Operation Solo by John Barron Page B

rejected warnings from both Soviet and British intelligence services of the impending German attack in 1941. When the predicted attack came, it rendered him literally speechless. He skulked in shock for days, and Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov had to be the first to call the nation to arms.
    Collectively, these revelations from unimpeachable confidants confirmed the vilest of anti-Soviet slanders and struck at the foundation of his faith. And, Morris thought, I have been an apostle of all of this for almost twenty years.
    The other American correspondents refused to accept Morris as
a colleague. They regarded him as a Soviet apologist rather than a bona fide journalist, and they scorned the Daily Worker as a “commie rag.” Howard K. Smith who, as a result of seating assignments, shared a table with him in the hotel dining room, was polite but avoided serious conversation. The rest spoke to him either curtly or not at all.
    At a reception given for the press by the U.S. ambassador, General Walter Bedell Smith, Morris stood awkwardly and conspicuously alone until Mrs. Smith approached and asked why he was not joining in the festivities.
    â€œI’m a communist,” he said. “I’m a skunk. No one wants to have anything to do with me.”
    She smiled. “I do. Will you favor me with a dance?”
    â€œI’ve never danced. I don’t know how.”
    â€œWell, you should learn. Just follow me.”
    The sight of the ambassador’s wife dancing with the leper attracted attention, and many watched as she afterward led Morris to her husband. “Bedell, this is Mr. Childs,” she said. “His colleagues are ostracizing him because he’s a communist.”
    An erect, imposing man, General Smith had been a wartime deputy to General Eisenhower; soon he would be director of the new Central Intelligence Agency. “Mr. Childs, as a citizen of the United States you are welcome at the embassy at any time,” he said. “As a citizen, you are entitled to your political opinions and you may surmise that yours differ from mine. But when Americans leave their country, they leave their political differences behind and stick together.”
    â€œYou should tell that to the other journalists,” Mrs. Smith interjected. “Have a word with them, Beedle.”
    â€œI will.”
    Morris never knew what General Smith said to the correspondents. He obviously said something because the next day they began talking to him and exchanging notes and opinions, and some even became friendly.
    Over breakfast Morris mentioned that someday he would like to visit his brother’s grave in France, and Howard K. Smith suggested that he do so en route back to New York. Morris confided that
though he was returning by way of Paris he did not have enough money for a side trip. At breakfast the day Morris departed Moscow, Smith handed him a sealed envelope and requested that he not open it until he boarded his plane. Airborne, Morris found inside the envelope a terse note: “We thought you should make that side trip so we took up a collection. Your fellow Americans.” The envelope also contained three hundred U.S. dollars.
    Above the grave in an immaculately maintained Normandy cemetery stood a white cross inscribed with the Star of David and the words: “Phillip Childs—First Lieutenant, United States Army—1918–1944.” Morris knelt and offered an earnest prayer.
    Flying homeward, he contrasted the spontaneous kindness of General and Mrs. Smith and the correspondents with the Stalinist terrors whose occurrence he no longer doubted, and he asked himself, have I perverted my whole life?
    In New York, Morris returned to face more feuding and bickering. A clique headed by Foster caviled at Dennis and his followers, and Foster ridiculed Morris and his direction of the paper, accusing him of “Browderism.” Dennis surprised Morris by not rising to his