Hitler's peace

“Maybe we’re making too much of this,” said Arnold. “Okay, the secret’s out. We were aware of that on the Iowa. All that’s changed is that we know for sure that the krauts are in on the secret. If they were planning a surprise bomber attack, then they’d hardly tell the world on Berlin Radio that they know all about the conference. I mean, that would just put us on our guard. No, they’d say nothing at all about it.”

“What do you think, Prof?” asked Reilly

“I think General Arnold makes a good point. But at the very least, we should be even more vigilant. Deploy a couple of night-fighter squadrons north of Cairo. Bring in some more armored cars. More troops.”

“Makes sense,” agreed Leahy. “What else?”

“Since the two principal targets are the president and Mr. Churchill, perhaps we ought to leave the final decision to them. A short delay in the departure for Cairo might be a good idea, just to give them time for an exchange of telegrams.”

“Mike? What do you think?”

“It couldn’t do any harm to stay here another day,” agreed Reilly. “And it might be better if the president flew at night.”

“That’s true,” said Arnold. “There would be no need for a fighter escort at night.”

“How about this?” I said. “All the Joint Chiefs to fly on Sunday morning, six A.M., as scheduled. But the president doesn’t fly until late Sunday evening, which means he wouldn’t arrive in Cairo until Monday morning. In other words, we fool the world into believing the president is arriving in Cairo at lunchtime on Sunday, when in fact he won’t be there for another twenty hours. That way, if the Germans were to mount an attack, then the president would be safe.”

“Let me get this straight,” said General Marshall. “Are you proposing to use the Joint Chiefs as decoys?” The cavernous dining room at La Mersa seemed to give his words an extra resonance.

“That’s right, sir, yes.”

“I like it,” said Reilly.

“You would,” growled King.

“My suggestion has another advantage,” I added.

“What do you want us to do now?” asked Arnold. “Put up some smoke for German bombers?”

“No, sir. I was thinking that when you all arrived in Cairo, who better than yourselves to evaluate the security situation on the ground for the president? If you get there and decide that the situation warrants a change of location, you could direct the president somewhere else. Alexandria, for example. After all, that’s where Churchill is due to arrive tomorrow morning. And I’m told there are some excellent hotels in Alexandria.”

“I don’t like Alexandria,” said General Marshall. “It’s a hundred miles nearer to Crete, and the last I heard, there were thirty thousand German paratroopers on Crete. Not to mention, the Luftwaffe.”

“Yes, sir, but the Luftwaffe on Crete is mostly all fighters, not bombers,” I said. This was the advantage of being a specialist in German intelligence. I did at least know what I was talking about. “And they’re short of fuel. Of course, we could always choose Khartoum. But the logistics of moving everyone in Cairo a thousand miles to the south might be too much to contemplate.”

“Damn right they are,” muttered King.

“There are no good hotels in Khartoum, in any event. I’m not sure there are even any bad ones.”

I found myself beginning to warm to Arnold.

“Gentlemen,” said Marshall. “I think we’ll just have to hope that for once British defenses are as good as they say they are.”

I went back to La Mersa, had a shower, and checked my mail. There wasn’t any. Poole wanted me to see four of the local sights. Two of the local sights were named Leila and Amel, the other two were called Muna and Widad. But I’d had enough excitement for one day. Besides, I could hardly have looked in my shaving mirror and told myself I was in love with Diana with some Tunisian broad’s lipstick on my shirt collar. So I had a lousy dinner and went to bed early, although, as things turned out, I was not alone.

Early on the morning of Sunday, November 21, I awoke, with a couple of flea bites. It was a bad start. And when I looked in my shaving mirror I didn’t feel I had gained very much from declining Ridgeway Poole’s offer of hospitality. Awakening with a couple of Tunisian girls had to be better than awakening with a couple of flea bites. Things always look a lot different in the morning.

At six A.M. I accompanied the Joint Chiefs on one of the C-54s leaving the airfield of El Aounia. Ahead of us lay a five-and-a-half-hour flight to Cairo. I was pleased to discover that none of the president’s Secret Service agents were on our plane. The last thing I wanted was to endure the further scrutiny of Agents Rauff and Pawlikowski.

Approaching Cairo from the west, we enjoyed a spectacular view of the Pyramids before putting down at an RAF airfield in the western desert. Minutes later, the RAF were driving the Joint Chiefs and their liaison officers to the Mena House hotel, near the Pyramids at Giza. I was driven to Shepheard’s Hotel in the center of Cairo.