For answers or at least processing, I went to Polyvore collecting images of places I remembered about Iran. While doing so, I was led to many articles about the CIA's involvement in installing the Shah and making him their puppet. Agreements were made to appease the Shah by committing U.S. military aid. It is my belief that all of the military families and families of U.S. dignitaries, oil companies, and other U.S. government contractors had a father or family member who was connected to an intelligence agency. My friends at school were likely to have been raised as I was, although I have no proof of that.
Iran saw much unrest in 1963. Negotiations were made with the Shah in hopes of keeping him from allying with the Soviet Union. My family moved there in mid-1964. In researching the events leading up to the coup in 1963 that allowed the Shah to reign, I was led to Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., a U.S. spy placed undercover in Iran. What caught my attention was he went to work for Gulf Oil after retiring as a spy. The father of one of my close school friends in Iran also worked for Gulf Oil (although I didn't know if he worked for Gulf Oil while in Iran...but knew at least in 1974). I adored her father because he was so loving to his daughters...something I didn't have at home.
I was fortunate to reunite with several friends in the U.S. in my late teens and early 20s whom I'd met in Iran. I recall visiting her in Reston, Virginia where she was living with her father. I had no idea he built the town of Reston. It was there that I knew he was an executive for Gulf Oil. I even visited just the father several times when I was stationed in the Washington DC area after I left the Air Force in the early 70s. That memory prompted me to Google Russell McNutt.
My heart stopped before it felt like it was going to leap out of my chest. He had been identified as a KGB agent fairly recently and his history as a spy went back to the 1940s and The Manhattan Project. He was an engineer involved with processing uranium among other things. In the 60s, Iran was also beginning it's foray into nuclear energy. The fact that he had been recruited by Julius Rosenberg, who had been executed with his wife for espionage, and had escaped prosecution was rather terrifying. Although McNutt had been questioned, no evidence had been found of any criminal activity at the time of the Rosenberg arrests.
My first trauma memory of Russia is late 1964 which is validated by my report card indicating I was absent more than half of that semester from school...while still managing to earn all A's and no comment about my long absence. Yesterday's stunning revelation was completely conscious. I knew Russell McNutt. I loved Russell McNutt. But is there more? My memories from over the years tell me I was somehow connected to U.S., British, and Russian intelligence. Now I have validation I had first hand contact with a KBG agent. Was he a handler or worse? Did he train one of my Russian alters or all of my Russian alters? I may never know.
Russell McNutt died in early 2008 at age 93 a wealthy man living in the U.S. He evaded capture his entire life. He was contacted in 2007 when the KGB documents and Freedom of Information Act allowed new facts to surface about a spy previously only known by a code name. McNutt declined to speak with them.
I had tried to re-initiate contact with him by letter in the 80s or 90s by letter after finding his address online. He never responded so I stopped trying. I only knew him as a funny loving man, adored father of my friend. I only knew of trips he made to London on business where he'd buy the top songs on 45 records for us to hear months before they made it to the U.S. Armed Forces radio station.
Validation of having known a KGB agent up close and personal brings many feelings and unanswered questions. I know questions will only be answered if they leak through my amnesia. My feelings are confusion, betrayal (?), sadness. My conscious life once again is proven to have been surrounded by a public life with invisible underground connections. Nothing about him said spy or anything but a very nice man. But I did continue to seek him out even when his daughter, my friend, was an adult no longer living with him. I knew his new wife. His obituary says they had been married 36 years and she survived him. In Iran, I had known and loved his first wife as well. She felt like a second mother to me. Unfortunately, his first wife passed away in 1981.
A part of me is relieved he lived without capture and lived a very comfortable life. The rest of me is waiting for the next shoe to drop. Was yesterday's discovery preparation for the subconscious memories to arrive? Because of the original issue, the clash of Iran and my adult working world, I can only assume I was taught something in Iran that carried over into my adult work world. To this point, my only clear realization is I did something with stocks and bonds and/or foreign exchange. I also have a clear message that the U.S. and Russia were working together in the underground during the Cold War so possibly contact with both was for the same "side". How unsettling.
Yesterday I did several sets to process what was in my head on Polyvore. Each set included the same element as is at the top of this set. (I did not notice what I'm about to disclose until all the sets had been done and then I found the research on Russell A. McNutt.)
Feel free to do your own research on the names provided above. Other trustworthy sources are available. Worlds really do collide.
1 comment:
You seem to have had a much different life than we had as to international relations and things you feel you must ‘figure out.” I feel for you in having so many “big things” that had been going on within your life and finding perspective of it. I haven’t read much from you, but I’m sure that I will be more aware of the bigger picture as we go along. It is good to be meeting you. We like to “figure” too. :)
Always our best,
Anns
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