wanted him to drop everything, leave his pregnant wife and three young children in Paterson and do six months of secret, paramilitary training. He didn’t ask why; he dutifully sent in his uniform measurements and shoe size as ordered, got on the train to Union Station in Washington on a scalding July day, and showed up for his assignment.
And when the CIA wanted him to take a leave from a new job he’d gotten with an insurance company and fly back to the Middle East for several more months on a risky undercover assignment? Again, Soobzokov was there for them.
Hadn’t he proven himself by now a devoted CIA employee, a loyal anti-Communist? Sure, he loved the thrill and bravado of the spy’s life, but he did it out of a sense of service to his new country, too. Whatever the CIA wanted, he did it.
The strange thing to Soobzokov was that his bosses at the CIA had always seemed so high on him. Soobzokov had become particularly close to John Grunz, the veteran CIA case officer who served as his handler, muse, confidant, and fellow Communist hunter. Soobzokov had reported to him during his time living in Jordan. After Soobzokov came to America, the two exchanged letters recalling their time serving together in the Middle East. Soobzokov would call Grunz collect to share Communist tidbits. He had Grunz’s private phone line at headquarters, with instructions to identify himself to Grunz’s secretary as “Mr. Tom.” Soobzokov had shared everything with Grunz—all his tips about suspected Commie sympathizers in New Jersey, photos from a Russian émigré who seemed suspiciously smitten with the Bolshoi Ballet, and various theories on ethnic and political divisions back in Russia and in the Middle East.
Occasionally, in darker moments, Soobzokov would even share with Grunz the ugly, deep-seated biases that he kept hidden away from most of the outside world. There was the time a few months earlier when Soobzokov, looking to make some extra money on top of his part-time work with the CIA, was mulling over a job offer in exports with a New York firm. He talked over the position with an executive there by the name of Lansberg. But something worried Soobzokov about this Mr. Lansberg. He called Grunz for advice. Soobzokov wanted “to find out if the firm is reliable and whether Jews are involved. He would be ashamed to work for a Jew,”the CIA dutifully noted in his file. “He thinks Lansberg is a Jewish name but Lansberg talked more like a German or a Dutchman,” the file noted; those were “nationalities he wouldn’t mind working for.”
For a CIA officer like Grunz, each anti-Soviet spy he could count as part of his portfolio—even an inept one or an anti-Semitic one—was a prized commodity that would inevitably help to advance his own career. In that era at the CIA, you couldn’t have too many Russian spies on your team. Grunz was willing to fight for his friend. “We must get him employment!” the handler scrawled in a handwritten note to his bosses after Soobzokov passed on the job with Lansberg, the Jew, and was struggling with money. Soobzokov “is willing to go on any type of mission for us at any time,” Grunz wrote, “providing the objective is worth the risk in his opinion.”
But as close as he had once been with Grunz and his other CIA spy bosses, the easy rapport began to fray by the time he was called in for his latest interrogation. For months now, the CIA’s pesky internal security team had been asking him about unpleasant rumors that had surfaced during what proved a disastrous covert visit he took to the Middle East in the fall of 1957.
On the Middle East trip, he was supposed to spend three or four months secretly recruiting Russian exiles in the region as spies for the CIA. First he needed a cover story to explain his absence from home. Ironically enough, that cover came from his Nazi past. If fellow immigrants in New Jersey asked why he was going back to the Middle East for so long, he
And when the CIA wanted him to take a leave from a new job he’d gotten with an insurance company and fly back to the Middle East for several more months on a risky undercover assignment? Again, Soobzokov was there for them.
Hadn’t he proven himself by now a devoted CIA employee, a loyal anti-Communist? Sure, he loved the thrill and bravado of the spy’s life, but he did it out of a sense of service to his new country, too. Whatever the CIA wanted, he did it.
The strange thing to Soobzokov was that his bosses at the CIA had always seemed so high on him. Soobzokov had become particularly close to John Grunz, the veteran CIA case officer who served as his handler, muse, confidant, and fellow Communist hunter. Soobzokov had reported to him during his time living in Jordan. After Soobzokov came to America, the two exchanged letters recalling their time serving together in the Middle East. Soobzokov would call Grunz collect to share Communist tidbits. He had Grunz’s private phone line at headquarters, with instructions to identify himself to Grunz’s secretary as “Mr. Tom.” Soobzokov had shared everything with Grunz—all his tips about suspected Commie sympathizers in New Jersey, photos from a Russian émigré who seemed suspiciously smitten with the Bolshoi Ballet, and various theories on ethnic and political divisions back in Russia and in the Middle East.
Occasionally, in darker moments, Soobzokov would even share with Grunz the ugly, deep-seated biases that he kept hidden away from most of the outside world. There was the time a few months earlier when Soobzokov, looking to make some extra money on top of his part-time work with the CIA, was mulling over a job offer in exports with a New York firm. He talked over the position with an executive there by the name of Lansberg. But something worried Soobzokov about this Mr. Lansberg. He called Grunz for advice. Soobzokov wanted “to find out if the firm is reliable and whether Jews are involved. He would be ashamed to work for a Jew,”the CIA dutifully noted in his file. “He thinks Lansberg is a Jewish name but Lansberg talked more like a German or a Dutchman,” the file noted; those were “nationalities he wouldn’t mind working for.”
For a CIA officer like Grunz, each anti-Soviet spy he could count as part of his portfolio—even an inept one or an anti-Semitic one—was a prized commodity that would inevitably help to advance his own career. In that era at the CIA, you couldn’t have too many Russian spies on your team. Grunz was willing to fight for his friend. “We must get him employment!” the handler scrawled in a handwritten note to his bosses after Soobzokov passed on the job with Lansberg, the Jew, and was struggling with money. Soobzokov “is willing to go on any type of mission for us at any time,” Grunz wrote, “providing the objective is worth the risk in his opinion.”
But as close as he had once been with Grunz and his other CIA spy bosses, the easy rapport began to fray by the time he was called in for his latest interrogation. For months now, the CIA’s pesky internal security team had been asking him about unpleasant rumors that had surfaced during what proved a disastrous covert visit he took to the Middle East in the fall of 1957.
On the Middle East trip, he was supposed to spend three or four months secretly recruiting Russian exiles in the region as spies for the CIA. First he needed a cover story to explain his absence from home. Ironically enough, that cover came from his Nazi past. If fellow immigrants in New Jersey asked why he was going back to the Middle East for so long, he
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