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Operation Solo: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin

par John Barron

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Operation Solo is America's greatest spy story. For 27 years, Morris Childs, code name "Agent 58", provided the United States with the Kremlin's innermost secrets. Repeatedly risking his life, "Agent 58" made 57 clandestine missions into the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. Because of his high ranking in the American communist party and his position as editor of its official paper, the Daily Worker, he was treated like royalty by communist leaders such as Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Mao Tse-tung. Through first-hand accounts, Operation Solo tells the story of the conflicts within the FBI and American intelligence about the operation, and how the FBI, through extraordinary measures, managed to keep that operation hidden from everyone, including the CIA. Operation Solo will appeal to movie audiences looking forward to Steven Spielberg's upcoming blockbuster movie, Bridge of Spies.… (plus d'informations)
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“Operation Solo” by John Barron is an astonishing and well-written book. How is it that name of the the most valuable spy the United States has ever had is practically unknown? This is a great spy story, and it’s true.

Morris Childs, son of Russian Jews who emigrated to Chicago, joined the American Communist Party in 1921 where he rose to become a member of the Central Committee and ran unsuccessfully for US Congress on the Communist Party ticket. His brother Jack later joined the party also. After some shabby treatment by the party in 1947 and his health suffering, Morris dropped out, and Jack became inactive also in part to help care for Morris. This sudden withdrawal from party activity triggered a visit to Jack by two FBI agents eager to assess his potential to cooperate.

Here the FBI hit the jackpot. Jack was agreeable to cooperation but pointed out that brother Morris was their ticket to the top. Morris had become wiser about the USSR and realized they were being ruled by a cutthroat band of mass murderers. Two FBI agents appealed successfully to Morris and farsightedly and on their own initiative enabled payment for him to be treated at the Mayo Clinic, where his health was restored.

Now working with the FBI, the brothers re-established their party connections and worked their way up party ranks. Morris became the liaison between the American and the Soviet parties. He made dozens of trips into the Soviet Union, enjoying access to several successive premiers and topmost Soviet intelligence operatives as well as Mao Tse Tung and Fidel Castro. He was fully aware of the horrors awaiting him in Moscow if he were discovered.

Thus the FBI was aware of every move of the American Communist Party and of much information of greatest importance about affairs in the Soviet Union and its top leadership and spy apparatus, until the operation was terminated in 1980.

The information obtained by Morris Childs was of the greatest strategic and tactical assistance in the Cold War. For example, it was Childs who first learned of the widening fracture between Soviet and Chinese Communism, completely unsuspected in the US. Without this information, it would not have occurred to Nixon to arrange his historic visit to China in 1972.

The Soviet Hierarchy is an insulated and paranoid bunch, enjoying their lavish homes and dachas, rarely going outside their own pampered little worlds and scornful of sentiments in the streets of their own country and largely ignorant of the rest of the world. Many start believing their own propaganda. Childs saw the resulting delusional thinking first hand and recognized its dangers. Paranoid minds sometimes decide to strike first in order to forestall an imaginary threat. Childs repeatedly had to provide accurate explanations of American activities and reassure the Soviet hierarchy of the lack of aggressive intent of the United States.

In fact, no sooner had Childs quit traveling to the USSR than a possible nuclear exchange was averted. About 1981, during the Reagan presidency, a British intelligence agent learned that KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov had announced to the Politburo that the Reagan administration was actively preparing for nuclear war and a possible surprise attack on the Soviet Union. Andropov explained that NATO, Japan and China were conniving to initiate World War Three. The KGB set in motion an intelligence operation code named RYAN to gather evidence worldwide of these preparations.

If Childs had been there, he could have correctly explained the meager facts that the KGB had which apparently supported this wild but dangerous notion. As it was, the KGB, operating in its usual paranoid top-down manner, sent out instructions to its intelligence assets around the world to find the evidence of this plot. Thereafter these assets, knowing that when the KGB asked them to find evidence, they had better find evidence (there was none), began producing every little scrap which could conceivably support the theory.

All this was not helped by the fact that for years the Soviet leaders were incapacitated: Brezhnev was a walking zombie, Andropov became deathly ill, and Chernenko was senile and died. A few KGB officers recognized this nuclear scenario as an insane idea, but it enjoyed such patronage at the top that none dared try to stop it. On the other hand, some field bosses tried to gain status by inflaming the paranoia with absurd reports. Some reports of this paranoia made it back to the administration but sounded so bizarre they were dismissed.

When Mikhail Gorbachev took power in 1985, the KGB briefed him that Operation RYAN was a complete failure, having learned nothing about the US position in the matter. But the doomsday notion was still believed. It was not until later in 1985, when Reagan sat down with Gorbachev, declared that the US had no intention of attacking the USSR, and invited him to the US to see for himself, that Operation RYAN ended.

Also of note, it was from Childs that the Johnson administration knew that the USSR was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, and another possible serious misunderstanding was averted.

Morris Childs was awarded the Soviet Order of the Red Banner for his services(!) to the Communist Party. He and Jack Childs received the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

The contributions of Morris (and his wife Eva) and Jack Childs should be known and appreciated by everyone. Great heroes, both, and hats off to the FBI and its agents, who ingeniously negotiated multiple perils from within the organization and our own government, as well as from a paranoid and vigilant KGB.

The internal FBI files on Operation Solo are now available free at archiv.org. ( )
  KENNERLYDAN | Jul 11, 2021 |
America's best spy inside Communist Party USA and the Kremlin during the cold war. Very informative book about a true American hero.

This was the only American spy who could meet with top Soviet and Chinese leaders as their man in the USA. His discoveries and insights helped the US to understand the very scary minds of 20th century communist. ( )
  ikeman100 | May 11, 2017 |
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This book is dedicated to all who contributed to Operation SOLO and kept it secret. Specifically, it is dedicated to Morris Childs, Eva Childs, Jack Childs, Alexander Burlinson, Carl Freyman, Walter Boyle, John Langtry, James Fox, and Ivian Smith, all of whom represented the United States federal Bureau of Investigation. By their deeds, all exhibited a shared conviction: "Freedom never comes free. Freedom at any price always is a bargain."
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Operation Solo is America's greatest spy story. For 27 years, Morris Childs, code name "Agent 58", provided the United States with the Kremlin's innermost secrets. Repeatedly risking his life, "Agent 58" made 57 clandestine missions into the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. Because of his high ranking in the American communist party and his position as editor of its official paper, the Daily Worker, he was treated like royalty by communist leaders such as Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Mao Tse-tung. Through first-hand accounts, Operation Solo tells the story of the conflicts within the FBI and American intelligence about the operation, and how the FBI, through extraordinary measures, managed to keep that operation hidden from everyone, including the CIA. Operation Solo will appeal to movie audiences looking forward to Steven Spielberg's upcoming blockbuster movie, Bridge of Spies.

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