Chautauqua Journal: Day Two—Monday

Chautauqua Journal: Day Two—Monday

For me, at least, the hardest part about spending a day of vacation at the Chautauqua Institution is deciding what I simply don’t have time for. The events in the Amphitheater—the morning lecture and evening entertainment—are carved out, and very little competes against it. Most people make it a point not to miss either (particularly since their gate passes entitle them to attend these).

But many people don’t take advantage of courses offered in the Special Studies program. I’m not sure if it’s because these involve additional fees or simply because they’re not better promoted, but they’re a fascinating variety of items, for all different kinds of tastes: recreation (swimming), hobbies (bridge for beginners), personal finance, music—you name it.

And so, early this morning, as I stood at the Main Gate to sign up for classes, I wearily considered my options. I was pretty sure, unless I was closed out, that I would take morning classes on the American intelligence system offered in conjunction with Chautauqua’s program partner for the week, the International Spy Museum. After that, the choices became far tougher.

I thought for awhile about a short story class, but some of the authors for the week (e.g., Mary Gaitskill, Ethan Canin) didn’t especially interest me. A more serious contender was an early afternoon class on sonnets. But then I ran smack dab into one of the quandaries Chautauqua puts in the way of the curious: there were competing simultaneous events—lectures by spiritual authors, or bestselling writers (Erik Larson).

I also thought fleetingly aboutclasses on codebreaking and on identifying different plants and trees (an increasing interest of mine as I post more nature pictures on this blog).

Then, finally, I bowed to the inevitable: It wasn’t only a matter of being unable to be in two places at once, or even of spending even more money than intended on classes. I simply needed time to breathe—to write, and even to take advantage of a simple architectural device everywhere in this Victorian Era village but increasingly missing elsewhere in America: the front porch, a place where you can see and chat. Even now, in the age of digital communications, Chautauquans give all signs of wanting to slow the pace of life down. A good thing, too—how else would you learn to appreciate the gardens everywhere you turn here if you didn’t take the time to stop and look?

Masters at Telling Spy Stories

If Chautauqua hoped to kick this week off with a bang, it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams this morning. Both the morning class I signed up for, “Master Class: Espionage 101: Five Days of Spy,” and the 10:45 a.m. lecture at the Amphitheatre featured vivid stories galore.

I’ll admit to some trepidation about the “Master Class.” I could manage the 8:30 starting time all right in terms of waking up. It just seemed like a lot to rush over from breakfast and anything else you needed to do in the morning that early, then hope that the two hours for the class wouldn’t be too excessive.

As it happened, that starting time proved providential. Temperatures today were forecast to hit 87 degrees, and the humidity seemed to be matching it. Better to start the class that early than later, when the heat and humidity would become unbearable.

In the six or seven years I’ve visited Chautauqua, this morning’s “Master Class” might have been the most heavily attended Special Studies class I’ve ever taken. The coursebook indicated that the maximum enrollment was 200, and my best guess, in looking around the Hurlbut Church Sanctuary, the site of the class, was that we were approaching this.

This morning’s class was taught by Tony and Jonna Mendez, a married couple who, a decade apart, served as CIA Chiefs of Disguise. Now both retired, they can speak with more candor than before (though still not entirely unrestricted) about their work. The CIA’s Office of Technical Services, at least as the two described it, could easily rival the executive devices given to James Bond by British’s “Q.”

(In fact, Tony Mendez’s involvement in rescuing six U.S. diplomats from Iran at the height of the 1979-81 hostage crisis has now led Hollywood to his doorstep. George Clooney and Ben Affleck are producing the film, with Affleck starring as Mendez.)

Among the hairy (sometimes literally) stories told by the Mendezes:

• “Lipstick guns” were invented for female agents in a jam. They only had one bullet and you had to get up close to use it, but they still worked in a pinch;
• The technology used for today’s hearing aids was developed to set up bugging devices.
• Miniature cameras were invented to conceal special technology needed to take pictures.
• In a special spy-catching exercise in which the Mendezes were involved, they were able to take advantage of the old-school, male orientation of the FBI to deceive the latter agency.
• At the time of the daring rescue of the American diplomat-hostages, the CIA was trying to recover from its own major intelligence failure. The agency totally underestimated popular support for the Ayatollah Khomeini, believing that the Shah of Iran would remain in power for another 25 years.
• In creating disguises, it’s easier for a woman to pass as a man than visa versa.
* Simple wigs can be quite effective. (Put a wig on a bald man and not even his wife would notice the difference, Jonna quipped.
• At one point, fearing that the Soviets might get there first, the CIA conducted experiments in parapsychology. Most such attempts ended badly, but at least a few such events demonstrated surprising success.

Almost immediately after the end of that class, Peter Earnest, executive director of the International Spy Museum, put the upcoming week’s events in an historical perspective. Intelligence, he noted, “began in a tall tree, probably somewhere in Mesopotamia,” as one neighbor plotted how to get another’s nuts and berries. (To destroy the neighbor’s nuts and berries, he chuckled, was an early instance of covert action.)

Besides being considered the father of his country, he noted, George Washington is also thought of as the father of American intelligence. The Spy Museum has a copy of a letter in which the general commissioned an operative to set up a spy network in Tory-dominated New York City.

After briefly considering the use of intelligence in the Civil War and World War II, Earnest dealt with the lead-up to World War II. After the war, he noted, the United States discovered that the Soviet Union had, the decade before, recruited 500 agents for work in the U.S. (In fact, they had so many in Henry Morgenthau’s Treasury Department that the KBG sent a secret message not to send any more operatives, lest U.S. law enforcement grow suspicious.) The number of U.S. agents in Moscow at the time: zero.

Earnest also likened Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as “failures of imagination”—the inability of intelligence professionals as well as career politicians even to think of a nightmare scenario.

Two actions taken at the behest of the 9/11 Commission have produced mixed results till now, he observed: the office of Director of National Intelligence, he noted, was still “trying to find a role,” while things “hadn’t gone smoothly” with the Department of Homeland Security, either.

Theater Enrichment and Evening Entertainment

I won’t see the Chautauqua Theater Company’s version of Anton Chekhov’s tragicomedy Three Sisters until tomorrow night, but this afternoon I couldn’t resist the opportunity to hear the company’s backstage staff tell about their work. Listening to the organization’s “fellows” for scenic, lighting and costume design, it was clear to me that tomorrow night’s show will be extremely daring and avant-garde—not your parents’ tradition of the genteel Chekhov.

I wrapped matters up tonight by listening to the Music School’s Festival Orchestra concert in the amphitheater. Sandwiched between such traditional classical fare as Robert Schumann (Piano Concerto in A Minor) and Richard Wagner (e.g., “The Ride of the Valkyries”) was John Adams’ The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra.).Perhaps it was simply a function of prolonged exposure to this week’s theme, but it struck me in listening to the Adams music that it could have easily served as an excellent film thriller about China, if Alfred Hitchcock were still alive to make it.

(I did miss one entertainment event: a concert at Lenna Hall late this afternoon. As you can see from the accompanying image, my chances of landing seats were slim to none.)