On Oct. 31, 2014, Dennis got a call from Buck: “You speak Russian and you traveled several times to the Soviet Union. I was wondering if you were ever contacted by the FBI or the CIA or debriefed?”<\/p>\n
Dennis: “I should have been. The first time I went, it was Israel that sent me because of my knowledge of Hebrew and Russian. They debriefed me because I had met with so many Jewish dissidents.”<\/p>\n
“I went back again about ten years later. I had a very scary episode at the border leaving the Soviet Union going to Romania at midnight. I experienced terror. It was the only time in my life I experienced terror. I was sick for months. It did something to my immune system. It was a terrible hour. I was smuggling out Soviet dissident literature. It was in Russian so if it would have been caught, they would have understood it. I hid it in the battery drive of my Nikon camera. They saw the camera. They were fascinated. I was shmoozing with them in Russian, thinking that the more I shmoozed, the less suspicious I would seem. They shmoozed back but then said, ‘We’d like to see your camera.’ When they took the camera, I believed I was doomed. And I had very good reason to believe it. I could easily have been beaten up or beaten to death and the Soviets could have said anything. America was not going to war with the Soviet Union over a 30-year old American. I was certain I would be caught. That’s the stuff they hate the most — anti-Soviet work. They don’t like if you smuggle in dollars, that’s a monetary crime. But a propaganda one, that’s the worst. I remember thinking, ‘There’s no way they’re not going to find it.’ That’s the only thing they took.<\/p>\n
“They took it away. They didn’t go through it in front of me. They had it for about an hour… It’s pitch black. Completely silent.”<\/p>\n
“As it turns out, they never opened up the battery pack. They just wanted to see a brand new camera.”<\/p>\n
“What did I do during that hour? I packed a little case thinking I might be sent away. A toothbrush and soap.”<\/p>\n
“I remember thinking, there’s no way I am not doomed. I could not think of a scenario [where I turn out OK]… I panic intelligently. I don’t lose my brain. Where you were going to run on the Soviet – Romanian border. They’d shoot you.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Oct. 31, 2014, Dennis got a call from Buck: “You speak Russian and you traveled several times to the Soviet Union. I was wondering if you were ever contacted by the FBI or the CIA or debriefed?” Dennis: “I … Continue reading