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he subject of Len Shurtleff’s article, “AForeign Service Murder,” is my latefather, Alfred Erdos, and the circum-stances of his terrible story. Mr. Shurtleffmakes many valuable observations.However, his article contains certain

errors and omissions regarding the facts of the case.Moreover, there are some particulars of the story that Mr.Shurtleff does not, indeed could not, know. Finally, thereare rumors and speculation surrounding the episode, which,sadly, have not dissipated. For these reasons, I feel obligedto break the family’s silence on this matter and offer whatinformation I have.

�My father was born in 1924 to Hungarian immigrants in

New York City. It was a Catholic household, and Father felthis religion very deeply. After World War II broke out, hevolunteered for the army as soon as he turned 18. The Armysent him to Europe. However, due to a bureaucratic error,his war papers were lost in Washington; army command didnot “know” that he was there. He followed the armythroughout the Ardennes campaign, wondering why hisorders to go to the front never came.

Father received an honorable discharge in 1946. He hadacquired a taste for travel, and returned to Europe brieflybefore enrolling in college on the G.I. Bill. After graduatingfrom Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, hedecided to serve his country once more, and applied to theDepartment of State. After passing the lengthy exams, hebecame a Foreign Service officer in 1952. He pursued grad-uate studies in diplomacy at The Johns Hopkins Universitybefore being assigned abroad.

During this period, Father met a woman with whom hebegan a relationship. However, she was not an American.The State Department did not allow FSOs to marry non-citizens at that time. In addition, she was not Catholic. Theystayed together for many years; but ultimately, their rela-tionship ended when he met my mother. My parents mar-ried in 1968; it was his first marriage, her second. I was bornshortly after, the first child for both.

Father was anxious about his career. In the diplomaticcorps, he was not always the most popular person at post.His military years had given him an appreciation for order,discipline and, above all, adherence to the rules. He gaineda reputation as a tough, sometimes intimidating supervisor,a by-the-book perfectionist who also demanded perfectionfrom others. He was frankly resented by some FSOs whowere more accustomed to the hail-fellow-well-met Foreign

HEART OFDARKNESS

ALFRED ERDOS’ SON BREAKS THE FAMILY SILENCE TO SHED LIGHT ON

THE TRAGIC EVENTS OF AUG. 31, 1971, IN EQUATORIAL GUINEA.

T

BY CHRIS ERDOS

Chris Erdos is the son of the late Alfred Erdos.

Editor’s Note: A feature article in our October 2007 issue, “A Foreign Service Murder,” by Len Shurtleff, reviewed the trag-ic events of Aug. 31, 1971, the day administrative officer Donald Leahy was killed in Santa Isabel, Equatorial Guinea. Chargéd’affaires Alfred Erdos was subsequently found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in a jury trial in Virginia and sentenced tothe maximum 10-year term. His appeal was denied by the Fourth Circuit in Richmond. Erdos was released on parole in late1976, after about three years in prison, and died of a heart attack in California in 1983.

Service culture of that era. But healways did his job, and his superiorsloved him. His fitness reports wereuniformly outstanding; he had ascend-ed as high as he could without becom-ing an ambassador.

However, in the up-or-out ForeignService, unless he was promoted —soon — he would be forced out. Hehad been told that the only problemwas finding an open ambassadorship.Unfortunately, political considera-tions and cronyism often influencedthose appointments. He was facingthe prospect of having to start overagain professionally — an older man,and now with a young family.

�In early 1971, he was summoned

by higher-ups at the Department ofState. They wanted to talk to himabout a possible assignment. Fatherhad served at the embassy in Niger.Was he familiar with Equatorial Guin-ea? What did he know about its gov-ernment? In particular, the question-ers kept coming back to a word thatappeared repeatedly on Father’s fit-ness reports: “solid.”

The men finally came to the point.A position had opened up in Equator-ial Guinea. The title was chargé d’af-faires. The position reported to theAmerican ambassador in Yaoundé,who was also accredited to EquatorialGuinea. It was a small post; in fact,there would only be one other Ameri-can, an administrative officer. Therewould be no Marines, just the twoFSOs and three Foreign Service Na-tionals.

It would be a short tour, but theplace was “challenging.” Americantourists were advised not to go there.The dictator, President FranciscoMacias Nguema, had led the countryto its recent independence from Spain.The USSR, China and North Koreawere active there. Macias resentedSpain and the Western powers. In par-ticular, he was hostile toward theUnited States.

Three years before, a delegation ofU.S. congressmen and their aides hadvisited the country under the auspicesof the Red Cross. Macias had thrownthem in prison without explanation;there was no U.S. diplomatic pres-ence at that time. (The presidenteventually released the delegation.)In 1969, the U.S. had evacuated itsnationals from the country, underthreat of a coup. But shortly after-ward, the Department of State estab-lished an embassy, albeit over theobjections of State’s country director.Pres. Macias refused to meet with theU.S. ambassador from Yaoundé, call-ing him an assassin.

Less than a year previously, the gov-ernment had seized Spain’s em-bassy and residence without warning;the Spanish diplomats managed to fleethe country safely. The regime quicklyreversed itself, however, and Madrideventually returned its diplomats toSanta Isabel. Nevertheless, a prece-dent had been set: the regime did notrespect, or perhaps simply did notunderstand, diplomatic sovereignty.

The internal dynamics of Equator-ial Guinea were similar to of thoseNorth Korea. Citizens were forbid-den to talk to foreigners, includingdiplomats. Even diplomats were for-bidden to talk to any citizen or gov-ernment official, with the sole excep-tion of the chief of protocol at theForeign Ministry, who was 20 yearsold. The secret police regularlyentered diplomatic residences duringreceptions to make lists of the guests.

The State Department men had aproposition. If Father was preparedto serve as chargé, it would be with ade facto understanding that he wouldreceive an ambassadorial post beforehis up-or-out time ended. Was heinterested?

Father answered in the affirma-tive. He then received briefings.

Equatorial Guinea was a smallcountry on the western coast of Africawith a large volcanic outpost in its ter-

ritorial waters called Fernando Po, abeautiful, primordial jungle islandabout the size of Maryland. The dic-tator had established the nation’s cap-ital, Santa Isabel, there.

The country’s main source of rev-enue was cocoa. But the U.S. govern-ment was not interested in the cocoabut rather in Fernando Po’s deep-water ports, which had military poten-tial. The Soviets were aggressivelyexpanding their influence in Africa atthe time. They had evidently ap-proached Macias about a naval base.Father was instructed to find out moreabout that, and to try to improve rela-tions between Equatorial Guinea andthe United States.

�My parents arrived in Santa Isabel

on April 15, 1971. They moved intothe residence, which was across thestreet from the main jail. The atmos-phere in the city was tense.

Pres. Macias regularly issued dia-tribes on the radio and in newspapersagainst Spain, blasting the Spanishgovernment as criminals and worse.Government thugs routinely harassedthe Spanish expatriates in the coun-try; they beat one so badly in 1971that the man suffered permanentbrain damage.

It was commonly known thatMacias had personally murdered hisforeign minister and beaten a politicalopponent to death in the palace.Many other unfortunates had met asimilar fate. Usually the wives andchildren of his victims were alsokilled, sometimes in gruesome publicspectacles; more often than not, theirtribal villages were wiped out, also.

On one occasion, Macias an-nounced that foreign assassins werehiding in trees in the capital, waitingto kill him. They would not succeed,he added, because he was immortal.Nonetheless, the residents of SantaIsabel awoke one morning to find thetrees along a main boulevard cutdown. In his addresses to the nation,

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Macias gave himself various names,including “God,” and commanded hiscitizens to worship him.

Shortly after my parents arrived, aNew York Times correspondent some-how managed to enter the country.Upon leaving, he published a featurearticle attacking the regime. Thestory quoted “a member of the smalldiplomatic corps that maintains a ner-vous vigil here,” who spoke of thefrightening disappearances that wereall too common.

The president was apoplectic.American diplomats and their familieswere suddenly forbidden to travel out-side of the capital. When my motheror father left the residence or theembassy, men in suits followed them.

Macias and the state media startedto excoriate the United States daily. Itwas not so much communist or ideo-logical rants as hysteria. America wasassigned responsibility for every ill

imaginable, and many that were not.The government began sending pagesof anti-American gobbledygook overthe official wire to Washington, pageswithout grammar, punctuation orparagraph breaks.

I was 2 years old at the time andfell victim to the tumbo fly, a parasitethat lays its eggs on wet laundry putout to dry. When the eggs come intocontact with skin, they work their wayin and the larvae begin to grow. Icried nonstop, and Mother dug theworms out of my flesh. Santa Isabelhad a hospital in name only. Therewas only one doctor on the entireisland, if he could be found. Weeksearlier, the Nigerian chargé’s son hadbecome sick, and died within hours.The boy had been my age.

My father soon had yet anotherreason to worry. A French diplomat’sson, not much older than me, hadpointed a toy bow and arrow at a

policeman. The policeman seized thechild on the spot, and took him away.The French government intervened,and the police finally returned the lit-tle boy to his hysterical parents.Father commanded Mother to never,ever let me out of sight, even aroundthe house.

�At the beginning of August, little

more than three months after ourarrival, the regime began a massivewave of arrests throughout theisland. Observers believed thatMacias was wiping out the last ves-tiges of opposition to his rule. Thepolice brought the prisoners to themain jail, across the street from theresidence. Trucks and buses deposit-ed the prisoners after dark, and thescreams of the victims being torturedkept my parents awake. In themornings, Father and Mother sawdead bodies being carried out. It

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continued day and night, withoutletup. My parents could not sleep,and Father, in particular, began suf-fering from sleep deprivation.

One morning, African men in suitsentered the embassy. They stoodsilently in the chancery, lookingaround. Father arrived, and asked ifhe could help them. The menignored him, looked around somemore, and left without a word. Thenext day, one of the embassy’s threeAfrican employees failed to show upfor work. The other two disappearedduring the following two days. Theirrelatives called my father, begginghim to do something. The FSNs hadbeen arrested.

Two more nationals worked at thechargé’s residence, a cook and achauffeur. They were also arrested.The police took the cook, a womanwhom my parents considered a friendas well as an employee, across thestreet to the courtyard in front of theprison. They removed her clothesand staked her to the ground, in fullview of the residence. They then pro-ceeded to strip the skin from herbody. The woman screamed for twodays before she finally died.

Father repeatedly sent cables toWashington, asking for help. The re-sponses from State were equivocal.He lodged protests with the 20-year-old chief of protocol, who did notrespond at all. The U.S. ambassadorin Yaoundé was on home leave;Father was on his own.

His hands began to shake so badlythat he, a smoker, could not light hisown cigarettes. Macias announcedthat the nation was facing imminentinvasion by an “imperialist power”and its “white mercenaries.” Theywere trying to kill him, he said, but hewould kill them.

Father started behaving oddly. Hebegan sending cables to Washington,at the highest encryption level, warn-ing of communist conspiracies andthe danger to the United States.

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One morning shortly after the ar-rests of the staff, a policeman wasposted at the door of the embassy. Herefused to speak to my father, or toanyone else. The next day, he arrest-ed a messenger from the Gha-naian Embassy who was attempting todeliver a personal note to Father fromtheir chargé. The policeman guardedthe embassy door every day after that.The number of visitors dropped.

�It was all too much. Father

became progressively more paranoid,and suffered a mental breakdown. Hetook the life of Don Leahy, the admin-istrative officer. Following this tragicact, he decided that the Americandiplomats who were trying to evacuatehim from the country were commu-nist agents. He refused to leave.

During the impasse, the Nigerianambassador, with whom he wasacquainted, invited Father, Mother

and me to the Nigerian residence.The three of us remained in theambassador’s living room for threedays, without a change of clothes.The ambassador patiently stayed upwith my father day and night, trying tocalm him down, as Father spokeunendingly of plots. I will always begrateful to this man, whom I neversaw again.

Immediately after the incident, thegovernment of Equatorial Guineaaccused Father of “gun-running.”The regime seized the U.S. embassy.

Father was finally persuaded thathe needed to return to America. Butat the airport, he balked; the planewas really a Soviet plane, he said, withthe hammer and sickle painted over.After many reassurances, he boarded.Macias allowed the American diplo-mats to evacuate him. The presidentalso relinquished to them the body ofDon Leahy, which the regime had

kept for three days.Upon landing in Washington D.C.,

Father was immediately admitted tothe psychiatric ward at George Wash-ington University Hospital. All thedoctors who examined him agreed: hehad experienced a “psychotic epi-sode” as a direct result of the condi-tions on Fernando Po.

The trial took place in March 1972at the U.S. District Court for theEastern District of Virginia. It wasknown then, and is still known, as the“rocket docket.” Judge Oren R. Lewiswas of the old school. He declaredbefore the jury that psychology was“nonsense,” and expedited matters bycurtailing the testimony of defensepsychiatrists. The doctors produced bythe district attorney to rebut Father’sinsanity defense admitted that theyhad never examined the defendant.Depositions from foreign witnesses,such as the Nigerian ambassador, were

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not admitted into evidence. “Equatorial Guinea is not on trial,”

Judge Lewis said, “and will not be.”He accordingly refused to permit anyinformation about the country or itsmadness to be introduced. Tempo-rary insanity usually implies certaininciting conditions; however, myfather’s jury heard about none.

Ultimately, the jury rendered a ver-dict of manslaughter. My father’slawyer was Aubrey M. Daniel III, whohad previously found fame as the MyLai Massacre prosecutor and laterbecame a partner at an elite Washing-ton law firm. Daniel told me manyyears later that he considered myfather’s conviction and subsequentdenial of appeal to be the “singleworst” miscarriage of justice he hadever witnessed.

�The horrors of Equatorial Guinea

during the 1970s have often been com-

pared to those committed by theregime of Pol Pot. At some point, Pres.Macias began setting up crosses andcrucifying people. He did it along theairport road, so that diplomats and for-eigners would see. Firing squads exe-cuted masses of victims at the newlyconstructed “Freedom Stadium,”while playing American music over theloudspeakers. When the natives onFernando Po began fleeing, Maciasordered every boat on the islandburned. Many who depended on fish-ing for their sustenance starved todeath.

Between one-third and one-half ofthe country’s population either fled orwere killed during Macias’ tenure. Hewas finally overthrown by a relative in1979. Oil was discovered offshore, andcontracts with American petroleumcompanies followed. The country thatwas once called the “Auschwitz ofAfrica” soon became known as the

“Kuwait of Africa.” After Father’s evacuation, the

embassy was closed. It was reopenedbriefly in 1981, only to close again in1995 when a host government officialinsulted an American diplomat. In2003 it was opened once more. Today,the country is very friendly toward theUnited States.

My parents separated soon afterthe trial. In prison, Father wentthrough extensive psychological ther-apy and counseling. After severalyears, he applied for parole and theboard, considering his record of ser-vice and positive psychological evalu-ations, granted it. He retired quietlyto San Diego, where he attendedchurch regularly and spent time witha small circle of friends. He met alady, and they were planning to marry,but he died of a heart attack before ithappened. I remember her. She wasvery nice. �