[104-10305-10005.pdf — page 33]
# 13-00000Most of them are adequaly detailed in my 1967 Memorandum in Support of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, sworn to and subscribed before William R. Martin (a former member of the CIA's Dirty Tricks Division, who by his own admission is still in "the reserves"). But I shall opine that if President Kennedy had not met his demise when and where he did, I would not have been brought to trial on charges of commiting a felony.While my return to the fold of the CIA in May 1968 may have been the only "practical thing" for me to do, it definitely was not predicated on my financial situation, as a few old bank account passbooks will substantiate (I am not quite the mercenary that Mr. Lucey has portrayed). Nor was it because of any peculiar allegiance to those who had tossed me on the scrap heap for the sake of expediency 4 years earlier, love of country, masochistic tendencies or wont of further intrigue. And while it remains axiomatic in my mind that the sole requisite for one's use by the Agency is his qualification to fit into whatever may happen to be the scheme of things, even this did not apply in my circumstance, not really. I agreed to go back out into the cold, so to speak, strictly for personal reasons and I think the explanation is wisely left at that for now.My mission inside East Germany - if indeed it was a mission - was neither as well-defined nor as elementary as Mr. Lucey has perceived. I am sure the CIA knows all it needs to know about American defectors in Berlin and the modus operandi of the MfS. In fact, the mission was net directed against East Germany, per se. Preparations bore the trademarks of an authentic, even typical, Agency project targeted in the main to another nation. That I was unable to comprehend the German language, that I had been a recent, unwilling guest of the U.S. Attorney General, branded a Communist in the public records, etc., merely served to strengthen an already plausible cover built up by chance rather than by design. Paradoxically, the chinks in the armor were that the cover was not wholly untrue, the MfS (unlike the FBI) not in the least irresponsible to the laws and policies of its government. In the past I had engaged in certain covert intelligence activities hositle to other socialist states, to which as an integral part of my cover - I freely confessed. Oddly enough, however, my mentors from Langely had neglected to tell me during the briefings that these previous activities constituted a violation of the criminal statutes of the GDR, warranting a maximum penalty of death upon conviction. By inadvertence or by plan I found myself in a not altogether unfamiliar predicament. If I had confessed to my real mission, assuming that it was genuine, without doubt I would have been spared execution, probably even escaped long-term imprisonment. Instead, I selected what I considered to be a better alternative . . . and gained my freedom. As for my treatment by the MfS, from begining to end it was far more gentle than that experienced beneath the cudgel of the U.S. Department of Justice.With regard to my marital status and my children, the foremost area that Mr. Lucey appears to have exploited, I have never claimed that "Uncle Sam hides my family" or stated that FBI and CIA agents deliberately isolated me from my wife and children; nor have I claimed that the Agency used the promise of reuniting me with my family as part of the incentive for accepting the assignment in the GDR. My accusations in this respect centered around my children and they were leveled at the State Department as the result of a promise made to me shortly after my release from the GDR. Since returning to the United States last spring a reliable source has informed me that my wife was granted a final decree of divorce at some period during my imprisonment in the USA and although I have never been served with a copy of the decree or other notification of divorce (or notice of a divorce hearing) I see no cause to dispute the advisement.Lastly, concerning the aspersions cast on my sanity, at this writing permit me to say only that I have never in my life been certified psychotic by any U.S. medical authority or adjudicated mentally-incompetent in a court of law, notwithstanding the conflicting legal and medical opinions as to my mental condition on the day of my arrest in Texas, over six years ago.200-120-102