◆ SpookStack

seemed to offer the vole hope of salvation, from Fascism. Stern, now in his early seventies, inherited = large fortune from his banking family in North Dakow. His first wife was the wealthy Marion Rosenwald who later married Max Ascoli and helped him Bublish the Reporier magazine. Stern and Dodd were named by the Holly- wood counter-spy, Boris Morros, as part of an American Communist pet- work and ip 1987 fed to Mesico, picked up Paraguayan passports, Temoved their wealth from the United States and settled in Prague, Stern, thanks to his busin acumen, was of considerable value to the Communists, and, at feast until a few years ago, was handling several numbered bank accounts for the KGB and others, and he flew frequently between Zurich and Prague under ‘various names. ‘The Sterns own a grey Mercedes They live in an elegan! mansion, formerly owned by # single family now spiit up to house three families, at pumber 2 u Okrouhliku in the for- merly luxurious Smichov quarter of Prague. Their ground-floor apartment includes a large living room, two bed rooms, servants’ quarters, and an office for Stero’s business affaus. The walls paintings, all originals, bul none by any painter familiar 10 me by name. ‘There is a large unsigned photograph of Fidel Castro among others. The astonishing sight when I was there was 8 large bowl of oranges, at # time when oranges in Prague were almost as rare as moonsoil. One rumour, Which circulated two or three years ago. and which J discounted as soon as I read it, was that either they had moved to Cuba, or were planning to. had just come back from Havana which, as ghost towns go, today rivals Dawson City, Yukon. The Sterns, ike the rest of their class, Jove the eun- shine, but, again like the rest of their class. if they have to choose between sunshine and creature comfort, they will settle for the latter Toom to announce me, and Stern entered wearing & neal double-breas- ted grey suit and an unmistakably Western shirt He accepted my prof: fered hand and, “T was wondering if...” “Goodbye.”” “I won't take much of your time. . .” “Goodbye.” ‘And that is how 1 found myself out in the cold on v Okroubliku ‘The unofficial leader of the Ameri- can group in Prague - that is to may the one who makes the most noise - is ex-Colonel George S. Wheeler of the US. Army, who defected during the Berlin blockade. There is no doubt about Wheeler's reason for fight. An economist from North Virginia, he sat in the four-power economic committee smiling, said, Nazification, was quietly appointing Communist agents as labour leaders. He escaped to the Fast just in time to after be defected. His sait is gees with stains, the first sign of the personal decline that ended in his @esth escape arrest on charges of conspiracy With the Russians He lives in a shabby house, again forme one-farnily mansion, which he shares emth six other families at Srobovoa 28, in the middle-class dis- tret of Vinohrady. His quarters are comparatively roomy, as his two daughters, now grown and thoroughly Caschified, teach English at the un versity The last time I was in Prague, 4 few months ago, neither his tele: phone not doorbell was answered. ® an earlier visit T had asked re) him if he had been a Commun- st while in the Army, or was he converted after he had fied to Prague. His reply was, “Wouldn't the Americans like to know" revealing @ ‘way-out and rather pathetic egotism im a man few Americans have ever beard of, and most of those who have, have Jong forgotien. It was not the first time Thad encountered this same delusion ip the minds of the defectors, a dream- imagination in which they are still the centra) figures in the eye of the hurricane of world events, changing the course of a history in which they have made their own niche, believing that thould they suddenly materialise by enchantment in Regent Street or on Pennsylvania Avenue, there would be gasps, crowds, and all heads would Colin Lawson saw Wheeler after I did, and described him as “a pathetic old man doing something ot other at the Academy of Science and going to work by tam”. Until two or three years ago, at any rate, he was deliver- ing anti-Amencan economic lectures to Cuba and African students. 1035 an eerie twihght world, waver- ing uneasily on either side of the borderline of treason. A few of them have secrets that we would love to hear and which they dare not tell. 1 suggested to John Peet that after his 20 years at the heart of the sensa- tional events of East Berlin, fromm the Dlockade to the io the Brand Stoph confrontations, he could make @ great deal of money from his memoirs, he told all he knew. “Yes,” he replied. “If” And that was that But his reply, redolent of mystery, the knowledge of dark secrets, and timilar ambiguout giving: out, may in fact cover the real reason. The defectors fear a return to the rat face The rat race has become a Personal nightmare. It is equally crue thar the rat race would not have them, John Peet can return to England any time he wants, and often does. Hut brother, Stephen, works for BBC TV, But where would he make a living? Fleet Street may or may not be open to him, but he would have to compete with hundreds of redundant and newly unemployed journalists. He would be acceptable, presumably, to the Morning Star, but then one hits ap- other snag. Peet, I suspect, is about as much © Communist as fam, and afer the expitements of Berlin, he would probably sot want to work among a band of ideologists in Farringdon Road. What began as 3 desperate romantic decision, * venture into the great unknown, ends up as 3 Job and « pay cheque. And yet perhaps there is a clear ideological explanation of defection on record. Late last year a remark- able book was published by Jonathan Cape called Message From Moscow terialised in The’ Sunday Times. The ‘author's name was concealed, yet the clues to his identity abound, helped by ~ it seems 10 me after several read ings ~ rather than obscured by red ‘He refers to Living in student Ithough this is an author who is clearly long graduated. It is a brill- ant work which reveals great love of the Russians, no lack of sympathy for the Communist sysiem, but a detesia- tion of the apparaichik, both Soviet and Tsarist, which from fear. cynicism. self-serving, hypocrisy, inefficiency and what Solzenytsin calls the “hate- vigilance” of the Party hacks, blights everything that is finest in the Russian people. The invasion of Czecho- slovakia appalled him. * Who is be? No correspondent or diplomat could have made such a deep The author, described as s Russian- speaking westerner, clearly still lives in ‘the Soviet Union, He is a profess writer wath « vained journal's es for incident and detail. Ajj this cuts his identity 10 no more than two or three = Ralph Parker told me, “We in Mos- cow are # village.” One passage on page 240 defines, perhaps subcon- tciously, what may be the over powerng reason why well-educal Cultured and even sybaritic westerne: choose to tum their backs on their comforts and defect to Moscow. “Russia,” he says “thas @ unique ability to stimulate foreign interest, even love. Perhaps because of the universality of its great hterature and art, perhaps because of its size, strength and a kind of purity, Russia Tepresents the human condition and siruggic of the human spisii more vividly than our own countries. We are fascinated by what is here: we want to be part of the strugele We person ally and often involuntarily (my italics) ‘identify with this people's difficulties and fate.” If T hed inside information on the author's identity, I would be ethically obliged to respect his anonymity. As, do not, I am entitled to a guess. M: Ot 7) team could not have, writen. it Dagleish lacks the talent, Parker and Johnstone are dead, and could not have written it alive. Burchett would have no reason (o conceal his idenuty; be would have written the book for money and been aware that his name on the cover would be more valu- able than mere “Observer”. The old Moscow wire-service hands, Henry Shapiro and Ed Stevens, have been there 100 iong to see the scene 30 vividly. T suggest that somewhere in the pie is discernible the finger of Kam Philby. o vp