were going to the President’s house,’ Sawyer says. ‘I was a little bit sceptical, but I thought, “All right, we’ll see where this leads.” So we actually went to the President’s house and we had lunch with the wife of the President of Mexico. And while we were there, the President made an appearance, said “Hello!’ then excused himself because he didn’t have time to stay for lunch.’ Sawyer was fascinated at the level of Mexican society the young Israeli had penetrated, but as he puts it, ‘It was a little bit above my pay grade, so I didn’t try to get involved in those activities because I knew that that wouldn’t end well for me.’
Uri and Shipi with Roger Sawyer, consular officer at the US Embassy in Mexico City.
Soon afterwards, Uri says he got a call from an American identifying himself as Mike. Uri was surprised the man had the phone number of his penthouse but agreed to meet him at a Denny’s chain restaurant in Mexico City. ‘He said, “We know what you did at Stanford Research Institute. I’ve seen the reports. We know you can do certain things with the power of the mind. Can you help us?”’ Uri confirmed that he could indeed do this. So Mike gave him two specific missions, offering, as he had been authorized to, the carrot of helping him and Shipi out with their still slightly tricky visa applications – not that Uri needed much of a carrot.
The first task was to report to Mike the names of the Soviet embassy officials Lopez Portillo and his ministers were seeing, Washington continuing to be concerned about Mexico’s friendliness with the Soviets. The second was more exciting to Uri. ‘Mike explained to me that every ten or 15 days, there was a diplomatic pouch that goes out of the Russian embassy handcuffed to the wrist of one of the KGB agents and with secret floppy disks inside. Mike was also aware that I was able to erase floppy disks.’ (He had previously done just that at Western Kentucky University under the gaze of the physicist Dr Thomas Coohill and word had clearly found its way to the CIA.) Mike then asked Uri Geller to hang around outside the embassy. He even gave him a pair of reflective, rear-viewing sunglasses to wear so he could keep an eye on the front entrance – while apparently looking in the opposite direction – and try to get a feeling for who was coming in and out that might be of interest to the CIA.
It was proposed that Uri, with his Mexican passport in the name of his mother’s distant family, the Freuds, begin to accompany known KGB couriers carrying floppy disks back to Moscow on board Aeromexico flights. His job would be to sit close to the courier for the Mexico City to Paris leg, mentally erasing the disks for the duration of the transatlantic flights and hopping off in Paris, leaving the unsuspecting courier to board the Aeroflot flight to Moscow with the now-useless disks. The problem arose, however, that the KGB agents travelled in first class, and Uri, never shy to discuss finance, asked Mike who was going to pay for his – and the ever-present Shipi’s – fares? Mike came up with the idea that he should drop a hint to the Mexican president that a couple of the rare and special Aeromexico gold cards, only given to Mexico’s elite and allowing limitless free first-class travel to anywhere the airline flew, would be quite handy. In return, Uri would be more than happy to promote Aeromexico by wearing specially made Aeromexico-branded T-shirts around town.
Uri was never told if he had been successful on the first disk-erasing mission, but says it was telling that he was asked to do the same again twice more. If he had been successful, the consternation and recriminations within the KGB when their floppy disks from Mexico City kept turning up in Moscow blank or corrupted can only be imagined. Wiping floppy disks was not the only thing Uri did. ‘I told them about drop-outs and drop-ins in at the Russian Embassy, and Mike also took me out
Uri and Shipi with Roger Sawyer, consular officer at the US Embassy in Mexico City.
Soon afterwards, Uri says he got a call from an American identifying himself as Mike. Uri was surprised the man had the phone number of his penthouse but agreed to meet him at a Denny’s chain restaurant in Mexico City. ‘He said, “We know what you did at Stanford Research Institute. I’ve seen the reports. We know you can do certain things with the power of the mind. Can you help us?”’ Uri confirmed that he could indeed do this. So Mike gave him two specific missions, offering, as he had been authorized to, the carrot of helping him and Shipi out with their still slightly tricky visa applications – not that Uri needed much of a carrot.
The first task was to report to Mike the names of the Soviet embassy officials Lopez Portillo and his ministers were seeing, Washington continuing to be concerned about Mexico’s friendliness with the Soviets. The second was more exciting to Uri. ‘Mike explained to me that every ten or 15 days, there was a diplomatic pouch that goes out of the Russian embassy handcuffed to the wrist of one of the KGB agents and with secret floppy disks inside. Mike was also aware that I was able to erase floppy disks.’ (He had previously done just that at Western Kentucky University under the gaze of the physicist Dr Thomas Coohill and word had clearly found its way to the CIA.) Mike then asked Uri Geller to hang around outside the embassy. He even gave him a pair of reflective, rear-viewing sunglasses to wear so he could keep an eye on the front entrance – while apparently looking in the opposite direction – and try to get a feeling for who was coming in and out that might be of interest to the CIA.
It was proposed that Uri, with his Mexican passport in the name of his mother’s distant family, the Freuds, begin to accompany known KGB couriers carrying floppy disks back to Moscow on board Aeromexico flights. His job would be to sit close to the courier for the Mexico City to Paris leg, mentally erasing the disks for the duration of the transatlantic flights and hopping off in Paris, leaving the unsuspecting courier to board the Aeroflot flight to Moscow with the now-useless disks. The problem arose, however, that the KGB agents travelled in first class, and Uri, never shy to discuss finance, asked Mike who was going to pay for his – and the ever-present Shipi’s – fares? Mike came up with the idea that he should drop a hint to the Mexican president that a couple of the rare and special Aeromexico gold cards, only given to Mexico’s elite and allowing limitless free first-class travel to anywhere the airline flew, would be quite handy. In return, Uri would be more than happy to promote Aeromexico by wearing specially made Aeromexico-branded T-shirts around town.
Uri was never told if he had been successful on the first disk-erasing mission, but says it was telling that he was asked to do the same again twice more. If he had been successful, the consternation and recriminations within the KGB when their floppy disks from Mexico City kept turning up in Moscow blank or corrupted can only be imagined. Wiping floppy disks was not the only thing Uri did. ‘I told them about drop-outs and drop-ins in at the Russian Embassy, and Mike also took me out
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