Himmler's War

CHAPTER 13

Colonel Ernst Varner thought he could hear Margarete’s cry of delight even before his Fieseler Storch landed in the dirt road by the farmhouse. He hopped out when it slowed and the pilot taxied towards some trees where the plane would be covered with a tarp and, hopefully, be out of sight of the damned Americans. He’d endured a couple of scares on the flight from Berlin to the farm.

Margarete jumped into his arm and hugged him while Magda approached a little more sedately. Her eyes, however, were warm with a promise of better things to come and he winked at her. Magda’s response was to grin and lick her lips provocatively.

As they walked to the house, Varner noted with distaste the presence of foreign workers. He felt that using prisoners and drafted foreign civilians as little more than slaves was almost as distasteful as what was going on in the concentration camps. Once more it brought home the necessity for Germany to win the war, or at least negotiate an honorable peace. If not, the world would doubtless wreak a terrible vengeance on the Third Reich, regardless of who was in charge at the end. Eric and Bertha doubtless thought having slave workers was their due as Nazis and conquerors. After all, weren’t the prisoners being well fed and cared for? What more could people who weren’t quite human want?

Despite the gathering dark clouds of disaster outside, dinner was jovial and the food plentiful. Ernst had been on rationed food and ate too much. So too with the drinks and he made sure that his pilot, an eighteen-year-old lieutenant who appeared both too young for his rank and to be flying a plane, was well taken care of. They would not be flying tonight, so let the boy have a good meal and a couple of glasses of wine. Normally, he would have eaten with the pilot, a pleasant young man named Hans Hart, who seemed spellbound by Margarete, but Hart was intelligent and discretely excused himself and gave Varner the privacy to be with his family.

Afterwards, Varner was told many things, including the details of the death train and the fact that his wife and daughter were working on the Rhine Defenses.

He didn’t know which disturbed him more. The fact that the two women-Margarete clearly was no longer a girl-had seen such horrors as that train, or that they were in danger from Allied bombings while working. He made a note to try again to have them totally excused from their current assignments.

Later, after he and Magda had made love, they lay together in their bed. “I hope we didn’t wake anybody,” Ernst said and Magda giggled.

“Don’t worry. Eric and Bertha are at the other end of the house and they sleep like rocks. Margarete is no longer a little girl and I am reasonably confident she knows what goes on behind closed doors.”

Ernst laughed softly. “Did you see the way my pilot looked at her? My God, is this what the next few years are going to be like?”

“I just hope we have a few years in front of us,” Magda said wistfully.

He sighed. “I think I liked things they way they used to be. I still can’t believe that the idiot Detloff boy is nearby. I think I shall hurt his other knee for insulting my daughter.”

“ Our daughter,” she corrected. “And she’s quite capable of taking care of herself. She can drive cars and small trucks, and Eric has taught her how to shoot his guns. The Ami’s come and we’ll be ready,” she said only half-jokingly.

Varner visualized a line of women and old men defending the Reich against vast numbers of American tanks and planes. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so close to reality.

“So how is the war coming?” she asked with forced casualness. He had tried to hint at the truth in his letters, using code words and phrases, but he couldn’t be too specific. Even though he was an OKW staff officer, the post office had the right to open his mail and turn anything suspicious over to the Gestapo, and candor could be defined as defeatist and suspicious.

“There may actually be a glimmer of light. With Herr Hitler no longer around to guide us with his catastrophic sense of brilliance, Himmler is letting the generals fight the war properly; thus, the Russian and American advances have been slowed dramatically. Winter will soon be upon us, which means that the Soviets will stop and the American will at best be slowed even more. All forecasts by the group of shaman who profess to understand the weather say that the winter will be colder and snowier than normal, and that will help us considerably since it will keep American planes on the ground and turn the roads into muck for their tanks.”

Magda sighed. “Which only means that the war will go on and on. What if it never ends? What if this is only the beginning of a new Hundred Years War?”

“I can’t argue with anything you said. However, I keep hearing rumors of a political and diplomatic solution. Perhaps a negotiated peace is not out of the question if the two sides become exhausted. First, however, we must resolve the Jewish question, although not necessarily in the way Hitler originally planned.”

He laughed harshly. “Perhaps we will ship them all to Palestine and let the British and the Arabs fight over them. At any rate, we have to get them out of the Reich for their own good and for the future of Germany. Hitler originally wanted to ship them to Madagascar. It’s a shame it didn’t occur.”

“Peace,” she sighed, “what a wonderful thought. And what is really happening about the Jews? Please tell me there aren’t trainloads of corpses rotting all over Germany.”

“I’m certain that utter bureaucratic stupidity caused that and other, similar situations. Unfortunately, nobody knew quite what to do with Jews already in transit when word came down to stop shipping them. They couldn’t be returned to their homes or the camps they’d come from, and no trains were supposed to deliver them to their destination camps. Somehow it’s been straightened out by the SS, although I’m certain I don’t want to know the details.”

She decided to change the subject. “When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

Too soon, she thought. But she knew better than to argue with him. She reached down below his belly, found her target, and stroked him. He reacted and hardened immediately. “Then we’d better make sure we don’t waste any more time,” she said, “and no, I don’t give a stinking damn if Margarete hears us or not.”

Andrey Vlasov had once been considered a rising young general in the Red Army. Then, a series of unfortunate events had resulted in his own forces being left stranded and overwhelmed by the Germans. Requests for support, and then rescue, had gone unheeded. Vlasov’s force had been destroyed and he’d been captured.

Furious, and realizing the callousness and ineptitude of the Soviet high command, he’d turned traitor and had gone over to the Germans. Now the former Soviet lieutenant general led an anti-Soviet force, called the Russian Liberation Army.

Vlasov understood Berlin’s reluctance to use his forces, now at nearly sixty-thousand men, in key areas. Simply put, if they’d changed sides once, what would stop them from doing it again? Time would vindicate them, he told his second in command, Sergei Bunyachenko, as they traded shots of vodka.

However, the actions of the Nazis against Russian civilians had upset him deeply. The Germans could have been welcomed as liberators, not conquerors, and their savagery had horrified him. It was one thing to be brutal to combatants, and he didn’t much give a damn what happened to the Jews, but the manner in which the SS in particular was treating Russian civilians was appalling and he was beginning to wonder if he had indeed made the right decision. Rape and massacre seemed to be the code of the SS, especially the Totenkopf divisions who fought with incredible savagery on the Russian front. He wondered why almost all the Reich’s SS divisions were now confronting the Soviets. Why had those divisions in France and elsewhere been moved to the Eastern Front? He felt that the answer was that the SS would fight with incredible savagery against Slavic peoples they didn’t think were human.

He looked across the table. Bunyachenko was nearly asleep. Vlasov was puzzled. Sergei hadn’t had all that much vodka and the man had the capacity of a bear. Perhaps it was because they had just eaten a good heavy meal, were tired, and that the room was warm? Yes, that must be it. They were in Berlin awaiting a meeting with von Rundstedt. The field marshal had said he wanted Vlasov’s army sent to Yugoslavia and Vlasov thought that might be a good idea. They would earn the OKW’s respect by putting down the civil war going on in that godforsaken country by squashing Tito’s partisan armies. He would succeed where the regular German Army had failed, thereby earning the German high command’s respect and gratitude.

Vlasov yawned. Damn, he was getting sleepy too. Bunyachenko’s head came down and rested gently on the table. Vlasov couldn’t keep awake. Dimly, he knew that something had gone terribly wrong, but what he couldn’t say. Nor could he think. Nor could he fight the sleepiness.

His last coherent thought before he lapsed into unconsciousness was the horrible realization that he’d been drugged and that he was looking at the face of Satan.

Now it was Jack’s turn to go looking for a missing friend. After his narrow scrape with the Panthers, Carter had simply walked away and hadn’t been seen in a couple of hours. His crew, all of whom had almost miraculously survived, saw him walking off with a bottle in his hand.

“And I don’t think it was Coca-Cola, sir,” said Carter’s driver. All but one of the crew would return to duty immediately, or as soon as they got another tank. One man had a broken arm and would be replaced, but the rest only suffered from bumps, bruises, and minor burns. The driver’s eyebrows were singed black, which made him look like he’d been made up to look like a tramp.

Jack and Levin easily picked up Carter’s trail. Other GI’s simply pointed them in the right direction and, soon enough, they found him sitting behind a stone fence, the bottle of cognac, now half empty, cradled in his arms.

“Want to talk?” Jack asked as they plopped down on either side of him. Jeb’s eyes were red and his face was flushed.

“I think I’m through,” Carter said. “How many more tanks can I lose and how many more men can I get killed or maimed? Next time it might be me. I can handle that, but what I can’t deal with is people dying on my behalf or because of my stupid mistakes.”

“What mistakes?” asked Levin.

“We fired too soon. If we’d waited until they were closer, we might have hurt them.”

Jack shook his head. He was hardly an expert on armored warfare, but he’d picked up a goodly amount of knowledge since joining the 74th. “It didn’t matter. They saw you and would have shot just as soon as they could, which, please recall, was only seconds after you opened up. If anything, your firing first might have rattled them.”

“Sure,” Carter snarled. “Of my four tanks, only two were destroyed and one, mine, badly damaged. Four men are dead and five others wounded badly enough to be sent back. Let’s face it. I fucked up.”

Levin took the bottle. “If you’re finished with this, I’ll take a turn.” He swallowed and passed the cognac to Jack who took a healthy snort. Hell, Jack thought, if Jeb wasn’t going to finish drinking it, somebody should.

“Jeb,” said Levin, “the problem is very simple. The Germans have better tanks with better guns and better armor. Someday, the powers that be will realize that and get us weapons that will match up better with the krauts. In the meantime, we do the best we can with what we have. You know as well as I do that we outnumber them in tanks by a huge margin. Ergo, we’ve got to get on Whiteside and Stoddard’s case to keep our Shermans together in large numbers so we can overwhelm the next batch of Panthers that comes down the pike.”

Carter wasn’t listening. His chin was down and his eyes were closed. “Nappy time,” said Levin.

“We better get him inside before he freezes to death,” said Jack. It was mid-October and they’d already seen brief flecks of snow.

They took him under the arms and gently propelled him into a medic’s tent. “That doesn’t look like a combat wound, sir,” the medic, a corporal said stiffly.

“He just lost three tanks and nine men, Corporal,” Jack responded, just a little testily.

The corporal was unfazed but a little more sympathetic. He saw the bottle and smiled. “Self medication often works quite well, Captain. Put him on that cot and we’ll take care of him.”

Jack handed the corporal the bottle. It was still about a quarter full. “For services rendered?”

Jessica wearily walked up the three flights of stairs to her apartment. Even though she’d worked up a little sweat, she still clutched the thin overcoat tightly. Paris in the spring and summer might be lovely, but Paris in the fall and impending winter was cold, damp, and drab.

She stopped when she saw the door was ajar. She walked slowly, wondering if burglars were inside and she should start running down the stairs, when Monique popped her head out. “Your turn,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “Tell them the truth. Tell them everything you know.” With that, she turned and began walking down the stairs, sobbing loudly and dramatically.

Jessica entered her apartment. Two army majors stood and introduced themselves as members of the OPMG, the Office of the Provost Marshal General. In short, they were cops. The taller introduced himself as Major Harmon and the shorter officer with dark curly hair was Major Pierce. The OPMG had checked her background before letting her join the Red Cross, which she’d thought was a ridiculous waste of time and effort.

Jessica sat down. After all, it was her apartment. “I assume you’re here about Monique’s friend.”

Harmon answered. He appeared to be the leader. “Sergeant Doyle, yes.”

She smiled. “It’s Boyle, major.”

Annoyed, the taller officer corrected something on his notes. “What do you know about Boyle, Miss Granville?”

“Very little. Monique met him when we were all stationed at Rennes. He works in supply and that’s about all I know about him. I did not socialize with him. He is, was, Monique’s friend.”

“Did he ever bring around any presents?” Pierce asked.

She shrugged. “Flowers, food, chocolates, some wine, and some cognac are all I can remember.”

Pierce persisted. “I mean anything truly expensive?”

Jessica laughed. “Look around. Do you see anything remotely expensive?”

Harmon smiled. “Good point. By the way, is Boyle paying for this place?”

“No, I am. I’m also quite sure you’re aware that my father is a lawyer, and that my uncle is on Ike’s staff.”

“Actually, he’s on Beetle Smith’s staff,” Harmon said, “which may be a distinction without a difference, and yes, we do know about your family. Our asking you these questions is just a formality. But we do have to cover all our bases.”

“Gentlemen, what concerns me is the level of interest you’re showing. Boyle told Monique that he was under suspicion of stealing something, but we both thought it was relatively petty. I’m beginning to think we were mistaken.”

Harmon took a deep breath. “Look, just about everyone in supply takes something and it’s generally used to make their lives more comfortable, rather than trying to make a huge profit.”

“Yeah,” Pierce said, “for instance, you’d be shocked, simply shocked, at how many bottles of liquor destined for officers’ clubs go missing, or how many sides of beef run off like they still had hooves, but, you’re right, this is different. Ever hear of penicillin?”

“A little. It’s supposed to be a wonder drug that kills almost all infections. It’s supposed to be saving a lot of lives of wounded soldiers.” Realization dawned. “Oh God.”

“That’s right,” Harmon said. “It’s extremely valuable and extremely expensive. Significant quantities of it have disappeared and Boyle’s involved. And a suitcase full of it could be worth many thousands of dollars, unlike a case of whisky or a side of beef.”

“Even worse,” Pierce added, “every little bit missing means some wounded GI isn’t the getting help he needs to recover from his wounds.”

Jessica shook her head sadly. Boyle had seemed like a nice guy. “What’s Monique’s involvement?”

Pierce answered. “We can’t prove she knew anything and, like you, she doesn’t appear to have profited. In short, she’s in the clear until proven otherwise. So are you for that matter, although I sincerely doubted you were ever involved.”

“Thank you, I guess. And Boyle?”

“He’s disappeared,” said Major Harmon, standing to go. “He’s joined a growing number of deserters who feel they can hide out in the chaos surrounding the war.”

Pierce glared. “And God have mercy on them when we find them, because we’ll hang them.”

General George Catlett Marshall fumed quietly. Had the late General Leslie McNair been the problem or the solution? They’d had heated arguments over the proper use of armor on the battlefield and what type of tanks should be built. There would be no more arguments. McNair was dead, the victim of friendly fire on the beaches of Normandy just a couple of months earlier. That Leslie McNair had been a good an honorable man was without question. But had he convinced the army to make a bad decision? Hindsight always provided a hell of a view and Marshall decided to leave it at that.

Pre-war army doctrine had said that tanks did not fight other tanks. That job was left to the so-called tank destroyers, which were light and quick and designed to wait for enemy armor to attack them. Tanks supported infantry, or smashed like cavalry into the rear of an opponent’s army and destroyed their supplies and communications. That, of course, was dogma before the Germans and their blitzkrieg attacks and their rapidly moving and well-armored tank columns.

With significant influence from the late General McNair, the decision had been made to go with the M4 Sherman as America’s main battle tank, and let M10 tank destroyers fight the Nazi armor. It hadn’t worked out that way, and now U.S. armor was being cut to pieces by German tanks, while the open topped and lightly armored tank destroyers accomplished relatively little. The men were brave, but their weapons were inadequate, and that was intolerable to Marshall.

Marshall looked across the table at Eisenhower. He had flown into Paris from Washington that morning. Marshall was tired and looked it.

“Bradley feels the answer is the M26, the Pershing,” Ike said and Bradley nodded. “Patton agrees to a point but says it doesn’t matter since we’ll never get the Pershing in sufficient numbers to make a difference. Therefore, Patton wants more and more Shermans and plans to overwhelm the Nazis with numbers and speed.”

The decision to go with the Sherman had come because it could be built relatively cheaply and transported across the ocean both economically and in great numbers. It also was better than anything either the Germans, or the Russians for that matter, had at the time. Now, the Sherman was outclassed by the main battle tanks of either Germany or Russia. The Pershing, with its 90mm gun would solve a lot of those problems.

Bradley continued. “Patton discounts the fact that we are taking large casualties with the Sherman. He says that’s a cost of war and, to a point, he’s right. If the Sherman is the best we have and the best we’re going to have, then there’s little else we can do except follow Patton’s plans to overwhelm the Germans.”

Patton wasn’t present. His massive Third Army was to the south and Marshall would visit him in person. By the end of this year, forty-thousand Shermans would have been built, with the vast majority of them coming to Europe, and France in particular. With the war in Italy at the stalemate stage, and armor unsuited to the mountains, additional tanks were being shipped from that country to France.

However, the Germans appeared to be doing the same thing. According to Ultra estimates, only about five thousand Panthers had been built to date and most had been sent east to fight the Russians. But now, if the Russians were indeed pulling out of the war for however long, the German tanks would be moving west to aid German armies as they slowly retreated towards the Rhine. The same held true for the even larger German Tiger and King Tiger tanks, which dwarfed and outgunned the best the U.S. had or would have, even if the Pershing came into action. Thankfully, there were relatively few Tigers and even fewer King Tigers. Even the Russians, first with their T34 and then with their KV and Stalin tanks, had larger and better weapons systems than the U.S.

“Ike, I take it you don’t agree with Patton.”

“I don’t like the idea of wasting lives. We have to have something better. The Sherman is now a second tier weapon,” Ike answered. “We need the Pershings. They can stand up to just about anything the Germans have, or the Russians for that matter.”

Marshall shook his head. “I agree with you, but I can’t flip a switch and change over from one tank to another. We’re already making some Pershings, just not a large number of them. I’ve been told there’ll be a dozen or so by the end of the year.”

Ike laughed harshly. “A dozen? Good God, that’s not even a drop in the bucket. We’ll need hundreds, thousands, if we’re to take on the Germans.” Ike lit another cigarette and grinned. “Kick some butt, General. Push the manufacturers hard. Winter’s coming which should slow things down for a while, but when spring comes we’ll need the Pershing’s 90mm gun if our boys aren’t going to get slaughtered. A Panther is worth at least five Shermans. If we maintain that ratio we’ll wipe out the Panthers, but also our armored divisions.”

“What does Patton say about that?” Marshall asked.

“He agrees with the casualty numbers. He just doesn’t think there’s an alternative. Like I said, he doesn’t see enough Pershings arriving soon enough to make a difference, and a dozen sure as hell isn’t going to make any difference at all.”

Marshall stood and looked at Bradley. “Okay. Brad, I’ll make you a deal. You will get no significant increases in the numbers of Shermans, only replacements for losses. Any increases will go to Patton. In the meantime, I will do my best to accelerate production of the new tank and every one of them will go to you.”

“Agreed,” said Bradley.

“Any questions?” Marshall asked.

“Just one,” said Ike. “What the hell are the Russians up to?”

Half a world away, Franklin Delano Roosevelt angrily snuffed out his cigarette into an ashtray emblazoned with the symbol of the White House. The ashtrays had a habit of disappearing each time he had a first-time visitor. He wondered how many were proudly displayed in somebody’s library or living room, even those of the handful of annoying nonsmokers.

FDR and the others were in the map room, a place he loved to visit and take in the war’s latest events. The walls were covered with maps of all the war’s theaters, and colored tabs and pins showed him at a glance the makeup and location of all the combatants. Thanks to code-breaking successes, virtually all the German units were correctly placed. It caused some concern as it appeared that the Germans were repositioning their forces.

Not quite as much was known about the Japanese since what remained of their navy could pick up and move at any time while maintaining radio silence. Nor was it difficult to hide a fleet, as the United States had learned to its dismay on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese navy, thought to be safe in the Home Islands, emerged out of the cold Pacific and attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese army was fairly immobile with many of her garrisons bypassed and those scheduled to be attacked unable to be reinforced. The large Japanese army in China posed no threat and was of no immediate concern.

There was some information on the Soviet side thanks to breakthroughs by the army’s Signals Intelligence Headquarters at the nearby former girls school called Arlington Hall. It was a point of concern for Secretary of State Cordell Hull who felt that spying on the Soviets was a violation of the U.S. agreement with them. It was noted by this day’s attendees in the Map Room that Hull, ill and soon to be replaced, was not present. Dean Acheson represented State, while OSS head Bill Donovan, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson rounded out the small group.

To a man they wished General Marshall was present, but he was still in Europe.

FDR’s righteous anger flared again. “Do not for one moment even think of telling me that Joe Stalin is going to renege on his agreements. I looked in the face of that man when we met at Tehran last year and he assured me that he would be in the fight to the finish and that he would not even consider a separate peace. I believed him then and I’ve seen no reason to change my mind. We can trust Joe Stalin and don’t forget it.”

Donovan stood his ground. “Then please consider what has happened. If we take Stalin’s statement that his army needs a rest at face value, then why are the Germans moving large portions of their Eastern Front armies to France? A rest and refit might last a month or two, but this has all the earmarks of a major pullback; thus, a big change in overall strategy, which has to reflect a change in the relations between Germany and Russia. It’s as if the Nazis know that the commies aren’t going to attack for a very long time and not just for a month or two. Otherwise there’s no reason for them to strip their armies of so much strength.”

“He gave me his word,” Roosevelt said stubbornly.

Acheson took his turn. “Stalin is a murdering monster. He’s slaughtered millions of his own people and enslaved millions more. His word is as trustworthy as that of a gangster, an Al Capone.”

“Stalin is an ally,” added FDR as if that said it all. “But what then are the Soviets doing?” he asked, suddenly reasonable.

The others looked at each other. The army’s code-breaking efforts were providing them with some diplomatic information, but they knew very little about the Russian military.

“We have no OSS agents in the Soviet Union,” Donovan admitted.

“Our embassy in Moscow might as well be on the moon,” Acheson said. “Our personnel are followed everywhere and only allowed to go to certain areas, and see what the Soviets wish us to see, and talk to people with whom they wish us to speak, all of whom are spies. Russia is as much a closed society as is Japan.”

“Even so, there’s nothing on the Russian side to indicate perfidy, is there?” FDR said smugly.

“Nothing concrete,” Acheson admitted. “But the embassy is still picking up rumors of vast troop movements headed towards the Urals and Siberia.”

Roosevelt laughed hugely and slapped his large hand on the table. “And that, gentlemen, makes no fucking sense whatsoever. They do not have an enemy in Siberia, and what would they do with an army in that frosted land in the winter?”

It was Stimson’s turn. “German military intelligence also indicates that the Reds are pulling out.”

“Rumors, counterrumors, and rumors of rumors,” FDR said, practically sneering. “Gentlemen, please, do not bother me with bogey men and monsters under the bed.”

He lit another cigarette and took a long, slow, drag. It seemed to calm him down. “Gentlemen, I respect your opinions and I even permit the possibility that you might be right, however much I doubt it. In fact, I doubt it so strongly that I want no further discussions of the possibility of Russian treachery to take place with me. Continue to gather data, of course, but do not bother me without concrete facts, which I am confident you will not find.”

He coughed and laid the cigarette and its long holder in the ashtray. “There is, of course another reason for keeping the lid on these wild rumors. In just under two weeks we will have the election and I will either be President for a fourth term or tossed out on my can and Tom Dewey will be voted in for his first term. Now, this Dewey person is an excellent governor of New York and might make a fine President under other circumstances, but not right now. We need continuity in the White House. A ship does not change captains in mid-course.”

He looked around and they all nodded. FDR’s decision to run for a third term in 1940 had provoked enormous controversy. No President had held the office for more than two terms, following an implied guideline established by George Washington. His decision to run for a fourth term, whatever the circumstances and the rationale, had upset a large part of the nation who were beginning to think that Roosevelt was establishing a dictatorship of his own. Many voters were thinking continuity be damned-it was time for a change. Similar winds were blowing in England where it was felt that Churchill’s skills as a war leader were no longer needed, and that he should be replaced by someone who knew how to rebuild the shattered British Empire.

Republican Tom Dewey was a formidable opponent, which truly concerned Roosevelt. If it should get out that the alliance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union forged only a few years earlier was falling apart, it would strongly imply that FDR was no longer in control of the international situation. While photographs still did not show him in a wheelchair, no one who saw his picture in the newspapers or in newsreels could deny that he was a frail and sickly man. An openly discussed question was whether he would even be still living four years from now. Thus, failure with Russia would indicate a need for a new hand at the helm. The others nodded. They would keep the possibility of a problem with Stalin quiet for a couple of weeks.

Unsaid was the fact that Henry Wallace would no longer be Vice President after the elections. Politically, he leaned too far left for the comfort of the men in the room. If FDR won, the new Vice President would be the senator from Missouri, Harry Truman. Nobody knew much about him except that he’d served honorably in World War I and wasn’t a communist.

Roosevelt smiled his famous smile. “Wonderful. Now, let’s do something constructive about this. Mr. Acheson, you will have our Moscow people find out all they can without, of course, endangering themselves or their sources. Mr. Byrnes, you will meet with Mr. Gromyko again and push him to let us know a precise date when the Russian offensive will start up, while I will send a letter to ‘Uncle Joe’ essentially asking the same thing.”

He leaned forward, more confident now. “And you, Mr. Donovan, will try to infiltrate the Soviet Union, or at least focus more on what they are doing.”

“That would take years,” Donovan said ruefully. “Realistically, Mr. President, we should be working with sympathetic Germans to find out what they are observing regarding Russian moves, and develop sources who might know of secret German-Russian agreements. What I can and will do regarding the Soviets is send teams into Poland to observe.”

Roosevelt thought for a moment. “Very well,” he said thoughtfully and then beamed. “Martinis?”