Whew! Christmas has come and gone, and we stand once more on the cusp of a new year. I hope everyone made it through the snowy, blowy holiday without too much difficulty, and that we can all ease into 2023 in good spirits — and I don’t just mean a hot toddy . . . though that’s not a bad place to start.

Now, to pick up where I left off last week . . .

If you think hard enough, you’re likely to recall one moment in your life when an event, a chance encounter or a decision changed the entire course of your future. In my case, it was taking a job I wasn’t even sure was right for me (or vice-versa). In fact, none of my most memorable adventures would have taken place were it not for that job and one extraordinary individual: the late Walter Sterling Surrey. So it’s only fitting that I begin this week’s post with a bit about him.

Walter was short, rather homely, and totally unremarkable — until he began to speak. That’s when the force of his personality, his brilliant mind, and his Puckish humor made themselves known, but without ego or pretension. It was that force that convinced me to accept the job offer and give international law a try.

Walter was a prominent Washington attorney with an expansive international transactional practice and clients doing business in such scary places as China, the Soviet Union and Iran. Before that, he had been in the OSS (precursor to the CIA) during World War II; joined the U.S. Department of Justice after the war; then moved to the State Department, where he became the chief legal draftsman of both the Marshall Plan and the NATO Treaty. Later, he worked with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to reopen relations with “Red” China. Not a bad resume.

What I loved most about Walter, though, were his totally irreverent sense of humor and his genuine concern for people. It’s the down-to-earth side of him I’ll be sharing with you from time to time, beginning now.

But first, a brief personal note: I am a night person. I hate early mornings. They’re way up there on my “things-to-avoid-at-all-costs” list, right next to cleaning the toilet and scooping dog poop with nothing but an inverted plastic baggie between my naked hand and the steaming pile of poop. Oh, and cilantro, which to me tastes like soap.

However, like most of the rest of the world, I spent the greater part of my life conforming to someone else’s idea of a “normal” workday: up with the *#&#*$*! alarm clock; fighting the morning rush-hour traffic in all sorts of weather; fighting the mid-afternoon energy slump; fighting the evening rush-hour traffic in the same lousy weather; and — after all of the fighting was over for the day — falling asleep on the couch around 9 p.m. in the middle of a TV rerun that had been dreadful the first, second and third times around so why was I watching it again with a half-eaten Chinese takeout dinner congealing in its container on the tray table by my side?

It was different, though, for the ten years I worked with Walter, at a time when the practice of law was first and foremost about service to the client, and not just the almighty dollar. I was happily up before the sun, out of the house by 7:15 (a.m.!), in the office by 8, breakfast and lunch at my desk, no time for a mid-afternoon energy crash, on the go at Mach speed until 6:30 or later, having side-stepped the worst of both rush hours, and still raring to go for the next day.

God, how I loved that job!!

Most of Walter’s early mornings in the office were devoted to getting his thoughts organized for the day. But occasionally there would be a pre-office-hours visitor who preferred not to be seen by the dozens of people arriving for work around 9:00. One such was Viktor Akimov (not his real name). I hadn’t been working with Walter for more than a few weeks when he said to me one day that he needed to meet with this man from the Soviet Embassy, and that it had to be an early a.m. appointment. This was in 1979 — remember the Cold War? — and I believe my response was the same as anyone else’s would have been:

“Did you say SOVIET Embassy????”

Yes, that was indeed what he had said. He explained that, because there existed at the time no private industry in the USSR, all business had to be conducted with the appropriate government ministries in Moscow — light industry, heavy industry, oil and gas, agriculture, and so on — and that a contact in the Embassy was essential to making the necessary introductions. Viktor Akimov was that contact.

So, with some trepidation, I consulted the first of the two gigantic Rolodexes on my desk. Again, remember that this was 1979, way before the advent of electronic contact lists, or much of anything else electronic. In fact, we were still typing on IBM Selectric typewriters, which, as you older readers may recall, did not have an “Undo” key.

Anyway, I found Mr. Akimov’s business card identifying him as a diplomat in the Economic Affairs Section at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. Nervously, as though he might somehow be watching me through the phone lines, I dialed his number. He answered his phone just as I was thinking, “Oh damn, now what do I say?” As it turned out, though, his English was excellent, his manner was cordial, and we confirmed an appointment for the following morning. That night, I anxiously anticipated the next day when I would finally see what a real Soviet official looked like.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. Probably a thug with a bad haircut, ill-fitting cheap suit, and hideous vinyl shoes. But that was not at all what I saw when I walked to the reception area to greet the man I had already labelled in my mind as My First Commie. He was attractive, well-dressed, and quite charming — just your average businessman type. He clearly had to be a spy, right?

Right, indeed — as confirmed two days later, when I received a call from Mike (also not his real name), an FBI agent seeking one of those early a.m. meetings with Walter. Putting Mike on hold, I ran into Walter’s office and whispered, rather dramatically, “FBI. Are you in trouble?” He smiled, shook his head, and replied, “Oh, yeah — I forgot to tell you to expect him.” The next day, Mike showed up to meet with Walter behind closed doors. It didn’t take much for me to figure out that we were dealing with the KGB. This was going to be one hell of a job!

And for ten years it was, until we lost Walter in 1989. But much more about him in later episodes.

As for Viktor Akimov, he and I developed a pleasant rapport over time and I found that — contrary to my initial mental image of a typical Soviet official — he had a sense of humor. I first discovered this when he happened to have an appointment with Walter on the day following the 1980 Winter Olympics hockey match at Lake Placid where, in what was later dubbed the “Miracle on Ice,” the American team whipped the Soviet team’s collective ass by a score of 4-3. As I escorted him from the reception area to Walter’s office, I politely asked Viktor whether I might get anything for him: “Coffee? Tea? Hockey puck?”

[Pregnant pause . . . ]

Holy Mother of God! Had I really just said that?!!

Yes, I really had. And no, despite my worst fears, I did not lose my job. Nor, apparently, did I do any damage to U.S.-Soviet relations, which already were — as they are today — pretty much in the crapper. In fact, Viktor laughed. Walter laughed, too, when I later confessed my faux pas. Life went on; it was, after all, not the end of the world. On the contrary, for me it was just the beginning.

* * *

I hope you’ll join me after the New Year’s celebrations have died down, for a trip in 1988 to what was then still the USSR, and my introduction to the bizarre world of spies, lies and “misplaced” luggage. See you next year, and until then, stay safe and warm.

B
12/29/22