The Spy and I
Nighttime Mystery
Poor grammar but I couldn’t resist the rhyme. A spy? And me? Yes, ‘tis true. For a short time in my military life I was in close and relatively routine contact with a spy. A communist spy. Did I know? Hah. Naive? Me? Yes to naive. No, I absolutely did not know he was a spy. Well, until he was arrested.
What seems like a thousand years ago I was stationed in the Pentagon as a USAF officer assigned to assist foreign nationals with their acquisition of U.S. military equipment. One of my projects was to sell F-16 aircraft and support to Belgium, Norway, Denmark, and The Netherlands. Belgium was the most active of the programs, they wanted to buy more F-16s and upgrade their current fleet. I traveled often to Brussels and their team came to the U.S. just as often. Most of the Belgians I worked with were equivalent in rank and position as I was in the USAF, the one exception was Colonel Guy Binet.
Colonel Binet was the senior acquisition officer in the Belgian Air Force and had a great deal of influence and power in the Belgian system. He did not attend all of the meetings I had with the Belgians, but he was in quite a few, especially when the meetings were in the U.S. or had to do with financial matters. The Belgians did not have a large defense budget and every franc (pre-Euro) was dear to them.
Col Binet was suave and debonair and had an exotic, Elvis Presley look. He was mysterious and oozed a knowingness as if he were the voice of Belgium. He recommended Brussels restaurants and galleries that were far beyond the means of most of the U.S. delegation. His presence was everywhere in the program reviews even if he wasn’t actually in the meetings. He sometimes asked me about my experience as an F-16 pilot and I would of course regale him with fighter pilot stories. However, never did our discussions involve classified information nor did the management of his program require access to or discussion of classified material. At least from my programs. That made my life a bit easier just a couple of years later.
Back at the cube farm, my “office” in the Pentagon, a colleague three cubes away hollered, “Didn’t you work with a Colonel Binet in Belgium?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Well, you need to take a look at this!” and he handed me that day’s ‘Washington Post’ opened to one of the inner pages. And there, right there at the top of the page was a picture of Guy Binet, with a headline “Communist Spy Arrested” or something like that. Was I surprised? Oh, yeah.
I called the Air Force Office of Special Investigation and reported my contact with the good Colonel. The next day I was sitting with a couple of suits in a small room answering questions and recounting my history with Binet and the program. That was the last “official” interaction I had regarding Binet. The OSI never called me back for more information and didn’t let me know what happened next. Imagine that.
Later, through newspapers, colleague accounts, etc., I found out more, but still not a lot. Guy Binet was known as the “Red Colonel” by his handlers and was probably recruited by the East Germans. I think I met him in 1987, he was arrested in September 1988 and convicted in June 1989. He did it for money, not ideology and it really wasn’t very much money, just a bit more than $100,000. He also had access to NATO information which was not something I knew about or had contact with in my job. Fortunately for the U.S., he was detected by the CIA early in his spy career when he first contacted communist agents in 1986. He entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to 20 years with total loss of military rank and retirement. He was released after only 5 years and died in 2000.
He didn’t seem like such a bad guy and I wonder what sent him down the wrong path. But then, I’m naive, I’d rather believe everyone has a good side. But I am curious. All the other Belgians I worked with were dedicated, hard working, professionals. I think. What made Binet tick?