Rodney Barker - Dancing with the Devil - Sex, Espionage and the U.S. Marines - The Clayton Lonetree Story

She had been instructed to pay him attention but to be careful not to appear as if she was provoking a relationship, which posed no difficulties because her curiosity was genuine. Prior to this she’d had very little direct contact with Westerners, so strictly from a language point of view the chance to converse with someone whose native tongue was English was new and different and interesting. It helped their communications that he did not use big words or express complicated thoughts, but he did impress her with his knowledge about a range of subjects. She’d found this to be true about Westerners in general: They drew from a broader base of information than Russians, which made for stimulating and informative discussions.

The one topic they all seemed to be sorely misinformed about, however, was Soviet society. Every American she’d met, including Clayton, seemed to think communists were no different from fascists. It must be the anti-Soviet ideological propaganda in America that makes them think so, she decided.

“Befriend him. Encourage him to talk about himself. Get to know him,” she’d been told. In other words allow a personal relationship to flourish. So she followed her official guidance, not for a minute suspecting that they would have anything in common. But over the next few weeks, as they discussed American movies and books and food, his impressions of Russia, his likes and dislikes, she was agreeably surprised to find they hit it off quite well. Even more surprising, because Russians on the whole were very circumspect when talking about their inner feelings with strangers, he very quickly took her into his confidence.

Until he told her he was a Native American, she hadn’t put his swarthy face and dark hair and eyes together with her picture of an Indian. From official discussions she had heard that America was built on the bloodshed of Indians, there was hatred between the races, and the human rights of Indians continued to be violated, but she had given very little thought to the subject. Hearing him talk with pride about his heritage, and yet admit to feeling at times like “a second-class citizen” in his country, struck a sympathetic chord; and although she’d been advised to stay away from political discussions, she was just being honest when she said in her country ethnic orientation didn’t matter, and talked about the great communist ideology where all men were equal and no man was oppressed.

It was when he opened the floodgate of feelings from his unhappy childhood that she had a reaction for which she was unprepared. When she heard about the lack of love and attention he’d received from his parents, how he’d spent lonely years in an orphanage, and how he’d joined the Marines to get away, the pity she felt for this person was profound.

One story he told her touched her in a special way. Attempting to explain why he had difficulty making friends, he said as a small boy he’d had poor eyesight but no one had tested him for glasses; and because his vision prevented him from keeping up with the other kids he had stopped playing games, turned inward, and become a withdrawn person.

It was heartbreaking. He struck her as someone who had stored up his thoughts and feelings for years and years, just waiting for someone to come along and ask him about himself. But more than that, she identified with his feelings. Her parents had also fought frequently and separated when she was young. She too felt unwanted and alienated from her family. Like him she had come to believe she could count on no one but herself. And the core of loneliness at the center of his being reminded her of an empty place within her own soul.

Violetta knew this was precisely the kind of background information that her superiors wanted her to collect—poignant personal details that exposed the target’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities—and dutifully she fulfilled her reporting requirements. But because she knew that the resentments and longings he was sharing with her were being considered by others for their value in his recruitment as a spy, an unexpected discomfort began to worm its way into her consciousness.

Approval had been given for her to show Clayton where she lived, and after one of the conversational walks she brought him home. Genrietta had a fit.

“Why are you bringing this American spy into our home?” she demanded to know. “You shouldn’t do this. I don’t like it. You are compromising your family.”

She retreated to her room and refused to come out. She was furious with Violetta. Under their system, if one member behaved inappropriately it could have implications and consequences for the rest of the family. It could even cause problems for their neighbors.

But Violetta had been nonplussed. “Give him a chance and get to know him better,” she told her mother. “Then you will change your attitude and feel toward him as you do toward my other friends.”

It turned out that she was right. Prior to bringing him home again, Violetta explained that she was just being friendly to him because he did not get along with the rest of the Marines at the embassy, he was lonely and interested in meeting Russian people, and she felt sorry for him. Genrietta was still wary of the whole idea, but she knew Violetta did not make friends with just anyone, and if Violetta insisted he was worthwhile, then maybe she was being unfair.

It was Genrietta’s idea to invite Clayton to the house to celebrate a winter holiday, and the occasion was a breakthrough for her. He didn’t speak Russian and she knew just a few words of English, but Violetta translated, and from the conversation they had around the dinner table, Genrietta could tell how much it meant to him to be included in a family affair. She could see that he was a shy and reserved young man, quite an ordinary person, really, with no strangeness or sharp edges to him. In fact, he was polite, appreciative, and sincere, and his presence added a pleasant element that made the celebration memorable. Genrietta also saw, from his eyes and the way they lingered on Violetta, that this American Marine was hopelessly infatuated with her daughter.

What happened next was a result of the risks inherent in operations that depend on human emotions.

The theory behind this kind of recruitment was that Violetta, in addition to gathering personal information on Lonetree, was supposed to create the impression they were conspirators engaged in something that those around them knew nothing about. This involved not just walks and talks, but coded exchanges—a glance here, a touch there—which built up personal memories that implied intimacy and created confidence and brought a sense of specialness to the relationship. The idea was to get the target to believe that he and the recruiter were forming their own world in which it was the two of them together on the inside, and everybody else was on the outside.

But in order for Violetta to play her part realistically, she had to be given certain freedoms. Just as Lonetree broke the rules when he would sneak away from the embassy to see her, she had to be given a license that allowed it to appear that she too was moving beyond the normal limits allowed a Soviet citizen. This entailed a freedom of movement, freedom of expression… the freedom to act, in other words, as if she were a free spirit.

The result was something almost magical. Violetta had been granted a range of liberties previously unknown to her for the purposes of exploring the interior life of a Western man. At the same time she had been told to encourage his affections by enjoying herself and giving him the impression that she was falling in love with him. But what she wasn’t given was adequate preparation for the emotional consequences of this behavior. Which is to say, when you fiddle with emotions as primal as love and whatever generates that between two people, you simply cannot predict or control what is going to happen.