THE LAWYER WHO HORSE-TRADED THE RUSSIANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000200020093-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 9, 1998
• Sequence Number: 93
• Publication Date: September 1, 1962
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Approved For Release 2000/08/26 CW-RDP`i5-OOOOTR0002O -
 TRUE MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 1962
A
,
'ImRUE;lj,llje~s'v :CIA-RDP75-00001 R 020dY02
(JCPYRGHT
THE LAWYER
WHO
HORSE-TRADED
THE RUSSIANS
Attempts to negotiate the Powers-Abel swap
had ground to a halt
when this gun-toting lawyer took over.
Working in strict secrecy,
he not only talked the Russians out of Powers,
but got another American as well.
He could teach our State Department some lessons
By JIMMY BRESLIN
CPYRGHT
^ James B. Donovan is only 46, and he has already lived a couple of
lives. You would not think it is this way if you see him around William
Street ill New York City, which is where he works at law. William Street
is in the financial district and nothing happens there except business.
'['he people who conduct this business all seem to be the same, too. They
wear suits with vests and they cat lunch at places like Whyte',, or some
private club and their interests are the Stock i\farket and the country
club and the prep schools their kids go to. Donovan is a big success on
William Street; lie could be the highest paid legal mind in the country.
And when he steps out of his building at night, the chaulleur is at the
curb and he has the car door open. But all of this is only a part of it
with Jim Donovan. He is a man who comes different. Lawyers and business
people don't do the things he does. Go back to last February 10th and
you can see that.
It was a little after 3 o'clock in the morning in New York City and
nothing was happening. The morning papers had gone in with their final
editions an hour earlier. The television stations were off the air. In the
main offices of the two wire services, the United Press International and
the Associated Press, a man would be sitting here and there amidst empty,
paper-cluttered desks, fussing with copy that was going to go out over
the wire slugged "For Sunday AM's." Small lobster shifts in the three
afternoon papers were quietly putting out thin Saturday editions.
It was pretty much like this all over the country. The best story around
The 2 for 1 Swap:
When Donovan took over,
the Reds would not even
agree to swap U-2 Pilot
Powers (top) for Soviet spy
Abel (below). Amid State
Department protests, Dono-
van black-jacked Russians
into throwing in Frederic
L. Pryor (center) as well.
d 2,
.1Q Vf}N
SEPTEMBER 5-00001 R0 g0200020093-2 19 k
 CPYRGHT
Approved For Release 200
CPYRGHT
Donovan alto negotiated for return
sit third American, Marvin J1akinen,
THE LAWYER
WHO !HORSE-TRADED
THE RUSSIANS
was about George Romney. an auto executive, who had annowrced be
as going to run for governor of Michigan. A couple of the cat-house
ossip columns carried a note about some singer who seemed to be having
rouble with his wife in Rome. Otherwise, there was nothing. It was the
tart of a cold, dead winter Saturday. Then at 3: 15, Jim Donovan turned
t he night upside down.
Rolls on the wire service machines started to ring and the copy began
> move as fast as it could be put together. The White 1louse was an-
i ouncing that the Russians had just returned Arrncricans Francis Gary
owcrs, the U-2 pilot, and Frederic L. Pryor, a student they had been
olding, in exchange for Col. Rudolf Abel, the Soviet spy who had been
. vrving a 30-year sentence in the Atlanta Penitentiary. The exchange hail
Seen engineered by James B. Donovan, the New York lawyer who had
efended Colonel Abel as a public service in his espionage trial in 19x7.
Donovan, operating under strict secrecy, had bccr bargaining with the
Russians in Fast Berlin for the past eight days. He now was boarding a
plane with U-2 Pilot Powers and would bring him. back home to the
?nitcd States.
It was, if you were sitting in an office that had been quiet and now was
alive with this copy, almost unbelievable. It was the damnedest story of
ireign intrigue and espionage ever put together. You couldn't get the
ussians to agree on what to have for lunch, but here they had entered
no a deal which produced one of the biggest moments in the 16-year
story of the cold war. It was implausible.
Just as implausible as the man who brought it off. For at 8:15 a.nt.
_Berlin time, James B. Donovan, the corporation adviser from William
erect, had walked onto a bridge with a .32 under his overcoat and
i-essed the Russians, as lie had been pressing them for over a week, and
hen he was finished lie had what he wanted. The bridge was called the
aicneckc Bridge and it is between West Berlin and Potsdam and you do
r of find lawyers front William Street doing business there. But. when
on get to know Jim Donovan, you find it was a very natural tiring for
im to do.
on are going to hear of Donovan again in the business of negotiating
Mr spies. In his maneuvering with the Powers-Abel swap. he left the way
c pen for the return of Marvin L. Makinen, another American agent held
it Russia, and a man in Washington tells you that someday soon yon
robably will read a story out of Berlin saying how last night Donovan
of this Makinen released. too. Which makes sense. Donovan knows his
ay around this type of thing. During the war lie was on the personal
. aff of Gen. William Donovan of the OSS. They were not related, but
ne general kept saying that Jim was "my bastard son." He also was all
assistant counsel at the Nurcmburg Trials.
But Donovan's business is anything but espionage and wars and cold
Wars. He is a tremendously successful attorney. At the end of a major
roxy battle between the lfurclrisons of Texas and. Allan Kirby of New
ersey for control of the huge Alleghany Corporation, for example, the
few firm headed by Donovan was named counsel for all parties involved.
Iis other clients are such as the Hilton hotels anti a raft of major in-
trance companies. He is basically in business. Big, cold business. Yet iai
957 lie casually risked it all to make an unpopulii and classic defense
f Colonel Abel, the Russian spy everybody wanted to see killed. He
ok the case, donating his fee to three schools, because he thought it
as a great chance for American justice to show its. maturity. And last
day, when the newspapers in New York were saying that the Democrats
anted him to run for United States Senator, nobody seemed surprised.
he is, everybody tells you, one of those people who just might do anything.
But with all these things, Donovan is a lawyer first. So, late one after-
1 oon, when you go to see him for the first time and you expect to come
nto somebody big and flashy, you are hit instead with a quiet mail sitting
i i a big gray-carpeted office. He has on an inconspicuous brown suit.
ith the vest. The tie is maroon. He is short and stocky but not fat. The
lver hair is brushed straight back. He sits in a studded leather chair
1 clrind a brown desk with no papers on it. He speaks softly and has good
and of the language. His face never charig,es expression and his
cords carefully go around a subject. He seems distant, and he tells you
c the responsibilities of the legal profession when you want to hear about
9.0 Approved For Release 200
 trading spies. He is, as he sits behind his spear eight days working oil Donovan. amateur boxing. Smokers and that sort
d sk, another one of t] se big-, tall j;q t ~ as ~ din p tj~r oo,p }~~y~p 02 QO93-2
cbmerval~p rg411/QFdis i01[ l e ,~JJ al1F r e? rAr ~J e o I re, , of o t tent.
Lions who commits himself to nothing. all. He was trading away Powers and "No, nothing we can talk about. I was
As he talks, you can't connect Donovan Pryor, plus the promise of a third pri- not built properly to box at forty-seven."
to any cold war. You connect him down- soner, Marvin 1 1akinen, for Donovan's Tlie "forty-seven" catches you. It is
stairs, to William and Wall and Broad client, Abel. All Shishkin had been pre- the way boxing people talk when they
and Pine and the other streets of the pared to give up, and all our State De- want to say 147 pounds. When you hear
financial section. It is, you think, going partment seemed willing to press for, was a man say "forty-seven" it means he has
to be a thoroughly formal, and awfully a one-for-one deal. Only it was Don- been around the business. Donovan is it
long, evening with James B. Donovan. ovan's show, this swap, and lie ran it his Harvard Law School graduate and people
So you look out the windows of his big own way. And his way is to challenge a who went to this school (10 not say "forty-
office and watch au old, stained freighter, man or a proposition and go right into seven." With Jim Donovan. it all seemed
its running lights on in the early dusk, the thing and keep at it until everybody normal. Everything does.
move slowly up the East River. else has it stomach full of it and then Later, for example, after this confer-
7-hen Donovan gets up and takes oil Donovan goes home with what he wants. cute table conversation is over and he
]]is jacket and vest and hangs them in a As Shishkin waited to leave the Glie has had darner, Donovan sits across from
closet. He clears his throat, necke Bridge, he said. grudgingly, to you in the living room of his 1'i-room
"All ... would you care for a drink?" Donovan: "You should study Russian. duplex apartment in Brooklyn and he
1'heu lie leads you out of the office and You would be very useful in the service has it thin, vellum book in his hands.
down it narrow circular stairway which of your country in these matters." "Phis is Robert Louis Stevenson's open
brings you into it brightly-lit conference Jim Donovan, the .32 under his over- letter to the Reverend Dr. Ilyde about
room. One wall of the room has been coat feeling very good, came right back. Father Damian," lie says. "It is one of
rolled back and all you can see is bottles "In my country." lie said, "only the the most cutting rebuttals I ever have
of Scotch and ice trays and glasses. And optimists are lcarniug Russian. The read. '].-his book was privately printed.
sitting around a huge leather-topped cir- pessimists study Chinese. It is it crack Only four copies of it were run off. I
cular table is a fellow named Eddie everybody uses now. bargained with it place on the 1'Vest Coast
Gross, who makes cracks, and one named Now, as you sit with him at this con- for a couple of years before 1 got it."
Bill M(Carthy, who likes to laugh, and a fcrence table in his office, Donovan He begins to read aloud from the book-
younger one named Dick O'Keefe, who It is late, and you come to see bill] about
is starting out as it lawyer but can sing spies and intrigue, but instead Inc gives
like it thrush and is Jinn Donovan's per- you Robert Louis Stevenson in it private
woual Morton Downey. Donovan fixes the NEXT MONTH IN TRUE edition. It is typical of Donovan. He hits
drinks and then lie sits down and begins tremendous drive in anything lie does.
to talk and now it is :dl different. WHO'S IN'CHARGE HERE? A college professor could have it full life
His blue eyes flash and probe and then if lie pursued and read rare books the
they soften into a smile. Or they flash The faces are familiar but way Donovan does. Right now, the most
again when lie picks you up on something the captions are unexpected important thing in the world to him was
you are saying. He has it letter from the in this hilarious photo-feature to see how Stevenson picked apart. this
President of the United States in his spoof of people in the news. Rev. Dr. Hyde. The spies are going to
hand. but lie prefers to laugh with Rfc- come later.
Carthy about it slight accident lie had And they do. ,Au hour later, Donovan
during it vacation at Palm Beach. "There is walking up and down in his den with
is it restucrant there with an outdoor pool passes around the letter from President an umbrella in his hand.
that has flamingo birds in it and one Kennedy: "See? Fine umbrella, isn't it? It oilers
night Douoi au happened to step into the "I want you to know that I consider plenty of protection from the elements."
fountain and nearly rupture it flamingo. the return of Mr. Powers anti the re- He slips the varnished handle out of
"I finished the evening by engaging stilts of the review of the case valuable the umbrella. It is a serviceable .32.
the. bartender in another place in a contributions to the national interest. Then lie produces a walking stick. lie
serious argument about Chinese mythol- As far as I am aware, the type of presses a button on its handle and you
ogy," Donovan says. "For breakfast, my negotiations you undertook. where find the stick is it scabbard which holds
wife saw to it that I received the usual diplomatic channels had been unavail- it thin, dark-bladed sword long enough to
dish of cold tongue." ing, is unique, and you conducted it run through it horse.
Then lie talks of the Russian mind with the greatest skill and courage. "Weapons can be rather helpful," lie
.111(1 Allen Dulles. And about rare books 'The additional release of Frederic L. says. "I1( Berlin, they made quite it thing
and some litigation his firm is handling. Pryor and the openings left for nego- about everybody arriving at the bridge
The blue eyes keep working all the time. tiations concbrning Marvin L. Makineu unarmed. After it, I told one of our
Ile rambles and he changes directions could only hare been accomplished people that I had felt very good out them
:urd you never never know quite what lie by negotiations of the highest order. with the .32 on me. `Oh,' lie said. 'No-
is thinking. It is his nature and his busi- I want to thank you for the service you body was supposed to be armed. I
ness to be this way. The day ,Jim Donor have rendered." thought you were informed of that i1(
van's mind gets to be an open map for You look at Donovat's face closely, and London.'
somebody has not come yet. it tells you how he could get it job like "'Well, I didn't get the gun inn Lon-
But piece by piece, as lie goes along, this done. There is it scar which cuts don,' 1 told him.
lie shows you what he is like. To see it, through his right eyebrow and it comes "'Where could you possibly have
you have to ramble right along with from it place they called the Good Shep- gotten it then?' lie said.
hirer. And lose sleep. He puts an awful herd Gym. which was in the Bronx. Ile "'I got it in Brooklyn,' I told hint.
hole into the clock over it clay, and a was boxing a guy at a smoker and the guy 'And I intend to keep it on me until
lot of times he finds 3 in the morning a missed a right hand. then swung it back- I get back.'
very good hour to get things done. But hand and Donovan's eyebrow busted up. Then lie sits clown at the desk in his
if you stay with him, and watch the It must have been it good cut when it den and begins to shuffle work lie brought
pieces appear and start to lock together, first opened. home with him from the office. The last
you can see that there is no question And when he picks up his glass, you television movie is over now, and his wife
about what this Donovan is. He is a big see that something is wrong with the first Mary comes in and sits down on the couch
trial), and anybody who wants to take him knuckle on his right hand. in the den. She has it housecoat on and
on is welcome to it. "it was worn down from punching," she is yawning.
The he last one who went against him was lie explains. "We are having a discussion of espio-
a 6-3, 210-pound Russian named Ivan "Somebody should have taped your cage," Donovan says to her. "Would you
Shishkin, who is the European head of hands right." care to join?"
- 0001 RO66
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 [Continued from page 22] scheduled to lay to Chicago for a speech a highly-regarded surgeon in New York
"Mcn," she says. She looks at the um- 1~,cJ~o y ci reface t~l, t ~f c c,,~y t c}~ ~r~icd a medal
btclla guAppry vedi Fora pease Si-il~ocQ(>0tl:plxl nyF'CkiJsl nit 00fb ~ l kl drG packed ex-
is guns and killing. I wish somebody gull and went to bed. cursion boat called the General Slocum.
would come in here and take these things The next morning, at a little after 8:25,
home with him some night. I don't like he was sitting in the back of his car while
them around the house." the chauffeur- drove him across the Brook-
"These are magnificent examples of lyii Bridge to his office. He had a copy
espionage paraphernalia," he says. of it morning paper in his hand, but he
"Spying," she says. "You get so wrapped already had looked at the front page over
up in spying, I think you're starting to breakfast and now he was talking. As a
spy on yourself." lawyer, this time.
"You know," Donovan says, "right "You know," lie was saying, "I took
after the Powers and Abel exchange an appeal oil the lbcl case right to the
Glenn went into orbit. The next morn- Supreme Court and I lost, 5-4. 1 still
iug, I am sitting with my charming wife feel I was right. The thing had 'nothing
at the breakfast table and she reads the to do with Abel. Ile was it spy and he
story thoroughly in the morning paper. was guilty. My appeal was based solely
Then site puts it dow.i and looks across on a point of law. He was illegally held
at me and taps the paper. as an immigrant. This was against our
" 'Look at this Glenn,' she says. 'Wily laws. I wanted to make it test of it.
don't you do something like that? You Justice Frankfurter is an immigrant. I
don't do a damn thing.'" felt certain lie would see the validity of
Her maiden name was McKenna. She my argument. I'm still surprised he dis-
is from Brooklyn and has that wonder- sentcd."
ful, straight-faced Irish humor. She is "What's the difference? It doesn't
also it little bit tough herself. She has matter now."
had to be. "Doesn't matter? Of course it matters.
Ou that morning of February 10, the The appeal had nothing to do with Abel.
telephone on the night table next to her
bed started ringing. When she picked
it up, the voice on the other end didn't NEXT MONTH IN TRUE
make any sense to her at all. He said
his name was Tom Poster and he was Book Bonus
calling from the main office of the Asso- A game conservation man has
ciated Press at Rockefeller Plaza in New
York. Poster had a carbon of a Washing- to teach two lion cubs to hunt
tort 95 that had just moved. A 95, if you before he can turn them loose
work in a newspaper office, means you in
can start dummying in a new front page. RETURN TO THE WILD
Poster said that the ]'ewers and Abel ex-
change had just taken place in Berlin
and that among those on the bridge was
her husband.
"My husband?" Mary Donovan said.
"He's in Scotland on a vacation. He went
to London on business, but then he
cabled me he was going to Scotland for
a rest. I don't know anything about
Berlin."
"Well, we have him in Berlin for the
exchange. What do you think about it?"
Poster said.
"1 don't know what to think," Mary
Donovan said.
This is in the past for her now. She
has it husband who keeps doing things,
so now she sits on the couch in the den
and talks about the New York City Board
of Education. Donovan is the vice-presi-
dent.
"He throws himself into things too
much," site tells you. "I wish he wouldn't.
Ile does too much. We ought to bring
some people home and have a big party.
We don't have any of that anymore."
"We don't have parties because most
of the people you know are lease-break-
ers," Donovan says. "Besides, if you would
read some of Marcus Aurelius upon
arising each morning you would have a
better perspective."
"I read all that in high school," Mary
Donovan says. "Come on. I want to go
to bed."
It was almost 2 o'clock. The chauffeur
was to pick him up the next morning at
He was unimportant. It concerned the
working of American laws. And that's
important."
He got out of the car on William Street
and walked off, looking like all the other
big men in business who were on William
Street at this time.
You never would have heard of Jim
Donovan if it were not for the Powers-
Abel exchange. But at the same time,
there probably never would have been
it story from the Glicnecke Bridge in
Berlin if Donovan had not been the man
who dealt with the Russians. For while
this was a great story of intrigue and
diplomacy, it all hinged, at its start and
its end, on the things that make up Jim
Donovan.
One night last spring, it man named
Lucius D. Clay stepped off it plane from
Berlin and stood in the yellow-walled
press room at Idlewild Airport in New
York and talked about this.
"It (lid not appear possible that an
exchange could be worked out," General
Clay was saying. "'I'hen Mr. Donovan
came to Berlin and the situation changed.
He not only did not give in, but he
pressed for more than was originally con-
sidered. And he got more. Only an un-
usual milli could have accomplished this.
Let me remind you, lie did it as it service
to his country. I don't think I have to
say much more. Mr. Donovan knows what
I think of hint. I admire him."
8:25. He had an early appointment with
it vice-president of the Alleghany Cor- To begin with, Jiin Donovan came from
poration. In the afternoon he was moneyy His Father, John f . Donovan was Continued on age 261
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24
caught fire and went clown in the East
River. The cider Donovan taught Latin
and Greek in City College of New York
for five years to put himself through
medical school. This was the kind of
drive Jim Donovan inherited. Until he
was old enough to own a car of his own,
he was taken to it private school each day
in it Cadillac by the family chauffeur, but
he never settled back and let this kind
of it life take him over. He was living in
a then comfortable section of the Bronx
known as Mott Haven. But Mott Haven
also had row houses and walk-up flats and
"L" tracks and people like Frankic
Jerome, the fighter who was named after
a church, :it. Jcrome's, and wound up
dying in Old Madison Square Garden
after a fight with Bud 'Laylor. Lew ISrix,
the mauagcr, came out of the neighbor-
hood, and 6o did a wild Jewish kid named
Morris (White)) Bimstciri, who now is
a great trainer of fighters. Donovan knew
them, and the also knew of the Good
Shepherd Gym and it fight place called
the Bronx Opera House. "We called it
the 'Bums Only Home,' " lie says.
He went to Fordham and fooled
around with boxing in smokers and also
with the idea of being it newspaperman.
"Newspapers?" his father said. "News-
papermcit drink too much. I'm not going
to let any son of mine take his liver
into the newspaper business. You go to
law school and make something out of
yourself."
When he came out of Harvard Law,
Donovan went with the firm of Townley,
Updyke and Carter, whose main client
was the New York Daily News. He was
working on libel cases until the war
began and he went to Washington as
assistant general counsel of the United
States Office of Scientific Research and
Development, an agency which was
headed by Vannevar Bush and was busy
with a thing called the Manhattan Proj-
ect. With this background, he was com-
missioned in the Navy in 1943, was as-
signed to the OSS and began to learn
about spies.
"My job was to establish dummy
corporative fronts in places like Sweden
and Switzerland, out of which our men
could operate," lie says. "They were
mostly import and export concerns. 1
also was in charge of paying off some of'
these professional spies we were hiring.
They arc always the worst kind. I re-
member General Donovan always would
say, 'We just don't have enough people
willing to (lie for our country.'
"We had one man who was a textile
spy in peacetime. Pay him and he'd steal
it pattern or it method from any company
or mill you name. He was about the
worst. His only business was money.
Nothing he did was being done out of
patriotism. I was informed from the E FO
that lie was doing something fishy. When
lie returned here we had customs grab
his trunk. It had a false bottom and was
loaded with uncut diamonds. While the
trunk was being grabbed, lie was in Q
Building in Washingun demanding
 nratrnuc from. page 241 artist's studio at 252 Fulton Street, a able run of Senator Joseph McCarthy
3,500 more from me. 1-e clyy ~,ic~1 we i I it I}~ g~~~ by~j~ Q y~.~ y p? tu~van was
cnvccl it Approved QiI3 QB,fEaS@ ~ ~jjt litflC~ i3ls~a . u iKb100R~Krr Mtf~, ~t ; 4,1d e Irisl
had just grabbed his trunk, he pulled
a gun. I was alone in this office with him
at night and he has this gun. You could
say I had to bluff him. Perhaps there
was a little roughness involved, too. The
use of a chair and that sort of thing. But
that isn't important. The major thing
was the type of spy. A mercenary simply
does not make a good spy. For espionage
you need a patriot. A man willing to (lie."
Near the end of the war, Donovan
began being involved with the idea of
how war criminals would he handled.
Just what will happen, legally, if we
capture a Hitler or Goering. he began
to ask. Ile came up with the idea of as-
signing a Signal Corps unit to take movies
of each German concentration camp the
allied troops reached. Wild Bill Don-
ovan thought the idea was fine. iim Don-
ovan, a commander now, and with such
people as Budd Schulberg working under
him, had ready for the Nuremburg Trials
as effective a piece of visual evidence
as had been seen. Jim was assistant
counsel to Supreme Court ,Justice Robert
Jackson, who was in charge of the war
crimes trials. And lie came up against
the Russian mind for the first time.
"When the trials were agreed upon
at San Francisco, I remember Malenkov
saying, 'Good. We will try all the guilty
Dues.' This was that great semi-Oriental
mind at its best."
In 1946, Donovan was back in private
practice in New York. One afternoon, he
was asked to address a group of lawyers
in Brooklyn about the legal aspects of
the Nuremburg Trials. There were a lot
of old Germans in the place and they
bristled. They were Americans, but sec-
ond papers do not wipe out a heritage
and they were bitter about the trials.
't'hese were people Donovan was going
to have to see and (10 business with in
the future, but he didn't think about that.
He started to ram his views on Nurem-
burg clown their throats and he didn't
let up until lie was through. In the
audience was a quiet man named Lynn
Goodnongh. He was amazed at the way
Donovan went after the audience. It was
a day Goodnough was not to forget.
Then on June 21, 1957, at 7 o'clock in
the morning, everything started to fall
into place and you were about to Bear
of Jim Donovan. Agents of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation broke into a
third-rate New York hotel room occupied
by Col. Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, who was
the resident Soviet agent in charge of
all espionage in the United States, and
had been since 1948. The FBI (lid not
arrest Abel. They questioned him all
day and then turned him over to Depart-
ment of Immigration authorities who dc-
tained Abel on suspicion of being an
illegal alien. They flew him to Texas,
held him for three days while the CIA
tried to get him to become a double
agent, then returned him to Brooklyn,
where the FBI arrested him and had him
indicted for being a spy. The mechanics
of the Abel arrest are important here.
There was hell to pay over them later on.
Abel had been brought to Brooklyn
because he operated out of a $35-a-month
get bomb plans and missile develop- Roman Catholic, too. He also was ar
ments. 'llie government, a little per- active member of the American Legion'
turned at all this, was asking the death Clavin Post in Brooklyn. And his in
penalty. The precedent for executing a come and his success as a lawyer all cam
spy in peacetime had been set in the with corporate clients who did not wan
case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. The to know a tiring like controversy ever
government now wanted Abel's life. existed.
Rudolf, as sly in a prison cell as he "Yes, I was concerned," Donovan says
was on the street, thought things out "I was concerned about the number o
after his arrest. Ifc knew lie would get. lawyers who had turned down this case
legal representation at the trial. It would before Goodnough came to tile. I'm .sill
be an attorney appointed by the court. concerned about them, too. Apparently
This would mean lie would be given some there is a misunderstanding about thi.
criminal lawyer summarily told by a country. We're free. So we're going tc
judge to go and defend this Russian spy have Communists. And we'll have spies
who wants us all killed. -1'lie lawyer too. And we defend theni in court. A'V
wouldn't exactly dump the case. Amer- have to. This is the strongest weapon w
icaos do not do things that way. But you have in the cold war. We can hold oil(
could be damn sure, Abel figured, that our freedom and it is something to
the lawyer's final summation was not which the entire world must hunger
exactly going to leave the jury in tears. Defend Abel? Lord, yes. Defend ever
So the Russian came up with an idea. Abel you can find.
He would ask the Brooklyn Bar Asso- "And as for the rest of it, you're talk
ciation to name a lawyer for him. Out of ing about how it inight affect my income.
pride, Abel figured, they would make Oh, I might have thought about it, but
it their business to conic up with a good that's about all. It didn't deserve much
man. And maybe the good man could thought."
ATTENTION
CONTEST ENTRANTS!
See page 12
somehow keel) Abel's gaunt rear end
out of the electric chair.
Lynn Gooclnough was given the job
of finding the maul. But as Goodnough
went around Brooklyn and talked to the
top names in the profession, he found
lie did not have all easy job on his hands.
"Oh yes," one of those approached
said. "My clients would understand com-
pletely if I defended a Russian spy. They
would understand than. I am a Russian
spy, too, and I could take up new living
quarters in a cold-water flat."
Then one night in August, Gooclnough
was in bed in the middle of the night
when he remembered the luncheon in
Bay Ridge. "I've got the man," lie told
his wife.
The next day, at a cottage in the ex-
clusive Lake Placid Club in upstate New
York, Donovan and his family were un-
packing their luggage for the start of a
vacation. Jim was dhaugina in a hurry,
because he had an appointment with
the golf pro. 1\Iar-v Donovan had started
to put his shirts into the dresser when
the phone rang. It was Goodnough.
Donovan listened. said he'd think it
over, and went out to take his golf lesson.
By midafternoon he was in lawyer Dave
Soden's office in the town of Lake Placid
looking tip legal cases concerning espio-
nage. 't'he next night he was in the ('lilt)
car of a New York Central train heading
for New York City and a client named
Abel.
Now this sounds very simple. But you
have to go back and think about the
country in the summer of 1957. It still
had it had hangoier from the unbeliev-
26 CPYRGHT
The morning after lie arrived in New
York lie went to see his client, who was
in a maximum security cell in the Fed
oral House of Detention on West Street
in New York.
"My problem was very simple," Dono-
van says. "Before 1 even met the man I
am assigned to defend, lie has been in-
dicted in a capital crime. This man when
lie thought lie would be deported by
immigration authorities gave his name
as Col. Rudolf Abel, said that he was a
Russian and that lie had been living here
illegally for nine years. He was seized
with short-wave radio. hollowed-out
coins containing Russian microfilm and
maps of major United States defense
areas, and various other evidences of
espionage. My first legal conclusion was
that I probably (lid not have a case for
false arrest."
Abel already had been told about
Donovan. The spy, in white shirt and
baggy pants, got tip to greet the lawyer
when lie walked into the cell that morn-
ing.
"From. the beginning," Donovan says,
"lie called me Mr. Donovan and I called
him Rudolf. He treated me as a retired
spy. who would understand everything
he had done."
.'\ud from the beginning, Rudolf Abel
was a man Jim Donovan had to admire.
"This wasn't some tramp mercenary,"
he says. "This was a man who was doing
it for his country. This was no Commu-
nist, no party-line fanatic. This was a
patriot, it man who wanted to destroy
its because lie liked his country. He was
a damn good spy. We always have
trouble keeping a man undercover for
six months in a neutral country. This
man was here for nine years. And lie still
might be here if it weren't for a drunken
associate of his, this Hayhanen. Knowing
these things, I had to have great admires
tion for the man. This certainly does not
mean I was soft about him. Why if it was
in the line of duty 1 could take a gun
 [Continued from page 26] stand." he said. "Doesn't this man knnw
and tln.nA p vedl on. t ?ase etc 919 001 4P 9~,0?00~,3-2,..s
l
i
i
p
a
n
t to him. If lie does not understand
toothless genius who spoke six languages,
"Ali, yes," Abel told Donovan in the cell
one day. "1 read American books." lie
held up a bony index finger. "I read I,
"Sutton, he knew what you had to do."
master robber who knocked over enough
security almost casually (he is in New
York's Dannemorra right now, sup-
while living outside of prison that in-
on the windows and cracked, faded
shades. He was almost always alone, and
that I am in jail. then I'll never get a
newspaper."
Donovan said lie didn't think it was
necessary to write the paper again. He
would arrange to have the Times de-
livered to Mr. Abel so he coulcl enjoy it
over oatmeal in his cell each morning.
This then was the man dim Donovan
was to keep out of the electric chair and,
five years later, use for chips in dealing
with the Russians. But before he could
get Abe] from a cell on [Vest Street to a
bridge in Berlin lie was going to have to
take abuse from others and stretch him-
self into a physical collapse.
The abuse came, of course, from our
own right-thinking people. Prospect
Park West. the street on which Donovan
lives, is residential and faces a park, but
two blocks down you conic onto a street
called Seventh Avenue. I t is crowded and
there are plenty of saloons and they all
have phone booths and telephone books
NEXT MONTH IN TRUE
Prostitution around the world
seen through the twinkling
eyes of Harry Golden. TRUE
presents a rollicking excerpt
from his forthcoming book.
always in a place with a musty smell to it. which carry the listing. "Donovan, James
showing itself to Donovan. The subscrip- letters in the mail were unsigned. They
for example. While Abel was in the monist." The phone calls began to wear
Federal House of Detention awaiting on Donovan, but the police could not
a copy be delivered to him every morn- Nor was the stupidity limited to people
ing. He signed the letter, R. L. Abel. in saloon phone booths. One afternoon,
Street, which is a jumble of docks, meat- "Counselor," Donovan said, "that re-
packing houses and towering industrial mark is as valid as most of your legal
man who wanted the subscription (lid not The story was the same when it came
wrote a regretful letter to Mr. Abel. of New York's gn atest legal firms who
have no delivery route in your area at quest of their great 30"or 40 percent. or
nearest stationery store and buy a copy Finally, the law firm headed by former
house othee thought it was a classic. But have learned was how to be a stand-up
y
e
e-
kind of thinking, was bothered by it all. a word about Abel. "It would be a viola- came just a pawn to Donovan. The big
Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP75-00001 R000200020093-2
Fraiman, after coming with Donovan,
brought in Thomas Debcvoise 11, who
was practicing in Vermont and now is
with the Federal Power Commission. The
three sat down and went to work on a
15-hour-a-day schedule preparing a de-
fense. And as he examined the case,
Donovan began to forget about being
saddened by the public display of igno-
rance around him. He began to get angry
at the government.
"They found a loophole in the law to
hold him," lie pointed out to me one
night. "lie was not arrested by the FBI.
He was detained on a writ from the im-
migration bureau. He was placed on a
plane and flown to McAllen, Texas. He
had not been given representation. Yet
the immigration people could hold him
incommunicado for three days in Texas
before any announcement was made that
he had been arrested.
"In other words, they have in this
country a way in which anybody can be
grabbed and dropped out of sight for
three days without being charged with
anything. If they could do it to Abel,
then they could do it to anybody. "lhcv
can come and take you and say, `We think
you are in this country illegally.' Then
they can take you out without a phone
call and have a shot at you for three days.
This infuriated me. I didn't care if it
was Abel or anybody else. This is the
method of a totalitarian state, not Ancri-
can democracy. It was frightening."
We were sitting on two big conches
which face each other in his living room.
It was, you figured, another one of those
late night conversations which are won-
derful and deep but do not get you very
far when the sun comes up in a few hours
and the world starts doing practical
business again.
"It was only Abel and lie was here to
ruin us," we said.
"Only Abel," he smiled. "That's today.
Tomorrow it will be only Donovan. Or
only Breslin."
This was Donovan's major point when
the trial opened on February 14, 1957.
With a jammed courtroom and big-
league press section, Jim Donovan got
up and started banging on the desk about
a thing called freedom. His client sat be-
side him and thoroughly agreed. The
only problem after this was the slight
fact that Donovan did riot have any case
to make for his client. There was no way
Abel could take the stand and conic out
alive. Nor could lie produce any charac-
ter witnesses. Oh, lie could get character
witnesses for Emil Goldfus. The tele-
vision and radio store man, Frank
Gambruzza, who was right across the
street, could talk about Goldfus. So
could Margie, the barmaid, and a couple
of painters who had studios in the build-
ing with him. But this was Colonel Abel,
the spy, who was being tried. And the
only friends Abel had were in Moscow.
The trial lasted nine cla
s and Ab
l b
 strong ing sort of sound-and collapsed female Link instructor who kept calling atorx,to landing. It had been a long,
oil the 11 00
wasOO
M i y A Flpzr is t8 wit siuli AAnd~ea'D PVf3oj.0 O (rFJ~o~ao QO~~}1~ day and I iing
ments as.
was bushal
I relaxed
I went to
le
ininiearate nelp available. I put my hands
beneath his armpits and dragged him out
into the hangar-almost into the midst
of an inspection party that was showing
a visiting admiral around our squadron.
We stared at each other for several sec-
onds. I could think of no appropriate
comment and the inspecting brass ap-
parently felt it was not their place to
make small talk with a junior officer
dragging a body.
The visiting admiral broke the silence,
finally. Turning to our squadron com-
mander, lie said matter-of-factly: "Treat
'cm rough in this squadron, hey?" And
the inspection party moved on, leaving
me with Dibler's limp body. While the
medics were reviving him, I discovered
that Dibler had already flown eight hours
that day-and the pressure and the heat
had finally gotten to him. 'That's all that
was wrong with him-check-fever with
heat complications. Dibler, too, survived
to fly another day-and our squadron
picked up an unmerited reputation as
the toughest in the training command.
Cadet mental lapses weren't always so
fleeting. Two of my lads wound up in
the psycho ward before being passed
gently along to the surface Navy where
they probably spent the rest of the war
telling their bunkmates what a bum deal
they'd had from the Navy air arm. One
flown a very bad check for me ant to
knew it. When our final landing at one
base was the worst of a bad lot, he pped.
I told him to taxi in to the ha ar, and
instead he pointed the plane own the
runway and gave it take-of throttle. I
fought him on the throttl all the way
down the runway and fi Ily nosed the
plane up in grass off the edge of the run-
way to keep from ploughing through a
wire fence. It took a half-dozen strong
men to pry him out of the front cockpit.
The other temporary mental patient
succumbed to an urge most of us had felt
but managed to control. This lad com-
pletely demolished a Link Trainer. His
nerves had been worn thin by the syrupy
The Lawyer Who Horse-Traded
the Russians
thing was to test our laws. Bang on the
immigration detention. Try and wreck
the witness, Hayhanen.
He also saw a little more than that. He
was starting to think ahead, and he kept
remembering the fact there were a lot of
Americans in Red prisons around the
world. Someday, he figured, Abel was
going to come in handy.
The trial lasted nine days and the jury
was out for three hours and 20 minutes.
that, now." After stalling and spinning
the Link three consecutive times-a diffi-
cult feat-he burst out of the Link in a
majestic explosion. Pointing it finger at
the startled instructor, he said: "Goda m-
mit lady, I think I'm going to kill you."
He then wrenched the stick from the cock-
pit of the Link and literally beat it
in mind for the cowering /,101. -ac-
tor, but we got to him befoed
that part of his program. led
away happily, and if he rethe
occasion at all, today, lie,
e dly
recalls it with satisfaction.
You may conclude f i the foregoing
that events similar to V Kos" I've described
were everyday ocC renees in the cadet
training program. of at a11. Frequently
two or three clay s'ould pass without any
such incident. in reasonably sure most
of these cha Is of mine meant well. I
don't think try of them were deliberately
trying to botage the American war ef-
fort or rive flight instructors insane.
These esults were just by-products of
the s ongest human drive any of them
hat yet known-the desire to get their
to a combat area myself-an almost mirac-
ulous metamorphosis in these knuckle-
headed aviation cadets. Out from under
the pressures of actual check rides and
the quest for wings, most of them be-
came men of courage and judgment.
They grew up. They fought with valor
and skill. It took a long time for me to
accept this fact, but there it was.
There were even some sane and stal-
wart young men intermixed with the pro-
cession of oddballs who came my way in
the training command. One such-an
alert lad named Bigelow-I'm sure must
have gone out of our squadron with the
highest grades ever given a cadet. Bige-
low was flying the plane immediately
behind me one day early in our associa-
tion. I had broken up a formation and
we were entering the traffic circle prepar-
tencing, Donovan showed his hand to
Judge Mortimer Byers.
"The death penalty would end all pos-
sibilities of Abel helping us," he said.
"Some clay in the future an American of
similar rank may be held by the Russians
and an exchange can be worked out."
Byers agreed. He gave Abel a 30-year
sentence. They sent him to Atlanta.
Donovan wrote to a woman known as
Hellen Abel in Leipzig, East Germany,
for his fee of $10,000. The colonel said
she was his wife. Hellen Abel sent back
$10,000 to the lawyer. He then gave $5,-
000 to Fordham College and $2,500 each
to Harvard and Columbia. Then he
started on the appeal.
In February of 1050 Jim walked into
the Supreme Court in Washington and
demanded that his client be released be-
Mr. Donovan, of course, blew the case. cause lie was illegally detained by the "What happens to me if I win?" he
Abel was found guilty. But before sen- government. And lie did not ust walk in r d r13Pf1
" -- ............. - P1 A -4PR q1 A A3. a$&Ar.1,1>;ilh,l}kT~
SEPTEMBER 1
CPYRGHT
.
.
s
ep.
My plane dropp.d to 500 feet over a
thousand-foot check point leading into
the traffic circle. At the 500-foot check
point, I was below 200 feet and going
down in a gentle glide. Bigelow sensed
that something was wrong, and tried to
call me on the radio. I didn't hear him.
So at 200 feet, he pulled alongside me,
saw I was sleeping, and put his engine in
full low pitch and gunned it. The shat-
tering noise awakened rise, and I was in
a gentle enough glide that I was able to
grasp the situation and recover just in
time.
If anyone else saw the incident, I
never heard about it. I thanked Bigelow
warmly when we got back to the hangar,
and lie accepted my gratitude impassively.
The subject never again came up be-
tween us. But whenever I brood about
some of my bubble-headed cadets, I re-
member Bigelow with a warns glow of
satisfaction.
We had a few other profound think-
ers, too. There was the unknown cadet
who cut in on the squadron radio lre-
quency one clay when I was serving as
tower duty officer.
"Hey, Charley," came this unmistak-
able squeaking cadet voice through the
radio monitor in the squadron tower,
"where in the hell are we? I'm all fouled
up." ("Fouled" was not the word he
used.)
"Damned if I know," came the reply,
presumably from Charley. "I'm a II fouled
tip too."
Almost automatically, the tower radio
operator cut in his transmitter and said,
"Fourteen Baker plane using profane
language on the air, identify yourself
immediately."
There was a long trenchant pause, then
the first cadet voice came back.
"Oh, no, buddy," it chortled trium-
phantly, "I'm not that fouled up!"
I never found out for sure that this
was one of my cadets. But it must have
been. It's precisely what most of them
would have said. They were bright kids.
And, after all, they did win the war.
-Joseph N. Bell
empty-handed. He had a brief prepared
that was going to take a lot of knocking
clown before any decision could be
handed down. The man, the Supreme
Court justices found out, meant it. So
much so that Earl Warren was moved to
say:
"In my time on this court, no man has
undertaken a more arduous, more self-
sacrificing task. It gives the court great
comfort to know that members of our
bar association are willing to undertake
this sort of public service in this type of
case, which normally would be offensive
to them."
A few months later, Jim was standing
in the Lawyers' Club in Manhattan,
watching the teletype which announces
Supreme Court decisions which are
 wrong and get in trouble?" Jim asked
the fello said. ~
"I th piro ed(Fi2rtReJear,e i'fe ~rn t`tr f Itis c01tkJNO2OOO2,0093~2r government
trouble " Tim said "His eo 1 Id ' ? 1 f 1 you may be sure
c wo
t
p p
n c n
a otter rom Hcilen Abel, who said, as will protest vehemently."
be able to understand. They'd think lie she always did in letters, that she was the "I see," Donovan said. It
had made a deal." colonel's wife. I t was typed
siaaned by answer h wa d 1
e ut
t
-
1 1
c
1
o uar.
Abel, however, understood American pen, and was in good English. Donovan Now he had everything he wanted.
justice by now. He loved it. Writing on read the letter and now he became If the State Department and the CIA
blue-lined tablet paper from Atlanta, he excited. wanted to be nothing more than inter-
began to call his lawyer "Dear Jim" and "Would an exchange be possible?" csted bystanders, this was fine with him.
his notes dealt with legal questions. And Hellen Abel said in the letter. It meant he wasn't going to be just a
they also showed that somehow, Abel was Donovan sent the letter to Lawrence front man for anybody. Ile was going to
getting information in Atlanta. He knew R.. Houston of the CIA, who had been in be able to make this a James B. Donovan
about too many things too quickly. the OSS with Donovan. Houston took special and everybody else could get the
char4e of framing the reply and having hell out of the way. This was going to be
Then on May 1, 1960, Francis Gary it cleared in Washington. Donovan then just like litigation on it business deal.
Powers pushed his glider-winged I7-2 out mailed it. Next came a letter from Vogel, It always is left to him, and if there is
of Peshawar, Pakistan, toward Sverd- the attorney in East Berlin. Yes, it said, going to be any mistake made, he'll make
lovsk, Russia, and its new missile cm- there was a chance for an exchange-if it; and if there is success, he'll have it.
placements. Outside of Svcrdlovsk Donovan would handle it. If you have anything inside you, this
something unfortunate happened to his For the next nine months, more letters is all you ever want out of life. A chance
plane; he bailed out and became a full- one and were sent to Washington and to do your best with no interference.
page ad for Russia's sales campaign then the replies were mailed to Vogel And here, they were giving Jim Donovan
against America. and Hellen Abel. And now Donovan was that kind of chance to do business with
Oliver Powers, the pilot's father, wrote advising his client that there was a chance the Russians.
to Abel suggesting a swap. Abel wrote a of getting out of jail and going home. He walked up to the Golden City bar
letter saying the matter should be taken of the Hilton Hotel that night and the
up with his family. They lived in Leipzig, Scotch tasted very good. 'I lic whole thing
Abel said. He supplied the address, "Fr. was going to be beautiful. He was to go
ilellcn Abel, Leipzig, No. 22 Eisenacher ATTENTION into East Berlin the next morning and
St asse, 21, Germany." Abel then sent ask for this lawyer named Vogel at the
Oliver Powers' letter and his own reply CONTEST ENTRANTS! Russian Embassy. But lie knew he would
along to Donovan for any action. He also be doing business with more than a
suggested that Donovan could meet with lawyer. There would have to be a big
his family's lawyer, one Wolfgang Vogel, See page 12
Russian around to handle this case. A
who operated out of Fast berlin. The top man. You could bet oil that. ])oil-
meeting could take place in Zurich, Abel ovau couldn't wait to get at it top
suggested.
Donovan contacted the CIA in Wash- It came down to it matter of coded Russian.
inDon. From then on lie was working for cables by Christmas. If Hellcn Abel Donovan was given a house to live in
that organization on all unaffrki wanted to have tier husband back, and that was heated on the ground floor, but
th had business in London during basis. the the wary was open on her end, she should was ice cold in the bedrooms. Ill the
summer. Afier its conclusion lie nut- send Jinr Donovan a cable saying "Happy morning, a woman walked into the place,
posely scheduled it vacation tripl to New Year." lie sat anal waited and the said nothing, cooked his breakfast, then
Zurich. His wife came along. The CIA answer never came. Donovan was under promptly disappeared.'I'his was the real
sent nobody with hint. He was instructed a security situation which prohibited him foreign intrigue touch.
to let "Vogel," the East Berlin lawyer, sending any more cables. But lie pre- But Jim Donovau preferred going with
make all the contacts. If Vogel wanted to ferred running this deal his own way, something out of the old Good Shepherd
find him in Zurich, lie would have little and when he tired of waiting he sent Gym. On the morning of February 2,
trouble doing it. another cable to Hellcn Abel. "Must with no papers on him, he stepped on
The trip was a waste. Vogel never lrav-e answer immediately. If everything the S-Bahr and rode it to the stop in
showed and Donovan had nothing more is all d right, send me cable saying, East Berlin. He knew a, couple of German
than a vacation. There was, it became lgree.' 11 words. He knew how to say "Get out of
clear, a good reason for this. Russia never l'hat night he received two cables from the way" to the police. And he knew how
had acknowledged the fact an Abel even .cipzig. "Happy New Year" one said. to look at the packs of sullen teen-agers
existed. It would be too much of a diplo- "Agreed" the other said. who hang around the streets of East
matic turn-around to suddenly swap a Five days later, Jim Donovan told his Berlin and make them move away.
red-hot item like Powers for this supposed wife lie had important business in Lon- Shishkin was waiting for him at the
nonentity, Abel. don. With bags packed, and the .32 in his Soviet Embassy. And Shishkin was going
In the spring of 1961, this little intel- pocket, he flew to London. He checked to give this guy hell and pull off the
ligence network Abel apparently had into Claridge's and promptly wrote her kind of deals the Russians liked to make
going for him out of Atlanta came alive a letter on the hotel stationery. When a with Americans.
with a fact which apparently disturbed CIA man contacted him and said he had "He gave me that typical semi-Oriental
somebody. When you talk about it, the an Air Force plane ready to take him to thinking," Donovan said. "Its basic prem-
most you are doing is conjecturing, but Berlin, Donovan had it cable sent to his ise is that nobody trusts anybody. So
the fact remains Rudolf Abel sat down in wife saying he was going to Scotland on in order to go from Point A to Point B
jail and did it painting of John F. Ken- a vacation. in it deal, you first must go to X and
reedy. It was not an ordinary painting, He arrived in Berlin the night of then to Z and then into the next prob-
either. It was a painting of Kennedy as February 1, and from then on, lie was fem. Somehow, sooner or later, you get to
Abel saw him, and what Abel saw in on his own. He was a private American Point B. I was perfectly willing to play
Kennedy was a man to be admired. 'The citizen, with no official capacity of any this game with him. He was it big, astute
lines in the painting told the whole story. sort. The State Department and CIA man who played volleyball for relaxation
There was warmth in it. made that plain. If anything was to hap- and lie produced some woman who said
Whoever saw that painting knew pen to him, he was on his own. she was Abel's 'cousin.'"
something about art and how emotion "This is awfully risky," a State Depart- Abel's "cousin" had that wonderful
can show in art. It might have meant meat man told Donovan when he arrived stride that a woman only acquires from
nothing at all. It might have been just in Berlin. "We would like to have a being on the house staff at the Z 1Women's
another painting. Or it might have been mission officer assigned to you for this, House of Detention or whatever the
something that indicated to somebody but unfortunately we cannot take the Russian equivalent is thereof. There was
that Atlanta was getting to Rudolf Abel. risk." also sonic big, ugly fellow who said lie
He prove or a ease
106 CPYRGHT TRUE THE MAN'S MAGAZINE
 aC Ulfttt ..
wligrever hcAPrP'VFed1Fbr Release M08/25 CIPARDP75-00001 ROOO200
For eight in i sings, Donovan got on CRIL 'i;>,
-000
the S-Baler and headed for the Russian
Embassy. And each evening, after his tug
of war with Shishkin, he would walk
into the Golden City bar, pick tip a phone
and dial the CIA and say, "Jim D. is
back." Then lie would sit clown, write
out a report of the day's work, and hand
it to a courier. The courier would dis-
appear. The report would reach the
State Department and be relayed to
Washington.
It was fine, except what Donovan was
writing in the reports was giving our
people a severe case of the shakes.
"I wanted all three of these people,"
he says. "And it seemed to upset our
people. 1 don't know what it is. We al-
ways seem to he leading from weakness
when we deal with the Russians. They
wanted me to deal from weakness. Go
over there with my hat in my hand and
try and break even. That isn't my style.
I told them I wasn't going to do it. I
led from strength. They began to com-
plain about the way I wanted things.
"You know, it's funny. [ have nothing
against a fine prep school and a good
college. I attended Harvard Law School.
But there comes a time in everything
when you put aside this striped-tic busi-
ness and you go back to the streets. I
wanted to put a little Mott Haven into
this deal. The people we had over there
spent their lives walking of nice grass.
I got the idea none of them ever had
been around a block. Yes, a block. A
street in a city where you could get your-
self into a little trouble now and then.
That's what was needed right here. I
think we can always use it in dealing
with these people."
There was one night, when a man from
the State Department said solemnly to
Donovan, " V'Ve'rc getting awfully afraid
that they might hold you as a hostage."
Donovan informed him that the proper
medication for that worry was 12-year-old
Scotch.
Arid in the mornings, he was inform-
ing Shishkin that he could not release a
great spy such as Abel, merely for some
insignificant pilot like Powers.
"I must have Pryor and Makinen, too,"
lie said.
"They are spies," Shishkin said. "You
have some man you claim is a spy or
something. We do not know of him at
all. We are attempting to get him back
merely because his family asked us to.
Powers? lie is important to your people.
You get him. Nobody else."
"If you don't know about Abel, Mr.
Shishkin, then let me fill you in of him."
"Forget him."
"No, you listen," Jim said. He then
made the Russian listen to a point-by-
point summary of Abel's career.
One clay, in the middle of it all,
Shishkin shook his head. "'t'here can be
no deal. You want too much."
And that night, when Donovan re-
ported this, some of our people started
to nag him into going back and giving in.
Take Powers and forget the rest, they
said.
"General Clay gave me all the help,"
Donovan says. ' He felt I was handling
this thing the right way. You weren't
going to get him worried. And you
weren't going to get me worried. So we
got along beautifully, I went back to
Shishkin after that and did it my own
way. And let this faint-heart of ours do
the worrying."
It worked out. At 5 o'clock on the
afternoon of February 9, Shishkin sat in
the Russian Embassy, shuffled papers
around which he had been sent from
Moscow, and then said it was a deal.
Pryor and Powers for Abel. And there
was room left open for negotiation for
lllakincn.
The next morning, Jim Donovan sat
in a. prison cell for the last time with
Rudolf Abel, who had been flown. to
Berlin.
"']'hose rare books you like, Jim, I am
going to look for one for you. You will
hear from me," Abel said.
At a little after 8 o'clock, Donovan
stepped out of a car and began walking
toward a white line in the middle of the
Glienicke Bridge, an old, rusting, sus-
pension bridge which goes over the Havel
River into Potsdam and is one of those
out-of-the-way places where important
things always seem to happen. With him
was Allan Lightner, a State Department
man, and a U-2 pilot who would identify
Powers. A few steps behind them came
Abel. Ile was manacled to a man from
the justice Department who was big
enough to be listed in Jane's Fighting
Ships.
Shishkin and two other Russians
started out from the other side. Behind
them, in a fur cap and overcoat, came
Powers. A uniformed Russian carried
Powers' suitcases for him.
It was 8:20 when Donovan reached the
white line and the U-2 pilot with him
looked over at Powers and then told
Donovan that, yes, this is our man. One
of the Russians with Shishkin looked at
plete the deal.
"We have heard nothing of Pryor,"
Donovan said. "When we hear from
Pryor, we'll finish this."
Frederic L. Pryor was to be released at
the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint which
was 12 miles away. The moment he
stepped into West Berlin, Donovan's
party was to be informed by car radio.
Donovan looked back at the cars. '1 he
man who was to take the call still was
waiting.
"We'll just have to wait," Donovan
said.
"He has been released," Shishkin said.
"I don't know anything about it,"
Donovan said.
For 20 minutes the two groups stood
awkwardly in the middle of. the bridge.
Finally, at 8:50, a guy came out from one
of the cars and told Donovan Pryor was
all right. Donovan said fine. The big guy
holding Abel took out a key and unlocked
the handcuffs. The spy walked past
Donovan. He passed Powers as lie walked.
Powers came across the line. "I'm glad
to see you," he said to Donovan. The
uniformed Russian soldier reached across
the white line and dropped Powers' bags.
It was 8:52 a.m. now, and Donovan
watched his client move into a group of
Soviet officials in street clothes who were
on the Potsdam end of the bridge. The
deal was now complete.
Donovan and Powers got into a car and
were rushed to Tempelhof, and put on a
plane which flew to West Germany and
freedom. And the big story of the spy
exchange broke out all over the world.
When Jim Donovan reached New
York, he could spend only one night at
home. The regular business of the law
firm of Wafters and Donovan had been
piling up, and headlines and foreign it-
trigue do not mean litigation work for
corporations stop. Abel probably was in
Moscow. The CIA had Powers. Pryor was
with his parents. The thin; was all over
for now.
Donovan flew to Chicago the next
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