Hitler's peace

“There’s typhus in Basra. And, for all I know, Nazi paratroopers, too. Besides, it’s a hell of a train journey from Basra to Teheran. Even in the shah’s personal train.” He offered me a cigarette and then lit us both. “No, we’re flying direct to Teheran. That’s if we ever get through this goddamned Cairo traffic.”

“I like the Cairo traffic,” I said. “It’s honest.”

Reilly handed me his hip flask. “Looks like you were right,” he said, nodding out of the window at the fog.

“I’m always right,” I told Reilly. “That’s why I became a philosopher.”

“I just figured out why they want you along, Professor,” he said. “You’re easier to carry than a set of encyclopedias.”

I took a swig of his brandy. And then another.

“Better make it last. That’s breakfast until we get to Teheran.”

I was starting to like him again, thinking maybe there was more under his Panama hat than a thick head of black-Irish hair.

There were several planes on the runway at Cairo Airport, and Reilly directed me toward the president’s own C-54. I climbed aboard and sat down alongside Harry Hopkins. It was as if nothing had happened. I shook hands with Hopkins. I shook hands with Roosevelt. I even exchanged a few jokes with John Weitz.

“Nice of you to join us, Professor,” said Hopkins.

“I’m very glad to be here, sir. I understand from Reilly that but for you I wouldn’t be here at all.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I’ll try not to, sir.”

Hopkins nodded happily. “It’s all behind us now. All forgotten. Besides, we couldn’t afford to leave you behind, Willard. We’re going to have need of your linguistic skills.”

“But surely the only foreign language that’s going to be spoken at the Big Three is Russian.”

Hopkins shook his head. “The shah went to school in Switzerland. And I think you are aware of his father’s hatred of the British. Hence, His Majesty speaks only French and German. Because of the delicacy of the political situation in Iran, it was decided to keep any meetings between Reza Shah and the Big Three a secret. For the sake of the shah himself. He’s only twenty-four years old and not yet secure on the throne. Until thirty-six hours ago, we weren’t exactly sure he would risk meeting us at all. That’s why you haven’t been kept informed of what was happening. We didn’t know ourselves. After the war, oil is going to be the key to world power. There’s an ocean of the stuff underneath Iran. It’s why the president agreed to come here in the first place.”

I was already forming the strong impression that, but for my German-language skills, I would still be in a prison cell in Cairo facing a murder charge. Yet even now there was something about Hopkins’s story that didn’t quite add up.

“Then, with all due respect, wouldn’t it have been better to have brought someone along who speaks Farsi?” When Hopkins looked at me blankly, I added, “That’s the Persian name for the modern Persian language, sir.”

“Easier said than done. Even Dreyfus, our ambassador in Teheran, doesn’t speak the local lingo. Hungarian and a little French, but no Farsi. Our State Department isn’t up to snuff in terms of linguists, I’m afraid. Nor anything else, for that matter.”

I glanced around. John Weitz, the State Department’s Russian-language specialist and Bohlen’s substitute, was sitting right behind me, and, having clearly heard Hopkins’s remark, he raised his eyebrows at me with a show of diplomatic patience. A few moments later he got out of his seat to walk back to the plane’s tiny lavatory. Meanwhile, the president, Elliott Roosevelt, Mike Reilly, Averell Harriman, Agent Pawlikowski, and the Joint Chiefs were each of them staring out of the windows as the plane flew over the Suez Canal near Ismailia.

“Since we’re speaking frankly, sir,” I said, taking advantage of Weitz’s absence, “it’s still my belief that we have a German spy traveling in our delegation. A man who has now killed twice. Possibly more. I firmly believe that one of our party intends to assassinate Joseph Stalin.”

Hopkins listened patiently and then nodded. “Professor, I just know you’re wrong. And you’ll have to take my word for why that is, I’m afraid. I can’t tell you why. Not yet. But I happen to know that what you say is just impossible. When we’re on the ground, we can talk about this again. Until then, it might be a good idea if you were just to can this theory of yours. Got that?”

We flew over Jerusalem and Baghdad, crossing the Tigris, up and along the Basra-Teheran railroad, and then from Ramadan to Teheran, always at only five or six thousand feet off the ground so that the lame constitutions of Roosevelt and Hopkins would not be taxed too much by the journey. All the same, I guessed it was quite a job for the pilot, having to negotiate several mountain passes instead of just flying the big C-54 over them.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when finally we caught sight of the Russian army airfield at Gale Morghe. Dozens of American B-25s repainted with the red star of the Soviet Union sat on the airfield.