A long history of spies in the nation's capital
By LANCE GAY
December 12, 2002
A stray chalk mark on a U.S. Postal Service box, or sticky tape marking an
X on a telephone pole, would probably be a sign of children nearby in any
other city. But this is Washington, the "wilderness of mirrors" and spy
capital of the world.
It's so notorious that tour operators have added spy tours to the
scandal-and-sex tours of Washington. One, operated by Washington's Spy
Museum, offers a bus tour led by former KGB and CIA agents of some of the
more recent spy hot spots.
You can do it yourself. The Soviet KGB recommended its spies use "ADC Maps"
available in many Washington stores for locating its dead drops.
But be aware that many notorious sites today do not betray their past, and
some have double histories. For example, former President Bush slept in one
suspected spy nest: His father, Sen. Prescott Bush, bought the house at
3415 Volta Place N.W., where State Department aide and Soviet spy Alger
Hiss once lived.
THE THIRD MAN: One of the most successful rings of Soviet double agents of
the Cold War fell apart in a rather anonymous tan-brick corner-lot colonial
at 4100 Nebraska Ave. N.W. This was the home of Harold "Kim" Philby, first
secretary of the British Embassy and Britain's liaison with the CIA.
After finding out the CIA was on to the group, Philby told embassy
colleague Guy Burgess to go back to London and tip off Donald Maclean and
other Cambridge University classmates involved. After protesting his
innocence, Philby fled to Moscow in 1963, where he died a KGB hero and was
commemorated with a Soviet stamp.
THE MERRY WIDOW: Washington socialite Rose O'Neal Goodhow ran the most
notorious and successful ring of Confederate spies from her well-appointed
home at 398 16th Street N.W., "a rifle shot" away from the White House
across Lafayette Park. An attractive friend of President James Buchanan and
many members of Congress, she leaked to the Confederates the Union plan for
the first battle of Manassas, which ended with a major Union defeat, and
plans for the defense of Washington, before she was arrested and went south.
There were a number of Confederate spies in the capital during the war.
Thomas Nelson Conrad, once headmaster of Georgetown College, sat on a bench
in Lafayette Park devising a plan to kidnap President Lincoln by charting
his daily trips. Conrad's plan was never executed. Others gathered at Mary
Surratt's Washington boarding house at 604 H St. N.W., today the Go-Lo
Chinese Restaurant.
THE MAYFLOWER CONNECTION: Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover designed the
public exhibit halls in the dour cement FBI headquarters, displaying the
hollow nickels, cufflinks and dresses used to hide microfilm. But most of
the spy hunts Hoover organized were hatched over daily lunches (chicken
soup, cottage cheese and lettuce salad) with his confidant Clyde Tolson at
the Rib Room of the Mayflower Hotel, 1127 Connecticut Ave. N.W.
The Mayflower was also the hotel that George Dasch, team leader of a group
of eight Nazi saboteurs, checked into in 1942 when he decided to come to
Washington, with the $84,000 in cash he was carrying, to tell the FBI of a
nefarious spy plot. In 1985, CIA counterintelligence agent Aldrich Ames
took his first $50,000 from his Soviet controller over lunch at the
Mayflower restaurant.
THE MARTINI LUNCH: Long, boozy lunches in scenic Georgetown play a
recurring role in Washington's spy melodramas.
The favorite lunching spot of James J. Angleton, former head of
counterintelligence at the CIA, was the Georgetown bistro La Nicoise, 1721
Wisconsin Ave. N.W.
Barely five blocks away, Oleg Kalugin, a former major general in the KGB,
favored Martin's Tavern, 1264 Wisconsin Ave. N.W., as the place to talk to
his boss, KGB chief Vadim Bakhatin. During World War II, the tavern also
was a favored watering hole for Elizabeth Bentley, the "Red Spy Queen," who
told Congress in 1948 of her activities collecting information for the
Soviets. Carrying a red flower and copy of Life magazine, Bentley met her
controllers at the Georgetown Pharmacy, a few doors away from Martin's
Tavern at 1344 Wisconsin Ave. N.W.
Further down Wisconsin Avenue at the K Street waterfront, CIA agent Ames
used a Georgetown lunch at Chadwick's to turn over 7 pounds of CIA
documents to his KGB handlers. The handlers signaled their wish to have
meetings with Ames by chalking an X on the side of the mailbox a few blocks
away at the corner of 37th and R Streets N.W.
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY: The lone plaque memorializing Washington's spy
history is at the Georgetown restaurant Au Pied de Cochon, 1335 Wisconsin
Ave. N.W., stating "Yurchenko's Last Supper in the USA...Nov. 2, 1985." It
commemorates KGB spymaster Vitali Yurchenko, who defected, then had second
thoughts over dinner with a CIA agent. He slipped out the restaurant's back
exit, and reappeared two days later claiming he had been kidnapped, drugged
and taken away against his will.
THE CUBAN MATA HARI: Jennifer Miles was a 26-year-old blond South African
bombshell who spied for Cuba by inviting men she met at diplomatic parties
and other social events back to her home in the Carousel Apartments, 2800
Wisconsin Ave. N.W. The FBI counted more than 100 conquests before she was
arrested in 1981 and deported.
THE ISRAELI SPY: Jonathan Pollard, a Navy intelligence officer who spied
for Israel, exchanged secret documents on the Middle East in 1984 on the
grounds of Dumbarton Oaks, 1703 32nd St. N.W.
THE NAKED LUNCH: The only sign of excitement in the otherwise pedestrian
story of FBI spy Robert Hanssen was his dalliance with stripper Priscilla
Galey, whom he met while lunching (broiled fish is the lunch special) at
Joanna's 1819 Club, a strip club located at 1819 M St. N.W. She got a trip
to Hong Kong and a Mercedes for what she insisted was a non-sexual affair.
Hanssen has never explained what he got.
Otherwise, Hanssen lived a routine suburban life at 9414 Talisman Drive in
Vienna, Va. Hanssen decided as a teenager that he wanted to be a spy after
reading Kim Philby's autobiography. As an FBI agent involved in
counterintelligence, he arranged document exchanges at several small parks
in Northern Virginia, including Nottoway, Foxstone, Canterbury Woods and
Eakin Community Park.
THE BON VIVANT: Milquetoast CIA agent Ames drove a Jaguar, paid cash for
his $540,000 house at 2512 Randolph St. in Arlington, Va., and had millions
of dollars in bank accounts. How he did all that on a CIA salary of less
than $70,000 a year became clear only in 1994, after nine years of selling
the Soviets the names of all their compatriots working with the CIA. He
came under scrutiny in 1993 when agents questioned why so many Soviet
sources were dying.
THE WIFE SWAPPERS: Flamboyant Cold War spies and double agents Karl and
Hana Koecher claimed Washington in the 1980s was "the sex capital of the
world," and were intimates of the city's wife-swapping scene through
meetings held at The Exchange, a restaurant at 1831 M St., N.W. After
trying to blackmail government employees, Karl Koecher was arrested in
1984. He recently resurfaced in Prague, claiming to have documentary proof
that British intelligence was involved in the death of Princess Diana.
(Contact Lance Gay at gayl(at)shns.com or visit SHNS on the Web at
http://www.shns.com.)
