APRs IN not in yet.2/15please place. Text Revise ______Art Director ______Color Revise ______THE KREMLIN’S ) O K N E

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FROM RUSSIA WITHOUT LOVE From left: Alexander Litvinenko at London’s University College Hospital on November 20, 2006, three days before his death; Italian security consultant Mario Scaramella; Chechen activist Akhmed Zakayev; Russian president Vladimir Putin.

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returned home at seven as promised, changed scrambling to solve a mystery that many have clothes, checked his computer, and sat down characterized as too bizarre for a John le for dinner. Around 11 he rose to go to bed, Carré novel. Alexander Litvinenko, his doc- saying he had an early meeting. When Ma- tors announced, had been poisoned with a rina went up later, she found him in the bath- radioactive element called polonium 210. He room. He said he didn’t feel well. Then he had, in all likelihood, been murdered. vomited. He remained sick through the night, throwing up almost every half-hour or so. n his last years Litvinenko had grown The next morning, leaving Sasha in bed, obsessed with Putin, a man for whom Marina dropped Anatoly at school and he had worked in the Russian secret ser- swung by a drugstore to purchase anti- vices, and whose hand he seemed to see nausea tablets. She returned home to ! nd in the world’s every evil, from Middle her husband hunched over the toilet again. Eastern terrorism to Afghan drug traf- He told her this was no normal sickness. Ificking. From his deathbed Litvinenko issued The vomiting was too strong. Everything a statement blaming his illness squarely on that came out looked gray. “It looks like Putin’s government. The British press erupted someone has poisoned me,” Sasha said. in an orgy of articles excoriating the Kremlin, There was no need to say more: this was the stories that gained even more traction when n November 1, 2006, moment they had feared for six years. Back in it turned out Litvinenko had visited with two after leaving their modest beige brick town Moscow, Sasha was known as the infamous former K.G.B. men on the day he was prob- house in the North London neighborhood of K.G.B.-trained lieutenant colonel Alexander ably poisoned. All through December most Muswell Hill, a petite 44-year-old Russian Litvinenko, who had publicly denounced of Europe watched, rapt, as Scotland Yard émigrée named Marina Litvinenko took her Vladimir Putin’s government for all manner of detectives tracked telltale traces of polonium husband, Alexander, nicknamed Sasha, and murders and corruption. Friends viewed Lit- everywhere the two K.G.B. men had been: in Odropped him at the subway station. He had a vinenko as an A merican- style whistle-blower; London hotel suites and bars, in an ex-wife’s pair of appointments in central London but enemies, and he had many, considered him home in Germany, and even on the jetliners promised to be home in time for dinner. It a thug turned traitor. Now, Marina believed, on which the two had flown to London. was a special night, the sixth anniversary of Putin was having his revenge. To this day, no one knows who poisoned their escape from Russia, and to celebrate, An ambulance was called, and Litvinenko Litvinenko; any examination of his death Marina was making Sasha’s favorite dinner: was taken to a nearby hospital; 21 days later leads to one giant tangle of loose ends. The chicken and pancakes in herb sauce. he was dead. On the day he died, what might Marina spent the day attending a birthday have been written o" as another obscure Rus- party for a friend’s 3-year-old, then retrieved sian dissident’s strange death exploded into an THE SPY WHO LOVED ME her 12-year-old son, Anatoly, from school international espionage scandal that threat- before starting to cook. Sasha, a handsome, ened Russia’s relations with the West, espe- Opposite, Litvinenko’s wife, Marina, after his funeral. Below, strapping six-footer with feathery blond hair, cially Britain, and sent hundreds of reporters from left: Litvinenko in his post- F.S.B. days; celebrating the day he got his British citizenship; his F.S.B. identi! cation card; LITVINENKO SAW as a Russian soldier. HIMSELF AS “PUTIN’S ALTER EGO”: LITVINENKO THE SYMBOL OF LIGHT, PROGRESS, AND LAW; PUTIN OF CHAOS AND DARKNESS AND VIOLENCE.

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like its F.B.I.; Litvinenko was the equiva- lent of an F.B.I. agent, and an obscure one at that. His specialty was organized crime, and his job involved investigations, stake- outs, and interrogations of Moscow mob- “THIS IS PART sters. Gary Busch, a London-based trans- portation consultant who has worked with OF A CLEAR PATTERN, Russian security services, recalls encounter- ing Litvinenko at an F.S.B. o! ce during the AN ACCELERATING DYNAMIC,” LITVINENKO SAID. 1990s. “He was a thug,” Busch remembers. Litvinenko turned out to be much more “THEY ARE ELIMINATING PEOPLE ON A LIST. than that. To understand his strange odys- THE STATE HAS BECOME A SERIAL MURDERER.” sey, I spoke at length with the half-dozen people closest to him, including his best story, like most good spy yarns, is nowhere est producer of natural gas.) The next it’s an- friend and neighbor in London, Akhmed near as black-and-white as the tabloids would other Russian journalist shot in the head, or Zakayev, a onetime deputy prime minister ) B

R have you believe. Among the few things a democracy advocate blown up in his car. of Chechnya. Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, A F

D known for sure is that Litvinenko was nei- Russia has been violent for so long that few a charming woman with wide-set Slavic L

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N ther the saint nor the famous dissident the in the West seem to realize that the kinds of eyes, met me at a London Internet café, G I (

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D press wanted him to be. He was a minor deaths and murders in Moscow today are though at her new publisher’s insistence— N O A G S

Russian celebrity years back, and while it’s wholly di" erent from those of the 1990s. she is writing a book, due out in May—she H N I K T

U possible—even likely—that his old enemies in Then the killings were products of the strug- was obliged to speak on background. So R R

A D

M the spy services had him killed, at his death gle to control Russia’s newly privatized busi- was her co-author, Alex Goldfarb, the man I

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N he was little more than a gad# y. “The trag- nesses and factories. Today the people who who brought the Litvinenkos to London, a H U

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V edy of Litvinenko is that, throughout his life, are dying are mostly “enemies of the state”— wry émigré with a salt-and-pepper beard, 0 O 1 K 2

people wouldn’t listen to him,” says Andrei crusading journalists, whistle-blowers, over- who met me for breakfast at Claridge’s. D M N U Nekrasov, a Russian $ lmmaker and friend. active regulators, dissidents. Other friends, fearing for their safety, asked I A

N I O O “To the end, he was frustrated. So frustrated. Putin was a K.G.B. man, and to a remark- to remain anonymous. L V O O

P Because no one was listening. No one. Now able degree the renewal of o! cial aggression G (

U D L L ( they’re listening.” since he took o! ce at the end of 1999 has ittle in Litvinenko’s past suggested

E V F T O His death, in fact, has made Litvinenko been accompanied by the K.G.B.-ization his future as a dissident. He was E K I I N R

I what he always wanted to be, an international of all sources of in# uence. The vaunted bil- born in the provincial city of Vo- Y H A C

K I

celebrity, while drawing unprecedented pub- lionaire oligarchs who emerged during the ronezh in 1962, of a long line of , E ) L G E

R licity to the thousands of virulently anti-Putin 1990s, the Boris Bere zov skys and Mikhail military o! cers. He entered the B E S A

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, Russian émigrés centered in London. A cynic Khodorovskys, have all been herded into army at 18, then, after graduating ( )

Y N K I might even say Litvinenko’s friends had more exile or prison; the men who run Russia from an o! cers’ school in 1985, became a S E T V

S L O to gain from his death than his enemies. today are overwhelmingly veterans of the platoon commander. There, he has said, N Z E E S R K.G.B. or its principal successor, the F.S.B. he became an informer for the K.G.B., a S E B A

( The New Russia H According to one recent study, three out of relationship that culminated in his join-

N R E O ince 9/11, Americans have lost every four business executives and senior ing the spy agency in 1988. Job titles aside, D S N N E A sight of any number of interna- government o! cials in Russia once worked Litvinenko was a cop, investigating crimi- B X

E Y L

R tional stories, few more impor- for either the K.G.B. or the F.S.B. Their nal gangs, mostly in Moscow, for the next A R

, A ) H E tant than the ominous goings-on presence gives new meaning to the term several years, as the K.G.B. went through a

M Y B O

in Vladimir Putin’s new Russia. “police state.” series of name changes, its domestic branch H S

H O

P Every week brings another wor- Alexander Litvinenko had been one of eventually becoming the powerful F.S.B. K A N R

E risome headline from Moscow. One day it’s them, a lieutenant colonel in the F.S.B. De- He was an up-and-comer, energetic and cu- G N O I

T S V Putin threatening to cut o" his neighbors’ spite all the headlines, he was never a spy. rious, and Marina is certain he could have T O I H L

P ( gas supplies. (Russia is now the world’s larg- The F.S.B. is not Russia’s C.I.A. but more made general. Still, until he met Boris Bere -

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0044 SPYSPY PPOISONINGOISONING ll-o.vf.indd-o.vf.indd 6 22/26/07/26/07 5:42:235:42:23 PMPM 0407VF WE-59 Spotlight zov sky, in 1994, Litvinenko was nothing special. There were hundreds in the F.S.B. just like him. Be re zov sky, however, was special. A mathematician, he had become one of Rus- sia’s ! rst successful entrepreneurs after the collapse of the Communist regime, much of his original fortune earned in software de- velopment and by selling Mercedes sedans to the country’s new rich. He prospered as THE POWER an early and vocal backer of Boris Yeltsin, branching into new businesses, acquiring old government factories, and transforming OF POIRET himself into the most visible of the “New Russian” oligarchs. During Berezovsky’s rise, in the early 1990s, the auctioning of government assets, known as privatization, turned violent, with murders and contract killings becoming commonplace. Still, an attempt on Be re zov - sky’s life one rainy morning in April 1994 was eye-opening. Riding in the back of his chauffeured black Mercedes, he had just left the garage of his downtown-Moscow headquarters when a Volkswagen Golf, packed with dynamite, exploded. Dozens of bystanders were wounded. Be re zov sky’s bodyguard was maimed. His driver’s head was blown o" . But Be re zov sky escaped un- harmed. When he heard the news, Litvinen- ko realized he knew Be re zov sky’s name. He had overheard a Moscow thug talking about an attempt to extort him. In the wake of the bombing, Litvinenko, in his role as a security agent, interviewed Be- re zov sky several times. A kind of friendship ensued. Be re zov sky was looking for allies in the security services. Litvinenko, one sus- pects, was simply awed to grow so close to or Andrew Bolton, co-curator one of Russia’s wealthiest men; their relation- with Harold Koda of “Poiret: King of Fashion,” opening at the Metro- ship would be akin to an F.B.I. agent’s be- politan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in May, the outré coutu- friending Bill Gates. In his Russian-l anguage rier Paul Poiret was “one of the most radically modern dressmakers in memoir, The Lubyanka Criminal Group, pub- the history of the 20th cFentury.” Pope Pius X condemned the perverse lished in 2002, Litvinenko indicates he didn’t Frenchman’s harem-slave pantaloons, censors confiscated a movie of see much of Ber e zov sky after the fruitless his ankle-exposing skirts, and at his fabled “1002nd Night” costume investigation ran its course. Not until 1998, party, staged in 1911, he released his wife and muse, Denise, from a he wrote, did their paths cross again. By gilded cage and chased her around with a whip. that point, Ber e zov sky had emerged as the Among the sartorial treasures on display from Denise’s private kingmaker behind Yeltsin’s re-election, and had led the negotiations that ended the ! rst wardrobe is this fur-edged cloak—christened “La Perse” by its inven- Chechen war, a truce that was said to have tor—crafted from a cotton velvet designed by Fauvist painter Raoul enraged Russian hard-liners. Dufy, whose career the art-amassing Poiret helped launch. Last seen At that point, in 1998, Litvinenko claimed, in New York 94 years ago, when Denise modeled it over a scanty one of his F.S.B. superiors asked whether white chemise, the coat has just been acquired for the museum’s per- he could get close enough to Bere zov sky to manent collection. murder him. In his memoir Litvinenko The sensational reign of “Poiret le Magnifique” barely outlived portrayed this as a turning point in his life, his marriage, which dissolved in 1928. By that time such avant- a moment when he began seriously to ques- garde clients as Josephine Baker, Helena Rubinstein, Colette, and tion the pervasive o# cial corruption in Rus- Peggy Guggenheim had already migrated to newer sia. Litvinenko, who believed the request to créateurs, Chanel among them. In 1929 the house of Poiret closed its im- kill Be re zov sky emanated from a senior Rus- sian general named Yevgeny Khokholkov, posing doors, and the spendthrift master declared bankruptcy. quoted him as saying it was time “we wast- “Perhaps,” suggests art historian Kenneth E. Silver, “it was all too ed that Kremlin C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 2 6 5 precious to last.” — AMY FINE COLLINS

2 3 2 V A N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfair.com I L L U S T R A T I O N B Y M I C H A E L R O B E R T S to get wasted and have sex all the time, but well received,” says Mike. “Then it became me he organizes the Funky Room at Pacha. there’s a “higher” class who do what she does: an essential part of the party.” “What more do you want?” he says. “Beau- “It is about ! irting and touching and being The word “manumission” means freedom tiful chicks. Beautiful restaurant. Beautiful sexy and moving your ass and getting your from slavery. “The idea is that everybody hat. This is what Ibiza’s all about to me at body into the right position and getting the in everyday life is a slave somehow, but at the end of the day. There’s a shabby side but eyes on you. But then it’s a kick to all of a Manumission you’re free to do whatever you a great side to it. I like the stylish side of it. sudden send them away again. You have a like,” Mike says. You have to appreciate that I know person- kind of power, if you play your cards.” In 1998 they opened up the Manumission ally every V.I.P. and his dog in the world. I So she’s never had sex in Ibiza? Motel at a pink roadside former bordello. just know them.” “No, I did, with my own boyfriend. That’s Mike says that Kate Moss and Jade Jagger He grew up outside London and went something di" erent. I did have sex here, on came to see the motel’s Pink Pussy strip through a “radical black man” phase in the toilet in the bathroom back there. It was club, whose always naked M.C. had ! ames Washington, D.C., where he trained to be a quick, horrible, nasty little fuck, that was tattooed near her private region. a social worker, then did a teaching stint all it was. Hahahahaha!” “Everything happened in that motel,” in New York City. “But it’s all bullshit,” Now all eyes are on the M.C., Baby Mar- says Mike. he recalls. “You know, you can’t change the celo, who calls himself “the queen of Spain.” “The kind of stories we can’t repeat,” says world, so I’m like, Fuck it. Ibiza and Spain He announces that his father is gay, and so Claire. in general is the place for me, to be what you is the Pope, George Bush, Silvio Berlusconi, “We were playing too close to the dark are. Here, there’s no political correctness.” and everybody at Amnesia. Then he cries side,” says Mike. He moved here in 1983 and started out as out, “Long live Ibiza!,” and the place goes In the end the police intervened. a podium dancer in clubs. Back then, Von berserk. “Thank God they closed it down,” says turned everyone on to cocaine and Ecstasy. Claire. “Everybody pretends that they’ve been into n my last night in Ibiza I go to Bambud- These days the couple is hatching plans drugs their whole lives: bullshit. I’m the in- Odha Grove, a “MediterrAsian” restau- to open a club in Las Vegas that will export stigation of Ecstasy.” rant with a gift shop that sells oils, vibrators, the Ibiza experience to Sin City. They are “Sympathy for the Devil” comes on. Von and books with titles such as Paradise Orgies also behind “Ibiza Rocks,” a concert series has “umpteen” stories to tell but doesn’t and Painful Pleasures. with major-label rock ’n’ roll acts such as want to share, “because everything here re- In a pagoda behind bamboo trees I # nd Babyshambles, fronted by Kate Moss’s on- volves around illegal substances and perver- Claire Davies and Mike McKay. In 1994, again, o" -again boyfriend Pete Doherty. sion, basically.” Mike and his brother, Andy, co-founded Ibi- When they’re not working, Mike and za’s notorious Manumission party, which is Claire lead a simple life with their three kids he next morning, I settle up with the held every Monday night at Privilege. Claire, in an old farmhouse in the country, but to- TNavila’s warm but mysterious propri- 31, is a striking redhead with a soft voice night they have to attend Jade Jagger’s going- etress, Lady Pepita. “So we’ll see you next and a dreamy, languid air. Mike, 36, has a away party. Von, the godfather of their kids, year,” she says, as if it were a foregone con- shaved head and a long goatee, and seems is sitting across the room. With his dread- clusion. I look at her and nod, half in horror. peaceful as he hands me a joint of hash. locks and huge Dr. Seuss hat, Von looks like Back in New York, I realize she was right: The BBC has called them “probably the a Rastafarian on Sesame Street. He’s sitting that magnetic energy from Es Vedrà is pull- most famous couple on the island,” and with three young ladies, two of whom resem- ing me in. A return trip feels inevitable. If what they became most famous for was hav- ble Penthouse Pets. not this summer, then de# nitely sometime ing sex onstage with each other. “It was very Von, 45, o" ers me more hash and tells before Armageddon. $

Litvinenko’s motivation, Be re zov sky took self. Afterward, many believed Be re zov sky Litvinenko Poisoning the allegation to Yeltsin himself, who used it paid Litvinenko to hold the press conference, as a reason to # re General Khokholkov and or at least put him up to it. Litvinenko al- launch a housecleaning at the F.S.B. ways denied taking money. When I ask Be re- zov sky’s London public-relations man, Lord he agency’s new director turned out to Bell, whether Be re zov sky arranged the press Tbe a little-known St. Petersburg bureau- conference, he smiles and says, “Probably. crat named Vladimir Putin. By that point It’s quite possible.” Litvinenko had compiled an extensive dos- The F.S.B.’s revenge was swift. In 1999, Lit- sier on F.S.B. corruption, which included a vinenko was arrested on unspeci# ed charges list of generals he believed had ordered ille- and thrown into Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison. gal assassinations. On Be re zov sky’s urging, Eight months later a judge ordered him re- he presented the dossier to Putin. The two leased; he was placed on suspension and put men, however, did not hit it o" . Putin, icy under surveillance. Litvinenko blamed every- C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 2 3 2 Jew.” Rather and controlled, seemed to regard Litvinenko thing on Putin. than kill Be re zov sky, however, Litvinenko at the very least as a loose cannon. Be re zov sky, at least initially, had the oppo- went to the oligarch and told him every- When Putin failed to act, Litvinenko went site reaction. In fact, he was one of the prime thing—a move, Be re zov sky has said, that public. In November 1998 he and several movers behind Putin’s elevation to the Rus- saved his life. other F.S.B. agents staged an unprecedented sian presidency the following year. Once in of- Litvinenko always characterized his de- press conference in which they alleged that # ce, however, Putin summoned the country’s cision as an ethical choice; others have sug- F.S.B. generals had taken bribes and ordered most powerful oligarchs and warned them gested he was cynically gravitating toward killings. The other agents wore ski masks or to stay out of politics. If they didn’t, he sug- a new center of Russian power. Whatever sunglasses; only Litvinenko identi# ed him- gested, it might be necessary for the Kremlin

A P R I L 2 0 0 7 www.vanityfair.com V A N I T Y F A I R 2 6 5 to think of fleeing. But Marina wavered. there. When Marina and six-year-old Ana- Litvinenko Poisoning The two had met when a friend brought Lit- toly arrived in Madrid, however, Litvinenko vinenko to her 31st-birthday party; Marina, telephoned again. He said they could never to investigate exactly how they had amassed a dance teacher, joked that Litvinenko was go back. Marina, a friend says, continued their riches. It was the beginning of the end her birthday present. The attraction was to resist. Husband and wife argued for two of the oligarch era. By mid-2000, Be re zov sky immediate. Marina even overlooked Lit- full days, in fact, before Marina reluctantly and Putin were enemies, and it was clear to vinenko’s horrible teeth, many of which had agreed to meet Litvinenko in Turkey. Lit- Be re zov sky that he couldn’t win a prolonged been removed without anesthetic when he vinenko, having secured a false passport, ! ght with the Kremlin. Instead he sold o" was in the army. Unfortunately, Litvinenko then boarded a freighter across the Black most of his Russian holdings to a mogul was married, and though the marriage was Sea. He eventually met Marina at a hotel in more to Putin’s tastes, Roman Abramo vich, troubled, he swore he wouldn’t leave his the southern resort town of Antalya. and # ed to London. (Abramovich lives in wife and child. Just weeks later, however, From Turkey, Litvinenko telephoned Be re- London now, too.) his wife left him. Soon after, he and Marina zov sky in London, and Be re zov sky reached There Be re zov sky set about establishing married, and about a year later, Marina gave out to Alex Goldfarb, whom he had hired himself as the exile leader of the Russian birth to Anatoly. to run his foundation, the New York–based opposition. At a time when other oligarchs International Foundation for Civil Liberties. were making peace with the Kremlin, arina didn’t want to leave Russia. She “You remember Sasha Litvinenko?” Bere- he hired Lord Bell, a onetime adviser to Mhad been outside the country exactly zovsky asked. Margaret Thatcher, to help him warn the once, for a week’s vacation in Paris, and “He’s your basic K.G.B. guy,” said world about Putin. He began funneling spoke no English. One day in October 2000, Goldfarb, who had met Litvinenko while vast amounts of money to pro-democracy Litvinenko told her he needed to visit their researching conditions in Russian prisons groups inside Russia and its neighbors. For dacha, outside Moscow. Instead, eluding his for his previous employer, the billionaire the Kremlin, Berezovsky became Public F.S.B. tail, he made his way across the bor- George Soros. Enemy Number One. der into Ukraine. From there he telephoned Goldfarb # ew from New York to Turkey, Be re zov sky’s exile left Litvinenko—now Marina and told her they were taking an then accompanied Litvinenko inland to the unemployed and anticipating his re- arrest— impromptu vacation to Spain. He bought capital city of Ankara, where they visited with no powerful allies. He himself began her a ticket and said he would meet her the American Embassy. Litvinenko asked

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2 6 7 scribed, Goldfarb took Litvinenko on an too much associated with that one issue. It Litvinenko Poisoning extended tour of Spain and Italy, where he did nothing for his credibility.” edited the manuscript with Litvinenko look- In his spare time, and he had too much, of evidence. It was ! rst published in New ing over his shoulder. It was the ! rst time Litvinenko ran. Actually he sprinted, 10 York in 2002, and then in Latvia, where it Litvinenko had left the safety of Britain, and kilometers at a time, through the streets of was trucked across the border into Russia. Goldfarb noticed how nervous he was, con- Muswell Hill, returning to his town house Most of the copies, however, were seized by stantly glancing around. sweaty and exhausted. Marina told him to police. “It never got to Russian stores, but it Once again Be re zov sky paid to have the slow down and try jogging; she worried he probably got to the black market and a ki- book published, in 2002. Like the ! rst book, might have a heart attack. Litvinenko said he osk or two,” says a Be re zov sky aide. “The The Lubyanka Criminal Group was published couldn’t. He knew only one speed: full out. seizure of the books was a fairly big deal. in Latvia, trucked into Russia, and seized That was great publicity.” Blowing Up Rus- wholesale by Russian police. Unlike the ! rst Brave New World sia was translated into English, Bulgarian, book, however, the second was never trans- y 2005, Litvinenko had reached a cross- and Polish. lated into English and today is almost impos- Broads. Be re zov sky’s foundation cut his sible to ! nd. “He was very frustrated by how monthly stipend from about $6,000 to $1,500, ven before the book was published, Lit- the books did,” says Nekrasov. “They weren’t barely enough to live on. The Be re zov sky Evinenko had forged a friendship with really read. They had no impact.” aide explains this as a routine matter brought an émigré ! lmmaker and playwright named on by the oligarch’s erratic cash # ow—his Andrei Nekrasov. “Alexander had been ailure did nothing to muzzle Litvinenko, Swiss accounts are forever being frozen and relatively well known in Russia because of the Fhowever. He had become the consum- freed up by Swiss authorities under pressure press conference, but after that, people start- mate dissident exile, a passionate speaker from Putin’s government. But another friend ed to forget about him,” says Nekrasov, 48, who would expound for hours about Putin says the reduction was made after Litvinen- a wild-haired man I found ! nishing a BBC the “criminal,” the F.S.B., the Chechens, ko’s wife found work teaching dance, which documentary on Litvinenko in a West Lon- the war against the oligarchs. He saw the brought in some meager income. Left unsaid don studio. When Litvinenko resurfaced in Kremlin’s hand in worrisome developments was the fact that Litvinenko had little left to London talking about the apartment bomb- everywhere: al-Qaeda, Afghan drug tra" ck- o$ er Be re zov sky beyond his loyalty. ings, Nekrasov was intrigued. He contacted ing, Iraq. “He was fanciful,” a Be re zov sky “Look, Litvinenko was small beer,” the Be re zov sky, who put the two men in touch. aide says with a sigh. “He exaggerated like Be re zov sky adviser says, “but he was useful “He was the kind of guy, after ! ve minutes, mad. He saw conspiracies everywhere, in for certain things, mainly interpreting what you felt you’d grown up with him,” Nekra- the simplest things. He was a Russian. You the F.S.B. was doing. Boris would call him to sov recalls. “There were no formalities. He know?” check on F.S.B. stories he heard.” was very friendly, very open, very passionate “He was a great source, but also a ter- Another man might have found work as about Russia.” rible, terrible bore,” says James Heart! eld, a a bodyguard. But Litvinenko wanted more. The two began taking walks, Nekrasov London graduate student who, with his as- He saw other ex-K.G.B. émigrés consult- listening as Litvinenko launched into solilo- sociate, Julia Svet lich na ja, interviewed Lit- ing with or even starting their own private- quies about Putin, with whom he remained vinenko at length for a paper they were re- security ! rms, taking home big paychecks obsessed. “They had been contemporaries, searching about Chechens in Moscow. “He for work Litvinenko felt he could do just as and he saw himself as Putin’s alter ego,” was lonely. He wanted to talk to Russians. well. “He wanted a real job, you know, to Nekrasov recalls. Nekrasov was fascinated He talked to us ad in! nitum. I mean, it was analyze security issues,” says a friend. James with the idea of the two men as opposite sides clear he had nothing else to do. He had a Heart! eld adds, “He wanted to ! nd work in of the Russian coin: Litvinenko the symbol of singular viewpoint, a Cold War assessment, intelligence. He didn’t want to be a thug. To light, progress, and the rule of law, Putin of that all evil emanated from the Kremlin. It me, he seemed lost. He was tossing about like chaos and darkness and violence. He began might be true, but lots of it was slightly bark- a cork on the sea of life.” to write a play called Koenigsberg, the story ing. And it made every conversation a bit In late 2005, Litvinenko contacted a one- of a K.G.B. veteran who escaped to Western boring. I remember when we approached time K.G.B. major named Yuri Shvets, an Europe and attempted to tell the world about Be re zov sky, who told us to talk to Sasha, attorney who operates a security consult- the dangers of post-communist Russia. It was he said, ‘Take what he says with a pinch of ing company in the Washington, D.C., area. eventually staged in a Berlin theater, in 2002, salt.’ The sense was: he’s a bit extreme, a bit Shvets’s main business is investigating Rus- and ran for nearly a year. of a nutter.” sian companies on behalf of Western cor- As their friendship deepened, Nekrasov Litvinenko wanted to be a writer, but his porations who want to work with them. His began ! lming a new documentary, based on work consisted mostly of an endless stream clients are typically considering major invest- Litvinenko’s book. Litvinenko functioned of long-winded e-mails to friends. “Sasha ments and want to know whether the people as the director’s factotum, introducing him was a very proli! c writer,” one notes. “He they will be dealing with are involved in any- to many of the people who appeared in the wrote an article a day, on average. Unfor- thing nefarious—always a concern in Russian film—former F.S.B. agents, women whose tunately, over 90 percent of it was never business. (This kind of review, routine in the relatives had been killed in the bombings— published. I still have 300 e-mails from him corporate world, is known as due diligence.) though Litvinenko himself did not appear. that, frankly, I’ve never read. He was like Litvinenko o$ ered to ! nd Shvets new clients The film, Disbelief, premiered at the Sun- a blogger without a blog.” What articles in London, for which Shvets agreed to pay dance Film Festival in 2004 and attracted Litvinenko did manage to publish were al- him a 20 percent commission. favorable reviews. most all carried on a pro-Chechen Web site Not long after, Shvets says, Litvinenko Its success, however, stood in sharp con- called Chechen Press. These were mostly brought him a client, believed to be Titon trast to the project closest to Litvinenko’s anti-Putin screeds, including one in which International, a London security firm. On heart, his memoir. It was the book he had Litvinenko wildly alleged that the Russian behalf of its own, unnamed client, the ! rm dreamed of writing for years. Alex Gold- president was a pedophile. “I told him he agreed to pay Shvets $100,000 to produce farb hired a person to interview him for should stop writing so much for Chechen due-diligence reports on ! ve Russian busi- two months. Once the interviews were tran- Press,” says the friend. “He was becoming nessmen. For brokering the deal, Litvinenko

2 6 8 V A N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfair.com A P R I L 2 0 0 7 was to be paid $20,000. A friend emphasizes that would indicate a deeper involvement khas.’ Russian Spetsnaz commandos are well that Litvinenko did no digging himself; he than he has suggested elsewhere. trained, available, and cheap. I’d guess that was simply paid for arranging the contract. was what was going on there.” itvinenko’s work with Lugovoi may also Litvinenko grew so chummy with Lugovoi he deal that probably appeared most Lhave been the reason for a rare foreign that, to Marina’s consternation, he invited him T promising to Litvinenko—that could trip Litvinenko made last summer, when to their town house. “It was incredibly naïve,” ensure his ! nancial future, in fact—involved he " ew to Tel Aviv to deliver an unsolicited says Akhmed Zakayev, who lives across the an old acquaintance, a 41-year-old former presentation to Leonid Nevzlin, the former street. “But I understood it. He was so proud. K.G.B. agent named Andrei Lugovoi, who number two at the now defunct Russian oil He was proud of being a British citizen, of his had re-invented himself as a millionaire colossus Yukos and the man who ranks sec- home. He wanted to show Lugovoi how well Moscow businessman. Lean and blond, with ond on the Kremlin’s uno$ cial most-wanted he lives, that he has a garden. Only later did I wide, owlish eyes, Lugovoi had served on Be- list, after Be re zov sky. Nevzlin " ed to Israel in realize that, by bringing him there, Sasha had re zov sky’s security detail. When Be re zov sky 2003, one step ahead of Russian prosecutors, brought Lugovoi close to me.” purchased the ORT television station, Lugo- who took control of Yukos and, following a With that, Zakayev shudders. voi had become its head of security. A Be re- show trial, sent its C.E.O., Nevzlin’s partner Last July, in a vote little noticed outside zov sky aide says Lugovoi left the K.G.B. to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to a Siberian prison. the émigré community, the Russian legisla- work directly for Be re zov sky. Nevzlin agreed to see Litvinenko; at their ture, called the Duma, passed a law making When Be re zov sky " ed Russia, Lugovoi re- meeting, Nevzlin said in a statement follow- it legal for the Kremlin to murder enemies of mained behind. In time he established him- ing Litvinenko’s death, Litvinenko presented the state outside the country. self in business, running a company that sells him with a 17-page dossier that “contained “They will try to kill me,” Litvinenko told soft drinks. Though wealthy, he moonlighted important information that shed light on Marina. in the security business and remained close matters involving the Kremlin and the e# ort “Sasha, how can you tell me that?” Ma- to Be re zov sky, traveling often to London. to destroy Yukos.” An Israeli spokesman for rina exclaimed. “I won’t sleep!” The Be re zov sky aide says the oligarch em- Nevzlin, journalist Uri Dan, declines to say “Marusya,” he said, using her pet name. ployed Lugovoi o# and on as a bodyguard, more about the dossier, except that it has “It’s true.” usually for his onetime business partner been given to Scotland Yard. Litvinenko took no special precautions, Badri Patarkatsishvili. The aide emphasizes But according to people who knew Lit- other than a home-security system he and that Lugovoi was hardly a member of Be re- vinenko, the dossier contained information Marina knew would never stop a determined zov sky’s inner circle. “Lugovoi was a guy aimed at exonerating a former Yukos secu- assassin. But he began warning any number who could go to Be re zov sky’s o$ ce and see rity chief, Alexei Pichugin, who has been of friends to be careful. “Sasha was sure the anyone, get soccer tickets, whatever—but see convicted of murdering a banker and his F.S.B. was preparing to kill me,” Zakayev the Great Man himself … well, that would’ve wife in Russia; the dossier argued that an says. “He would always talk about that, [say- been more di$ cult,” says the aide. “He was a F.S.B. hit team committed the murders. ing], ‘They will bring people close to you. friend, but not entirely trusted. Because you The meeting with Nevzlin appears to have They will use people who are old friends, never know if someone is a sleeper or a spy been a kind of test run for the business Lit- peo ple you knew in a di# erent world, in a or whatever.” vinenko hoped to start with Lugovoi. “My un- di# erent life.’” In the émigré community, in fact, the rap derstanding is Lugovoi and his partner funded On October 7 a friend of Litvinenko’s, a on Lugovoi was that he had done suspicious- that work—they were funding Litvinenko to go crusading journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, ly well for himself while remaining behind down to Israel and use this as a business pitch, who’d spent years investigating the apartment in Moscow. Marina had the same concerns you know, to get the account,” says Gary bombings and other Chechen-related issues, when Litvinenko introduced her to Lugovoi, Busch. “I’m not sure it worked out.” was shot in the head and killed in the elevator at Be re zov sky’s birthday party in London in It didn’t. But Litvinenko didn’t give up. of her Moscow building. A surveillance cam- early 2006. “Sasha, I just don’t understand,” According to Lugovoi, Litvinenko had been era caught a chilling image of her unidenti- she told her husband afterward. “Lugovoi attempting to broker a deal for him with ! ed assassin, a lone ! gure in a dark baseball knows Be re zov sky, but how is he so success- a British security concern named Erinys. cap. Litvinenko pledged to ! nd the killer. A ful in Russia?” Russians use the word for Founded in 2001 by a former British Army week later he joined a crowd of dissidents and roof, krisha, to imply protection. “Everyone Guards o$ cer, Erinys is known in security human-rights activists in a memorial service has krisha in Russia,” Marina says. “Who is circles for a reportedly $100 million contract for her at Westminster Abbey. Afterward he Lugovoi’s krisha?” She suspected it was the to provide security for oil installations in Iraq. spoke with Andrei Nekrasov. As Nekrasov F.S.B. Its executives have declined comment on the recalls it, Litvinenko said, “This is part of a If Litvinenko had doubts about Lugovoi, case, but Lugovoi has said that Litvinenko clear pattern, an accelerating dynamic. They they appeared to be overcome by his need took him at least once to Erinys’s o$ ces are eliminating people on a list. The state has for money. After Litvinenko’s death, Lugo- at 25 Grosvenor Street; the building, which become a serial murderer.” Litvinenko pre- voi told a Moscow radio station that their also houses Titon International, happens to dicted another killing at any time; for a mo- relationship was limited to the kind of deal be owned by Ber e zov sky. Erinys declines to ment, the two debated who it might be. Litvinenko had struck with Yuri Shvets, say what the meeting involved. “Promise me you will not go back to Rus- that is, a 20 percent commission on any “Erinys is in the body-shop business, sia,” Litvinenko said as they parted. “Other- contracts Litvinenko brought in. But two of providing security personnel for di$ cult op- wise you will be next.” Litvinenko’s friends say that there was more erations, like Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria—the to it, that Litvinenko claimed the two men tough places,” says a London security consul- Russian Roulette spoke of establishing a London-based secu- tant. “The kind of money a British ex –S.A.S. wo weeks after the memorial service rity company together. Whether this was real [Special Air Service, the special-f orces unit of TMarina dropped o# Litvinenko at their or a pipe dream, Litvinenko certainly hoped the British Army] person wants is shrinking subway station. It’s impossible to reconstruct it would happen. Lugovoi told the Moscow in places like Iraq, [so] one of the things you accurately his movements that day, although radio station that he had met Litvinenko 12 look for is other [cheaper] sources. Rather before his death he detailed them for British or 13 times last year in London, a frequency than chaps from the S.A.S. you get ‘Gur- detectives. Specialists at Scotland Yard have

A P R I L 2 0 0 7 www.vanityfair.com V A N I T Y F A I R 2 6 9 ness partner, another onetime K.G.B. man To a man, they passed on the story. Without Litvinenko Poisoning named Dmitri Kovtun, at the Millennium concrete evidence of poisoning, however, the Hotel on Grosvenor Square, just across from whole thing sounded like some kind of bi- since spent hundreds of hours scanning video the American Embassy. They took seats in zarre propaganda ploy. from every surveillance camera in the areas the Pine Bar, o# the lobby, a clubby room On Thursday, November 16, Goldfarb of Piccadilly and Mayfair through which he where people around them were taking tea. spoke with a garrulous London toxicologist passed, looking for anything untoward. Kovtun was smoking a cigar and drinking named John Henry, who had been brought Litvinenko had at least two appointments gin. Litvinenko, who didn’t smoke or drink into the developing story by a Russian ! lm that day—of that police are sure. One was alcohol, sipped green tea. They discussed crew. Based on the symptoms, Henry specu- with an Italian named Mario Scaramella, a the Erinys situation for about 25 minutes. lated that Litvinenko had been poisoned with consultant to Italy’s Mitrokhin commission, As Litvinenko rose to leave, a third Russian, radioactive thallium. Goldfarb relayed the a parliamentary group that investigated later identi! ed as Vyacheslav Sokolenko, ap- tip to doctors, and the next day, Goldfarb says, K.G.B. in! ltration of Italian politics. After peared and shook his hand. Then Litvinenko they agreed. By Friday night both Gold farb Litvinenko’s death Scaramella would come took the subway home to Marina, where they and Henry had given interviews to the Brit- in for intense media scrutiny; for the longest celebrated the sixth anniversary of their exile ish press. The Saturday papers made it of- time no one seemed able to ! gure out who before he began vomiting. ! cial: Litvinenko had been poisoned with he actually was. Not till January, in a long thallium. report carried in the International Herald Tri- Radioactive Fallout “That was my fault,” Henry says, sighing. bune, was it demonstrated that Scaramella day later an ambulance rushed Litvinen- “I spent all day Saturday on- camera giving was essentially a fraud, a self-created spy- A ko to Barnet General Hospital. Doctors interviews. Thallium, thallium, thallium. industry gad" y who had once been arrested there hadn’t a clue what was wrong with him. Saturday evening I got in to see the man. I for impersonating a police inspector. They checked for viruses, allergies, food told Goldfarb he should be transferred to a Litvinenko didn’t know Scaramella well poisoning, AIDS, and, on Litvinenko’s insis- private hospital. Goldfarb said there was no and thought he was a bit of a kook; he later tence, evidence of chemical poisoning, but need. The doctors were saying he’d have mus- told detectives he saw him that day, only came up with nothing. He remained sick, un- cle pain for months, but that he’d live.” Later after the Italian insisted. They met at a able to keep down food and complaining of the doctors backtracked and transferred Lit- fast-food sushi restaurant named Itsu in Pic- muscle pain. Doctors noted with alarm that vinenko to University College Hospital, a cadilly. There Scaramella passed Litvinenko his white-blood-cell count had plummeted. facility better suited to treat him. a copy of an e-mail he had received. It was After several days his hair began to fall out. in English, which Litvinenko had trouble His skin turned yellow. Doctors checked for n Monday the story exploded onto news- reading. He started to push it into his bag, evidence of radiation poisoning, but only Opaper front pages around the world, but Scaramella pressed him to read it. It of the gamma variety, a limited test. There dominating coverage in Britain for days. At was a warning—that both Litvinenko and was no sense that whatever ailed Litvinenko the white-hot center of it all was Goldfarb, Scaramella were on a hit list compiled by a might be fatal. who emerged from the hospital every few shadowy Russian nationalist group, an or- For several days Litvinenko was con- hours to deliver updates to a growing throng ganization of “retired” K.G.B. agents called vinced he had been poisoned by Scara- of reporters. It was Goldfarb, working with Dignity and Honour. The memo asserted mella. Only gradually did it dawn on him Lord Bell, who snapped the photograph of that Dignity and Honour had murdered that Andrei Lugovoi made a better suspect. the wan, hairless Litvinenko that ran around Anna Politkovskaya and now planned to In Litvinenko’s mind, Lugovoi was an ideal the world. “Oh, that Goldfarb!” exclaims a murder them, using a onetime Russian com- double agent, a man the Kremlin could have man who was allowed to see Litvinenko that mando it named. persuaded years before to remain close to week. “What a wheeler-dealer! He just engi- both Litvinenko and Berezovsky. One night, neered everything, the whole scenario, releas- he memo was written by yet another sitting by his hospital bed, Ahkmed Zakayev ing that photograph, all that publicity. It was Tmysterious Russian émigré, this one reminded him of the lectures he had given unbelievable. I have just massive admiration named Evgeni Limarev, who lives in the al- him about letting old friends too close. “I for the guy’s skills.” pine village of Cluses, in the Haute-Savoie said, ‘Sasha, how could you?’” Zakayev re- On Tuesday, as if his newfound celebrity region of France. No one involved in the calls. “‘How could you let him approach had bolstered his health, Litvinenko seemed Litvinenko case seems certain of who Li- you?’ He didn’t really answer. But I knew to rally. “He was talking, smiling, he seemed marev was in Russia—some say a K.G.B. or he had been nostalgic. Every generation of very upbeat,” says John Henry, who saw him F.S.B. agent, others the son of one—but at émigrés goes through this. They want to talk that day. “I said, ‘Have you got any muscle some point he emigrated to France, where to others like themselves. That feeling, it’s a weakness at all?’ He said no. I tested his feet. he received a grant from Berezovsky’s foun- dangerous, dangerous feeling.” He could stand on his toes like a ballet danc- dation to start an anti-Kremlin Web site. It Litvinenko had been lying quietly at Bar- er. The things he complained of on Saturday achieved minor notoriety in Russia when a net for nearly two weeks when Alex Goldfarb were gone. Then I spoke to the doctors, the Moscow reporter went “undercover” there arrived from New York. News of Litvinenko’s hematologists, who said his white-cell count and came out claiming he had been told to illness had been carried on Chechen Press, was simply gone. Something was wrong. I “think up whatever you want” about Putin, then picked up by the “free” Russian media. knew it. I wasn’t impressed by his chances.” “the most important thing is to make it as British reporters, however, were ignoring Henry knew what reporters didn’t: radioac- scary as possible.” The Web site, Rusglobus, the story. Goldfarb believed Litvinenko had tive poison hits the gut ! rst, then the hair fol- is currently o# -line, and Limarev, after sev- been poisoned and had no doubt who was licles, then the liver. Litvinenko’s liver had all eral days in hiding, told reporters he knows responsible. This was not only an interna- but shut down. If Henry was right, the poison nothing about Litvinenko’s death. tional scandal, Goldfarb sensed, but a mas- would next strike the heart. Litvinenko shrugged o# the e-mail, saying sive public- relations bonanza for Berezovsky. On Wednesday, Litvinenko’s condition he didn’t take Limarev seriously. Afterward Working with Lord Bell, Goldfarb began worsened. “He was deteriorating, over the he made his way to Mayfair, where he had a throwing out calls to British reporters, at The course of a day,” says Nekrasov, who visited. 4:30 appointment with Lugovoi and his busi- Sunday Times, at Channel 4, and elsewhere. “You could see it. He was falling apart before

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2 7 1 fers to the Litvinenko murder as a “dispute non-event if not for Berezovsky,” says a se- Litvinenko Poisoning among criminals.” “Professionals,” Velichko nior private-security consultant in London, a sni! ed, “don’t use polonium.” man who knows Berezovsky well. “It would vestigators discovered o! -the-charts levels of Another theory involves both of Litvinen- have been a curiosity that would have been polonium in the teapot Litvinenko had used. ko’s known business associates, Lugovoi talked about by people like me. But Be- But it fails to explain how traces made their and Yuri Shvets. In mid-December, Shvets rezovsky, aided by his mouthpiece Lord Bell, way to Itsu, the sushi place where Litvinenko came forward and gave an interview to Tom turned it into a media sensation. They did a had lunched a full hour before meeting Lugo- Mangold of BBC Radio in which he said he terri" c job. Frankly, I’m embarrassed by the voi and Kovtun. It’s possible Litvinenko had believed Litvinenko’s death was linked to the British press, because their coverage of it, met the two Russians earlier that same day. due-diligence work they had done on the " ve of what Berezovsky was feeding them, was It’s also possible he had been poisoned during Russian “businessmen.” According to Shvets, so incredibly uncritical. It was one of those the visit they made to London two weeks ear- he had compiled an eight-page dossier on one stories that was too good to check. I mean, lier, on October 16. Maybe the " rst attempt of the men, a senior Kremlin o# cial; the dos- if you look at who gained most, it was Boris didn’t take. Maybe his murderer returned to sier portrayed the man as a criminal master- Berezovsky.” Berezovsky dismisses such talk " nish the job. mind involved in murder and o# cial corrup- as Kremlin propaganda. tion. Shvets says he delivered the dossier to In the absence of hard, new information, hatever the case, the press has all but Litvinenko on September 20, on the under- however, propaganda clogs the vacuum. To- Wconvicted Lugovoi, and by association standing that Litvinenko would hand it to their day, four months after Litvinenko’s death, Kovtun, despite their denials. Perhaps sur- client. At some point, Shvets says, Litvinenko Scotland Yard’s investigation seems likely to prisingly, a number of those in Berezovsky’s showed the dossier to Lugovoi, apparently to lead to charges against Lugovoi. If so, there circle aren’t so sure Lugovoi was consciously demonstrate how a professional due-diligence is little likelihood the Kremlin would allow involved. “I still believe that Andrei—and I’ve report should appear. Shvets’s theory is that Lugovoi and Kovtun to be extradited, unless met him 10 times in my life—I still believe he Lugovoi alerted the subject of the report, and the British agree to hand over Berezovsky in did not know what they were doing,” says one. that this man ordered Litvinenko’s death. return, which is unlikely. Mario Scaramella, “He may have made the introduction, but I Yet another theory was advanced by Julia meanwhile, has been arrested in Italy, doubt Lugovoi killed him. A killer is a speci" c Svet lich na ja, the graduate student who spent charged with a byzantine plot involving an thing in the K.G.B. Andrei Lugovoi is not a hours interviewing Litvinenko before his poi- illegal arms shipment designed to somehow killer. He is a bodyguard. I would guess that soning. In a column she wrote for London’s establish his bona " des. Lugovoi was part of an operation, maybe with- Observer in December 2006, Svet lich na ja Marina and Anatoly have moved into an out even knowing it, but maybe he thought it said Litvinenko had spoken of compiling a apartment in a di! erent section of London. was an arrangement to entrap Sasha, to surveil dossier he might use to blackmail unnamed For the moment, Berezovsky is supporting Sasha. Who knows? I’m sure Lugovoi was a exiled oligarchs. Svet lich na ja, who didn’t re- them. Marina has no idea what she will do part of it. I do not think he was the hit man.” turn e-mails seeking comment for this article, next. Back in Muswell Hill, their old town Who would have wanted Litvinenko dead? repeated the accusation in January on 60 house is locked and roped o! , a neon-blue Just about everyone in London believes it was Minutes, referring to a single oligarch. In that tarpaulin across the door. Across the street, the Russian government, or perhaps onetime interview, she would not identify the man in Ahkmed Zakayev has yet to explain Lit- K.G.B. agents emboldened by the Kremlin’s question but said he had a “connection with vinenko’s death to his grandchildren. “They new aggressive ways. One of the few people the Kremlin, a connection with Putin.” are still waiting for him to come over,” he mentioned by name has been the head of Dig- says. “Every time the doorbell rings, they nity and Honour, Valentin Velichko. Velichko ome in London, however, believe big anti- run to it, [yelling], ‘Sasha! Sasha! Sasha!’ My has denied any involvement and has kept a S Kremlin oligarchs like Berezovsky have grandson is two and a half years old. I don’t low pro" le, although, in a single interview he reaped gains from the publicity surrounding know how to explain to him that he is never gave the German newspaper Die Welt, he re- Litvinenko’s death. “This would have been a coming back.” $

lose sight of “our heritage and our ideals.” liot Richardson and his deputy, William All the Presidents’ Men Their most vocal opponent was the sti! - Ruckelshaus, quit rather than go through collared and mustachioed Acheson, who with Nixon’s order to fire Watergate spe- didn’t even have an o# cial role in the Ken- cial prosecutor Archibald Cox. And Jimmy nedy White House but whose wisdom and Carter’s secretary of state Cyrus Vance did years of service to Truman made him a the same over the ill-fated 1980 attempt to trusted adviser on issues of foreign a! airs—a rescue American hostages in Iran. Yet, more presidency man, perhaps, loyal as much to commonly, there comes a point when the the o# ce as to its occupant. Acheson derid- presumed truth teller simply swallows his ed Bobby’s comments as overly emotional pride and becomes a loyal sta! er. One can pleas lacking “the trained lawyer’s analy- only wonder how many of these exist in the sis.” But if J.F.K. had listened to Acheson, present-day White House. it would still have fallen to McNamara to give the order that in his eyes would have f there was not as much squabbling among C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 2 1 8 were also in the been potentially cataclysmic—that or resign, Ithe nation’s " rst Cabinet secretaries, it room during that fateful meeting, and both the way Secretary of State William Jennings would only be because there were not as men " rmly argued against a sudden air Bryan did, rather than join in Woodrow many of them. Thomas Je! erson’s Cabinet strike. Bobby called it “Pearl Harbor in re- Wilson’s decision to send American forces was composed of just six o# cers—an attor- verse.” He insisted that a sneak attack was to " ght in World War I. ney general, a postmaster general, and secre- not in our tradition, and that we should not Similarly, Nixon’s attorney general El- taries of state, war, navy, and Treasury. But

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