Hitler's peace

“Yes. I like your thinking. But not Ultra. Nor, I think, Magic. If the Russians ever did make another nonaggression pact with the Nazis, we might regret that.” Roosevelt chuckled. “But, my God, I’d love to see Donovan’s face when he reads this particular executive order.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and drained my glass, drunk with my small triumph. “So you’ll order Donovan to give the Soviets those codebooks back?”

The president grinned and toasted me silently with an empty glass. “It’ll serve that son of a bitch right for trying to creep around my orders.”

A little later I went out to my car and got into it. I was feeling halfway drunk, so I wound down the windows and drove slowly back to Kalorama Heights. When I parked in my driveway, I cut the motor and sat for a few moments, looking at the house but not really seeing anything. In my mind’s eye I was standing behind Franklin Roosevelt as he shook Marshal Stalin by the hand.

XII

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1943,

WASHINGTON, D.C.

As soon as I arrived at the Campus that Thursday morning, Doering telephoned asking me to see him in his office.

Otto Doering was everything Bill Donovan was not: patient, conservative, sedentary, and studious, the deputy director of the OSS hardly looked like the kind of man who had once worked as a horse wrangler. Doering was not a popular man at the Campus, but I respected his sharp legal mind and organizational abilities and, early on, I had formed the strong impression that Doering must have been an excellent and formidable attorney. Which is to say that I pretty much hated his guts.

When I found Doering I was surprised to discover the deputy director was with General Strong from G-2. Another army officer I didn’t recognize was also in attendance.

“Gentlemen, this is Major Willard Mayer. Willard? I think you’ve met General Strong.”

I nodded and shook hands with a slim, smooth-faced man-another lawyer, this one a professor of law at West Point. Nicknamed King George on account of his grand manner, it was correctly supposed that General George Strong had begun his military career fighting the Ute Indians.

“And this is Colonel Carter Clarke, from the Army’s Special Branch.”

Clarke was a younger but heavier man, with cold blue eyes and a pug’s broken face. The silvery gray hair that grew off the top of his head seemed to have taken fright at the brutish ideas that were concealed in the thick skull underneath. I didn’t doubt that if Strong had told him to lead a cavalry charge on a renegade Indian village, he would have drawn his saber and performed his duty without a thought.

I kept on nodding, but the feeling of relief I had enjoyed on leaving the White House the previous evening was already turning to concern: the Army’s Special Branch supervised the Signals Intelligence Service at Arlington Hall, in the northern suburbs of Washington. I wondered if the presence of these two hard-assed soldiers was linked to my earlier conversation with the president regarding Bride and Donovan’s Russian codebooks.

“Congratulations,” said the general, smiling stiffly. “I hear you’re going to be General Donovan’s executive officer at the Big Three.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, sitting down.

“Yes, congratulations,” Doering said coolly.

I guessed Doering had little or no idea why I of all people should have been ordered to attend the conference; but he could hardly admit as much in front of General Strong and Colonel Clarke. Despite the presence of the two army officers in Doering’s office, there was no love lost between G -2 and the OSS.

“What, precisely are your orders, Major?” inquired the general.

“Sir, I’m to join the USS Iowa at Point Lookout tomorrow afternoon and to await further instructions from General Donovan in Cairo.”

“I understand the president asked for you personally,” said Strong. “Any idea why?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask the president that, General. I just do what I’m told.”

I watched Strong shift uncomfortably in his chair and exchange an exasperated glance with Clarke. Strong was probably wishing he could have treated me like a Ute Indian who was off the reservation.

“All right, Major,” Clarke said. “Let’s try this on for size. Are you able to shed some light on why the president has ordered us to provide some technical assistance to Soviet military intelligence? Portable microfilm sets, some intelligence captured from the Germans in Italy relating to Soviet ciphers, that kind of thing. Do you have an idea what might have put this notion into his head?”

“I believe the president is very concerned that the Big Three Conference should be a success, sir. When I saw him last night, in connection with a report he had asked me to write regarding the Katyn Forest massacre, he indicated he was considering a number of initiatives designed to gain the trust of the Soviets. Although he mentioned nothing specific, I imagine this technical assistance you describe is part of one of those initiatives.”