Part 2 of 2
The CIA had had a secret role in the Congo that dated back to 1960 when Belgium granted its former colony independence, one of a series of colonies that won their independence in the early sixties. Against the backdrop of the Cold War and superpower struggles, each of these young nations became yet another target of opportunity caught in the tug-of-war between East and West. The United States and its handmaiden, the CIA, were intent upon preventing the Soviets or Chinese from gaining a new foothold anywhere in the world, especially in a land as rich in minerals and as strategically located as was the Congo. Just how far the CIA was willing to go was made plain in the fall of 1960.
It was September 19, 1960, that the CIA sent a message to Lawrence Devlin, its station chief in Leopoldville (today called Kinshasa), the Congolese capital. The message, classified "Eyes Only," was cryptic even by CIA standards. It alerted Devlin that he would soon be receiving a visit from "Joe from Paris" and that he was to take his instructions from him. Not long after, as Devlin was walking to his car near the Cafe de la Presse, he saw a familiar face -- Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, a senior scientist on the technical side of the Agency.
Gottlieb was an odd figure by any measure. Born with a clubfoot and stricken with a severe stutter, he had been a socialist in his youth and a Buddhist as an adult. A chemist by training, he put his formidable talent in the lab to exotic use, making poison darts and handkerchiefs, and overseeing a program with LSD that tested theories of mind control. His subjects were not always privy to the fact they had been dosed. A genius by many accounts, he would have been a perfect model for Dr. Strangelove. In Leopoldville he arrived with a plan for Devlin to carry out.
Devlin took Gottlieb to a safe house, where the two men huddled over a radio whose volume was cranked up high enough to obscure their voices from any eavesdroppers or listening devices. Gottlieb said it was the CIA's directive that Gottlieb assassinate former Congolese premier Patrice Lumumba. A charismatic leftist trained in the Soviet Union, Lumumba was viewed as a threat to U.S. objectives in the region. "Jesus Christ! Isn't this unusual?" asked Devlin, demanding to know upon whose authority such an order had been given. In-house the plan had been approved by none other than Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell. CIA head Allen Dulles had branded Lumumba "a Castro, or worse." But the scheme also, Devlin said, had the blessings of an even higher authority- President Eisenhower.
From his bag, Gottlieb produced a small kit containing a well-known brand of toothpaste. Inside was a deadly poison. The kit also contained rubber gloves, gauze, masks, and even a syringe in the event that the toothpaste could not be slipped into Lumumba's possessions. Devlin had no intention of carrying out the directive, but in the interest of preserving his career, he decided to quietly stall for time. He slipped the kit into a drawer in the embassy safe.
Three months later Devlin's and the Agency's dilemma was resolved. On January 17, 1961, Lumumba was brutally murdered by a rival Congolese faction. Whether that killing was purely fortuitous or given an assist by the Agency has been a subject of debate. One week later, under cover of darkness, a much-relieved Devlin drove to the edge of town and tossed the poison into the rapids of the Congo River.
But neither Lumumba's death nor the intervening four years had done anything to stabilize the Congo. Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson had all secretly deployed the CIA in a desperate effort to shore up the Congolese government as the nation teetered on the brink of anarchy.
So it was when Merriman arrived in Leopoldville on July 17, 1964. A two-month-old revolt in the eastern province of Katanga once again threatened the country. But Merriman's spirits were high, the weather cooler than he expected, and the Congolese ivory and wood carvings caught his eye. "Looks as if I will be able to bring you some pretty' presents from here," he wrote his wife. "Love boys for me and remember that you are the one I love most in the world."
The letter was necessarily brief There was much to do. His assignment was to oversee the Cuban pilots, to help prevent a breakup of the Congo, and to suppress the revolt in Katanga. Merriman spent less than two weeks in Leopoldville before taking command. of the CIA's air operations and. the Cuban pilots who worked. under cover of the Congo Air Force.
On July 20, 1964, he and. three Cuban pilots, all veterans of the Bay of Pigs-Jack Varela, Rene Garcia, and. his friend. Gus Ponzoa ferried. three T-28s to Kamina Air Base in Katanga. As Merriman approached. Kamina flying the lead. plane, he was dumbstruck at the enormity of the base rising up in the middle of nowhere. Composed of hundreds of barracks, depots, and. hangars, it was the largest air base south of the Sahara. But for a skeletal crew of mechanics and engineers from the Belgian Air Force, and. the few Cuban pilots, Kamina was deserted, a ghostly expanse of runways and. empty buildings stretching as far as the eye could see.
Even more haunting was its original purpose. Built at the height of the Cold War by the Belgians, it was intended. to be the relocation site for the Belgian royal family, as well perhaps as the government and. elements of NATO, as they rode out what appeared to be the inevitable nuclear war. Kamina was a completely self-contained redoubt, a concrete and. steel colossus created to withstand. the Cold War's ultimate nightmare. Not far off was an entirely different world. inhabited by zebras, antelopes, elephants, and the occasional cobra sunning itself on the road.
Merriman unpacked his gear in a barrackslike structure known as the Ops Center. He had a two- room suite complete with a private bathroom -- but no running water. The base boasted. an enormous mess hall, but that, too, was abandoned. Instead, Merriman and. his Cuban cohorts ate mostly tins of sardines and basic rations. Merriman was embraced almost instantly by the Cubans. Devoid of pretensions and the John Wayne swagger of some of his CIA predecessors, he was immediately welcomed. For his part he soon appreciated the hazards the pilots faced in the field. The Agency had made it clear to the Cuban pilots that if anything happened to them, if they crashed or were captured, the U.S. government would disavow any knowledge of them.
Nor was there any recourse to the Geneva Convention for those who were downed. Rebel tribesmen, it was said, would eat the testicles of their foes if they thought them brave, and their hearts if wise. Cuban pilot Fausto G6mez had been found literally butchered. By such a standard, Mario Genebra was luckier. His engine failed as he was taking off from Albertville and his plane flipped over into the lake at the edge of the runway. Unable to open the cockpit, he drowned in two feet of water.
Merriman was prepared for the risks, but not the disorder. "The situation here is a real bucket of worms," he wrote his wife the day of his arrival at Kamina. "I thought it would come more clear after I arrived here but so far it hasn't."
On July 25 Merriman returned for the day to Leopoldville for a doctor's appointment. He had been having trouble with his right eye, out of which he saw only "a blank spot." In a moment of downtime, he wrote his wife another letter. " A lot of the work so far is frustrating as the organization is still disorganized," he wrote. "However the one worry I don't have is the personnel. My people are a real bunch of tigers. The pilots are all veterans of the Bay of Pigs & good at their jobs. Some of them are real friends already. Someday maybe we'll visit them in some happier place."
The next day, July 26, 1964, Merriman returned to Kamina. That afternoon he received an intelligence report from the Belgians that a convoy of rebels known as Simba, Swahili for "lion," had been spotted on the road from Kabalo. It was a vulnerable target and Merriman was eager for combat. He approached his friend Gus Ponzoa, hoping he would join Merriman in a strike on the convoy. But Ponzoa and the other pilots had already had a full morning of combat. Besides, Ponzoa's energy was sapped from a lingering case of hepatitis. He tried to discourage Merriman, arguing that it was already 4:00 P.M., that the target was a good hour away, and that it would be dark by the time they returned. Rene Garcia also opposed the idea. If they crashed at dusk in enemy territory, there would be no one to rescue them and, besides, the convoy was of little importance.
But Merriman could not be dissuaded. Garcia and Varela reluctantly agreed to join him. Merriman suited up and climbed into Ponzoa's T-38, plane number 496. The three T-28s flew wing-to-wing, at times so close they could read the names written on each other's helmet. Finally Merriman spotted the convoy, a line of four jeeps and half a dozen trucks snaking their way across the open expanse. Jeeps often indicated someone of senior rank. Merriman pointed below, then peeled oft; his twin .50- caliber machine guns blazing. Varela was close behind. The convoy was riddled with bullets, but now the T-28s themselves became a target of ground fire. Garcia saw that there was still movement below in one of the jeeps and made a third pass, watching the gunners dropping beneath a withering fire. He came out of his strafing run and began to climb but became aware that something was wrong. As he and Varela prepared to join up with Merriman, he waved them off.
"Open up!" said Merriman over the radio, calling for them to widen the formation. "I might explode." They could see a trail of vapor streaming from Merriman's plane. "I am losing oil," he said.
It had been two hours since they left Kamina. They were deep in enemy territory, and there was no ejection seat in the plane. Merriman's only hope was to find a place to land. At the rate that he was losing oil, he would fall out of the sky like a rock long before Kamina. And still, Merriman appeared his usual calm self as he lit up a cigarette.
Garcia remembered a four-thousand-foot landing strip in Kabongo, still an hour from Kamina, but wide and open enough that Merriman might have a chance to bring his plane down -- if the oil lasted that long. Garcia took the lead and dropped down to search for barrels or drums beside the runway, any sign of the enemy's presence. It looked clear. He gave Merriman the go-ahead to land.
Merriman's T-28 descended slowly. He seemed confused. He was making a teardrop approach coming into the wind, a quarter mile from the runway. There would be no time to make another approach. Now it was clear to Garcia that he had taken a hit in the oil return line between the propeller and the tank. He was about to lose his propeller. Still Merriman was coming in perfectly level and straight when suddenly, at eight hundred to one thousand feet, he lost all power.
The plane plummeted. A huge red cloud rose into the air.
"My God: thought Garcia, "he's exploded." But it was only the red dusty earth of the fields. When it cleared, Varela and Garcia could see Merriman's propeller fifty yards from the rest of the plane, spinning absurdly. And they could make out the mangled remains of the plane. The wings were twisted crazily, the fuselage crumbled. They could see Merriman's head, motionless, in the cockpit. Varela wanted to land but Garcia talked him out of it. There was no way, he said, that Merrirnan could have survived such a crash. What good would it do to lose two men and two planes?
Back at Kamina, Ponzoa had begun to worry and had taken to the control tower waiting for some word. Garcia radioed the tower. "Kamina tower, this is Tango flight. We have lost one of our airplanes."
Ponzoa recognized Garcia's voice and called him by the Spanish word for "Baldy." "Calvo, is that you?" Then Garcia broke the news that it was Merriman who had gone down. Ponzoa shook his head in disbelief Merriman, his mentor and ace of aces, was too good to have been shot down.
When Garcia and Valera landed, there were few words spoken. They had lost their commander, an American whom in such short time they had come to call a friend. He was not even supposed to engage in combat. In his logbook Ponzoa scribbled in Spanish, "Tumbaron a Merriman" (They shot down Merriman).
The next morning there was a stir at the entrance to Kamina. A beat-up old truck, driven by two locals, had something in the back they wanted to unload. It was Merriman. He had somehow survived the crash and been discovered by these two men who pried him out of the crumpled cock- pit. Suspecting he had come from Kamina, they were determined to re- turn him before the rebels found him.
Passing in and out of consciousness, Merriman was carried to the base hospital. But it was a hospital in name only. There were no doctors, no nurses, only two local nurse's aides. There was not so much as an aspirin to ease Merriman's pain. Merriman was placed on a bed, the blood wiped off with a clean, damp cloth. His eyes were bloodshot, his face lacerated. His shoulder bone, both ankles, and three vertebrae were broken. His chest and legs were covered with contusions. The force of tile crash had been so great that the harness strap had cut a quarter inch into his flesh. Even the bezel of his Rolex watch had popped out on impact.
Garcia, the son of a doctor, was deeply concerned. He remembered his father's patients, how they could sometimes be up and about the very day they were operated on and then suddenly develop a clot and die. What Garcia noticed was that Merriman's skin had taken on a bluish tint. Garcia understood that as miraculous as it was that Merriman had not died in the crash, his survival now depended on getting him back to the States or Europe where he could receive proper care. Immediately the Cuban pilots notified the embassy in Leopoldville asking someone to come and medevac Merriman.
Each time Merriman regained consciousness, he would plead with Ponzoa: "Gus, please send me home. 1 want to see my family. You can run the operation here yourself. 1 am feeling very bad. Please, Gus." Even his flier's pride was wounded. "You guys fly so long and nothing happens to you," he would say to the Cuban pilots clustered around his bed. "I go on the first mission and ..."
But Ponzoa's appeals to Leopoldville went largely ignored. There was nothing they could do for Merriman but try to make him comfortable. Sometimes lucid, sometimes delirious, he would pass out for five or six hours. Ponzoa and the others could not understand why the Americans had not yet come for him.
But if the U.S. Embassy and CIA were concerned withMerriman's well-being, they were at least as committed to concealing the fact that he, an American, had taken part in combat and crashed. On July 25, 1964, the day before his crash, U.S. Ambassador McMurtrie Godley had sent a telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk advising that "we should indulge in no, repeat no, covert operations here that do not have Tshombe's [Moise Tshombe, the Congo's premier] and/or [Congo President Joseph] Kasavubu's blessing."
Adding to sensitivities was a State Department cable sent the day after Merriman's crash. It reported that rebels under Communist influence were now convinced that Americans had taken a direct hand in the conflict. They vowed to punish any and all whites found in the region. Thirty rebels had been killed and eighty wounded in one such attack in which Americans had allegedly participated.
A day later a military attache in the U.S. Embassy referred to a Congo Army report that a "T-28 on its third mission made a forced land- ing 300 yards short of runway at Kabango [sic]," and that helicopters from Kamina were attempting to salvage the parts. "Pilot not badly injured," the embassy erroneously concluded.
"We are concerned: cabled U.S. Ambassador Godley, "about increasing number of reports that if T-28 or mercenaries used by GOC [government of Congo] against rebel-held areas in eastern Congo, rebels will retaliate by killing whites in areas under their control." That was July 28. Two days later Godley reiterated his concerns and expressed his growing opposition to the CIA's reliance on an air campaign. "While we here unable to completely evaluate contribution which T- 8's may be making to security situation Katanga, own present impression is that aircraft alone cannot contain continuing rebel advance unless there are armed men on ground willing to stand and fight. This is not now the case in Katanga. Therefore suggest consideration be given halting T-28 operations temporarily until more dependable ground forces materialize."
Merriman, from a diplomatic and security viewpoint, was an embarrassment and a liability. On July 30 Ambassador Godley, in a cable classified "Secret," reported that the pilot of the downed T- 8 was "Merriman, a U.S. citizen," but instead of expressing concern for Merriman's condition, he expressed relief that Reuters was reporting the pilot was Cuban. That miscue was courtesy of the Belgian consul general who was covering for the United States -- for which Ambassador Godley later expressed his appreciation. Any further inquiries into the crash were to be referred to the Congo Air Force, which the United States had advised to "stick to Reuters story."
Ambassador Godley simply wanted the Merriman situation to quietly fade away. "Should pilot's nationality be revealed we will continue refer inquiries to CAF [ Congo Air Force] but if pressed will emphasize non operational character of mission. Would hope that nothing be said by USG [United States government] officials." That message was passed on to the White House at 6:50 A.M. on July 30.
From the U.S. vantage point, Merriman's misfortune could not have occurred at a more inopportune moment, potentially inflaming as it did rebel passions against whites in the area and threatening to discredit U.S. denials of direct military involvement in the region. At that very moment the Congo seemed to be imploding. The very day the White House learned of Merriman's crash, a second cable, more dire than the first, arrived in Washington. "Security situation North Katanga continues to deteriorate ... ANC [Congolese forces] and ex-gendarmes have fled ... ANC troops deserting Kabongo ... Fall of Kongolo will be further psychological shock. Defection of troops at Kabongo opens way for advance on Kamina ..."
While the diplomats and covert planners fretted over the situation and continued their debate, Merriman lay in a hospital bed at Kamina, his condition worsening.
It was not until at least July 31-five interminable days of anguish-that a DC-4 was finally dispatched from Leopoldville to airlift Merriman out. But it was not to take Merriman home or even to Europe, but rather to a dismal and backward hospital in Leopoldville. So sensitive was the situation that Merriman was admitted into the hospital under the pseudonym of Mario Carlos in an effort to preserve the ruse that he was Cuban.
The days dragged on. His condition worsened. With nothing but pain to occupy his time, and no immediate prospect of a flight home, he tried to fend off depression. Ponzoa visited him in the hospital and was distressed by the care his friend was receiving. Aside from shots to help him sleep, Ponzoa saw little to indicate he was receiving appropriate medical treatment.
Ponzoa returned to Kamina. Even without Merriman the air campaign against the rebels had to continue. On August 4, Ponzoa and the other Cuban pilots strafed a train heading north between Kabongo and Pidi. They raked the locomotive and four cars with a murderous fire from their. 50- caliber machine guns, as men dove off the train in desperation. Only then did Ponzoa and the others discover that the men were wearing uniforms and that it was a troop train of friendly Congolese soldiers. By then some fifteen soldiers were dead. In the chaos that was the Congo, the mistake went utterly unrecorded.
By then, Merriman had been lying in the Leopoldville hospital for five days. Until then, it might have been argued that his fate was subsumed by the larger concerns for the Congo. But on August 4 the Congo and Merriman's future would both be eclipsed by events halfway around the world. On that day two U.S. destroyers were said to have come under attack by North Vietnamese patrol boats. The incident, of dubious credibility, provided the impetus for what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the legislative basis for the Vietnam War. Provocation or pretext, it consumed all other concerns. Even Ambassador Godley found himself pleading for attention from a Washington that was, in his words, "preoccupied with Vietnam." But there was no one to plead on Merriman's behalf.
Two days later, on August 6, 1964, Merriman took up a pen and wrote his wife a letter. "Dear Darling," it began. "Our letters will probably be a little staggered while I am here so 1 will write as often as I can when I can. 1 received several of your letters today and spent quite a while going through them ... by the way don't pay too much attention to my writing as 1 am not terribly coordinated at the moment. Also everything will be a little slanted." Indeed the words nearly veered off the page.
Merriman did not mention that he had been in a plane crash or that he was suffering. Whether it was to spare his wife worries or to avoid any breach of security is not clear. There were hints of a mishap and clear signs of growing resentment and disillusionment. "There are some people," he wrote, "I don't think I'll ever be able to like whether I want to or not. About the only one I know that is always straight is you." It had been two weeks since the crash and there was little hope that he would be sent back to the States anytime soon.
There was more than a touch of understatement in his letter. "Some of the work is exciting to say the least. Some of it I'll be able to tell you about when I come home. One thing you've probably heard by now is the fact that I've had an accident. Don't let this worry you. For a few minutes it was a near thing but everything so far has worked out O.K. and think everything will." Merriman was wrong. The Agency had apparently not yet made any mention of a plane crash.
As the letter progressed, Merriman's writing slanted more and more, the words themselves belying his fatigue. "I have to stop for now," he wrote, "so I'll use the rest of this page to tell you that 1 do love you so very very very much that you will never realize how much -- I'll try to tell you how much when I come home -- Your very own -- John."
Rene Garcia could scarcely believe that the United States would allow one of its own with such critical injuries to be left in a primitive Congolese hospital. On his first return to Leopoldville he visited Merriman in the hospital and saw that, aside from sedatives and painkillers, little or nothing was being done for him. He went straightaway to the embassy and confronted an air force officer stationed there, imploring him to intervene on Merriman's behalf.
The officer's response: "Rene, to win a war sometimes you have to be a son of a bitch."
Garcia was stunned. "I was always thinking there would be somebody with the decency to take care of the situation but there wasn't anybody to take care of anything. Maybe it was the fear of the press, I don't know why they didn't medevac him out. I knew we were expendable, we the Cubans, but it seemed then the American boys were expendable as well."
Two more weeks passed with Merriman lying in the Congolese hospital. Finally, on August 20, he was put aboard an air force cargo plane back to the States. Even then, the Agency was concerned that such a move not leak out. It was arranged that Merriman be transported under the name of an air force officer.
Somewhere high above Ascension Island, between one and three in the morning, John Merriman's weary and broken body at last gave in, as an embolism lodged in his lungs. That his death might well have been avoided had he been returned to the States weeks earlier is conjecture. Perhaps it was fitting that Merriman, who all his life had wanted nothing more than to fly, should have died in an airplane.
Not long after, it was said the family of the air force officer whose name Merriman had traveled under was notified that they had lost their son. After some moments of shock and a call or two, it was discovered that their boy was fine. But there was no such good news awaiting Val Merriman and her three sons.
On the morning of August 20 the telephone rang in their Tucson home. It was Syd Stembridge asking if he could come out and talk with her. A short time later he arrived. Val poured him a cup of coffee and the two walked out on the patio and took a seat. Stembridge's message was short and to the point. He said John had had an accident -- exactly what kind was not said -- but that he did not think it was life-threatening. If all goes well, said Stembridge, he would be flown to a hospital in Bethesda for an examination and then come home. If there was a problem, the Agency would fly the family to be with him. It was almost presented as good news. John was coming home early.
In preparation for his homecoming, Val prepared his favorite meal, roast turkey. While it was still in the oven the doorbell rang. It was Stembridge again, this time with Dot Kreinheder, Gar Thorsrude's personal assistant. Kreinheder went into the living room, where the boys were watching television. Stembridge walked Val onto the patio. He had bad news, he said. John, he said, had been in a Puerto Rico hospital, that his spirits were good, that he had eaten a solid dinner, and sometime around 11:00 P.M. a nurse had checked in on him. John had asked for ice cream, which he was given. At six the next morning, as the doctor made rounds, Merriman was dead.
Stembridge's arm was around Val's shoulder. When she calmed down enough to hear his words, he told her that Kreinheder would be staying with the family for a time and that the Agency had worked out an elaborate cover story to ensure that Merriman's death would not be linked either to the Congo or to the CIA. It was a story Val would be expected to tell John's parents, his friends, and his sons.
Merriman, so the cover story went, had been flying an airplane with a magnetometer to find minerals on the ground, and when he finished the job, the private firm for which he worked had asked him to fly to Puerto Rico to finalize a contract. When he arrived there, he rented a car and was to drive into the city, but on the way, exhausted from his trip, he ran off the road and crashed into a tree. From there he was taken to the hospital at Ramey Air Force Base. "I remembered every word of it," said Val Merriman.
John Merriman's children and parents were also told the cover story. It would be more than thirty years before Val Merriman would discover that the Agency had lied to her about the circumstances of her husband's death.
The Agency contacted a doctor who came out and gave Val Merriman a tranquilizer and left several others for her to take later. She hadn't asked for them but did what the Agency told her to do. She was so dazed by the medication that she remembers little of the days thereafter, except that either Stembridge or Thorsrude convinced her not to let her children attend the funeral. It was a decision she would forever regret.
The funeral was small, about thirty-five people. Thorsrude had flown in many of John's friends from Marana-Stembridge, Gearke, and many of the Intermountain pilots and smoke jumpers. Later there was a wake. Endless stories of Merriman's exploits as a pilot were told over drinks.
A few days later Merriman's final letter, the one written from his hospital bed in Leopoldville, arrived at the Merriman home.
***
For Val Merriman, John's death brought with it not only grief but a profound sense of isolation. "When John died, there was nobody I could talk to about this death. A wife that loses her husband in a car accident can go to a meeting with other widows and talk about what happened. I couldn't even tell my friends what happened. It's also pretty tough to lie to your children and your mother- n-law. To sit around telling them flat-out lies is pretty tough."
Not long after Merriman's death, the Merrimans began to receive monthly checks, which Val Merriman assumed were akin to workers' compensation. But these checks were drawn on an offshore bank and the Agency had instructed her to pick them up from a Tucson post office box. The last check arrived when Eric, Merriman's youngest son -- four at the time of his father's death -- turned twenty-one.
There were other ways, too, that the Agency tried to look after her. A local attorney working with the CIA arranged to take care of all tax, Social Security, and insurance matters. But the latter became more complicated than expected. Back when John Merriman was twenty-one and living in Alaska, he and Val had purchased a $3,000 life insurance policy that contained a double indemnity clause. If John Merriman died in a car accident, the policy would pay double.
Val Merriman knew that her husband had been in a plane crash in the Congo, not in a car crash as his death certificate recorded. But she had had no reason to doubt the Agency's story that his injuries had at first appeared minor and that his final day was spent in a Puerto Rican hospital attended by a solicitous medical staff. The grim truth -- that he endured agonizing injuries that went largely unattended -- would not be made known to her for three decades, and even then, not by the Agency. "It was the only story I had," she said. Still, she felt uneasy about accepting the insurance company's $6,000 that included the double indemnity payout. "John died in an act of war and I didn't want that to ever come back and haunt us," she said. "Keeping the money was not something that lor John would want me to do." So she returned the money.
But Robert Gambino, a senior security officer with the CIA's deputy director for plans, flew to Chattanooga where the insurance company was based and privately disclosed to the firm's president that Merriman had died serving his country. The company concluded that Val Merriman was indeed deserving of the proceeds, including the double indemnity provision. Even so, Val Merriman declined to accept it.
Finally there were individual acts of kindness about which not even Val Merriman was aware. At Marana, Merriman's death hit hard. His friend Don Gearke remembered that in the week before Merriman left he had been cited with a violation by the FAA for hassling a general's plane. The fine was still outstanding. Not wishing his widow to have to deal with such matters or to have Merriman's flight record blemished, he pulled some strings and had the violation quietly quashed.
In April 1965, eight months after Merriman's death, his widow was presented with a posthumous medal, the Agency's much-coveted Intelligence Star. It was a private ceremony held on the seventh floor of the CIA's Langley headquarters. Only Merriman's widow and parents were invited. The citation, signed by Director Central Intelligence John McCone, reads. "for his fortitude and courage in an overseas area of extreme hazard. Volunteering for an assignment which he knew to be fraught with danger and hardship, Mr. Merriman lost his life as a result of hostile action while engaged in an activity of great concern to the United States. His exemplary conduct served to inspire his associates and maintains the finest traditions of service to our Nation."
Later they lunched on filet mignon in a private dining room. The meal was abruptly interrupted as word was received that President Johnson wanted to meet Merriman's widow and parents. They were immediately driven to the White House, where Johnson received them. No record of that meeting would appear in White House logs or the presidential calendar, though the family was later permitted to pose for photos in the Rose Garden. Accompanying the Merrimans on their White House tour was Robert Gambino, the senior CIA security officer, and Syd Stembridge. (As if the scene were not already macabre enough, the Merrimans were later joined by the wife of film director Alfred Hitchcock. )
President Johnson solemnly received the family in the Oval Office and expressed his condolences. He said that the nation honored this son and husband, that the country owed him a debt that could never be repaid. He never mentioned John Merriman by name, but his eyes were tearing. He said he took the loss personally and was saddened even further that he could not declare to the public what this man had done. He even referred to Sam Houston, the hero of the Texas war for independence. A few moments later McGeorge Bundy, Johnson's security adviser, introduced himself to the Merrimans, as did Lady Bird Johnson. The president then clasped the Merrimans' hands, squeezing firmly.
He turned to Merriman's father. "So you're from Teru1essee?" said Johnson in an effort to infuse some levity. "We had some Tennesseans helped us out at the Alamo." The senior Merriman, a salty Chattanooga detective, was accustomed to speaking his mind. "Helped you out?" he fired back. "Hell, if you had more of us we would have saved your ass!"
For an instant Johnson, a man rarely at a loss for words, stood speechless. "You're okay," he said, then erupted in laughter, tears stream- ing down his cheeks.
Outside, a helicopter landed as the Johnsons prepared to leave for their Texas ranch. Before departing, Lady Bird handed Val Merriman a book on White House interiors. There was no inscription. A moment later the Johnsons were gone. Afterward the Merrimans were taken to the kitchen and served some finger sandwiches and iced tea. The two Merriman women, widow and mother, were then given an orchid corsage and led by a Secret Service agent on a rare tour of the upstairs residence.
***
After Merriman's death, Washington would continue to prop up Tshombe and later army strongman Mobuto. In the annals of the CIA the outcome in the Congo would be placed squarely in the win column, as Mobuto remained in the U.S. sphere of influence. He provided a share of his country's rich minerals (including tantalite, used in nuclear weapons) to the United States as well as a strategic base from which the CIA would launch later anti-Communist and counterinsurgency efforts in Angola.
For the people of the Congo, known as Zaire under Mobuto, it was not so clear a victory. For thirty-three years Mobuto's name was virtually synonymous with corruption and repression. Not since King Leopold II of Belgium a century before had the country been so plundered, its people so devastated. Mobuto became a billionaire, bankrupting his country. To describe the avarice and thievery of his regime, a new word had to be coined -- kleptocracy. But though he betrayed his own people, in the Cold War era of "clientitis" he remained "faithful" to the West. As was said of many, he may have been a bastard, but he was our bastard.
Sidney Gottlieb, the eccentric CIA scientist who delivered poison meant for the Congo's Lumumba, died in 1999 at the age of eighty. He spent his final years caring for the dying, running a commune, and fending off lawsuits growing out of his secret CIA experiments decades earlier.
CIA Station Chief Lawrence Devlin, who had tossed the poison meant for Lumumba into the Congo River, later went to work for American diamond magnate Maurice Templesman, paramour and final companion to Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline Onassis. Devlin's courtship of Mobuto had proved most valuable.
As for the Cuban pilots who survived the Bay of Pigs to later fly with Merriman, they remained close comrades, though they took divergent paths. Rene Garcia became Mobuto's personal pilot. From 1969 to 1985 he flew him everywhere, from Paris to China to North Korea to Disneyland. Garcia watched as the diamonds from the mines of Katanga, the province in which Merriman had died while trying to prevent it from seceding, went to Belgium -- except for the largest stones, which were lost to Mobuto's palace.
Gus Ponzoa would later fly for another CIA proprietary and ferry American weapons to an equally repressive U.S. client, the Shah of Iran. He is now retired and living in Miami.
Jack Varela, Merriman's wingman that fateful day, died in a Dominican prison where he was serving time on drug charges.
As for the Merrimans, John Merriman remains very much a daily presence in their lives. The oldest son, Bruce, joined the CIA in the Office of Security. Unbeknownst to him, his mother had gone to Gar Thorsrude and quietly persuaded him to promise that Bruce would never be placed in harm's way, a promise he honored. Bruce Merriman left the Agency after a decade.
The legacy of Agency service is often passed from parent to child, creating a kind of caste system in which sons and daughters are welcomed into the fold. Having been raised within the culture of secrecy, they need no reminders. Today Bruce wears his father's Rolex watch, the one whose bezel popped off in the crash.
Son Jon entered the 82nd Airborne just as his father had done be- fore him. In 1980 he, too, interviewed for an Agency job. As a former fine arts major, he was asked if he was interested in the "manufacturing section," and, in particular, where forgeries and false documents are prepared. Then they asked if he was willing to break the law. "Which laws: asked Merriman, "foreign or domestic?" That question put the interviewers off and no job offer was received.
For years Jon pursued every lead that might shed light on his father's life and death. His den is a kind of living shrine to his father, about whom he speaks in soft and reverential tones.
Merriman's widow, Val, remarried-another pilot, David Folkins, who also flew for the CIA. Increasingly, as the Agency matured, it moved more and more into the role of extended family. But Val Merriman Folkins did not forget John. His portrait hangs in their bedroom. Her second husband had no wish to expunge him from their lives, or to allow John Merriman's sons to forget him. No one had to convince him of the honor and remembrance Merriman was due. And in her purse, just as she did the day of the funeral, Val continues to carry a picture of John Merriman. Not a day goes by when she does not speak with him, silently communing with his spirit.
The CIA's Syd Stembridge, who told Val Merriman the story of her husband's passing in the Puerto Rican hospital and of his request for ice cream, is retired now. He attended the 1977 wedding of Merriman's son Jon. But when the wedding pictures were developed, Jon noticed that the only pictures of Stembridge were of the back of his head. A consummate professional in security matters, he was a study in anonymity.
Stembridge will still not speak of the circumstances surrounding Merriman's death. "It's security reasons with me," he says. "Once you start down that road, I would say something and you will want to know why and that will lead to something else. I've just made it a policy. I knew John Merriman well, and I know John is resting easy if I abide by what he knew to be the rules of the game."
But in 1996 the Merrimans made a dramatic discovery. It came not by way of the Agency, but from Janet Weininger, daughter of the Alabama pilot Pete Ray, who died at the Bay of Pigs. As Weininger pursued her lifelong search for answers about her own father, interviewing veterans of the Bay of Pigs, she came upon a pilot who told her the story of John Merriman. He asked her to help him track down Merriman's family Later the Merrimans were introduced to the Cuban pilots who served with John Merriman. They told her of his suffering and of what they believed was the u.s. government's inexcusable delay in getting him proper treatment. They were convinced that Merriman had suffered needlessly and that, had he received proper care, he might well be alive today.
Val Merriman was appalled. She contacted several lawyers in an effort to sue the Agency for wrongful death, but each one declined to take the case. So thorough was the Agency's security that she had not a shred of paper to document the circumstances surrounding Merriman's death. What Val Merriman said she wanted was not money, but someone to say "I'm sorry."
That same year Merriman's son Jon was idly thumbing through a magazine when he came upon a photo of the CIA's Book of Honor. There on the open page he saw inscribed his father's name. No one from the Agency had bothered to tell the family that Merriman had been so honored.
The next year the Merriman family once again approached the Agency pleading with them to release the file on John. At a December 16, 1997, meeting, CIA officers told the family it would take a prodigious effort on the Agency's part to retrieve the records. A few months earlier one of those same officers had said the file had been lost. But first the Agency insisted that the Merrimans sign a secrecy agreement pledging not to divulge whatever information they might learn. This they did.
It was only the latest in a series of bizarre negotiations between the CIA and the Merriman family. Several months earlier the Agency had made an even more unusual request. In return for any cooperation, the family would be required to tender their copy of Merriman's death certificate, the one that said he had been in an auto accident in Puerto Rico. This, too, the family did.
The only thing the Merrimans came away with from that December 1997 meeting that they did not have before was Merriman's autopsy report detailing the awful extent of his injuries. Val Merriman could not help but remember when the CIA had told her John had not suffered and had received the best of care.
The Agency maintained that it had done all it could for John Merriman, that his delicate condition would not permit him to have been moved any earlier. The idea that it abandoned one of its own in the field strikes a raw nerve even today at an Agency that prides itself in getting its people out when they are in danger. But that's not how the Merrimans see it. "They let him die," says Val Merriman. "I really hope he didn't realize that. He thought the Agency was the greatest thing in the world. He was a flyboy. He would never have thought they would have deserted him."