BEIRUT: An overwhelming sense of intrigue was added to the enthralling life-story of MP Walid Jumblatt Thursday, after the Druze Leader revealed his role in sheltering one of Sweden’s most notorious Cold War spies.
“Somebody one day will write my biography,” was the opening line to Jumblatt’s latest editorial in the Al-Anbaa online newspaper Thursday. “I might be present to give [the biographer] information or I might be reincarnated in China according to Druze faith, in which case I do not know if the potential biographer would be fluent in Mandarin.”
Jumblatt’s humorous intro was only a prelude to the real topic of his statement. Under the title, “Moukhtara and The Cold War,” the Progressive Socialist Party chief’s editorial delves in to his “unfortunate” sheltering of Stig Bergling, a renowned Swedish spy who died in Stockholm last month at the age of 77.
“I was involved in hiding him for four years at the Moukhtara [palace] in Lebanon between 1990 and 1994,” Jumblatt said in reference to his historic Chouf residence.
In 1990 the then-deputy director of soviet military intelligence, Gen. Vladimir Izmailov, who Jumblatt described as an “impressively tall man with red hair and a big moustache,” carried out a friendly visit to the Moukhtara palace, along with two other individuals.
“With the Soviets and the Russians, serious talk starts after five or six shots of vodka, and numerous toasts to the Lebanese-Soviet friendship,” Jumblatt said. The PSP chief recalled the conversation he had with Izmailov and quoted the Soviet general as saying: “Comrade Walid you are a great friend of the Soviet Union and we will never forget your position supporting the cause of the Soviet people.”
Following the Soviet sweet-talk, Izmailov asked Jumblatt if he could shelter somebody at the Moukhtara Palace. “How could I refuse?” Jumblatt asked. “The Soviets provided [us] with hundreds of scholarships, trained the militia of the Progressive Socialist Party ... in their bases and provided us with the equivalent of $500 million of weapons and ammunition between 1979 until the late eighties for free.”
The Druze leader noted that he agreed “without hesitation” before continuing his “endless lunch” with his visitors. “I wonder how many bottles of vodka were consumed for this event, of course for the common cause of fighting ‘Imperialism.’”
Two weeks later, Stig Bergling and his wife Elisabeth Sandberg appeared at Jumblatt’s threshold. The couple was given residence in the second floor of the house of former MP Nehme Tohme, who is described by the PSP chief as a “great friend of the Jumblatt family.”
“For the coming four years he [Bergling] was our guest and our partner at dinner or lunch,” Jumblatt said, before shifting in to the suspicions he had harbored as a result of the Soviets’ request.
“For the Soviets to ask me to hide one of their numerous spies was quite odd,” he noted. “Later my suspicions were confirmed that something was wrong in the Soviet empire because after one year it just collapsed.”
According to the PSP chief, Bergling fled Lebanon in 1994 and went back to Sweden when Jumblatt was visiting Moscow. “He was jailed again ... he disclosed his whereabouts to the Swedish press,” he added. “As for me I ended up terribly embarrassed with my Swedish friends, the Social Democrats, with whom I was so closely connected.”
Jumblatt concluded by apologizing to the Swedish people and to his “friends” the Social Democrats, saying that Bergling had done a lot of damage to him and to Sweden.
As of late, Jumblatt has revealed himself to be Lebanon’s most outspoken politician. Jumblatt joined Twitter Oct. 27 and in less than two months gained 35,300 followers, making his one of the fastest growing accounts in Lebanon. He continuously responds to followers with tweets ranging from the plainly absurd to the brilliantly satirical. Jumblatt’s new-found openness to the world is reflected in his latest editorial in PSP’s mouthpiece Al-Anbaa.
The PSP chief has also announced that he is seeking to end his career in the near future, making way for his son Taymour to head the Jumblatt family’s political dynasty.
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