A Bad Day In East Berlin

Note: So many people have asked for a more detailed story about this incident that I guess I better get around to writing about it. Be advised that most of the names are pen-names or pseudonyms – some of the people are, or may be, still alive at the time I am posting this

August 1973:

As I have written in “Just Another Day At The Office...”, during the course of an investigation, we had convinced an East German agent who had been spying on the U. S. Air Force in his capacity as Head Bartender at the Wisbaden Air Base to become a “double agent” – to work for the West while still pretending to spy on us. “Heinrich” and I spent a lot of time together in the interrogation room and developed something of a rapport, if not a friendship. After his decision to affectively switch sides in the Cold War, he was handled by people within the American CIA and the West German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA).

Eventually Heinrich was recalled to East Berlin and was promoted within the Stasi (the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit or Ministry For State Security). He continued to send out information to his CIA & BKA handlers.

Intercepted communications within the East German intelligence agencies indicated that people within the Stasi were beginning to distrust Heinrich and were compiling evidence to arrest him for spying for the West. A decision was made to get him out before he was arrested. Heinrich, being naturally and logically paranoid, did not trust just everybody and would only “come out” if personally contacted by someone he knew wasn’t Stasi. I stupidly volunteered to be that person.

Armed with a very authentic-looking Austrian passport identifying me as a businessman from Salzberg, Austria who worked for a toy company (which fit my Southern German accent), I crossed the border between Austria and Yugoslavia and traveled through the various Warsaw Pact countries on a “business trip” until I got to East Berlin. I made contact with Heinrich and we started to a “safe house” that I had been briefed on where he would be smuggled out of the city and into West Berlin. (The original plan had me finishing my business trip and returning through Yugoslavia and Austria.)

Heinrich realized that we were being followed so we decided to split up a few city blocks before our destination. For whatever reason, the man following us decided to stick with me. I looked for a place to shake him, but made a mistake and entered a dead end street.

He called on me to stop and I did, turning to face him. He was pointing his gun at me (a Makarov pistol) so I put my hands up. I figured the worst possible situation would be that he would take me in, I would be interrogated and then held to be exchanged for some East German agent who had been captured by the West – which was normal practice in those Cold War days of the early 1970’s.

Some psychic sense, however, told me that he was not going to arrest me - he was going to shoot me. I did my best impersonation of a creature than has no internal skeleton and collapsed. His bullet, which was intended for my left chest, gouged across the top of my left shoulder. It felt like an incredibly strong man had hit me in the shoulder with all their strength. On the way to the ground, I got my own gun out and shot him twice.

We both laid there for a moment. I got up, went over to him and found that he was dead. I quickly searched his pockets and took his wallet and his Makarov. I somehow got the few city blocks to the safe house and passed out shortly after entering. The people there gave me emergency medical treatment and smuggled me into West Berlin the next day (I remember nothing about it. I remember collapsing in the hallway of the safe house and my next memory was waking up in a hospital in West Berlin).

Heinrich was given a completely new identity and eventually ended up in Waco, Texas where he taught German at Baylor University. We met once, years later, and had more than a few beers in celebration.

In my 27 years in Army Intelligence/Counter-intelligence I only had one or two scary experiences like this - most of the time it was pretty dull, hum-drum work. I wish it had all been dull, hum-drum work.

"We few, we happy few…"

Someone once asked me this question "What was the coolest military unit of all time?"

And his question got me thinking....

Okay, I am prejudiced - extremely prejudiced.

The 407th Radio Research Detachment, U. S. Army Security Agency (1968–1972).

We provided signal and communications intelligence to the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) and were home based out of Quang Tri, Vietnam with small detachments of various fire bases along the North Vietnamese-South Vietnamese border. One in particular, Firebase A-4, was within 2 kilometers of North Vietnam.

Imagine an Army unit of approximately 50 enlisted men and 4 officers who all had “genius” level IQ’s - even the mechanics who maintained our vehicles. (The military at that time gave new soldiers a series of tests called the ASVAB, one of which [the GT] was pretty much an IQ test with a maximum possible score of 160 points - and 10 of the 50 who were enlisted men in the unit with me [1970–1971] had scored 160 on that test!). Survivors of the unit became college professors, published authors, lawyers, one eventually became a top plastic surgeon and one (me) became a jazz singer.

To paraphrase an old line from President Kennedy, it was one of the greatest assemblies of brain power in one place since President Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

Though it was not in the normal order of things, members of the unit saw more than their share of direct combat and firefights, but more importantly we, through our efforts collecting, analyzing and reporting intelligence, were responsible for a lot of American soldiers returning to the U.S. alive at their end of their tours.

How young we were then...

Not so young anymore - but we can still kick ass if needed.

My Band of Brothers.

My Friend, Anna

New York City, 1961-

I was 9 years old and was in New York City with my mother as my chaperone in rehearsal for “Sail Away” where I played one of the annoying kids on the cruise ship Carolonia who were giving ship’s activities director, Mimi Paragon (Elaine Stritch) a hard time in “The Little One’s ABC’s”. I had a night off and we managed to get tickets for “The Miracle Worker” with Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft which was at the Playhouse Theater.  I remember sitting there, mesmerized watching Patty on stage. We met briefly after the performance at the stage door, a 9 year old actor and a 13 year old actress.

1990 –

My cousin, Russell “Rusty” Hamer, former child star of “Make Room For Daddy” committed suicide and Paul Petersen, himself a child TV star from “The Donna Reed Show”, started A Minor Consideration to try and reach out and help former child performers who were having issues dealing with adulthood.  I connected with the group and through it re-connected with Anna (Patty’s real name). She told me about seeing me in “Sail Away” after we opened and about seeing me in “Oliver!” in 1963, having a crush on Davy Jones, who was playing The Artful Dodger (Davy, as almost everyone knows, went on to be one of TV’s The Monkees).  I was finishing up my 27 year Army career and she had married Michael Pearce who had been an Army sergeant when they met. We kept in touch with letters and e-mails and would occasionally cross paths. She was always very kind, nice, and had quite a sense of humor.

When my fiancee died in an accident in January of 2015, Anna was one of the first to reach out to me and help me get through that emotionally devastating time.

The last time I heard from her directly was in February 2016 and, even though she was not well, almost everything in her e-mail was “how are you doing?” and concern about me.

That’s the Anna I will always remember, giving freely of herself and asking little in return.

Anna "Patty Duke" Pearce, my friend 1946-2016. R.I.P.

Americhristianity is NOT Christianity

A response to the question: "Can you have left wing ideas but still have Christian views and beliefs?"

The fact that I am a follower of the teachings of Jesus and have been for over 50 years is WHY I have "left wing ideas".

The fact that I am a Christian is WHY I have worked for, and continue to work for, civil rights and human rights for every person, male or female, White or Black or Hispanic or Asian or Native American - even those who were not lucky enough to be born in one of the 50 United States.

I was raised in what is known as the "Social Gospel" - the Christian faith practiced as a call not just to personal conversion but to social reform. We Christians do our best to apply Jesus' teachings from the Four Gospels to social problems such as poverty, slums, poor nutrition and education, alcoholism, crime, and war.

We Christians do not follow the religion of Americhristianity that many follow but claim it to be Christianity - as a friend, Christian minister John Pavlovitz,  describes it,

Americhristianity is a Frankensteined faith made of rabid nationalism, political posturing, and fearful self-preservation. Our Jesus; (the one from the Gospels that we Christians follow) really doesn’t fit into Americhristianity. He’s too soft, too tolerant, too vulnerable. He’s not brash enough, his foreign policy not tough enough. Americhristianity retains only the smallest sliver of Christ; conveniently just enough to get people saved or send them to Hell. 

Outside of that, Americhristianity is purely Stars and Stripes and American Dreams, all wrapped around a cross. 

Americhristians are perfectly content to demand revenge when they get hurt, perfectly content to live fat and happy surrounded by poverty, and perfectly content to pick fights whenever they are confronted - confident that Jesus approves of all of it. Americhristians are not sinister in this, just oblivious. 

They have been led to believe that Americhristianity is the real Christianity - and that the Christianity of those of us who try to follow Jesus' teachings is heresy, un-Godly, apostate, liberalism and vaguely  Socialism- maybe even Communism.

God loves drunks and fools

Originally published January 23, 2016 in response to a Question - 

"What's the best thing you've done while drunk?"

September 1970 Fire Support Base Fuller, Dong Ha Mountain, Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam -

I was one of 12 American soldiers on a fire base on top of a mountain in South Vietnam. With us were approximately 600 South Vietnamese soldiers. One of their officers, a Captain Nguyen, had gotten an undergraduate degree at Stanford in California and spoke almost perfect American English. We got to be pretty friendly.

For almost 3 weeks I had received no mail or any word from my parents or my fiancee. During a time when I was off-shift and really depressed, I opened a brand new bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey and proceeded to drink. About the time I had drunk approximately 2/3 of the bottle, the North Vietnamese started hitting us with mortars and rockets. The last thing I consciously remember was seeing Captain Nguyen get hit.

(Everything afterwards, in italics, was described to me later, after I sobered up).

I put down the bottle of Jack Daniels, walked across the compound to Captain Nguyen, picked him up, walked back across the compound to our bunker, administered first aid and called a Medivac helicopter. When the helicopter arrives, I picked up Captain Nguyen, carried him out to the helicopter, put him on the helicopter and then stood there, waving "good-bye" as it took off. The I went back to the bunker to finish the bottle. During this whole time, mortar and rocket rounds were landing all around me but for some unknown reason, I didn't get a scratch.

Without my knowledge, the other Americans and the other South Vietnamese officers sent detailed reports of what I did to their respective higher headquarters.

When I returned to our main base in Quang Tri several weeks later, there was a reception party of South Vietnamese officers waiting for me and I was presented with the South Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry Medal.

Several weeks after that I was presented with my first Bronze Star Medal.

Captain Nguyen survived his wounds but was killed several months later in a firefight between his men and a North Vietnamese Army unit.

By the way, it turned out that the reason I had not gotten any mail for the 3 weeks was that all the letters had accidentally been sent to the wrong unit. When everything got straightened out, I got about 20 letters all at one time.

I have often maintained that, if I had been sober and less depressed, I probably wouldn't have done what I did.

The Schnozzola - Jimmy Durante

The years was 1967.

I was opening at Palumbo’s nightclub in my hometown of Philadelphia, PA for a comedian named Jack E. Leonard. Being much too young to be working legally in nightclubs (I was 15 years old), I was working with fake ID under the stage name “Dick Hamer”. Two shows a night – at 8:00 PM I would come out , do approximately 20 minutes of songs, introduce Jack E. and then go sit at a table in the kitchen and do my high school home work. I went on again at 10:00 PM, did my 20 minutes, introduced Jack E. and then left by the backdoor and took the subway home. Dad was going to school at night to finally get his college degree and my brother was in college as well, so my paychecks were an important piece of the family budget. It didn’t matter much to me – for I loved performing and dreamed of the day when I would move up from opening act to headliner.

It was an Saturday night, the last night of the engagement, when I noticed at the back of the room during the second show a face that I had seen often on TV. It was probably the most famous nose of the day – Jimmy Durante.

I don’t know if it was his presence or what, but I gave one of my best shows that night. Since I didn’t have school the next day, I stayed through Jack E’s show and when it was over, with the blind courage of youth, I walked up to Jimmy and introduced myself. He shook my hand and, before releasing it, he asked, “What are you doing next week?” I told him I didn’t have anything planned and he said, “Well, I’m opening here Monday night for the week. Are you available?” I was speechless – and when he told me how much I would get paid (almost twice what I had been getting), I could barely stammer out, “Yes”.

My last class on Monday ended at 2:30 and I raced home, changed into my working clothes (I was probably the only kid in my neighborhood to own his own tuxedo), grabbed my music and headed to Palumbo’s for rehearsal. Jimmy put a special bit for me in his act, so in addition to my 20 minutes, I would stay on stage after I introduced him and we would do a duet on Cole Porter’s “Friendship”. He would then give me a big hug and I would head to the kitchen to do my homework. At the late show, after our song, he would give me that big hug and whisper in my ear, “Go home, it’s late and you’ve got school tomorrow”.

The week ended, with great audiences every night. After the last show, Jimmy told me, “How would you like to work with me the next time I’m in town, Dick?” Of course, I said “Yes”. And for the next two years, whenever Jimmy worked at any of the clubs in Philadelphia, or at the Latin Casino across the river in New Jersey or at Steel Pier in Atlantic City, I opened for him. The paychecks got bigger and I went from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. Between shows we would sit and talk. He would critique my act, giving praise where he thought I deserved it and constructive criticism as well. And every night, after we sang our duet, there would be that big hug and some whispered encouragement in my ear. And even though I had abandoned the stage name of “Dick Hamer” and was using my real name, Jimmy always called me “Dick”. I really hated that nickname but Jimmy was special and I never corrected him.

In the spring of 1969, knowing that I might get drafted any day, I decided to get some choice in what Army job I would do, so I enlisted. I was to report on April 4 for basic training. On April 2, Jimmy called me on the phone to see if I would be available to open for him at The Frontier Casino in Las Vegas in May and, for the first time, I had to say “No” to Jimmy. He understood and asked how long I had enlisted for. I told him 4 years and he said, “Well, Dick, how’s about opening for me then? We’ll make a date for summer of 1973 – Vegas.” Naturally I said, “Yes”.

That Christmas while at the Defense Language Institute in Monterrey, CA I got a beautiful card from Jimmy and his wife Margie and another in 1970 while I was in Vietnam. I finished my tour in Vietnam in May of 1971, got married and left for Germany and there were cards on my birthday and at Christmas. Christmas of 1971 there was another card and tucked inside, as in the previous Christmas cards, was a note “Don’t forget – you and me in Vegas in ’73. Love, Jimmy”.

Jimmy had a stroke that next year, 1972, which confined him to a wheelchair and we never did get that chance to play Vegas together. We kept in touch with letters and cards and I re-enlisted in the Army, eventually serving for 27 years. Jimmy passed away on January 29, 1980. I sometimes wonder how different my life might have turned out to be if he hadn’t had that stroke, I hadn’t stayed in the Army and we had played Las Vegas together that year.

He was a one-of-a-kind man and we will never see his like again. I found this YouTube clip from a TV special he did in 1972 – it’s probably one of the last things he did before his stroke.

Be awful nice to 'em goin' up, because you're gonna meet 'em all comin' down.

- James Francis Durante 1893 -1980

Good night, Jimmy old friend - and good night, Mrs. Calabash, where ever you are...

A Chorus Boy With 3 Left Feet

New York City, New York 1967 - 

I was hanging on by my fingernails, living in New York City’s Greenwich Village, auditioning for plays and musicals and singing in small clubs at night to pay the rent as well as sending money home to my parents back in Philadelphia when I saw an ad in Backstage, the paper which in those days was sort of a low rent version of Variety. It was an announcement of open auditions (what is known in the industry as a “cattle call”) for a new musical called “Henry, Sweet Henry”. The music was being written by Bob Merrill, who had also written the musical for the latest flop I had been in – a musical version of “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” starring Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain and which closed after 4 previews, never officially opening. Not everything Bob Merrill had done was a flop or failure – he had written several successful musicals including “Carnival” and also collaborated with Jule Styne on “Funny Girl”.

The day of the “cattle call” dawned and I went to the theater - to find a line of auditioning actors 5 city blocks long. At the theater end of the line, I handed a note to the young assistant and asked him to give it to Mr. Merrill, and then walked the 5 city blocks to the end of the line. The note simply said that I was in the line and hoped to get a chance to work with him again. After being in line just a few minutes, the young guy I had given the note to ran up, told me to come with him and headed back to the theater. I walked past the 5 city block long line of actors, getting more than a few evil looks. Going inside, I was led right to the stage and a voice from the dark said, “Rich, how are you? What have you been doing since ‘Tiffany’s’?” It was Bob. I briefly described my club work and he said, “First rehearsal is Tuesday. You’re in the chorus” – and that was my audition. (I always felt I got the job as a kindness since I had been a survivor of “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”. Bob was notoriously loyal to people who had worked for or with him in the past.)

First rehearsal is what is known as a “table read”. The entire cast sits around a large group of tables and reads through the script aloud. The songwriter plays the songs he or she has written and you get introduced to all the other people. Being that the world of performing arts is a small one, almost everyone in the room knew everyone else, either personally, casually, or by reputation.

First dance rehearsal was, for me, a disaster. I was born with (figuratively) three left feet and the choreographer, Michael Bennett (who would become famous later for “A Chorus Line”), was doing his first show as a choreographer. He demanded I be fired after seeing me “dance”. Bob Merrill, bless him, insisted he needed my singing voice so the result was that every big production number I was in, I was as close as possible to the back wall of the stage so the audience couldn’t see my feet.

We opened on October 3, 1967 and closed 80 performances later on New Year’s Eve, so I guess that qualifies it as a “flop”. A few good things came of it: I got to renew my working acquaintance with Alice Playten who had been with me in “Oliver!” in 1963 and who won the Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Henry Sweet Henry”; I had a brief but intense relationship with another chorus member, Pia Zadora; Louise Lasser who had a small role in the show was married to Woody Allen at the time and I got to meet him and another chorus member, Priscilla Lopez, helped tip me off to a musical the following year “Her First Roman” which turned out to be my last show on Broadway. 

The worst things about “Henry Sweet Henry”: I was the only straight guy in the chorus (that I am aware of), and many of my fellow male chorus members died in the AIDS epidemic of the 1980's and Bob Merrill, who had suffered from depression much of his life, committed suicide in 1998.

Number One! - From A Bullet!

West Germany 1973 – 
 
An American Army Captain was literally snatched off the street in a section of Munich, Germany by armed men, thrown into a car and was driven away. My team (See - Six Random Guys Thrown Together For A Job) was called in to join numerous other agents and law enforcement personnel to investigate and to find and rescue the officer. 
 
Digging into the circumstances of the abduction, it was determined that it was a case of mistaken identity. He was a Finance Officer on his way to visit another Army officer for dinner and was grabbed just outside the officer’s apartment. His host was part of an anti-aircraft missile unit with access to classified information about various missiles being used in West Germany and was the likely target. However, they were both close to the same age, were the same height, weight, build and hair color and each of them would have matched the same written description.
 
There were probably 100 or more people investigating the abduction, questioning confidential informants, running down leads and rumors, etc. A picture evolved that indicated the abductors were Bulgarian agents who were new to the Munich area and, in the normally heavy-handed Bulgarian way, thought they could pry classified anti-aircraft missile information out of this missile officer. In the process, they got the wrong man, who could tell them little or nothing about missiles, but probably a lot about the mysteries of U. S. Army finance.
 
An anonymous tip was received that they were holding the American officer in a house in the suburbs of Munich and we were assigned to check it out. After keeping the house under surveillance for some time, it was clear that something odd was going on there, and we got permission (and the assistance of a number of West German policemen with a search warrant) to go in. The house was surrounded, Dieter and a policeman broke down the door and we entered. Shots were fired and, in the ensuing melee, I got hit in the left thigh with the bullet going completely through the fleshy part of my leg. The American Army officer was rescued, a little the worse for wear, two Bulgarians were killed at the scene and three others arrested. Kurt, who had shot and killed the Bulgarian who had shot me, gave me first aid until the ambulance arrived and I was taken to the hospital. I was released the next day.
 
About a week later, we got a visit at our office from the Deputy Commander, U. S. Armed Forces Europe and one of the Assistant Directors of the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA). We were all given awards and citations for the rescue, including, in my case, my first Meritorious Service Medal. I remember the American General saying that I should be getting a Purple Heart Medal but since I had been shot in Germany and not in Vietnam, they couldn’t authorize one. The actual public written citation for the Medal was written in such a way that was so ambiguous you really couldn’t figure out why I got the Medal – typical behavior for when you were in the Cloak-And-Dagger world of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence. As typical of that time, very little real information got into the media (I believe the German media reported the whole thing as German police arresting bank robbers or something similar). After over 40 years, I don’t think I’ll get in trouble for talking about it now – even though some of it might still be classified information.

Just Another Day At The Office...

How un-dramatic counter-intelligence could be…

On American military bases outside the United States, almost all maintenance is performed by local contractors. So if you’re having trouble with the plumbing in your quarters, the contractor who comes to fix it will most likely be a German plumber. They are vetted, of course, but sometimes someone will slip through the cracks.

In Augsburg, Germany in early 1972, a newly arrived American service man and his family moved into government quarters. When he flipped the switch for the ceiling light in the master bedroom, nothing happened. Being an amateur electrician, he climbed up to check the light fixture – and found a poorly installed listening device that was accidentally preventing the ceiling light from working. He quietly left the room (and the apartment) and notified counter-intelligence.

My team was assigned to investigate. The device was designed to record for a period of time and then would download what it had recorded when activated by someone pointing a shotgun mike at the bedroom window. We established surveillance around the building and, sure enough, someone pulled up in a car, pointed a shotgun mike at the building, and then departed. Johann and John tailed him to a “dead drop” (a place where you would leave something for another agent to pick it up without making personal contact) where he left the recording tape. We kept that spot under surveillance and an hour later a little old German lady came and retrieved the recording. Kurt and I followed her to a bakery where she passed the recording to the man working the counter. He left in his bakery truck and made a delivery to the kitchen of the American Army Officer’s Club, passing the recording on to a man who worked in the kitchen. He, in turn, drove to the Wisbaden American Air Force base after his shift was over and passed the recording on to the head bartender at the Officer’s Club there. It was then that we decided to make an arrest.

Under interrogation, we found that the bartender was actually an East German agent (being the head bartender at that Officer’s Club helped him hear a lot of important things to pass on to his superiors in East Berlin). He had already become very disenchanted with his job, his bosses and the East German government and we were able to convince him to work for us as a double agent. The people in his spy ring didn’t know he had effectively switched sides, so everything they passed on to him, we got to see first and then he passed our edited version on to his superiors in East Berlin.

A lot of following people and surveillance, a bit of selling an idea to someone who was already partially sold anyway and not one punch thrown, not one shot fired, not even one pistol drawn out of it’s holster.
 
Definitely not a good plot-line for a dramatic spy caper movie or TV show – but, frankly, one of the more common cases my team and I worked on over a 16 year period.

Six Random Guys Thrown Together For A Job

I returned from Vietnam on May 4, 1971 and got married to the girl I had proposed to before I had left for Vietnam on May 23rd. we had an all too short honeymoon and I flew (alone) to Munich, Germany the last week of June. She joined me several weeks later.

After going through the usual in-processing that every military person goes through when they arrive at a new station, I was shown to the office I would be working out of as a counter-intelligence agent. (For those who may not know what that means, it means that my job and the job of my team was to identify and arrest people who were spying on the U. S. military and the West German military in what was then West Germany.)

The five men I met that day worked with me for the next 16 years and became my five “brothers” - closer than the one biological brother I have. There were two other Americans – Platt and John and three GermanBundeskriminalamt agents (the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA being the West German equivalent of the U.S. FBI) - Kurt, Dieter and Johann. Though I am sure it wasn’t planned that way, each had certain skills that set them apart from the others.

Platt (“The Cunning Linguist”) was a genius at languages. According to various tests given him at the Defense Language Institute in Monterrey, CA, Platt was considered fluent in 16 different languages in addition to his native English. Platt and I knew each other from our Vietnam service. Platt, however, had some deficiencies as well. He had terrible eyesight, was very absent-minded and was such a bad shot that we tried never to take him into the field unless it was absolutely necessary.

John was a cracks-man. There weren’t very many locks, safes, etc. that he couldn’t open, given time. His dad was a locksmith and John used to help out around his father’s store.

Dieter was the kind of guy who could take down the average wooden door with one “hit” from his shoulder. He was a gym rat and a weight lifter and had a slight resemblance to Arnold Schwartzenegger but spoke much better English.

Johann could have easily been a Grand Prix race car driver. There would be many times in the days to come where his skills behind the wheel helped the team immensely. Besides his general driving skills, he was also amazing in his ability to tail someone in another vehicle without arousing their suspicions, even in downtown traffic.

Kurt and I were the two generalists. We always seemed to be second (or third) best at everything but we had a wide range of skills. I was a better pistol shot, he was a better rifleman, I was a slightly better interrogator and he was a little bit better than I in finding the one thing in a document or a surveillance report that gave us the needed answer. (By the time Kurt retired, he had made it up the ladder all the way to Deputy Director of the BKA.)

All 6 of us spoke English and German equally well, though Kurt had an English accent when he spoke English, having spent many summers while he was growing up visiting relatives in Lincolnshire, England and I had acquired a Bavarian accent from my German teachers in high school in Philadelphia and my acting mentor, Kurt Kasznar, who was originally from Austria.

As I have written, over the next 16 years we 6 men became extremely close. We had some successes, survived some hair-raising moments together, socialized together, our wives and kids became friends with the other 5 guys’ wives and kids (I am the godfather to two of Dieter’s children).

Within the limits of my memory and of what I know to be still be classified and what is no longer classified, at the request of a dear friend who is also a Quora contributor, I’ll try to tell about a few of our “adventures” in the world of Cold War espionage and counter-espionage, terrorism and anti-terrorism in future blog entries.

As they used to say in the movie serials/cliffhangers –

TO BE CONTINUED… 

"No Dogs Or Actors Allowed"

It may be difficult for some to understand today, but there was a time in the United States when some people looked upon entertainers as being one step lower than prostitutes.

In 1963, when I was 13 years old, I was with my maternal grandmother buying groceries at a local store and a woman came up to me, wanting to complement me on a guest appearance I had made on a local TV show a week before. My grandmother angrily said to her, “There’s some lower class boy who unfortunately looks like my grandson appearing on television. No one in our family would lower themselves to be in show business”.  What could I, a 13 year old kid, do then but say nothing? Contradict my own grandmother in public?

Ironically, the money we were using to buy the groceries was from my paycheck for being in “Oliver!” on Broadway at that time (under yet another stage name).

My salary from the 7 Broadway shows I was in between 1960 and 1969, the nightclub and supper club gigs and the local TV work I did in Philadelphia during that same time period paid the mortgage, put food on the table and enabled my older brother and my father to go to college (and my father to seminary). But due to my grandmother's rigid thinking and her constant "What will people think?" attitude, I had to pretend when I was home or at school or hanging out in the neighborhood that I wasn't an entertainer and whenever I was in a stage show or on TV or singing in a nightclub or supper club, I had to use a different stage name so people wouldn't make the connection and "bring shame on my family".

A Loss That Still Brings Me Pain

When I was growing up, I was told that my maternal grandfather, Courtland Hamer, and my Great Aunt, Ruth Hamer Mayall, had a brother, Russell Hamer, who died in the Spanish flu pandemic that hit the United States in 1918. My grandfather died before I was born and my great aunt and I were very close until her death in 1984. When we were cleaning her house after her death, I stumbled upon a collection of letters from her correspondence with her brother Russell and found that he had not died as I had been told. Instead, he had become an actor and to avoid the “shame” on the family of his being an actor, the family had declared him “dead” and had even put a fake death notice in the Philadelphia, PA newspapers.

After doing a lot of digging, I was able to learn that my great uncle had a grandson, Russell Craig Hamer, who became known to film and television watchers as “Rusty” Hamer. Rusty was best known for playing Danny Thomas’ son on “Make Room For Daddy”, “The Danny Thomas Show” and “Make Room For Granddaddy”. 

(This also explained, in some way, why my maternal grandmother would not allow my brother and I to watch “Make Room For Daddy” when we were children – and why she demanded that every acting job I did from 1960 to 1969, I had to do under different stage names, still believing that if it were known that I was an actor, it would somehow bring “shame” on our family.)

I never was able to connect with him, except for a few letters, because I was serving in the U.S. Army in Europe during the next 6 years. 

With no skills or training other than being an actor, and few roles because most fans would not accept him as anything other than Danny Thomas’ TV “son”, Rusty committed suicide on January 18, 1990. 

His suicide raised awareness of the potential mental fragility of child performers and inspired fellow former child actor Paul Peterson II, formerly of ABC's The Donna Reed Show, to establish the support group A Minor Consideration. The group seeks to improve working conditions for young actors and assists former child entertainers in making the transition from past fame to adult life.

Rusty - I so wish I had really gotten the chance to know you all the years we were growing up. You were only a year older than my brother and only 4 years older than me. We could have been friends.

http://aminorconsideration.org/

The Story Of An Entertainer's Place In Life?

Originally published September 9, 2015:

The usual line of souls was waiting to enter Heaven.

The first soul was asked by the angel, “What did you do on Earth?”

“I was a lawyer.”

“Hmm - a lawyer, eh. I don’t know.” The angel examined the great book of records and said, “Well, you were a public defender and often performed legal services at no cost to the poor. You may enter Heaven.”

There was a blast of trumpets, the Pearly Gates opened and the lawyer entered Heaven.

The next soul was asked by the angel, “What did you do on Earth?”

“I was a Congressman.”

“Hmm - a Congressman, eh. I don’t know.” The angel examined the great book of records and said, “Well, you were a supporter of the rights of women and gays. You voted in favor of many laws on civil rights. You may enter Heaven.”

There was a blast of trumpets, the Pearly Gates opened and the Congressman entered Heaven.

The next soul was asked by the angel, “What did you do on Earth?”

“I was a composer of both religious and popular music. I received many awards for my music and my recordings. I was given the Kennedy Center Honors and the Medal of Freedom. My name is Edward Kennedy Ellington, but most people called me ‘Duke’ Ellington.”

“A musician, eh? The service entrance through the kitchen is over there. Once you get inside, remember – you can’t use any of the facilities and don’t speak to any of the angels in Heaven unless you’re asked to perform for them. When you’re done performing - go back to your room in the servant’s quarters.”

"Wake up - and sing something!"

Originally published September 9, 2015:

I don’t remember where I saw it first, but someone once wrote, “Every joke has a kernel of truth in it, or we wouldn’t tell it”.
 
The Joke: 

One summer evening, a woman was walking through an area of New Orleans with many clubs. Because it was a hot night, many of the places had doors and windows open and you could hear the music as you walked down the street. 

As she passed one particular club, she heard a man singing with the band. His voice was beautiful - and even a bit sexually stimulating. She went inside, and there on the bandstand singing was the ugliest man she had ever seen. His voice was so compelling, so warm and sexy, however, that she decided to stay, getting a seat facing away from the band so that she could hear him sing but wouldn’t have to look at him. She had drink after drink, listening to him sing until she passed out. 

She woke up hours later, to find herself in a bed, lying next to the ugly male singer from the club who was asleep and slightly snoring. On the table next to the bed was a marriage license with her name and his on it. What was she to do? She thought a minute, shook him on the shoulder and said, “Wake up, creep – and sing something!”
 
Some days I feel like the male singer in the joke.

"What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up, Kid?"

When I was very young, 8 years old to be exact, my mother and I would spend part of the week in New York City where I was doing 4 performances each week in “The Sound Of Music” and the rest of the week in our home in Philadelphia, PA. It was a slightly weird and crazy time but I loved every minute. The weekly trip to New York City saved me from the Philadelphia streets.

As I spent more and more time around actors and musicians, I decided that my answer to the infamous question, “What do you want to be when you grow up, kid?” was that I was going to become the next multi-talent who would rule the world of entertainment. I would be an actor, a director, a playwright, and a songwriter, both music and lyrics.

My next acting job came a year later when I was cast in “Sail Away”, a musical starring Elaine Stritch. By that time I was 9 years old and a “seasoned Broadway veteran” (Ha-Ha!). The great Noel Coward not only wrote the script, he wrote the words and the music to all the songs and he directed it. Luckily for me, when I first met Mr. Coward, I was so young and knew so little about theater that I really had no idea who he was, or I would have been scared to death at my audition..

We rehearsed in New York City for some weeks and then we took the show on the road. As our time in rehearsal and on the road progressed, the show changed, Elaine’s role got bigger and more important, new songs were added, old songs removed, dialogue changed - it was exhilarating and exciting and a little frightening to be a part of a brand new show.

Everybody loved my mother – mainly because she didn’t have one ounce of “stage mother” in her. She got me there on time, she helped me learn the few spoken lines I had and she never once complained that her son wasn’t getting enough limelight. She would sit quietly in the back of the rehearsal room or in the back of the theater knitting (her favorite pastime). The day she gave Mr. Coward the sweater she had been knitting for him (a total surprise for him), she became one of Noel’s favorite people and I did as well, by extension. (In later years, when I might accidentally run into him, his first words to me were almost always, “How is your lovely mother, dear boy?”)

I decided that Noel Coward, being an actor and a director and a playwright and a songwriter, would be the perfect person to help me achieve my dream. He gave me one of the songs he had written which had been replaced in the show while we were in Boston and told me to write a new lyric for it. I agonized over every word and every comma for two days and then gave it to him. He read what I had written and then sat down at the piano and played the song, singing it softly with my new lyrics.

When he had finished, Noel looked at me and said, very seriously in a man-to-man voice (and not a man-to-9-year-old-boy voice), “Dear boy, I think you better stick to acting and singing. You do them both well and I believe you will get better and better – but I am afraid you just weren’t there when the writing muse was handed out”. Tough words for a 9 year old to hear, but once the initial sting wore off, I realized he was right.

To this day, over 55 years later, I still wish I had been there “when the writing muse was handed out”. And I still envy people who write books or plays or lyrics or music. But I took Noel’s advice to heart and focused not on being the creator but on being the performer and interpreter of what others have written. And, at the risk of sounding a bit conceited, after all these years I think I’m finally getting pretty good at it.

Thank you, Noel -  you probably saved the ears of the world a lot of pain when you talked me out of writing songs...

Time heals damn slowly

Originally published on August 31, 2015:

They say that time heals but - next Thursday, September 3rd, 2015, will be 8 months to the day that my fiancee was killed. For some reason the past few days I find little things destroy me - a song, a picture, even the smell of certain foods cooking - and I find myself crying uncontrollably.

There have only been two human beings in my 64 years of life who have loved me unconditionally - my Mom and Cely.

Right now the years ahead look pretty barren (and based on family statistics and records I have quite a few barren years left ahead of me). My music keeps me going - but when the songs are done, everyone goes home to their spouse or their girlfriend or their boyfriend - and I go home to a cat and my housemate.

I am happy that so many people I know have life partners and families and career successes - but I confess that my happiness for them is tinged with traces of envy and a little jealousy.

Schadenfreude Versus Mitfreude

Most English-speaking people have heard the German word “Schadenfreude” and are somewhat familiar with it’s meaning - taking pleasure from someone else’s misfortune. It relates to the old joke about the difference between comedy and tragedy – 

Tragedy is when you fall through an open manhole cover into raw sewage.

Comedy is when you see someone else fall through an open manhole cover into raw sewage.

Lately, however, I have been thinking a lot about “Mitfreude” – taking pleasure from someone else’s good fortune and happiness. I know several people who have been struggling with addictions to drugs or alcohol (or both) who are now sober. When I hear of their latest “anniversary” of their sobriety, I feel joy and mitfreude, even though it really doesn’t affect me or my life personally. 

Another casual friend just got engaged to be married - and I had a period of mitfreude when I read the news on Facebook. 

A former student just announced on her Facebook page that she has been cast in a play which opens in London’s West End next month – and more mitfreude.

I have had a lot of pain in my life, especially in the past few years, so mixed with the mitfreude is a bit of envy and even jealousy. I wish that something would happen in my life to cause others mitfreude, but at least having mitfreude, even for a total stranger, is far better than having schadenfreude.

An Entry From Tamsin

Originally published August 27, 2015:

My human Daddy has gone to bed, so I thought I would take the opportunity to test out the “Meow-To-Text” software I installed on his computer. Since I have heard him say that he enjoys occasionally writing things for his “blog”, I decided to write something for it myself - in an attempt to upgrade the quality of it.

Since it seems to be traditional to “blog” (a strange human word, but one I am getting used to) about yourself, I should start be telling you about me - a fascinating subject in my opinion. My humans call me “Tamsin” (my cat name is very private and personal, and only known to a select few). My human Mommy, Meredith, was adopted by my brother and me when we were little. She called my brother “Pooka” and brought us all to live together on the top two floors of a three story house (what New Englander humans call a “triple decker”). It has been a good life for almost 14 years to date. Sadly, my brother, Pooka, and a little sister, Tika, have crossed the Rainbow Bridge and I am an only cat now.

I am a Maine Coon Cat - the most beautiful, regal and most wonderful breed of cat. I was blessed with a very attractive brown tabby coat, tufted ears and a magnificent fluffy tail. I do not say much, in part because I believe in speaking only when there is something really important to say and in part because, sadly, most humans (being of an inferior species) are not smart enough to understand cat.

My human Mommy programs computers and works from the house. She also makes beautiful jewelry from tiny beads. She has a human medical problem they call “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”, which means that she gets tired very easily. She had a big loss not long ago when her human Mommy crossed the human version of the Rainbow Bridge, which made her very, very sad. Because her Mommy lived far away in a place called “New York State” and my Mommy went to spend time with her before she crossed the Bridge, I had the house to myself for much too long, except for daily visits from a nice human who fed me and cleaned my litter box. I missed Mommy a lot while she was gone and I was so upset that I didn’t keep up my daily grooming routine and my coat became very messy. But now that she is back, I have gotten over the feeling that she had abandoned me. I know that she loves me very much.

Some time ago our family got bigger. An old friend of Mommy’s came to live with me and to help out around the house. I wasn’t sure of him at first, but he won me over and I have adopted him as my human Daddy. Daddy Richard feeds me, cleans my litter box (maybe not as often as I would like, but…), plays with me and we spend a lot of time together. He feeds Mommy too. I especially like his breakfasts, because he makes bacon and eggs for himself and Mommy and then lets me lick the plate before washing it. Daddy has a special talent - he seems to know instinctively where to scratch and tickle me. When he hits the right spot, I can’t stop myself from purring. He also makes pleasing noises with his voice – something humans call “singing”. Supposedly he’s pretty good at it. I can’t say, not being a human, but I know I like those noises he makes. He used to be something humans call a “soldier” but now he is retired.

Humans really aren’t that bad, once you get them properly trained. And I’ve done such a great job as a mouser that the little rodents have been so scared of me that I haven’t seen or smelled or heard one in quite a long time. (Drat! Chasing them was my favorite form of exercise!)

All in all, it’s a good life. I am a benevolent monarch and treat my subjects well.