*Panama*
Lunch was a two-part affair in the main dining room of the Hilton in Panama City. When he had called with the invitation his voice had made me think of a bull-necked platoon sergeant I’d once known, but he turned out to be an older man with a little grey in his hair who spoke so softly during the first part of the meal that I frequently had to strain to hear his questions. He introduced himself by handing me a laminated card identifying him as a member of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and as we ate and I answered his questions, giving additional details I was often surprised I’d remembered about conversations and meetings he was particularly interested in, I realized he was a man who not only did his job very well but who also had an interest in putting his work into some kind of meaningful context, interested in understanding a larger portion of his world than I had assumed, naively, he might be. As we finished our dessert he closed the small pad he’d been taking notes in and put it and the ballpoint pen in his jacket pocket.
“Thank you. When all of this is processed with other information I am sure it will turn out to be of substantial value. Shall we have coffee?”
His eyes had dark half-circles of fatigue beneath them but now he seemed more relaxed, like someone on holiday from a worthwhile but very demanding business, and for the rest of the meal -- several coffees and a glass of wine each -- I had no trouble hearing him.
“I understand that you are due to be discharged in a few weeks. Do you have any plans?”
“Not at the moment. Some time to relax, probably, and get the army out of the forefront of my mind, and then I’ll start thinking about what comes next. I’m in no great rush; feeling lately as if whatever’s gonna be dished up has been on order from the beginning -- to some extent, anyway -- so I think I’ll just wait and see what develops. Do you enjoy what you do for a living?”
He took the reversal of our roles in his stride, a touch of weariness in his tone but no condescension or defensiveness. “I’ve been doing it for a long time and sometimes it can get to seem pointless, but most of the time I believe in the importance of what I do and that gives me satisfaction. Being in the business of gathering information can be tiring now and then, even somewhat depressing, but I think it’s a necessary business these days. I just wish it could stop for a while -- but I only worry about that when I haven’t had much sleep, like now, or when my ulcer acts up.”
“Isn’t it more like being in the suspicion business rather than anything else? We suspect them -- whoever they are -- of having the most abominable motivations and performing the most horrendous deeds and they, in turn, suspect us of precisely the same thing. The basic assumption, that no one can trust anyone else is really what buys us this very nice meal at the Hilton, isn’t it?”
“Of course, but we’re really only talking about the obvious, aren’t we? It seems to me that once we accept the reality of our world, the fact of our suspicions and distrustful natures, then we have to decide whether we want to do anything about it; whether indeed, anything at all can be done about it.
“What bothers me more, to get a little personal, is the absence of clarity these days. I miss the clarity of it all, the old clarity, the ease with which I could tell the valuable material from the pap, the information that was worth gathering from the data that was irrelevant. It’s hard to make that determination these days.” He wasn’t looking for sympathy and I heard no whining in his voice; he seemed to be simply stating a fact, displaying a condition of life that he felt was somehow inevitable and, at least for him, unchangeable.
“I don’t know, it all seems pretty clear to me. If you believe in something strongly enough you fight for it and support it or defend it -- work for it so that it’ll survive and function and even flourish. If you don’t believe in it, you just let it pass you by.”
“The unfair advantage of youth.” He was wistful rather than patronizing. “But what happens when this thing you believe in -- this ‘it’ -- changes color or shape, takes on attire you’ve never seen before, walks around so different or so disguised that you can hardly recognize it? What do you do then?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, but I think you just keep track of what you believe in and let the rest sort itself out without you.”
He looked disappointed -- for a moment I thought it might even be anger -- but he continued in a friendly though somewhat subdued voice.
“The belief is often not in an ideal or a cause, not in any cause. Often it’s not in either side, us or them, or in any side at all. Quite often it’s not a belief in your own talents, your own precision, which is the driving force behind what you do.” He seemed to be talking to himself even as he looked at me; I had the strong feeling that I’d somehow been dismissed, but I felt compelled to continue.
“I understand that. I’m pretty sure most of my volunteering these last few years was all about that. Don’t you think that that kind of belief is really all you need to sustain you when all is said and done about right and wrong and good guys and bad guys and clarity and disguises? Don’t you think so?”
He suddenly looked drained and very old. “It certainly is sufficient for some people, that’s true.”
He signaled for the bill and after he’d paid we walked out to the busy street together. The air was heavy with the afternoon’s impending downpour, but it seemed to revive him a little and he shook my hand warmly as we parted.
“It was, for me, a very pleasant working lunch. Given the imminence of your departure from our fair jungle I doubt that we will meet again, but such things are not very predictable. I sincerely hope that you enjoy whatever it is you decide to do for your living.” I hadn’t noticed him motion for it but a taxi pulled to the curb and as he got in he seemed to avoid my eyes. The first drops began to fall as he was driven away.
When I returned to Gulick the next morning Ray handed me a copy of the orders for my final military assignment. With such a short time to go on my tour I had expected only my travel orders back to the States for my discharge; my initial reaction to the papers I now read was one of pained surprise.
“Are these bastards kidding? I’m so short right now I have to look up to tie my shoelaces and they’re sending me to Cuba for seven days? Aren’t we practically at war with those people? That’s all I need -- survive all that crap in the bush and then get wasted ninety miles from Key West. Who are the geniuses who are running this show anyway?”
Ray laughed and agreed it was a strange assignment, but he also pointed out that I would be flown home afterwards on the once-a-week unofficial flight directly from Havana to Miami and wouldn’t have to return to Panama at all. He had received the same assignment -- we were to be a two-man observation team at one of Cuba’s week-long conferences on “Inter-American Cooperation”, the usual euphemism for those regional meetings which mixed the buying and selling of arms with the dissemination of a lot of propaganda -- but he would return to Panama at the end of the conference. I assumed my debriefing about the affair would take place after I reached the States and before I became a civilian again; his would be conducted, as usual, upon his return to the Zone.