Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy - Eamon Javers [70]
Beckett Brown also wanted to know about Swigart’s financial situation, and somehow gained access to records from his bank indicating that he had an account balance in January 1998. But there was nothing dramatic to be found there, either: Swigart had a modest balance of $14,410. The spies followed Swigart’s movements, issuing reports that read more like foreign agents’ intelligence dossiers than corporate e-mails: “Swigart appears to be working from home. He sets up a weekly schedule that rarely includes the Hawthorn Group.” And they had no hesitation about delving into his personal life, even noting the name and occupation of a woman he was dating at the time.
Nothing in the record shows that Beckett Brown came to any conclusions about whether or not Swigart had been Deep Chocolate. And it is not clear that Nestlé ever solved the mystery. But both must have known they were getting close: Richard Swigart was Deep Chocolate.
Working as a subcontractor for Hawthorn Group, which in turn was working for Mars, Swigart was one of the leaders of the covert effort against Nestlé Magic. As part of his campaign, Swigart reached out to consumer groups, government agencies, and the media, making the case that Magic was dangerous and noncompliant with the FDA’s rules. And even though Swigart had spent a career as a corporate consultant working against consumer groups like US PIRG, he needed to work with his old enemies on this operation. He dropped off packets of information against Magic at the offices of various consumer groups.
Next, Nestlé’s hired spies turned their attention to Patton Boggs, a prominent law and lobbying firm in Washington that worked for Mars. The lawyers had pressed the case against Magic at the FDA, arguing that Magic violated a decades-old law against embedding toys inside food products. Beckett Brown identified the individual attorney within the large firm to investigate: a young lawyer, Daniel Kracov, who specialized in matters before the FDA. Working closely with Mars, Kracov had done what he could to nudge the FDA to take action against Nestlé.
The operatives accessed the billing records for Kracov’s private phone at the M Street offices of Patton Boggs, jotting down the details of fifteen calls, noting which numbers were called most frequently and which states Kracov dialed in each case. Pinning down Kracov’s faxes proved more difficult. His fax line, as it turned out, was shared by a number of lawyers in the office. There was just no way to tell who Kracov had been sending his faxes to—any one of the attorneys in the office could have been using the same machine. The spies were temporarily flummoxed.
They moved on to a phone number at Mars itself, pulling phone records there that showed a Mars executive calling the White House twice on January 15, 1998. What could that call have been about? They needed to dig. Soon, Beckett Brown learned that executives at Mars were planning a company retreat in February to the Eastern Shore sailing town of Saint Michaels, Maryland. It was Beckett Brown’s own home base, and this would be a perfect chance to gather intelligence to fill in the gaps in the information obtained so far. Beckett Brown deployed agents to Saint Michaels. They needed to know where the Mars executives would be staying. There are only a few hotels in Saint Michaels, but getting the right one would be crucial. The Beckett Brown team cased the Mars headquarters in Virginia, noting the placement