Death and Honor

No one was fooled. But both the Argentines and the Americans understood the rules of the game. Graham would have diplomatic status in Argentina, protecting him from arrest. Theoretically, if he was caught with twenty pounds of dynamite in the act of placing it under the Casa Rosada—Argentina’s pink equivalent of the White House—all that could happen to him would be to be declared persona non grata and expelled from the country, after which the Argentine ambassador in Washington would “make representations” to the U.S. secretary of State.

As a practical matter, both sides understood that if he were caught trying to blow up Casa Rosada—or in some other outrageous activity—he would be shot, after which the American ambassador in Buenos Aires could “make representations” to the Argentine foreign minister.

There were Argentines in Washington carrying diplomatic passports—most of them running errands for the Germans—with no more right to theirs than Graham had to his. They were under constant surveillance by the FBI, as Graham would be under constant surveillance by the BIS in Argentina.

But as diplomats they were protected against arrest and could not be questioned, which obviated the necessity of coming up with some imaginative excuse to explain one’s presence where one was not supposed to be.

Anything less than really outrageous behavior was tolerated by both the United States and Argentina. It was in their mutual interest.

And there was a simple, logical explanation as to why Graham found El Coronel Martín meeting his Brazilian airline flight not surprising. There was no question in Graham’s mind that within an hour of his acquiring the visa— no longer than it had taken to encrypt the message—somebody from the Argentine embassy had gone to Western Union, or Mackay Radio, and sent a cable informing the BIS that Graham was coming to Buenos Aires.

What had somewhat surprised Colonel A. F. Graham were the airplanes that had carried him from Natal, Brazil, to Argentina. They were both Lockheed Lodestars.

He’d flown from Miami to Natal—with fuel stops in Trinidad and Belem— in great luxury aboard a Panagra Boeing 314—the same “Dixie Clipper” that had in January flown President Roosevelt to the Casablanca Conference. It was an enormous forty-two-ton flying boat powered by four 1,600-horsepower engines. Aboard was a bar and comfortable bunks, and first-class food had been served by Panagra stewards in crisply starched white jackets.

They’d spent the night in luxurious accommodations in Belem, then flown the next morning on to Natal, an eight-hour flight during which they had averaged a bit over 125 miles per hour. This was as far south as the big seaplanes went. From Natal, they either flew across the South Atlantic to British Gambia on the African Coast or returned to Miami.

The Panagra flights to Natal always carried high-priority supplies and senior officers bound for the large U.S. Army Air Forces base at Brazil’s Pôrto Alegre, and thus routinely were met by a USAAF plane from Pôrto Alegre. The last time Graham had gone to Argentina, that aircraft had been a B-24 and everyone had had to sit on the floor.

This time, the airplane had been a Lodestar—one painted olive drab, making it in USAAF parlance a C-60—fitted out to transport seven passengers in the comfort befitting Air Forces senior officers.

That had made Graham wonder how long there had been a plethora of Lodestars before Hap Arnold had confided in Roosevelt the amazing success of the aircraft production system.

And when he’d gone to the civilian side of the airfield at Pôrto Alegre to board a Varig flight to Buenos Aires, he again had been surprised to see that it too was a Lodestar, also apparently brand new, but this time configured as a normal airliner with seats for fourteen passengers.

The stewardess told him that the Brazilian airline had recently acquired a dozen of the airplanes.

This, of course, forced him to think of Roosevelt’s “suggestion” that Cletus Frade start an airline in Argentina. He wondered if Roosevelt had other reasons for making the suggestion. In his experience with the President, the reason advanced for one idea or another was most often not the real one.

Graham, admiringly, not pejoratively, thought that Franklin Delano Roosevelt could have given lessons in political maneuvering to Niccolò Machiavelli.

Colonel Martín was standing just inside the immigration and customs booths in the terminal.

“Colonel Martín, what a pleasant surprise!” Graham greeted him cheerfully in Spanish, putting out his hand.

“Have a nice flight, did you, Colonel?”

“Actually, I think you’re supposed to call me ‘Mr. Secretary,’ ” Graham said.

“What is that saying of your Corps of Marine infantry, ‘Once a Marine, always a Marine’?”

“And that is actually the ‘Marine Corps’ instead of what you said,” Graham replied. “Tell you what: Why don’t you call me ‘Alejandro’? Or better yet, ‘Alex’?”