17
SAY GOODBYE, COMRADE JAWS:
SOF BREAKS BREAD WITH THE KGB
The wire-service reporter next to SOFs man-in-Bangkok, Jim Coyne at the bar of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, nodded toward the crowded bar and whispered, “The KGB’s here.”
“You mean TASS?” Coyne referred to the Soviet “news” agency synonymous with spying. “No, the KGB.” His eyes darted around as he spoke. “Him—the big smiling guy with the beer.”
Coyne toasted the Russian who was looking in his direction. The burly man, probably in his late 30s, toasted back, with a smile on his lips but not in his mind.
I sat nearby with a crowd of journalists. I was serving as a panelist with a group that was going to discuss the issue of “checkbook journalism.”
Television networks and others with megabuck budgets to spend, as far as I figured, come from the “money talks, bullshit walks” school of journalism. The end result is often very far from the truth and can be very damaging. They had no clue of the importance of our POW mission or the use of chemical and biological weapons by Vietnam or the Soviet Union, subjects they were reporting on.
I had been looking forward to this verbal combat for several weeks, and many journalists had shown up. That is probably why the big Russian was there. SOF was making quite the impression in Bangkok. We had rented a penthouse suite and I had two of my staffers investigating full time for months.
Alan Dawson, another panel participant, and author of the book 55 Days: The Fall of Vietnam, other panelists and I verbally blew away some clueless participant who was a former State Department spokesman.
At the bar, the big Russian and Coyne had hooked up, both chugging their beers and looking like the best of friends.’Anatoly Korolev, Soviet Embassy,” the Russian introduced himself to Coyne.
“Jim Coyne,” Coyne said. “Soldier of Fortune magazine; no doubt you’ve heard of us.”
“Of course. I’ve read your magazine, but it’s very difficult to get,” the Russian told Coyne. “What brings you to Bangkok?” he asked.
“Chemical and biological warfare violations by Vietnam and the Soviet Union,” Coyne said with a smile.
“Oh, that,” he said in perfect English, and shrugged. “We’re not doing any of that stuff.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to confide in me if you were,” Coyne said.
Anatoly said, “We should have lunch sometime,” then wrote his name, telephone number and address on a cocktail napkin. He was staying just a few blocks away from the SOF apartment. Coyne, intrigued, gave him his name and number.
We were scheduled to leave for Pakistan the next day. But Coyne told the Russian, “We’re going to Aranyaprathet,” naming the Thai-Kampu-chean border town 200 kilometers east of Bangkok. ‘I’ll call when I get back.”
“Fine,” the Soviet said, preparing to leave.
“What exactly do you do at the Soviet Embassy, Anatoly?” Coyne asked him. “I’m chief of the Political Section,” he answered with a smile.
The panel discussion was over and I won another small, humble victory over the forces of darkness and legions of evil.
I asked Coyne who his new friend was after the stranger left.
“Chief of the Political Section at the Soviet Embassy,” he said.
“No shit? KGB!” I was impressed. “What did he want?” “He wants to have lunch next week,” Coyne said.
“Fuck a bunch of Russians,” I said, not in the mood to meet up with the Chief of the Political Section or any other Russian.
Coyne and I headed to Pakistan the next morning, and were in the filthy hellhole Karachi by noon. After a week of participating in a couple of skirmishes in Afghanistan and nearly suffering sunstroke along Pakistan’s rugged Northwest Frontier Province, we returned to Bangkok.
We headed for the Grand Prix bar, a favorite watering hole for journalists in Bangkok’s notorious Pat Pong District. Rick Menard, an American Nam vet, had owned Grand Prix for more than 16 years. The last thing on our mind was the big Russian.
“Anatoly’s been asking about you,” Menard told Coyne, who nearly choked on his drink.
“What does he want?” Coyne said.
“I don’t know,” said Menard.
“Bob,” Coyne said, “the KGB guy’s been asking for me.”
“Tell him that we were in Afghanistan,” I told him, as impressed as I was the first time Coyne told me about the KGB guy.
Robert Moberg walked into the crowded bar. “Mo” had flown anything the U.S. government would give him for more than nine years, based out of the American Embassy in Bangkok. He wore a U.S. Special Forces Decade lapel pin on his western-cut jacket.
Coyne described Mo in SOF: “He looked like ‘McCloud,’ only nastier. He spoke with the low whisky drawl known only to southerners and army aviators. “I am,” he often said humbly. “A legend among my peers.”
“Moberg had commanded the 281st Aviation Company in Vietnam during 1966 and 1967. Twenty-five helicopters known as radio call signs: ‘Intruders’ for the slicks, and ‘Wolfpack’ for the gunship platoon. They were always in the shit. I first heard of him in 1966, when the gunship I was gunner on was dispatched south along with one other ship to assist the 5th Special Forces in Nha Trang. Two ‘Shark’ gunships from the 174th Aviation Company. We flew some of the hairiest missions of the war during the day, and were often parked in Nha Trang by nightfall.”
Mo at the time was working for United Oil and Gas Services in Singapore and was well connected. He was as impressed with the fact that the KGB wanted to meet up with us as I was.
The next morning Anatoly phoned Coyne at our penthouse. “Jim, this is Anatoly, remember? I’ve been trying to reach you. Where have you been?”
Coyne told him that we had been in Afghanistan, and when Anatoly reminded him that he had said we were going to Aranyaprathet, Coyne, one of the funniest editors I had ever hired, gave some bullshit response.
“Something came up. Apparently the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan a few years ago. Maybe you remember reading something about it in the papers.”
“Brown get up!” Coyne yelled at me to wake up in the other room, “The KGB guy Anatoly wants to meet us.”
“I’m not talking to any Russians.” I said. Coyne would have none of it.
“I’m not going alone,” he said. “I told him we were in Afghanistan. Let ‘s go meet him and see what he’s up to.”
“ OK,” I said, “but I’m not shaking the hand of any KGB puke.”
“Even if you told him everything, he’d never believe you,” said Coyne.
We headed for the Narai Coffeehouse, a decaying hotel and guesthouse. None of the waitresses spoke English. We chose a 2:00 meeting time when there would be little traffic so we could monitor who was coming and going. And in best spook tradition we arrived an hour early to see if any other KGB bad guys arrived before Anatoly. I sat in a rear booth, facing the door. ‘‘I’m not sitting next to him.”
Anatoly walked through the door alone, on time. He hesitated while his eyes adjusted to the dark interior of the coffee shop. He spotted us and walked toward our booth. We stood up and Coyne shook his hand. He seemed surprised at my presence.
“This is Robert Brown, publisher of Soldier of Fortune,” Coyne said. “Bob, this is Anatoly Korolev from the Soviet Embassy.” Anatoly extended his hand, and after a brief hesitation, I shook it. What the hell.
“So,” Anatoly began, “I understand you’ve been in Afghanistan. Where were you? What did you see?”
“We were in the countryside with the guerrillas,” Coyne replied. “We watched a T-62 get hit. A couple of mortar attacks. A couple of doomed outposts of the Kremlin. We were invited there to help the government put down the insurrection.”
The Russian shrugged, then laughed at the outrageousness of what Coyne had told him.
“Afghanistan is not my area of specialty,” he said.
“How long have you been in Bangkok, Anatoly?” I asked.
“Oh, for a few years now,” he said. “Before that in other areas of Asia.”
“It must be difficult to go back to Moscow after Bangkok,” Coyne said, no doubt basing his statement on all of the rumors of the stiff, austere Soviet Union in comparison with the party town that never slept and where anything goes.
“Not at all,” he laughed. “I just get on an airplane. You should come to the Soviet Union. See for yourself.”
“I don’t think I would be welcome there,” Coyne said. SOF made no secret of its rabid anti-Soviet stand.
“Why did you want to meet with us, Anatoly?” I was tired of the bullshit and wanted to get this meeting over with.
“Well, I was . . . curious. I wanted to see what Soldier of Fortune was really like. I’m here for the same reasons you’re here, you know.” He relaxed and leaned back confidently in the booth and ordered a beer.
A 3oish small, wiry Thai man with sunglasses sat down in the booth behind Anatoly, facing us. Hardly anybody else was in the restaurant so Coyne and I assumed the Thai was Anatoly’s tail.
We ordered lunch on the Soviet Union. I ordered my normal white wine with a cup of ice and found the most expensive seafood entry on the menu, as did Coyne.
Coyne livened up the party. “What are you going to do when someone, somewhere comes up with one of your chemical and biological rockets, and says ‘Here it is’?” he asked. “What about the flagrant CBW attacks by the Vietnamese in Laos and Kampuchea, assisted by the Soviet Union?”
Anatoly didn’t flinch. “Oh. Jim, really,” he said. “We could never do anything like that. The consequences would be too—how shall I put it— expensive for us. We stand to lose too much. This material you mentioned, it is extremely dangerous. We cannot allow it to be given to anyone: especially not the Vietnamese. Why should we? No one will produce such a rocket, or evidence, because there is none.”
He was good. He spoke with a straight face and even some passion as he was lying through his teeth.
“Well, Anatoly,” Coyne said. “ It’s only a matter of time. “
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Communism is dead,” Coyne said. “Finished. Communism is dead, Anatoly,” the ballsy Coyne said. “Russia itself is a contradiction of the ‘workers’ paradise.’ If Marxism were paradise, workers wouldn’t be in the streets of Warsaw. If it were paradise why would anyone want to leave?”
He didn’t let up. “Your ‘client states,’ such as Poland. Cuba, Angola, Nicaragua, Laos and Vietnam, are literally on the edge of bankruptcy. The false economic and ideological principles upon which your nation is based might best serve as models of mismanagement.”
Still cool, Anatoly lit a cigarette.
Coyne still did not let up. “The anachronisms of Marx no longer appeal to the unaligned peoples of the Third World. They are now well aware of the internal and external conditions imposed by the acceptance of the ‘Gospel According to Moscow.’ They need only take a look at the condition of your ‘clients.’ The ideal of ‘sovietism’ is a fraud. It’s all over. I hope Brezhnev has a sense of humor.”
Anatoly was still unruffled. The Thai spook behind Anatoly laughed to himself and played with his ice-cream sundae.
“Jim, you needn’t take this all so personally,” Anatoly said. “I wouldn’t want to have you arrested for anti-Soviet acts.”
“We’re in Thailand, Anatoly, remember? Not Kabul or Moscow,” Coyne goaded him on.
“We’ve just come from Afghanistan, Anatoly,” I joined in. “You’re in deep shit. Excuse me.” I wandered off in search of the men’s room.
“Changing tapes?” Anatoly asked Coyne.
I had had enough of this bull. I thanked him for the lunch when I came back. We parted, went out to the loud streets of Bangkok, flagged down a taxi and Coyne ordered the cabbie to make a U-turn and get us the hell out of there. He cornered the cab on two wheels, heading back to the apartment.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I ‘helped’ some Bulgarian diplomat ‘defect’ from his consulate in Chicago?” I asked Coyne. He raised his eyebrows indicating he wanted to hear more.
“Some bozo undersecretary of the Bulgarian consulate in Chicago writes me a letter, on their stationery, requesting all these technical weapons manuals, right? Well, I wrote back and thanked him for his letter. ‘But,’ I said, ‘I cannot assist you in the ways you’ve mentioned. If you are serious about defecting to the United States, however, I suggest you contact so-and-so at the State Department for further information, etc. etc.’ He’s now probably picking potatoes in a windy field in Poland somewhere.”
I invited Coyne to go to the American Embassy with me. “No, thanks,” he said and got out of the cab. “I’ve had enough spooks for one day.”
I came back from the embassy, changed into my jogging gear preparing for my daily run, and found Coyne in the hotel pool.
“I was at the Embassy, right? Somebody made a crack about AnatoIy Korolev, as an aside. I said, ‘Who’s this Anatoly Korolev?’ They didn’t want to tell me. Finally, one guy warned me never to go near him. He wouldn’t tell me who Korolev was, only that he was ‘brilliant. The Kiss of Death. Maybe one of the few men authorized to use the big sleep as a bargaining chip.’ He told me I was probably already being watched, only I’d never know it. It was perfect. I ran out into the streets. The thought of Anatoly watching me had made me very happy. I was in a Cold War movie. Only it was real.”
Coyne later asked a friend whether he knew the Russian diplomat.
“You mean ‘Jaws,’“ the friend told Coyne. “Sure, everyone knows what he’s up to, but nobody’s said so in print. He’s very good at what he does, you know; that’s why we call him Jaws.” Coyne then asked what would happen once the article was published. “Two things,” the friend said. “One, Jaws will probably be reassigned; the KGB is humorless, you know. And, two, what happens to you will be another story.”
Korolov left Bangkok three days after the issue of SOF blowing his cover appeared on the newsstands. I never heard from or about him again.
Coyne is currently working in Bangkok, three decades later.