IWCF 77 Panic Plan

I was a communist for the FBI. Starring Dana Andrews and an exciting tale of danger and espionage, I was a communist for the FBI. I was a communist for the FBI. Many of the incidents in the story you're about to hear are based on the actual records and authentic experiences of Matt Svetik, who for nine fantastic years lived as a communist for the FBI. Here is our star, Dana Andrews, as Matt Svetik. In a legend, there is a rock 100 miles high. And once every thousand years, a small bird visits that rock to sharpen its beak. And when the beak of that tiny bird has worn away that hundred-mile-high rock to a pebble, then one day of eternity shall have passed. Seems to me I passed a lot of such days, endless, fearful, terrible days without end. Nine long years of eternal days, being afraid, being two people, being a communist for the FBI. In a moment, listen to Dana Andrews as Matt Sabatik, undercover man. Now, here is Dana Andrews as Matt Sabatik, undercover man. This story from the confidential file is marked Panic Plan. The heat has been with us for weeks now. Blistering, humid heat from a cloudless sky. No rain for weeks. None in sight. The city's reservoir is running dangerously low. Everybody's out of sorts. And I've just had a small shock phoning into communist headquarters for instructions and getting a woman on the wire. I put in a hurry a phone call to the FBI and meet my contact in a small restaurant booth. Turns out he's as anxious to see me as I am to see him. I'm puzzled, Matt. I'm glad you asked for this meeting. And here I was going to lean on your strong shoulder. What's up? Matt, I don't quite know. Have you phoned communist headquarters today yet? Yeah, that's just what I wanted to talk to you about. The woman got on the phone and wanted to see me after lunch. It's been happening all over town, Matt. Seems as almost a special red offensive is in the wind. A lot of really top quality elite corps reds, so to speak, have taken over the town. New faces with old records. Any ideas at all? Unless it has to do with the local election, excuse me. I'll look into it the best I can. Will you? We're a little worried. Keep in touch, Mac. The FBI leaves the booth, and I look at the paper, like any insurance salesman taking a breather and a bite. Continued hot and dry. Reservoirs at record low. New water restrictions pressed. It's serious. A big city slowly being wrung bone dry by the merciless drought. Everybody's worried. And then something delightfully cool and refreshing in a white gabardine suit stops at my booth, and I feel better at once, but not for long. Would you mind terribly if I joined you? What? No, not at all. Oh, uh, please don't stand up. Here, let me move the table a little bit. There. There we are. Thank you. That's my last physical effort for the summer season. I'm dead. Isn't it terrible? Oh, miss, may I have a menu and a glass of water, please? People aren't going to like you. Because I ask for water? Well, they don't serve it during the drought unless you ask for it, and I'm thirsty. Aren't you? Well, it's... You implied that you were feeling the heat. I know, but under the circumstances, I. Oh, miss. No, please. Will you make that two glasses of water here, please? I wish I hadn't done that. You will ask for water wherever you go, and you'll complain loudly when it's denied. What? You will also comment loudly in crowds that there is plenty of water and there is no need whatever for. The proposed Snow River Aqueduct, the city vote, on Tuesday. Oh. Yes? Now I recognize that voice. I thought you wanted to see me in your office and after lunch. I often change my plans. Do you often follow trusted party members, too? Sometimes I meet interesting new people that way. Like the man you were talking to before I stepped in here. Oh, he's a business contact of mine. I sell life insurance as a front and it helps pay the bills, too. Check on that. While I'm at it, perhaps I should check on the license of the car he drove away in, too. Sure. Go ahead. Well, down to business now. I'm Claire. You probably know all about me. Yes, ma'am. I do. Yeah. Well, here comes the waitress. What would you like for lunch, Claire? Beside water. She orders busily, each day, but well. I'm worried. I've got to get to a phone and tell the FBI that Claire, the comely comrade, has seen us together and has jotted down his license number just for kicks. I manage to excuse myself and go to the bank of telephone booths near the kitchen. My man is in his office. I beat him on the latest developments. And now, I hang up and step out of the phone booth and almost bowl over comrade Claire as I step out. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I had to make a call too, but I'm true. Well, I had this business call to make. You've already explained that. I understand. Now, we'd better go. Where? To do our share of blanketing the city with anti-aqueduct sentiment and rumors. We all have our quotes. The brass not excluded. Come now. Coming, Mother. Restaurant after restaurant, lunch counter after lunch counter. Ordering lightly, but speaking loudly for water. Then going into our little red agitation propaganda routine. And through it all, I keep wondering if she's put wheels in motion to check on that FBI license. By evening, the heat and the anxiety and the pace have me limp and drawn. She's precious as a baby. I'm the one who yells tap. Tired, darling? Oh, no. You're just looking at an unusually animated corpse. Oh, it's not that bad. No, but can we call it a day? I'll tell you what. You'll feel wonderful after a long, refreshing shower and shave. Now, where do you want to have dinner? Oh, no, please. No, but this will be a charming place that I'll let you pick out and we won't discuss business. Now, where do you want to be dropped? On my head. Come now. How's that for you? How's that? I dropped Comrade Claire at her hotel, changed taxes twice, and in that hot, humid twilight, whooped like mad into the park where I've arranged to meet my FBI man. He's sitting on a bench reading a paper in the dying light. I sit next to him. He doesn't look up, and I don't look at him as they both talk, hardly to each other. I, uh, Check the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Huh? They'll change the registration of the car to the insurance company name I gave them. How fast? That's the question. What have you been doing? Propagandizing around town to kill the aqueduct bill. Naturally. The commies know that this city would be crippled in an attack without an equated water system. Claire says the town's blanketed with propaganda teams. Hence the big influx of new commie faces. Look, I can't stay, but keep on that license thing, please. Now, watch your color type for a word. It won't leave the office. Thanks. I gotta go. Dinner was clear. Have a nice evening, Charlie. You haven't told me how I look, Nancy. I don't know how you always manage that fresh-out-of-a-bad-box look. You look fine. Fresh out of a ringer. Pick a nice place for dinner, though. We're not going to dinner. By golly, the taxi driver thinks we're going to dinner. Oh, driver, change that to 19 Colonial Park East. Not going to dinner? I changed my mind only a minute ago. But, mother, you let me choose. Oh, stop that, man. I began to think it's far. More important for us to go to a little gathering Kimmy Bleeker is having tonight. That'd be Kimball Bleeker, wouldn't it? Publishes the Sun graphic. We ought to have a very serious chat with Kimmy. Oh, is he on our side? Well, let's say he's always taken a large personal and parental. Interest in me. All right. We'll say that. Also, he happens to be honestly against the proposed aqueduct. Like so many perfectly responsible taxpayers in town. Speech. At any rate. That's where we're going. And we weren't going to discuss business tonight. 19 Colonial Park East is just the right plush background for a proletarian like Claire in her $ 185 dinner gown She's made it clear that Kimball Bleeker, publisher, isn't a red, but he can be you, which is sometimes even better. He's a large, 50-ish sort of millionaire, and I see frequent evidences during the raucous evening of his large personal and parental interest in Claire. It's easy to see what Claire is aiming for. Along toward midnight, she stops dancing with Kimball and comes over to me. Let's get out of this for a second. Kimball's study will be fine. She leads me out of the stuffy, though air-conditioned room into a delightfully fresh air-conditioned room. I'm prepared to bet important money that Kimble Bleeker never read those books in his study. It'll be cool and quiet in here. It'll be cool and quiet in a foundry after that. I've thought of a plan. Involving our host out there? Kimmy can be exceedingly helpful. What's the plan? First of all, You have to be chairman of the newly formed League for Civil Economy. You're a former expert on public relations, and you can name any big companies you can talk sensibly about that have employed you. What's the scheme? We're going to. Tell Kimball Bleeker that the water in number three reservoir is contaminated. What? At least it is widely rumored by the grapevine. And a number of people served by reservoir three have become. Ill in recent days. Okay, that's no good. Even if we say that the proponents of the aqueduct contaminated the reservoir? But it's such an improbable lie. But it's such a big one. Everybody will think it must be so. Will Kimball believe it? Darling, he wants to believe it. In your capacity as chairman of the League, the story has come to you with increasing frequency lately. Does he know you're a communist? He loathes communists. The End I've got to get out of this one. If that hulking, fatuous admirer of Claire's publishes that rumor, even as a rumor, the city could panic. And all at once, Claire has endowed me with all the authority Kimball needs to print a rumor he'd like to believe anyhow. This is one case where the good I can do by spying on the party is outweighed by the harm I can do to my own countrymen. I want none of this, but how to get out of it safely. Yes. Oh, I'll take the call in here, Kimmy. Thank you, dear. Hello? Yes. Oh. I was told it was an insurance deal from the start. Thank you. Comrade Svedek. Greg? I have a suggestion. From now on, do exactly as you're ordered. That's right. Exactly. From now on. It might be a very good idea. THE END. Now back to Dana Andrews, starring as Matt Siverik in I Was a Communist for the FBI and the second act of our story. I Was a Communist for the FBI. I don't know what report Claire has just gotten on the FBI cast under suspicion. At least not to prove my good faith. The rumor to that excuse for a journalist, Kimball Bleeker. That's all he wants to know. He goes to the telephone to phone in the story for the early morning edition. I go back to my hotel feeling like a traitor. Too late to call the FBI and see what they know about changing that license plate registration. First thing in the morning, the phone wakes me. It's Claire down in the lobby. Get decent, Matt. I'm coming straight up. Too late to call the FBI again. You look terrible. Go in and get shaved. We have lots of work to do. I'd like to have a little breakfast if I'm going out. We'll have breakfast later. You have an office in a vacant store on Belly Street where the staff of the Citizens Committee for a Civic Economy. Is already hard at work. Already? Doing what? Answering questions, cleverly spreading the rumor about the contaminated reservoir, distributing literature. And waiting for your leadership. What about the Morning Sun graphic? Editor Kimball Bleecker wants to know indignantly if there's any truth in the ugly rumor, thus spreading rumors still further. Great. You don't sound as if it's so great. It's dawn for me. I haven't had any breakfast. Oh. Several impressionable hysterics in. The third reservoir district have already keeled over from the contaminated water. Psychologists. And the denials that will come never catch up with the accusations. That's basic smear technique principle. Why don't you run down and get some breakfast while I get shaved? Oh, no. I'll just wait out here and make some phone calls. It's no use. Beneath that schoolgirl's simplicity is a will and a heart of carbon steel. I get no chance to call the FBI. All day, I sit in the Citizens Committee headquarters answering questions, denouncing the aqueduct people, and helping the snowballing rumor that they've tampered with our precious water supply. Not until closing time, when Claire has a date with publisher Bleeker, do I get to a telephone. I make an appointment with my FBI contact, same place, in the park. We don't want another car license jotted down. I don't know what comrade Claire could have heard about the car registration, whatever her sources are. We're still waiting for a teletype from the state capitol. Man, I couldn't take a chance. I had to play the loyal commie to the hilt, and I feel rotten. I must say, your comrade friends are doing a handsome job on this ugly little operation. My comrade friends are right there with pamphlets on how to boil the water or improvise crude equipment for distilling it. What have you done for your country? They've got us in an awful spot, Max. That I know. They're forcing us to run in water in tank trucks from outlying areas. And how they've got to run a spot. Derry tank cars are going to run in water tonight. A fleet of brand new aluminum gasoline trucks are all set to go. I'll give out the comments. We'll know all about it. Sure they know. They forced our hand in it. And notice their shrewd timing. Friday night. And we'll have to buck the heavy weekend traffic pouring out of the city. Seldom have so few made so much grief for so many. Well. We've made our move. The counties are probably ready for theirs. Better get back to your hotel and wait. Matt. Matt. Where have you been? I've been waiting down here in the lobby more than an hour. Well, you had a date with Bleeker. You're dead for it. Emergency orders. Work. Work? What kind of work? Never mind. I've had a rented car at the curb for an hour and one of our men waiting. Come on. Where to? Stonewall Jackson Turnpike. The man has his orders, too. Stonewall Jackson Turnpike? Hurry. It's late already. Stonewall Jackson Turnpike, Mother. Stop that. Sorry. A fleet of tank trucks is moving water into the city tonight. That's good, isn't it? Almost a hundred of our cars driven by party members are on every highway leading into the city tonight. Some will break down simply to snarl traffic, but others are particularly assigned to run out of gas. Uh-huh. They will hail the new gasoline tankers, which we know to contain water. We will demonstrate that they contain water. The denials that the reservoir is contaminated will fall flat. The feeling against the pro-aqueduct people will run high, and the aqueduct bill. Will be defeated Tuesday. And there'll be no aqueduct to strengthen the city against certain emergencies. Good. Yeah, fine. Oh, stop here, Comrade Davis. You want him to stop in all this traffic? Here, darling, is where we run out of gas. It's all worked out with such wicked beauty. Such fearful perfection and complete utility. But then silent comrade named Davis stops the car on the shoulder of the teeming highway, and he stays behind the wheel. I wonder why. Claire and I get out. I must say, she makes an appealing figure beside me. We don't want passenger cars to stop, and we don't want to signal tankers that really contain gasoline. I hope a state trooper doesn't stop us. There. There, that's one of the new aluminum jobs. Now. Claire. Claire, look out. Are you crazy or something? Are you crazy? Do you want to get killed? I'm terribly sorry, driver. You could have got killed. She didn't realize the danger, driver. She didn't realize. How could she not realize? Please, sir. Do you want to die a good-looking girl like you? We ran out of gas, and it's miles to a gas station. There's nothing I can do for you, mister. I'm sorry. Just a gallon of gasoline? Hey, we're jamming up traffic. Well, pay for the gasoline, of course. Yes, we'll pay you well. Look, that's a metered valve on that tanker, mister. I can't monkey with that gasoline. A measly gallon? I monkey with metered fuel. It's worth my job. I... Hey, you! Hey, hey, don't do that! We look toward the trailer of the huge eight-wheeler. At the valve, swinging a wrench is Comrade Davison. And in his other hand, confident that the tanker contains only water, he holds a flickering automatic lighter. Blow it up! Blow it up! It happens in a twice-split second. The valve opens. A sparkling column of fluid gushes from the valve. A sheet of white flame! I'm on my back in the grass. Crowds murmuring around me. Like a dream. No stars, no sky. Sound of that awful blast still rolling around in my ears. I feel all right. What about Claire, the driver, the comrade, the dealer? Wait. That's thunder. And then a splatter of water on my forehead. Another. More. It's raining. That laugh. Four days later, I can see Claire at the hospital. She's not bad, but she'll always wonder what went wrong with the perfect plan for panic. I walk out into the corridor where the FBI man is waiting. It's safe enough now. The Red Brethren aren't sticking their necks out just to visit Comrade Clare. How is she, Matt? Pretty good. Miracle only, Comrade Davis got killed. He asked for it. How did it look for the Aqueduct Bond issue today? I think it'll win. You think? Ought to be a shoe-in. Haven't the voters been told that the commies were against the Aqueduct all the time? That they're the ones who started those false rumors? No, Matt. And we're not going to tell them. What? That's just what the companies want us to do. That's ridiculous on the face of it. It'll be eight years before the aqueduct can be in operation, right? Maybe ten, putting that big pipe underground. The aqueduct is defense construction, right? Definitely. Suppose the Reds plan to attack this country someday. They'd be against certain defense. Construction, right? Depending on when they plan to attack. Or, putting it differently, they won't be ready to attack until after the aqueduct is finished At least another eight years. That's another way of. Wait a minute. We can't tell the people that. Why not? Well, it'll lull us into thinking we're safe from attack for the next eight years. It'll completely sabotage our defense efforts. And that is exactly what the Reds wanted. So we'd reveal for them that they were afraid of the aqueduct at that eight years' head. And lull us into that dangerous false security. Hmm. No, I'm scared. Comrade Clare was bluffing about that license number, if that helps. What she should have done was check the weather bureau to see if it just might rain Friday night. You did? And took a chance and called off Operation Water Wagon at the last minute. The blessed rain, huh? I leave the hospital and take the elevator to the street. Unnerved a little. realizing the full skill and cunning of the enemy. This time, the object has been to trick us into lowering our guard for eight perhaps fatal years. The street is swept clean by the rain. It's cool at last and brisk. The heat wave is broken. But nobody greets me familiarly to make the old time-honored platitudes about the weather. They used to when they knew me. Now, I'm a communist for the FBI. I walk alone. I walk alone. Dana Andrews will return in just a moment. This is Dana Andrews. The worst tyranny of all is tyranny over the minds of men. Our greatest Americans have always fought that worst of oppressions. Panic, hysteria, surrender to rumor, or tyranny over your minds. Reject them. In tonight's story of such a tyranny, names and characters have been changed for obvious reasons. Next week, another exciting story stemming from the experiences of Matt Svetik, who worked undercover for the FBI. Join us then, won't you? Thank you.