Juan Villoro
Espionage is inseparable from English literature. Daniel Defoe, Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, and, of course, David Cornwell, better known as John Le Carré, were secret agents. The enigmas of loyalty and betrayal fascinate a profession that depends on conceiving and manipulating the lives of others.
In Gentleman Spies, John Fisher mentions the difficulty of finding data on a hidden profession, but his bibliography includes nearly 150 titles, something unthinkable in other latitudes.
Like cricket, espionage defines English culture. On the other hand, we do not know about Mexican agents. Gilberto López y Rivas decided to be the exception, publishing his testimony as an agent of the USSR: Nadie puede ser amigo de todos (No one can be friends with everyone). At 80, he felt the need to write his memoirs as a political militant and could not exclude the most uncommon part, which was dedicated to his participation in the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate), founded by Lenin in 1918.
The life of López y Rivas is enough for a hectic television series. Outraged by social injustice, at the age of 17, he debuted as a communist militant, later joined the guerrilla group 23 de Mayo, participated in the student movement of 1968 and escaped the October 2 massacre, advised the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, was a congressman for the PRD (which he resigned in 2003) and a mayor in Tlalpan. Since 1994, he has supported Zapatismo.
These turbulences did not dampen his good humor. In any assembly, Gilberto transmits the same enthusiasm with which he acts as host in his small, cozy apartment in Tlalpan.
In 2018, we went to Chapingo to support Marichuy’s campaign as spokesperson for the indigenous peoples. On the way there, we talked about national politics and agreed on everything; on the way back, we spoke of the USSR, Cuba, and Venezuela and disagreed on everything. Both coincidences and disagreements sealed our friendship. Gilberto is incapable of not showing affection, a trait he owes much to his exceptional companion, the anthropologist Alicia Castellanos.
Spies are captivating. When I worked at our Embassy in East Berlin, I met a mole from the West embedded in the communist foreign service: Martin Winkler. Sociable and charismatic, he was our favorite guest.
The author of The Spy and the Traitor, Ben Macintyre, believes this seduction rests on a dark trait. An alternate life offsets an erotic or psychological trauma. In The Pigeon Tunnel, Le Carré defines Kim Philby, the top Soviet spy hidden in the ranks of British intelligence, as someone as addicted to lies as to alcohol. But some eminently political spies operate out of conviction. This is the case of López y Rivas.
In his book, he narrates the moment he was recruited in Mexico in 1962 to create identities for Soviet agents entering the United States as fake Mexicans. From 1971 to 1978, he moved to the United States, where he completed his PhD in Chicano studies and taught classes. There, he served as a courier for Soviet intelligence until the FBI discovered him and planted counterintelligence documents that he sent to Moscow.
Communication with the GRU used to be done in Morse code, using various encryption codes. One of them was: No one can be friends with everyone. Arrested by the FBI, Lopez y Rivas accepted to be a spy and refused to give his contacts. He thought he would end up in prison but benefited from the democratic order. For years, the FBI had violated his right to privacy, tapping his phones and going through his correspondence; he was also arrested in the company of a minor. The defendant was able to return to Mexico: “I admire the Department of Justice for that,” he says. He has been a public activist ever since.
In 2000, David Wise, a former FBI agent, published Cassidy’s Run, where he accuses Lopez y Rivas of receiving money from Moscow without evidence. Curiously, it was Wise himself who planted the false information that the Mexican sent to Moscow. In a game of mirrors, the rival in the shadows passed into writing.
Whether or not the reader agrees with the ideas of the former Soviet agent, Nobody Can Be Everybody’s Friend is an essential testimony of the behind-the-scenes of the Cold War.
At 80, with his usual smile, López y Rivas made the most surprising decision in a spy: to tell the truth.
This was published in Spanish by Reforma on December 15, 2023.
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