THE MASTERMIND
Serwer, Arnold
The Mastermind by ARNOLD SERWER As I read through the recent New York Times series on the frolicsome adventures of the CIA around the globe, a sense of the familiar began trying to tell me...
...CIA agents entered the warehouse and contaminated the sugar with a harmless but unpalatable substance (my guess is peanut butter...
...Scratching my palm vigorously, I cogitated for some minutes...
...But tell me, you midget Machiavelli, what's this CIA project with the sneakers...
...He was infuriated and ordered the doctored sugar held in Puerto Rico...
...At some moment, when Khrushchev's empty shoe was on the floor, one of our agents could have snuck up behind him and nailed it down...
...sneered Myron...
...Myron Burmeister, my cousin Emily's boy, has given it to me on many occasions since he slipped into the world fourteen years ago to make people miserable...
...Don't you try to shake hands with me, assassin," I said...
...Tomorrow, the world...
...I know I shouldn't poop," I said...
...Yes...
...Now look at you—a CIA big shot, heaven help us all...
...what's yours...
...He straightened up and stuck out his hand...
...He was squatting on the porch, nailing a pair of his brother's sneakers to the floor...
...I conceived the whole plan, developed the contaminating agent, and supervised the operation although I was only ten, going on eleven...
...Did you do it with peanut butter...
...That's not the way we read Dean Rusk," said Myron loftily...
...It's a professional secret," said Myron...
...Party poopers...
...Fourteen thousand bags of sugar were unloaded and stored in a warehouse during the repair work...
...Hair splitters...
...I got the idea watching the old television films of Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table at the United Nations...
...Who will believe it...
...Imagine old Khrusch—with the whole world watching on television— tugging and tugging to rip his shoe loose...
...I can hear him now, ordering the lie de France to New York to bring the Statue of Liberty back to Paris...
...The Lindbergh law, they call it...
...Don't put on airs with me, Myron," I said...
...My mother thought I was at Camp Tiny Tykes all the time, but the CIA came to camp and airlifted me to San Juan one weekend...
...Are you thinking of trying the shoe trick on Kosygin or Brezhnev...
...Word of this caper reached President Kennedy...
...That's not the CIA's problem," shrugged Myron...
...You have palmed off itching powder on me too many times before...
...How come you're blabbing to me about your CIA connections...
...This is only partly for pleasure," said Myron...
...I mourned...
...This CIA incident took place in 1962...
...I realized the CIA had lost a great chance there...
...I asked Myron...
...I could have—and should have —blotted you out years ago...
...The CIA guys think that if Charley leaped into his shoes for a brisk walk some morning and found they were nailed to the floor, he might lose his coolth...
...Why do you have to be so mean to your little brother...
...Today, the CIA," proclaimed Myron Burmeister...
...If you want to," said Myron coolly, "you can write a story about it...
...I pick up quite a bit of change as consultant to the CIA...
...Another Nervous Nelly...
...You'd be surprised who will believe it," I said...
...Then I drove crosstown to Myron's house...
...The freighter damaged its propeller on a reef and was forced to stop at San Juan, Puerto Rico, for repairs...
...Like the time you put the alarm clock in the coffee pot, or the winter night you left the limburger on my radiator, or the dozen times you short-sheeted me...
...No, on Charles de Gaulle...
...You know what the CIA guys in headquarters at Langley, Virginia, call squares like you...
...But somehow .the thought that Myron Burmeister, the little angel who introduced the cat into the organ at the Sunday School sing-out, is a source of inspiration to the CIA, makes me nervous...
...You know what the guys at the CIA call people like you...
...Aren't you afraid I'll tell somebody...
...I know that infuriated feeling very well...
...A barrelful of laughs...
...Then as I absorbed the details of one particular incident, two things happened: the palm of my right hand began to itch, and I thought of Myron Burmeister...
...Always worrying about policy and what people will think...
...Why should de Gaulle be a CIA target...
...I suspected you, Myron, when I read about the doctored Cuban sugar...
...He would indeed...
...I think the FBI takes over if the Statue of Liberty is kidnapped...
...A trick like that would be crazy," I exclaimed...
...I wonder," mused Myron, "whether we should short-sheet Ho Chi Minh...
...Why did I have to split hairs over a little thing like rubbing you out...
...The Mastermind by ARNOLD SERWER As I read through the recent New York Times series on the frolicsome adventures of the CIA around the globe, a sense of the familiar began trying to tell me something...
...It sounded just like one of your dirty tricks...
...The Russians would be in a fury and our allies would be horrified...
...He's not an enemy of ours...
...LBJ has warned the country about characters like you...
...According to the Times a British freighter left Cuba with 80,000 bags of sugar destined for a Soviet port...
...Did you say 'the CIA...
...Just write that a fourteen-year-old kid is the mastermind of the CIA...
...My main purpose is, I'm conducting an experiment for the CIA...
Vol. 30 • July 1966 • No. 7
