The Main Enemy Milton Bearden (read full novel .txt) 📖

made his first trip to Pakistan in 1982 and on that visit struck up a personal relationship with President Zia that would last and deepen until the president’s death six years later. That visit would be followed by many more, plus a few cross-border forays into Afghanistan. But it would be in Washington that Charlie Wilson would make the most difference to the CIA’s effort in Afghanistan. By the early 1980s, the Texas congressman was a member of the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, a position that enabled him to identify and generate funding for the CIA’s Afghanistan program. More than any other member of either house, Charlie fashioned Congress into the engine that drove the CIA’s program for Afghanistan. He understood early on that if he was able to get an assignment to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), that assignment, linked with work on the House Appropriations Committee, would put him in charge of the congressional component of the CIA effort in Afghanistan.

But House Speaker Jim Wright had problems with Charlie going on the HPSCI; the Democrats on the committee were blocking the maverick Texan because he had voted on the floor for continuing aid to the Nicaraguan contras. That vote had elicited the ire of what Charlie referred to as “the liberals” in his party, in particular Jim Wright, who was deeply committed to cutting off all aid to the contras. Behind the scenes, Dick Cheney lobbied for Wilson’s assignment to the HPSCI, and after Charlie gave Wright his assurances that he would concentrate on Afghanistan and, as he would later characterize it, that he “wouldn’t fuck around in Central America,” he got the HPSCI assignment. From that point on, he was perfectly situated to concentrate on his central political passion—driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan and tormenting them in the process.

A man of his word, Charlie never touched the Central American tar baby again, even when Bill Casey was in desperate need of just such a congressional champion. After Jim Wright fell afoul of the House Ethics Committee and was replaced by Tom Foley, Wilson stayed focused on Afghanistan and left Central America to others.

My first contact with Charlie came in June 1986, just before I went out to Islamabad. Since we were both from Texas, Charlie and I spoke the same language and hit it off immediately. I had come to appreciate greatly what he was doing for us—it seemed that whenever we needed another $20 million urgently for the development of some new system for the Afghan resistance, Charlie would find us $40 million. And so it went. After I arrived in Pakistan, Charlie would be the first of many congressional delegations coming our way, and always my most challenging. The very term codel for “congressional delegation” would normally strike something close to fear in the heart of a U.S. mission abroad. But a Codel Wilson would mix delight and confusion with the usual dose of fear.

If Charlie’s central political passion was pushing the Soviets out of Afghanistan, the congressman was not without other delights. His constant traveling companion in those days was Annelise Ilschenko, a stunning woman from the Cleveland Ukrainian community who had come to Washington as a member of an Ohio congressman’s staff. In the mid-1970s, Annelise had managed to capture the Miss World USA crown, an achievement that qualified her to fit neatly into the dazzling retinue of the colorful congressman from Texas. How she blended into the scheme of the rigidly Islamist North-West Frontier Province, where she was a frequent fixture with Charlie, was another matter. With Annelise often wearing leather pants in the Khyber Agency, I was never sure whether the rugged Afridis in the Khyber Agency thought she was a woman or a boy, or whether it even mattered to them. Annelise, to put it mildly, made an impression in the North-West Frontier Province.

Islamabad, March 1987

Akhtar’s aide had called me at the office with a curt request. “A car is on the way,” he said. “The general needs to see you right away.”

I was escorted past the Pakistan Army guards at the entrance to ISI headquarters and directly into Akhtar’s conference room. The normal five-minute wait—engineered, I thought, as a reminder of the general’s sense of our pecking order—was cut to less than a minute. Akhtar breezed into the room alone, sat down, and got right to business. He ignored the mess steward who set a pot of black tea and cookies on the table between us. I steeled myself for a possible tirade from the general and imagined any number of possible complaints.

“It’s Charlie,” Akhtar said. “He’s very unhappy.”

Leaning back in my chair with a sense of relief that the issue “only” involved the Texas congressman, I scrolled back and considered Charlie’s activities over the last few months. He had made a couple of short forays into Afghanistan before I took over the program, and I knew he’d planned another, more grandiose visit a few weeks back. But as he’d reached zero line near Miram Shah, he was stopped by the Pakistani Frontier Forces on the orders of his friend General Akhtar. Charlie had told me he’d been stopped cold at the border, but he’d concealed how disappointed he’d been.

“Charlie is not happy,” the general repeated, still trying to prompt a comment from me.

“This is true, I suppose. He told me he was stopped at zero line. Why’d you stop him? It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d gone in.”

“I stopped him because it wasn’t safe. Everybody in the North-West Frontier knew he was going in. What would I do if someone killed him?”

“I can see your point,” I said. “But I think you’ve asked me here because a deeply unhappy Charlie Wilson has more potential for trouble for you than a freshly martyred one.”

Akhtar smiled weakly, seeing that I understood his problem. “Exactly,” he said. “And the president has also heard of this. So what do we do?”

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