CHAPTER 10 – REVEALING A SECRET
14:20 (Washington Time)
Tuesday, June 9, 1975 ‘C’
U.S. State Department headquarters
Foggy Bottom District, Washington, D.C.
U.S.A.
There was little noise in the small office used by Hien and three other linguists of the State Department, save those of fingers working computer keyboards and hands flipping the pages of thick dictionaries or lexicons. On her part, Hien was working on translating into Mandarin Chinese a State Department letter addressed to the Hong-Kong consulate of the People’s Republic of China. Despite having signed a peace treaty with the PRC nearly eighteen months ago, the United States still did not recognize it officially as a separate country, due to many reasons, something that forced all official communications between the two countries to be sent via the British colony of Hong-Kong. First, the main obstacle was the insistence of Chinese leaders that Taiwan was part of the PRC and would one day fall under its direct control. Second, the United States was not ready to accede to the PRC’s demand that the United States stopped recognizing Taiwan as an independent country, especially since huge efforts were still being made to rebuild the government of Taiwan and help the Taiwanese after the nuclear destruction of Taipei in December of 1973 by a Chinese ballistic missile. Thirdly, the U.S. Congress, which was still very much ferociously anti-communist, still had not ratified the 1973 peace treaty with China despite the best efforts of President Robert Kennedy.
The quiet, studious atmosphere of the office was suddenly broken by the entrance of two big men wearing suits, who didn’t bother to knock on the door before barging in. Concentrated on her translation work, Hien did not notice immediately the entrance of the two men and looked up from her work only when the two of them stopped in front of her desk. She was not a little shocked and alarmed on seeing that the men wore passes identifying them as members of the Office of Security, commonly known as S.Y. The S.Y. was responsible for the physical protection of State Department facilities and employees but also was in charge of counter-espionage and security vetting of State Department personnel. Before Hien could say a word, one of the men presented a S.Y. badge and spoke in a cold voice.
‘’Miss Pham Thi Hien?’’
‘’Yes, that’s me!’’ answered Hien, now less than reassured.
‘’Agent Deacon, of the Office of Security. We would need for you to accompany us: we have a few questions for you.’’
‘’But, why?’’ asked a flabbergasted Hien as her three colleagues looked on with a mix of incredulity and incomprehension.
‘’Just follow us, miss.’’ was the man’s terse answer. With dread filling her and feeling mortified at being taken away like this in front of her colleagues and friends, Hien had no choice but to save her work on her computer, then to get up from her chair and walk around her desk. She did try to get an answer before leaving her office while sandwiched between the two security men.
‘’Where are you taking me?’’
‘’To our offices. Please stay quiet while we walk, Miss Pham.’’
The trio then left the translation office, leaving the one man and two women inside stunned and worried.
‘’My God! What is happening?’’ asked to nobody in particular Mary Kim, one of Hien’s best friends. John Li, the lone man in the office and the senior employee of their lot, shook his head in disbelief.
‘’I don’t know, but it looks like the S.Y. is suspecting Hien of something.’’
‘’Suspecting Hien? Of what?’’ nearly shouted Jiang Lin, the other woman left in the office. ‘’Don’t tell me that they are suspecting Hien of being a spy: that would be absolute nonsense!’’
‘’I agree that this would be nonsense, Lin, but the way those two S.Y. goons took her suggest just that. Remember the bad old days of McCarthyism{8}, when a simple anonymous accusation or innuendo could cost you your job or ruin your life? Well, not all adepts of Joseph McCarthy have disappeared from Washington. Whatever this is about, I better go inform Mister Jacoby of this.’’
Getting up from his chair, John Li then quickly walked out of the office and went to the office of Joseph Jacoby, the head of the translation department, presenting himself to Jacoby’s secretary.
‘’Is Mister Jacoby in, Miss Pleasance?’’
‘’Yes, he is, Mister Li. You wish to speak with him?’’
‘’Yes, and it’s urgent.’’
‘’Uh, one moment, please.’’ Said the secretary before grabbing her telephone and calling her boss.
‘’Mister Jacoby? Mister Li wishes to see you about an urgent matter… Very well, sir.’’
Putting down her receiver, the secretary then looked up at John.
‘’You may enter Mister Jacoby’s office, Mister Li.’’
‘’Thank you, miss.’’ said John before walking to Jacoby’s door and knocking on it, getting a muffled answer at once.
‘’Come in!’’
Opening the door and entering quickly, then closing it behind him, John approached the desk of his direct supervisor in a few quick steps. Joseph Jacoby was widely known as an expert in European languages and was also considered an honest and decent man who cared about his subalterns.
‘’Yes, John? What is happening?’’ asked Jacoby, a concerned expression on his face.
‘’Two men from the Office of Security just barged into my office and escorted out Hien, supposedly to ask her questions at their office.’’
‘’Pham Thi Hien, the translator the Secretary of State used in Vietnam during the signing of the peace treaty with China?’’
‘’Her exactly, sir. They refused to tell us what was happening. I thought that you needed to be informed of this right away.’’
‘’You did well to come and inform me of this, John. I will inquire about this at once. Thank you for coming.’’
‘’My pleasure, sir.’’ said John before walking out, leaving Jacoby to think alone for a moment before grabbing his telephone and calling the offices of the S.Y., where he was connected to Sub-Director Karl Ackerman.
‘’Ackerman here!’’
‘’Sub-Director Ackerman, this is Joseph Jacoby, head of the Translation Department. I was just informed that two of your men just grabbed one of my translators, Miss Pham Thi Hien, and escorted her out for questioning. Can you tell me what the hell is happening here?’’
From neutral, Ackerman’s tone then changed to guarded.
‘’I am sorry, but Miss Pham’s case is confidential and can’t be discussed on the phone.’’
‘’What do you mean, confidential? Miss Pham is one of my best and most dependable linguists and I consider her to be absolutely loyal and honest. What kind of accusations do you have against her, if any?’’
‘’Again, this is a confidential matter pertaining strictly to the Office of Security. Don’t bother to show up at my offices, as you are not cleared to get information about her case, Mister Jacoby.’’
‘’Her case? HER CASE? What the hell is your department thinking? Miss Pham is the adopted daughter of our most decorated and celebrated military officer and she survived the nuking of Taipei only out of sheer luck.’’
‘’Yeah, a very convenient piece of luck for her. I would counsel you to refrain from asking further questions about her, Mister Jacoby. Goodbye!’’
Ackerman then hung up, leaving a stunned and angry Jacoby.
‘’Her case! What is wrong with those idiots at S.Y.?’’
His receiver still in his hand, Jacoby thought for a moment, then formed another number on his telephone, getting a secretary after two rings.
‘’Misses Lawrence? This is Joseph Jacoby, from the Translation Department. I need to speak urgently with the chief of staff of Secretary Muskie…’’
Hien felt both anxiety and resentment as she was being escorted down to the ground level of the headquarters, where the S.Y. had its offices. She was very conscious of the way the people they were crossing in the hallways looked at her, to then start whispering between them while watching her. In the not so distant past, being escorted like this would start an instant storm of nasty speculations and rumors that would often ruin for good the reputation of the person being escorted, with their personal file too often ending up with negative notes added to their dossier, even when they were not found guilty of anything. Hien didn’t have only friends at the State Department: some were jealous of her rapid rise in the favors of Secretary of State Muskie, while others were old partisans and supporters of ex-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who had been fired years ago by President Dewey, presumably after Dulles had tried to discredit Ingrid Dows via an anonymous smear campaign. In fact, the more that she thought about it, the more Hien believed that her troubles were due to being Ingrid’s adopted daughter, rather than to anything else. Unfortunately, such indirect accusations were still too common in Washington politics. Once inside the S.Y. offices, she was led to a small interrogation room furnished simply with a small table and three chairs. The only other thing worthy of note was the big wall ‘mirror’ covering much of one wall of the room. One of the two agents then pointed one of the chairs to her.
‘’Please sit down, Miss Pham. Someone will come and see you shortly.’’
The two agents then left, locking the door behind them and leaving Hien alone on her chair. Despite knowing that she had done nothing wrong, she still reviewed mentally her past actions, trying to think of something that could have been misinterpreted by someone else. She however could think of nothing of the sort and tried her best to calm down, knowing that someone was most probably watching her through the false mirror.
After a wait of maybe two minutes, one slightly obese man with gray hair entered the interrogation room and sat down across the table from her, putting a closed file and a notepad on the table. He then stayed silent for a moment while staring coldly at her, something Hien understood at once to be a tactic to try unnerving her. Unfortunately for the interrogator, Hien was far from being simply a young woman in her twenties who occupied a junior position at the State Department and she was ready for about anything. The man finally spoke after a good minute of silence.
‘’Miss Pham Thi Hien, you were brought here to answer a few questions about yourself. Be honest and forthcoming and everything will be fine.’’
‘’I am always honest and forthcoming and I have nothing to hide, mister. Am I accused of anything?’’
‘’I will be asking the questions, Miss Pham. A few irregularities were noted about you in the recent past and we need to clarify them. First, tell me which languages you are proficient in and how you learned each of them.’’
Surprised by that question, Hien nonetheless answered the man without hesitation.
‘’Well, Vietnamese was my native language, since I was born in Indochina. As a war orphan, I was raised and educated by French nuns in Da Nang, who taught me French. Then, I was adopted by my mother, General Ingrid Dows, who taught me English at home and during her postings following her tour in Vietnam. I learned German while she was posted in Germany, while also perfecting my English and my French there. I also continued to practice my Vietnamese at home with my mother, who speaks Vietnamese, along with many other languages. Once my mother was posted back to the United States, she started teaching me Chinese, both Mandarin and Cantonese variants, at home and when she had some spare time for that. I also did a lot of self-learning and practicing, using taped lessons and language method books. I continued learning languages and perfecting them in high school, then in college and university, with the firm intention of becoming a diplomat once adult. I also have to say that I have a natural talent for languages. Well, that’s it in a nutshell, mister.’’
The interrogator nodded his head, apparently impressed.
‘’That is impressive, Miss Pham, but it doesn’t clarify a few things about you.’’
‘’What do you mean?’’
In response, the man opened the file in front of him and, taking a sheet of paper in it, read parts of it before looking back at Hien.
‘’Miss Pham, could you explain the following: multiple witnesses who heard you converse with diverse people at the State Department and during your trips overseas say that they saw you speak fluently numerous languages which you haven’t mentioned to date and which are not noted down in your personnel file as being certified to be proficient into. In particular, you were noted to converse with fluidity in Russian, Swedish, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Swahili, Hindu and Farsi. There are also reports that you can read Latin and a number of other dead languages.’’
Hien kept a straight face as she stared back at her interrogator. What the man had said was correct and would normally be difficult to explain, or even believe, for most people. However, Hien was not an ordinary person, not anymore. Ingrid had started awakening the memories of her past incarnations while she was still a teenager. That mirrored Ingrid’s ability to remember her own past incarnations, something that had been made public in 1953 without her consent, when she was still fighting in Vietnam. As for Hien’s similar ability, it was still a secret today, and for good reasons. The unauthorized revelation of Ingrid’s ability by then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had created much controversy and it had taken the direct intervention of President Dewey to quash the doubts that had then spread about Ingrid’s loyalty towards the United States. Hien was thus less than thrilled about this line of questioning from her S.Y. interrogator.
‘’Well, Miss Pham, what do you say about this? Do you have an explanation for this, especially about your ability to speak Russian? Where and when did you learn Russian?’’
‘’Where is easy: at my home. When? On my own time. I now see that you are on a fishing expedition and are trying to somehow paint me as some kind of Soviet mole. Well, I can tell you that you are wasting both your time, my time and the State Department’s time with your unwarranted suspicions. I have proven many times my loyalty to the United States and I won’t let your Office of Security smear my name, especially if you are doing this to get at my mother. Know that I will place a redress of grievance up my chain of command the moment that I will walk out of here. And if it turns out that your S.Y. is doing this to hurt my mother, then you better realize that her chain of command ends up directly with the President. Now, either charge me with a clear and concrete accusation based on facts rather than innuendos, or end this farce now and let me go.’’
Her interrogator, not having expected such aplomb from a young woman in her twenties, was left speechless for a moment. He then tried another card and replied to Hien in a hard tone of voice.
‘’Miss Pham, you do not call the shots here: we do! Furthermore, if you don’t cooperate with us, we will then pass your case to the F.B.I., who will then investigate you in depth to ensure that you are not indeed a risk to the national security. While they will make their investigation, your security clearance will have to be suspended.’’
Hien frowned at those words: without a security clearance, it would become impossible for her to work at the State Department. However, she was definitely not ready to let the S.Y. win at this game.
‘’You do that and you will be shooting yourself in the foot, mister. If I remember correctly, a S.Y. director was fired in 1961 by the then Secretary of State, for abusing his authority and making false accusations. As for your precious F.B.I., it had one of its past directors fired by the President for trying to smear the reputation of my mother. I strongly recommend that you either let me go now or put me under arrest for suspicion of espionage. However, if you do the latter, then expect the proverbial shit to hit the fan pretty quickly, with your S.Y. ending up looking like a bunch of bungling idiots as a final result.’’
A flash of anger appeared in the eyes of the interrogator and he shot up of his chair, but then decided to keep his mouth shut and stormed out of the room, locking the door behind him and walking to the surveillance room next door, where three other S.Y. men had been watching the interview through the one-way mirror. One of the three men, who was his section supervisor gave him a questioning look.
‘’So, what do you think of her story, Collins?’’
‘’That she is way too combative and sure of herself for a simple young female translator, sir. I am sure that she is hiding something.’’
‘’Yes, but what exactly? The only thing we have on her are those reports about her unexplained linguistic abilities.’’
One of the other S.Y. men present, a lawyer specializing in national security infractions, suddenly opened his eyes wide, struck by something.
‘’Sir, when you said that this girl has unexplained linguistic abilities, it made me remember a similar case: that of her adoptive mother, General Dows. She is also known to be able to speak a stupendous number of languages. That was publicly explained by Dows in 1953, when she revealed that she had gained via divine intervention access to the memories of her past incarnations. She in fact claimed to have an accumulated 7,000 years of past lives souvenirs in her head.’’
‘’So? Did you really believe that story, Jensen?’’
‘’I did, sir, and apparently so did President Dewey, who fired Secretary of State Dulles for blowing that secret in the open. F.B.I. Director Hoover was fired by the President not long after that.’’
‘’And what are you saying exactly, Jensen?’’
‘’That this Pham Thi Hien could well have inherited or gained the same ability to remember her past incarnations than her adoptive mother, sir. That would easily explain her present uncommon linguistic abilities. Don’t forget that General Dows is also known by the nickname of ‘God’s General’. Dows may well have given her abilities to her adopted daughter, sir. If that’s the case, then there would be no legal basis for us to detain Miss Pham or to revoke her security clearance.’’
The section supervisor was thoughtful for a moment, weighing the opinion of his lawyer. He finally took a decision and headed for the door while giving a terse order to his men.
‘’Wait here! I will go talk with her.’’
Watched by his surprised men, the supervisor went to the interrogation room and entered it, finding Hien waiting with apparent calm on her chair. He sat at the table, across from her, and spoke to Hien in a polite tone.
‘’Miss Pham, do you remember your past incarnations, like your mother does?’’
Understanding that her secret was going to come out one way or the other, and sooner rather than later, Hien decided to put her cards on the table and answered the S.Y. man calmly but firmly.
‘’Yes!’’
‘’How far do your past souvenirs go, miss?’’
‘’A bit over eleven thousand years, mister. Are you planning to make this public knowledge?’’
For a moment, the S.Y. man could not say or do anything while staring back at the young and pretty Asian woman who had just calmly confessed to him of having millenniums of experience inside her mind. He then shook himself back to reality.
‘’No! Certainly not!’’
‘’Then, I would like to leave now, so that I could return to my translation work.’’
The S.Y. supervisor took only a second to take a decision then.
‘’You may go, Miss Pham. I am truly sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.’’
‘’Thank you, sir!’’ replied Hien, hiding her relief while getting up from her chair. She then walked out of the interrogation room and headed back to the translation department, leaving behind the S.Y. supervisor to try calming down the turmoil inside his head.
‘’How the hell am I going to explain all this to Director Dikstra?’’