Chapter 3 Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (3)

So, I began to think that life is just a series of accidental events. How we respond to these contingencies will determine our future. And two of the most important accidents of my life happened at Middlebury College. One was meeting the son of the Shah’s advisor and general; the other was meeting a beautiful woman named Ann—the same name as my childhood girlfriend who later became my wife. The general's son is called Farhad, and he was a former professional football player in Rome. He was athletically gifted, with jet-black curly hair, gentle walnut eyes, an impressive background and irresistible charm for girls.

He was the complete opposite of me in many ways. I tried to get close to him and win his friendship. A lot of things I learned from him benefited me a lot in the days to come. I met Ann, and even though she was having a fling with a guy from another school, she didn't refuse to hang out with me. In the beginning, we had a platonic relationship, but she gave me my first taste of true love. Farhad encouraged me to drink and go to parties, ignoring my parents' teaching and strict requirements. So, I deliberately neglected my studies, because I wanted to break the legs of my "studies" to take revenge on my father.

My grades plummeted and I lost my scholarship. One day during my sophomore year in college, I decided to drop out midway through the class. My father threatened to disown me, but Farhad continued to add fuel to the fire. I ran headlong into the principal's office in a feverish mood, and I dropped out. This is a pivotal moment in my life. The night before I left school, Farhad and I celebrated with a drink at a local bar. A burly drunk man next to me said that I was seducing his wife, he lifted me upside down and threw me towards the wall. Farhad came and separated us, pulled out a knife, and slashed the guy's face.

Farhad then dragged me away from the bar, and he pushed me out the window and onto a ledge on Otter Creek just outside the bar. We jumped down and ran all the way back to the dormitory along the creek. When the campus police questioned me the next morning, I lied and denied that Farhad had done it. However, Farhad was later expelled from the school. Later, we both moved to Boston and rented a house together. I got a job at Hearst's Record American/Sunday Advertiser as an assistant to the paper's managing editor. Later that year, several of my colleagues were drafted into the Army.

To escape the same fate, I attended Boston University's School of Business Administration. By then, Ann had broken up with her ex-boyfriend, and she used to visit me from Middlebury. Of course I appreciate her concern for me. Ann graduated from Middlebury College in 1967, while I was still a year away from graduating from Boston University. Ann insisted on not living with me until we were married. Although I joked that I had been kidnapped, I also hated the rigidity and prudence I inherited from my parents. I was happy with her, but I wanted more, so we got married. Ann's father was a man of great intelligence and was the chief planner of the missile guidance system, so his status in the Navy was extraordinary.

One of his close friends, whom Ann dubs "Uncle Frank" (not his real name), is an officer at the top of the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA is the least known and largest spy organization in the United States. Shortly after my marriage, the army called me in for a medical checkup. Unfortunately, I passed the medical examination, which means I may be dispatched to Vietnam after graduation. Although I am very interested in war, I am very reluctant to go to the battlefields far away in Southeast Asian countries. I grew up hearing the stories of the ancestors of the colonial pioneers—Thomas Paigne and Ethan Allen.

I have visited many battlefields in New England and upstate New York, including those where the French and Indians fought and all battles during the Revolutionary War. I've read every historical novel I can find. In fact, when I read about Army Special Forces entering Southeast Asia for the first time, I was tempted to join the military. Later, when the media exposed the brutality and contradictions of US policy, I changed my mind. I didn't know which side Paine would be on, but I thought at the time that he would be on the Viet Cong's side. Uncle Frank saved me. He told me that working for the NSA would delay my call-up, and he set up a series of interviews with people from the agency.

One day I was exhausted because I was under the polygraph all day answering questions. They told me that these tests will determine whether I have the potential to work in the National Security Agency. If I have the potential, they will evaluate my strengths and weaknesses, and these evaluations will give me a specific job in the future. in accordance with. I thought then that, given my opposition to the Vietnam War, I would fail the test. On the test, I admit that I am a loyal American citizen and that I am against the war. I'm surprised they haven't pursued this issue so hard.

Instead, they paid more attention to my upbringing, my views and attitudes towards my parents, and my psychological feelings as a poor student growing up among rich preppies and rich people. They also pored over my frustrations with the lack of women, sex, and money, and the paranoia that came with it. They were interested in the friendship between me and Farhad, especially the fact that I lied to the campus police in defense of Farhad, which puzzled me. At first, I thought it was all against me and that I was doomed to be shut out of the NSA, but it turned out the way I expected. It took me years to realize that from the NSA's perspective, my opposite personality traits were what they appreciated.

What they value is not how loyal I am to my country, but how much I have suffered setbacks in life. Resentment towards my parents, sexual fantasies about women, desire for affluence, and being easily seduced, all these "traits" made them think I was something to make. My determination to excel in school and sports, my rebellion against my father, my ability to relate to strangers, my lying to the police were all qualities they looked for. Later, I found out that Farhad's father was also serving the US intelligence agency in Iran, and my friendship with his son undoubtedly became an important bargaining chip for me to enter the National Security Agency.

A few weeks after the test, I was offered a job and began my espionage skills training, which of course started a few months after graduating from Boston University. Before I officially received my work permit, I impulsively attended a lecture given by a Peace Corps recruiter at Boston University. Their main "selling point" is the same as that of the Ministry of State Security-students who can work there can also delay joining the army. Deciding to attend that lecture was also one of several important "accidents" in my life. It seemed like a trivial thing at the time, but it determined my future fate. Recruiters described some of the places in the world where volunteers are most needed, one of which is the Amazon rainforest. Before the Europeans set foot on this land, the local people lived a primitive Aboriginal life. Ever since my ancestors made their home in New Hampshire, I have dreamed of living like the local Abnakis. I know I have the Abnaki in my veins, and I hope to be as knowledgeable about the forest as they are. After the lecture, I went up to the recruiter and asked him what were my chances of being selected and sent to the Amazon forest. He said they need a lot of volunteers and I should have a chance. So I immediately called Uncle Frank. To my surprise, Uncle Frank encouraged me to join the Peace Corps. He said frankly that after the capture of Hanoi, the Amazon basin would be the next target. “There are very rich oil resources there. "We're going to send some capable people there -- people who can understand the locals," he said. He said the Peace Corps was a good "training ground" and he wanted me to improve my Spanish and the dialect of the native tribes. "You could end up working for private industry rather than the government," he said with a laugh. " I didn't understand what he meant then. But in hindsight, I'd gone from being a spy to being an economic hit man, even though I'd never heard the term before, nor had I heard it for years after that. Little did I know at the time that there were hundreds of people scattered around the globe working for consulting firms and other private businesses who never received a penny from the government but who were building global empires. I did not expect that this group of people would develop to such a large scale at the end of the 20th century; I did not expect that I would play a pivotal role in this ever-growing team. Ann and I both submitted applications to the Peace Corps to be assigned to the Amazon. The moment I received the notice, I was extremely disappointed. Because the notice said that we might be sent to Ecuador. Oh my God!I wanted to go to the Amazon region, but it made me go to Africa!I scrambled to look up Ecuador in my atlas, but to my dismay: I couldn't find it anywhere on the African continent. I checked the directory and found that Ecuador was originally in Latin America. On one of the maps, I saw the headwaters of the majestic Amazon River flowing from Andean glaciers. I continued to read and realized that the Ecuadorian forest is one of the most diverse and richest forests in the world. For thousands of years, the indigenous people there have lived their simple primitive life over and over again. So, we gladly accepted. Ann and I trained with the Peace Corps in Southern California, and in 1968 we traveled to Ecuador together. In the Amazon we live with the indigenous Shuva people, who lived exactly like the native tribes of North America before the colonists arrived; in the Andes we labor with the descendants of the Incas. I never dreamed that such a place existed on earth. Until then, the only Latino I'd ever met was the rich "preppy" guy at the school my dad taught. I found myself gradually empathizing with the local Aboriginal people who hunt and farm for a living. Oddly enough, I also felt some unspeakable kinship with them. Somehow they remind me of those sleazy Tilton "town folks". One day, a man in a suit and tie, Enar Greve, vice president of Chas. T. Main, Inc. MAIN, arrived on a plane. . The international consulting firm was investigating a project for the International Bank - a feasibility study for the International Bank to lend billions of dollars to Ecuador and its neighboring countries. The loan was used to build hydroelectric power stations and other infrastructure. Aina was a former colonel in the US Army Reserve, and I told him that I had been recruited by the NSA before joining the Peace Corps and was considering rejoining the NSA. He also told me that he had worked as a "liaison officer" for the NSA, and the way he looked at me made me think he had another mission—to assess my abilities. I only now know that he is indeed constantly following up on my situation, and what he wants to assess is: what is my ability to survive in this kind of environment that North Americans consider to be extremely harsh. We spent a few days together in Ecuador, and then we exchanged letters. He asked me to provide him with Ecuador's economic assessment report. I happened to have a small typewriter, and I happened to like writing, so I readily obliged. In the year or so since then, I sent Eina at least 15 long letters. In it, I projected the future direction of Ecuador's economy and politics, appraising the growing rebellion of indigenous peoples here -- fighting against international oil giants, international development agencies and anyone else who would bring them into the country. power in modern society. After I returned to the United States from my Peace Corps trip to Ecuador, Aina invited me to interview at Main's headquarters in Boston. He told me that Main's main business is engineering and construction, but their largest client, the World Bank, recently asked them to recruit economists to make economic forecasts for certain related fields, and to discuss the feasibility and importance of engineering projects. to evaluate. He said he had previously hired three highly qualified economists with impeccable academic credentials and qualifications - two with a master's degree and one with a Ph.D. - and they all failed miserably. He said: "Reliable economic statistics do not exist in these countries, and none of the three of them have mastered the method of economic forecasting in these countries. And then he said to me that, on top of that, they all felt it was impossible to fulfill their mission under the contract that required them to go to distant countries like Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran and Egypt and meet with local leaders in person , to provide them with an assessment report on the characteristics of the regional economic development. One of them was sent to a deserted village in Panama, where he became insane and had to be escorted by the Panamanian police to the airport and put on a plane back to the United States. "Although you have not obtained specific economic data in Ecuador, from your letter, I think you are working very hard. You can stay in an environment like Ecuador, which shows that you will have no problems in other environments. He also told me that he had already fired one economist and that if I would come to Main, he would fire two others. In this way, in January 1971, I got the title of economist in Main Company. I was 26 at the time—conscription was never my turn. I asked Ann's family for advice, and they all encouraged me to take the job, which I guess was Uncle Frank's attitude too. I recall him mentioning that I might end up working in private industry. Although there is no fact to prove it, there is no doubt that I can get this job in Main Consulting Company, it must be the result of Uncle Frank's arrangement 3 years ago, of course there are other reasons, such as my living in Ecuador. experience, and my willingness to write a report on the economy and politics of that country. I spent the next few weeks with a feverish head and an almost inflated ego. I just studied for a bachelor's degree at Boston University. It is impossible to get the title of economist in such a high-level consulting company, but I got it. I know many college students who went on to pursue an MBA or other master's degree after successfully dodging the military. If they knew my current title, maybe they would be jealous of me. I imagined myself as an aggressive secret spy, traveling alone to a foreign country, lying in the sun by the swimming pool of a luxury hotel, surrounded by beautiful women in bikinis and holding martinis. It was indeed a fantasy at the time, but it has also come true for me many times later. Although my job title is an economist, I found that my job is far more than simply making assessments and predictions. In fact, my job is similar to that of James Bond (the actor in the movie "007") almost. very different jesus The scene of Dalang performing a puppet show in Bandung that night kept popping up in my mind, and the words of that beautiful English-speaking girl were always lingering in my ears. The experience of that night took my mind to another level. Of course, I haven't completely forgotten the mission we shouldered in Indonesia, but at the moment my reaction is completely controlled by emotion. Usually I can find good reasons to calm myself down - finding solace in historical events, or relying entirely on personal self-control to control emotions. I felt like everything I was doing was human — that Aina, Charlie, me, and everyone else were doing what a man should be doing: earning a living and taking care of himself and his loved ones. Discussions with that group of young Indonesians forced me to look at the other side of the problem. Through their eyes, I realized that the so-called aid policy of the United States is useless and somehow short-sighted in helping the people of countries like Indonesia. Judging from the current situation, I have to go to Jakarta to collect data for the economic forecast report. I spend my spare time thinking about these questions and writing them in my diary. I wandered the streets of Jakarta, giving some change to beggars on the street from time to time, and I also tried to approach lepers, prostitutes and street children and chat with them. At the same time, I began to reflect on the nature of foreign aid. What role should developed countries (DCs, World Bank terminology) play in helping less developed countries (LDCs) alleviate their poverty and hardship?I also want to know when foreign aid is sincere and when it is just to satisfy one's own greed and selfish desires. In fact, I have begun to wonder whether this kind of aid is truly altruistic, and if not, how this situation can be changed. I'm sure that a country like the United States has the power to help those who suffer from disease and hunger around the world, but I'm also sure that our aid policies are seldom designed to help Thoughts.