at the State Depart-
ment; someone answered by repeating
the number. Then any messages were
passed along to Joe at Langley. Some-
times we attended functions such as fare-
well receptions at State to lend credence
to the story that Joe worked there.
Joe made a ceremony of telling the
children he worked for the CIA, He'd
take the child into his study for a serious,
fatherly talk.
Mary. our oldest, learned the truth
from a date. We were entertaining peo-
ple at home in Washington when Mary
burst into the room and said, "Daddy,
Mike says you work for the CIA. "
Mike's father was deputy undersecre-
tary of State for Latin American affairs.
Mary was fifteen, and Joe had waited too
long to talk with her.
David was thirteen when he was told.
He was crestfallen because he'd been
bragging to his friends that his father
was a secret agent, and that had to stop.
Ann had never heard of the CIA.
John was delighted because it made
his father more glamorous in his eyes.
And Paul was twelve when Joe con-
fided to him; by then, the CIA was a
household word. Paul seemed pleased
but disappointed that he couldn't confide
in his buddy who'd been telling every-
one that his father-who was commer-
cial attache at the embassy-was a CIA
agent..
Our children loved the traveling life
and approached each new country the
way I did, as a challenge that could be an
adventure. None of our children, how-
ever, chose to follow in their father's
footsteps. Today Mary is a banker,
David and John are lawyers, Ann is an
artist, and Paul is a college student.
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In Japan I learned about a matriarchal
society. I watched Japanese wives.
seemingly as fragile as flowers. run the
jives of their families-and I like to think
that some of their feminine finesse
rubbed off on me. But if Japan taught me
to be a good wife, Brazil taught me to
enjoy it. Brazilian women were born
relaxed. As it turned out. learning to
take life in stride was a valuable lesson.
because Joe's job in Sao Paulo had its
tense moments. -
One afternoon in 1960, a Brazilian
walked into the visa section of the Amer-
ican consul's office. He said he wanted -
to talk to someone about the problems in
his country. It fell to Joe to talk with the
man. who, it turned out, represented a
group that wanted to overthrow the gov-
ernment of President Joao Goulart. A
leftist. Goulan didn't enjoy widespread
support among Brazilians who were
watching their economy erode,. and
Washington would have shed no tears
had he taken an early retirement.
Joe asked his mystery visitor to ar-
range a meeting with the ringleader of
the group that had coup on its mind. He
turned out to be General Olvmpio Mu-
rao,- nd Joe's first meeting was right out
of a'John le Carne novel.
At 3:10 in the morning, Joe walked
into a deserted Sao Paulo park. It wasn't
difficult to spot the general: He was
walking two bull mastiffs. W-her. the two
men met, Joe opened the conversation
with a prearranged signal.
"Would you care to share a smoke?
he asked. "Do you object to a Marl-
boro?"
"Thank you, I'd enjoy that," replied
the general, "but I prefer to smoke my
own." -
Then the men sat down on a bench and
began planting the seeds that led to the
overthrow of the Goulan government.
There was a natural affinity between
Joe and the general. Both were from
humble backgrounds, both were men's
men, and both spoke straight from the
shoulder-. Murao.:wanted to ?knew if-&.e.=
United States would supply him with',
arms money, and political advice.,;_:'
Today, Bina Kiyonaga (left) works as director of public relations for Columbia
Catering and studies for a master's degree in philosophy and theology--at'
Catholic University. Ten years ago, the Kiyonaga family posed for an
impromptu photograph. From left: David and his wife Deirdre, Ann. Mary
and her husband Mike DiGiacomo, Paul, and John. Joe is in the background;'
Bina is on the floor in the foreground.
Joe told him the united States might
w ifl ini_ to work with'hirn.
The general wanted assurances that
the United States would recognize his
government should he succeed.
Joe said it was possible.
The two men needed an excuse to
meet regularly. so I became the best.
friend of the general's wife. Maria w?as
into hair and clothes, two items that
don't hold my interest. But for several
months. when Joe and the general plot-
ted downs.airs, Maria and f spent hours
upstairs in my bedroom, where she tu-
tored me in high-fashion make-up appli-
cation and hair styles. She'd bring over a
box with wigs, and we'd spend hours
playing like little girls-you could tell
she thought I needed big help in the looks
department.
Joe did provide political advice,
though I don't know if the Agency fun-
neled money to Murao and his co-con- i
spirators. Goulan grew concerned about
Murao and transferred him to an outpost
about 100 miles north of Rio. But about
six months after we left Brazil. on April
Fool's Day of 1964. Murao marched on
the capital and. in a bloodless coup. in-
st.alled'a puppet President. establishing a
military dictatorship that the United
States recognized.
Joe was superb at recruiting agents in the
countries in which he served. First of all.
he was good with languages. In Japan,
he spoke his mother tongue. Before we
were posted to Brazil, he mastered Por-
tuguese. And his Catholic background
helped him in South and Central Ameri-
ca. In fact, some of his informants were
priests. a few motivated by the money
Joe could pay for information, but most
motivated by a dislike of communism. In
addition, Joe was a charmer. His dark
good looks and careful manner inspired
trust in men (and sometimes desire in
women) that worked to his benefit as an
agent.
One of his favorite meeting places was
the confessional. He would meet sources
during off-hours in the confession
booths of small churches. He would be-
gin his confession, and if it turned.out he
was talking to the wrong person by acci-
dent, he simply rattled off a list of small
sins.
One evening he met an Eastern Euro-
pean contact who was increasing his de-
mands for money from the Agency. Joe
suspected he might be a double agent.
the most dangerous of espionage ani-
mals. Joe confronted him in a confes-
sional with his suspicions, and the in-
fornmiant grew enraged, threatening my
Continued.
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L_
lfe and-the lives of our kids. -
`_ The next morning. I opened a blind in
our house to see a man standing near the
windov. cradling a machine gun. I knew
nothing about the man's threat at the
time. I panicked and rushed to Joe to tell
him of the danger. Not to worry. he said.
He told me there were rumors of a coup.
so two members of the secret police had
been detailed to our home. For our last
three months in Sao Paulo. men with
machine guns stood outside our house
around the clock.
Joe kept a little black book in each coun-
try filled with names of the people he
One of his favorite meeting
places was the
confessional. He would
meet sources during off-
hours in small churches.
met.-Before a social engagement, he
would brief me on the guests. If there
was someone in particular he wanted to
get to know, he'd tell me his position,
where his children went to school-any.,,
details that might help the to become;-
friends with his wife.
He used our children as son of junior
operatives, unbeknownst to them. At the
start of each school year, Joe's office-
would categorize our children's class-
mates, listing their parents' jobs, politi-
cal affiliations, family connections, club
memberships, as well as any known
weaknesses or vulnerabilities. Then Joe
would determine possible targets and
suggest that his children get to know
certain schoolmates well. Children
being children, it didn't always work,
but Joe tried his hardest to engineer
alliances.
Sometimes Joe used a direct ap-
proach.
We arrived in El Salvador in the sum-
mer of 1966, and even then you could
tell the country was hell-bent on revolu-
tion. The disparity between the handful
of wealthy ruling families and the very
poor was striking. There seemed to be
no middle class: you either flew in pri-
vate planes or scratched a living out of
mud.
Joe knew that one of the most power-
ful men in the country was the head of
the National Guard. Jose Medrano. a
short. swashbuckling general who had
installed his friend as President because
he couldn't be bothered with running the
government. Joe called Medrano direct-
ly and invited him to-our house one
Saturday. I didn't know he was coming
but noticed a Jeep in front of our home
when I drove up from a shopping trip.
Inside. I found Joe sitting with the
general, a bottle of Johnnv Walker Black
Label, two glasses. and a Colt .45 with
walnut grips on the table between them.
The general was dressed in fatigues with
stars on the epaulets and jump boots.
When I entered the room, he stood,
clicked his heels, and said in Spanish,
"Jose Medrano at your service!"
It was said that Medrano was a crack
shot with a .45 and a notorious torture
master who liked to use the capucha, a
hood with a drawstring that is placed
over a prisoner's head and tightened. I
don't know that the latter was true, but
Medrano told Joe that his reputaton with
a gun was undeserved, that he'd have
better luck throwing a pistol at a target
than firing it.
While Joe was befriending Medrano.
I found myself becoming best friends
with the First Lady of El Salvador. I'd
been asked to help refurbish San Salva-
dor's anthropological museum. I enlist-
ed the help of a Washington architect,
Jerry Mumma, who had built an addition
to our Chevy Chase home and who hap-
pened to be visiting El Salvador the day
after I was asked to chair the museum
project.
I begged Jerry to look at the building
and offer advice, which he did; -The
eventual transformation was so well re-
ceived that when I was given a decora-
tion for my help, I felt obliged to confess
that Jerry had come up with the overall
plan.
I did not feel it necessary to mention
that one night, when there were no
workmen around to help, the wife of a
prominent Salvadoran and I had tried to
move a most revered mummy that was
the museum's jewel. We dropped it and
watched it break into about 25 pieces. I
went home and got a bottle of Scotch and
some Duco cement, and we had a great
time patching it back together. To this
day, I don't think anyone ever noticed.
It was in El Salvador that we had a rare
encounter with anti-Japanese prejudice.
Most upper-echelon American Embassy
officials were members of Club Cam-
pestre, the most exclusive country club
in El Salvador. When Joe was recom-
mended for membership, he was turned
down. We later learned it was because
he was Japanese.
The embassy, however, eventually
extracted its revenge in the mid-1960s.
when President Lyndon Johnson was to
meet with several Central American
presidents in El Salvador. Joe was in
charge of security, especially as it ap-
plied to Johnson. A grand evening was
scheduled to take place at Club Cam-
pestre until the American ambassador
heard about it. He decreed that no club
that refused membership to "one of my
men*' on racial grounds would host a
gathering that included the American
President. And that's how the soiree
0 came to be held at the Intercontinental
`-'ffotel in San Salvador.
0 It was the Wife of the President of El
Salvador who alerted us to impending
conflict between El Salvador and neigh-
boring Honduras in 1969. There was
tension on the border between the two
countries because overcrowded El Sal-
vador was spilling into Honduras.
On July 4. the President's wife
phoned me to say her husband was going
huntin'd and wondered if Joe could get
him s pair of size-four combat boots.
Size four? Combat boots for hunting? I
acted as if I believed the hunting story
but drove immediately to the American
ambassador's residence, where Joe was
attending a national-day pan),.
Continued
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The military attache cabled Washing-
ton. and the next day the combat boots
am ved. A couple of days later. Medrano
?arched into the embassy to find Joe.
He was a walking arsenal. In addition io
Medrano.s ever-present Colt .45, hand
frenades hung from his belt and car-
tridge -filied bandoliers adorned his
chest. As Joe's friend. he was reporting
tc).Jo; that. as head of the army. he was
on his way to the border to start the war
that weekend.
As is customary. Joe told the Ameri-
can. ambassador. who was incredulous
because he said he had information from
the government contradicting that. Joe
cabled the Agency with the news. The
CIA notified the State Department.
which queried the ambassador.
One of the most delicate tasks a CIA
chief of station must perform is to avoid
undercutting the ambassador-he must
always keep the ambassador apprised of
critical happenings. In this case. Joe had
warned the ambassador of the border
war. but the ambassador hadn't passed
the intelligence on to Washington be-
cause he apparently believed his own
sources were more accurate. When the
cable from State reached him. he called a
staff meeting and solicited opinions from
everyone; only Joe predicted war that
weekend. The firing began at 5 ANI on
Monday. .
The ambassador was not to forget that
loss of face. His next post was Guatema-
la, which was also supposed to be Joe's
next assignment. Joe told me the ambas-
sador nixed that.
I had no hard feelings-such things
happen. and the tension between diplo-
mats and spies is as old as history. I
prefer to remember my favorite newspa-
per picture from that time. a photograph
of Medrano swathed in a poncho riding
to the front on a donkey, his arsenal
around his considerable waistline.
Joe was chief of station in Panama dur-
ing the politically charged canal-treaty
talks in the early '70s. He agreed with
prevailing congressional sentiment that
the canal ought to belong to Panama. but
he didn't agree with the method of trans-
ferring ownership.
"Why don't we sell the canal?'' he
used to say. 'Why pay them to take it off
our hands?
He also objected to the carnival at-
mosphere that surrounded the negotia-
tions. Diplomats on both sides. for ex-
Medrano marched into the
embassy to tell Joe that, as
head of the army, he was
on his way to the border to
start the war that weekend.
ample. sported T-shirts that read in
Spanish. "The Canal Is Ours."
The United States was so fearful of
adverse world reaction if it did not sign
the canal over to Panama that lot told me
we once protected Torrijos's- brother
from being arrested on drug charges in
New York. Moises Torrijos was Pana-
ma's ambassador to Spain, but he was
also a suspected trafficker in heroin. (He -
was indicted for drug smuggling in 1978
in the United States but denies the charge
and has never faced trial.)
Joe and the CIA. as well as the Drug
Enforcement Agency, knew that Moises
Torrijos was planning to pass through
customs in New York on a return trip to
Panama. They wanted to apprehend
him.
But years later. Joe told me that the
State Department-fearful of upsetting
the canal negotiations-objected strong-
ly. State alerted General Torrijos, who
warned his brother, who changed his
flight plan, stopping off in Caracas in-
stead of New York in the course of his
flight home.
Joe had the good fortune to serve most of
his career during a time when the CIA
enjoyed a decent international reputa-
tion. I think this was largely because he
worked for a government trusted by peo-
ple around the world. That began to
change in the post-Vietnam years. espe-
cially the '70s, when the Senate intelli-
gence-committee hearings publicized
some of the Agency's dirty laundry and
disaffected ex-CIA employees began
writing kiss-and-tell memoirs.
Joe and 1 were as shocked as the pub-
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lic to learn of secret drug-testing pro-
grams and assassination devices dis-
guised as cigars. And when ex-agents
such as Philip Agee and Victor Marchet-'
ti began writing books telling secrets.
Joe could feel the difference in the field.
Sources were less cooperative, worried
that their identities might appear in the
New York Times or the Village Voice.
Agee wrote that most "special assis-
tants . to ambassadors were really CIA
chiefs of station. and after the CIA's
Dick Welch was assassinated in Greece,
a worldwide shuffling of titles took
place. We were in Brazil. where Joe was
chief of station. His name was dropped
to sixteenth place on the embassy's dip-
lomatic list. the better to bun' his im-
portance. Dick Welch had worked with
Joe in Brazil. and two days after his
death we received a letter he'd mailed us
saving that Greece was a bit dull after
South America but he looked forward to
a couple of quiet years.
What had started out for Joe in Pana-
ma as a stomach ulcer turned out to be
cancer. We spent our last time together
at Sloan-Kettering. where we talked
about our 30 years together, all but two
of those with the CIA. He'd risen from a
case officer to a chief of station. We'd
lived in five countries and raised five
children. We were both proud of Joe's
-association with the Agency.
I remembered a poignant conversa-
tion we'd had a few months earlier, in
the living room of our home. We had
been alone. talking about our long ro-
mance. when my mechanically disin-
clined husband asked me if there was
anything he could do to repay me for our
years together. He had more than repaid
me during our marriage, but I couldn't
resist.
"Yes, Joe." I said, "would you mind
learning how to play the record player?"
I practiced being a widow for a long
time. but who can be prepared for the
reality? Eight years ago, on March 8,
1977. Joe died quietly at night at the
hospital, moments after I'd left him.
Shortly thereafter. my children and I
visited Admiral Stansfield Turner at his
office in Langley. We walked past the
CIA insignia in marble on the floor, past
the lobby inscription-"You shall know
the truth and the truth shall make you
free''-and took a private elevator to
Turner's office. In an adjoining office,
about 40 of Joe's former colleagues had
gathered, including Hawaii Senator
Daniel Inouve. who had fought with Joe
in the 442. The new CIA director post-
humously awarded the Intelligence
Medal of Merit to Joe for his years of
service.
It is on the mantel of my fireplace in
Chevy Chase.
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