Back in the 1980’s the Russian Consulate in San Francisco purchased twenty nine Apple II+ computers. A technician was hired to put them together. Because their were very few computer technicians at that time, the Russians were not very knowledgeable at what to pay for his services. The technician was able to charge over ten times the normal hourly rate.
As the tech was leaving, the official noticed that the motherboards appeared to be working because some lights went on, the screens worked, but for some reason when a disk was put into the disk drive nothing would happen.
The Russians had already spent a total of over fifteen
thousand dollars for the hourly technician's time and travel expenses. A large
chunk of the expense was for the technician to stay at the Ritz Carlton Hotel
and to eat at the most expensive restaurants in San Francisco. He even charged
them for parties and massages in his hotel room.
When the head of the consulate realized that the
computers did not work he yelled at the technician, but the technician just
shrugged his shoulders and left.
Later that day the Russian Consulate Officer in San
Francisco, called Steve Jobs direct. He was thinking that Steve would be happy
to drive a an hour north, to San Francisco, and help him out by fixing the
computers personally. After Jobs was on
the phone for about two minutes he was overheard saying
“You haven’t got a prayer. Call a
Reverend to pray for you and your computers” Jobs then slammed down the phone.
The consulate official was confused, he didn’t really understand English very
well but decided to follow his instructions as he understood them.
The Consulate official had a copy of a recent Issue of Info World on his desk. In it was an article about Reverend Apple. He stared at the article a while and then recalled he had spent time reading about the same person in a Time Magazine Article. He realized that this Reverend was only an hour away and was able to make the computer work properly.
The consulate official then placed a call to whom he thought had God on his side, when it came to computers.
In their conversation, it was agreed that the problem had
cost the Russians a lot of money and time and that they needed it fixed
immediately. The Reverend said “ For my work you will pay a minimum of two
hundred dollars an hour plus expenses and for a project this enormous and
difficult I will charge a minimum of five thousand dollars regardless of how
much time it takes". The Russian agreed if he would only pay after seeing
the computers working properly. In addition the total was not to be more than
ten thousand dollars.
Reverend Ron lived about one hour south of San Francisco,
in Sunnyvale. When he arrived at the consulate he was welcomed by the Russian
official with the words "Fix my computers”, which was followed by “All of the
computers are in the next room”
When bringing the Reverend into the consulate the consulate officer followed protocol, but he never knew that the KGB had Ron's picture, they took, in their files because Ron was a nickname and not his real name. The likeness of the Reverend was the same as when he appeared on the Phil Donahue interview, which is now on YouTube. They assumed he was a strange fellow, who spent time training Siberian tigers.
It was over ten years later that the true facts about the Reverend came out. The Reverends past was not one of prayer.
He spent years providing logistical support for the US Military in Berlin and spent long periods of time with the NCO in charge of the 766th military intelligence group. Still to this day he is a card carrying member of the Berlin Island Association. In his office is a picture he took of his favorite place to work in East Berlin, the US (Intelligence) Mission in Potsdam. Any of these facts would have alerted the KGB to watch his every move in the Russian consulate.
However the Reverend Ron appeared to be someone else to the Russian Consulate staff that found stories about him in Science Digest and articles he wrote for magazines all over the world.
Ron opened one of the non-functional computers and noted
that the disk drive cables were connected backwards. He asked the consulate
official to leave the room. Ron told him that he would pray for the computers
and the official should go and get the check book.
When the official came back into the room with the check
book in hand he saw that the computers were working. “Some prayer” he said, and
wrote Ron a check for five thousand dollars.
Ron left with a smile on his face and on the next Sunday morning the consulate official went to church for the very first time. Later that week he was over heard being asked about it by the Consulate Intelligence officer and his response was “I was spying on them to find out how they achieve miracles."
At a later point in time the twenty nine computers were sent to Russia and used for asteriod tracking and other purposes. The tracking devices inside showed that two were still in use in 2008.
