Chapter 27
A KGB Stool Pigeon
Svetlana and Olga, age six, pose together in 1977 for this Christmas photo sent to Rosa Shand from “the Peterses.”
S uddenly, seemingly out of the blue, Svetlana pulled up stakes in March 1976, sold her Wilson Road house in Princeton, and moved with Olga to California. While staying with the Hayakawas that Christmas, she’d accepted an invitation from the journalist Isaac Don Levine to visit him in Carlsbad, near San Diego. As she sat in Levine’s living room, she stared at the blue Pacific and suddenly felt at home. The smells of eucalyptus, of orange and lemon trees, of the pine forests, stirredold memories. Emotionally she was leaning back to the Black Sea of her childhood. Life in Princeton was expensive and her income from stocks and bonds inadequate. Levine suggested California was cheaper.
It was not surprising that Don Levine had sought her out. A journalist of Belarusian background, he was a staunch, even virulent anti-Communist. He was known to help Soviet dissidents but also occasionally to use them for his own propaganda purposes. He must have thought that Stalin’s daughter could prove a powerful propaganda weapon in his arsenal. When they met, Levine had given her an earful about East Coast liberals like George Kennan who served the State Department and catered to the Soviets. Almost immediately she became suspicious that Levine was manipulating her—he was inveigling her to sign protest telegrams—and she cut off any potential friendship. Unfortunately this meant that she and Olga were very much on their own in California. She had hoped that the Hayakawas would be her family, but Sam Hayakawa, though still very fond of her, was running for the US Senate and had little time for his relatives.
It was not Levine or his politics that drew Svetlana to California. The truth was, she’d left Princeton in part because of a personal entanglement. It had been over four years since her separation from Wesley Peters, and perhaps she was ready to try again. She met Douglas Bushnell, a wealthy businessman, at a Princeton party, and his tragic history had drawn her in. A few years earlier, his wife had committed suicide, leaving behind her teenage daughter and two sons. Bushnell still seemed broken by the tragedy. “Things like these were well known in our family. MAY BE IT IS TRUE that a difficult life produces a better human being,” she later told George Kennan. 1 Svetlana, it seems, was always drawn to the broken. For a brief moment, they’d almost seemed a family. Little Olga was crazy aboutthis amusing white-haired joker and loved his visits, when he’d swing her through the air and give her shoulder rides. Svetlana thought Bushnell might become a kind of father to Olga since Wesley Peters had virtually disappeared from their lives. After four brief visits to Princeton, Wesley had stopped visiting and rarely called. He didn’t show up again for five years, at which point his daughter didn’t recognize him. 2
However, Bushnell soon made it very clear to Svetlana that he wanted only casual relationships with women. “It ended,” Svetlana explained, “with a bad outburst from both sides—as it should be expected.” 3 Any man drawing close to Svetlana might have been frightened. Who could cope with her life? She lived on such a large stage, with the drama of Cold War politics and with the KGB as a subtext, and there was her own emotional insecurity to contend with. Her past held private drawers filled with too much pain. She and Bushnell parted but remained friends. He sent warm letters to her in California with news of his children and queries about Olga, and she replied in kind. Svetlana’s solution to disappointment was to move on, but it must have been in her mind that she should now expect to remain alone.
When she arrived on the West Coast, Svetlana rented an apartment in Oceanside, but soon found a small, inexpensive pseudo-Japanese house to buy in Carlsbad;
A KGB Stool Pigeon
Svetlana and Olga, age six, pose together in 1977 for this Christmas photo sent to Rosa Shand from “the Peterses.”
S uddenly, seemingly out of the blue, Svetlana pulled up stakes in March 1976, sold her Wilson Road house in Princeton, and moved with Olga to California. While staying with the Hayakawas that Christmas, she’d accepted an invitation from the journalist Isaac Don Levine to visit him in Carlsbad, near San Diego. As she sat in Levine’s living room, she stared at the blue Pacific and suddenly felt at home. The smells of eucalyptus, of orange and lemon trees, of the pine forests, stirredold memories. Emotionally she was leaning back to the Black Sea of her childhood. Life in Princeton was expensive and her income from stocks and bonds inadequate. Levine suggested California was cheaper.
It was not surprising that Don Levine had sought her out. A journalist of Belarusian background, he was a staunch, even virulent anti-Communist. He was known to help Soviet dissidents but also occasionally to use them for his own propaganda purposes. He must have thought that Stalin’s daughter could prove a powerful propaganda weapon in his arsenal. When they met, Levine had given her an earful about East Coast liberals like George Kennan who served the State Department and catered to the Soviets. Almost immediately she became suspicious that Levine was manipulating her—he was inveigling her to sign protest telegrams—and she cut off any potential friendship. Unfortunately this meant that she and Olga were very much on their own in California. She had hoped that the Hayakawas would be her family, but Sam Hayakawa, though still very fond of her, was running for the US Senate and had little time for his relatives.
It was not Levine or his politics that drew Svetlana to California. The truth was, she’d left Princeton in part because of a personal entanglement. It had been over four years since her separation from Wesley Peters, and perhaps she was ready to try again. She met Douglas Bushnell, a wealthy businessman, at a Princeton party, and his tragic history had drawn her in. A few years earlier, his wife had committed suicide, leaving behind her teenage daughter and two sons. Bushnell still seemed broken by the tragedy. “Things like these were well known in our family. MAY BE IT IS TRUE that a difficult life produces a better human being,” she later told George Kennan. 1 Svetlana, it seems, was always drawn to the broken. For a brief moment, they’d almost seemed a family. Little Olga was crazy aboutthis amusing white-haired joker and loved his visits, when he’d swing her through the air and give her shoulder rides. Svetlana thought Bushnell might become a kind of father to Olga since Wesley Peters had virtually disappeared from their lives. After four brief visits to Princeton, Wesley had stopped visiting and rarely called. He didn’t show up again for five years, at which point his daughter didn’t recognize him. 2
However, Bushnell soon made it very clear to Svetlana that he wanted only casual relationships with women. “It ended,” Svetlana explained, “with a bad outburst from both sides—as it should be expected.” 3 Any man drawing close to Svetlana might have been frightened. Who could cope with her life? She lived on such a large stage, with the drama of Cold War politics and with the KGB as a subtext, and there was her own emotional insecurity to contend with. Her past held private drawers filled with too much pain. She and Bushnell parted but remained friends. He sent warm letters to her in California with news of his children and queries about Olga, and she replied in kind. Svetlana’s solution to disappointment was to move on, but it must have been in her mind that she should now expect to remain alone.
When she arrived on the West Coast, Svetlana rented an apartment in Oceanside, but soon found a small, inexpensive pseudo-Japanese house to buy in Carlsbad;
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