Hitler's peace

XII

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.”

“And what is your opinion of the wisdom of extending this kind of help to the Soviets?” asked Strong.

“Is the general asking for my personal opinion?”

“He is,” said Strong and lit a hand-rolled cigarette made of a rather barbarous and pungent tobacco.

It seemed obvious that Strong greatly resented the very idea of the United States returning Donovan’s captured Soviet intelligence codebooks before he had a chance to use them on the Bride material. It seemed equally obvious that it was in my best interests to try to dissemble a little, in an attempt to gain the general’s trust, just in case Strong and Doering were planning some sort of scheme to circumvent the president’s orders.

“Then, frankly, I have my doubts, sir. It seems to me that defeating the Nazis will leave a power vacuum in Europe, and unless we are extremely careful, it might be filled by the Soviet Union. I think the families of more than four thousand Polish officers massacred by the NKVD in the Katyn Forest might legitimately argue that the Russians are not much better than the Nazis. Whatever we give the Soviets now in the way of intelligence-gathering might easily end up being used against us.”

I was just regurgitating Donovan’s Quebec paper for the Joint Chiefs; given the enduring enmity that existed between the general and the chief of the OSS, it was highly unlikely that Strong would have read Donovan’s paper himself. With the general nodding thoughtfully, I pressed on.

“It’s my opinion that we should maintain the greatest possible vigilance concerning Russian capabilities and intentions. Only, I don’t see how that’s possible so long as the president continues to forbid intelligence operations against the Soviet Union. If defeating the Nazis is the only thing we achieve in Europe, I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say that we will have lost the war.”

I shrugged.

“You asked me for my personal opinion. As I said, my discussions with the president centered on a report I prepared concerning the Katyn Forest massacre.”

“Yes, of course,” said General Strong. “A terrible business. Nevertheless, we simply can’t ignore the wishes of the president regarding his own intelligence initiative vis-a-vis the Soviets. And since you’re going to see Donovan, and Donovan is going to meet General Fitin of the NKVD at the Big Three, it’s probably best that he puts this technical assistance the president wants us to afford the Soviets into the hands of Fitin personally. In other words, when you go aboard the Iowa tomorrow, Major, we want you to take with you a package you’re to give Donovan when you see him in Cairo.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Naturally,” said Doering, sounding rather paternal, “you’re to take special care of this package. After all, we don’t want this equipment falling into the wrong hands.”

“Of course,” I said.

“That’s why we came down here,” explained Strong. “To impress upon you the need for strict security in this matter.”

“I don’t think you can get more secure than the biggest battleship ever built.”

Doering stood and, from behind his desk, picked up a navy blue grained-leather suitcase and placed it beside my chair. Glancing down, I saw the initials WJD underneath the handle. It was Donovan’s case. “You’re to give this to General Donovan,” said Doering. “Everything he needs for the Russians is inside it.”

“Is it locked?” I asked.

“Yes. I have one key, and General Donovan has the other.”

“Then I guess that’s everything. If you don’t mind, sir, I’m going to take the rest of the day off. I have to pack a suitcase of my own.”

I picked up the case and left Doering’s office congratulating myself that at least I would not have to encounter the deputy director’s cold, humorless face for another five or six weeks.

Downstairs I tidied my desk, said a few good-byes, and then walked out of the Campus. Placing the case in the trunk of my car, I sat in the driver’s seat and contemplated my next move. Not for a moment did I accept Strong’s account of what was inside Donovan’s case. From the weight of it, there had to be more than just a few rolls of microfilm, some miniature cameras, and a microdot manufacturing system. And why hadn’t they given me a key? The only possible answer was that there was something else in the case that they did not want me, and, by extension, the president, to know about. Unless, of course, I was already under suspicion and the whole business with the case was just a trap.

I decided it was imperative I saw what was in the case before I handed it over to Donovan in Cairo. There was only one thing to do.

I started the car and drove to Eighteenth Street, close to the millionaire mansions on Massachusetts Avenue. I parked outside Candey’s Hardware Store, a curiously narrow little place below a custom tailor’s shop set amid a row of tall town houses.

Opening the car trunk, I inspected the locks on the case carefully. The quality of the luggage and the manufacturer’s mark, “LV,” indicated it was a Louis Vuitton, likely bought in Paris or London. Rehearsing my story, I removed the case, closed the trunk, and went inside.

I would have recognized Candey’s blindfolded, just from the smell. Chunk glue, birdseed, hardware cloth, Mason jars full of paint, mineral spirits, and alcohol dispensed from fifty-five-gallon drums made Candey’s as distinctive as a beauty parlor selling just one brand of perfume. It was also the place where almost everyone in government went to get tools sharpened and keys cut.

I placed Donovan’s case on the long wooden counter in front of a white-haired clerk who looked as if he’d been there when the store opened in 1891.

“Was there something in particular?” he asked, his teeth hanging a couple of tendrils of saliva from top to bottom lip, like paper-hanger’s glue.

“I’ve just come back from London,” I explained. “Which is where I bought this case. Just as I was leaving town we were bombed and somehow I managed to mislay my keys. It’s a rather expensive case and I’m reluctant to break it open. Can you open it for me? I mean, without breaking the locks?”

The clerk gave me the once-over, and deciding that I hardly looked like a thief in my tailor-made gray flannel suit, he shouted back into the shop.

“Bill? We’ve got a gentleman here who needs you to open a suitcase.”

Another clerk came along the counter. This one was wearing a bow tie, an apron, armlets to protect the sleeves of his shirt, and enough hair oil to grease every pair of hedge shears on the wall behind him. He let me repeat my explanation and then regarded me with slow disbelief. Outside a streetcar roared past the narrow window, causing a temporary eclipse inside the shop. When the daylight returned I saw that he was inspecting the locks.

“Nice-looking piece of luggage. I can see why you don’t want to break the locks.” He nodded and began to experiment with various types of key.

Fifteen minutes later I was leaving the store with a new set of keys for Donovan’s case. I drove north to Kalorama Heights.

As soon as I was through the door I hoisted the case onto the dining table and, using the new keys, opened the lid. Inside the blue-moire-silk-lined suitcase were several rolls of film, some camera equipment, and a large parcel wrapped in brown paper. I fetched a magnifying glass from my study and examined the parcel carefully, checking to see if there was anything about the paper in the way it had been wrapped that might tip off Donovan that it had been opened. Only when I was thoroughly satisfied there was not, did I carefully peel away the Scotch tape and unwrap the parcel.

There were ten files, all of them from the Signals Intelligence Service at Arlington Hall, and containing dated, enciphered Soviet telegrams sent and received by Amtorg-the Soviet trading agency-and several diplomats in the Soviet Embassy. All of the files were labeled BRIDE: TOP SECRET. A letter from a Colonel Cooke explained in detail what I had already guessed.

FROM: LT COLONEL EARLE F. COOKE B BRANCH/CRYPTANALYTIC U.S. ARMY SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE SERVICE ARLINGTON HALL STATION 4000 LEE BOULEVARD ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA. TO: GENERAL W. J. DONOVAN, OSS, CAIRO November 11, 1943 Re: BRIDE

Dear General Donovan, I understand from General Strong and Colonel Clarke in G-2, that we have a short window of opportunity to make use of the Soviet onetime cipher you have in your possession before you are obliged to comply with the President’s wish that the same onetime pad be returned to General Fitin of the NKVD. In order to take full advantage of this window I am enclosing copies of all intercepts for you to loan to General Stawell of the British SOE in Cairo, together with the onetime pad, with a view to his people being able to decipher the BRIDE intercepts. As you know, Lieutenant Hallock has recently demonstrated that the Soviets are making extensive use of duplicate key pages assembled in onetime pad books and that even a single duplication of a onetime pad cipher might render Soviet traffic vulnerable to decryption. Until now we have regarded the cipher used by the Amtorg as most complicated, possessing the greatest secrecy of any within our knowledge; and it is hoped that even in the limited amount of time available to us the British crypto-analysts might make some headway with BRIDE. They should be apprised of the following information: 1) there appear to be several variants of the Soviet onetime pad cipher; and 2) the Soviets may be using a two-stage encoding procedure, encrypting a message from a separate codebook, and then again with the pad. It may be that the decryption of BRIDE, and of Soviet signals traffic in general, becomes a long-term project; at the very least, a wider dissemination of this material is to be welcomed if BRIDE is ever to be properly understood and used. But any decryption will provide investigative leads for the FBI as the identities of cover names in BRIDE traffic become more obvious. I am informed by the FBI here in Washington that they are already following up new information that the agent known as Sohnchen has a wife named Lizzie.

Yours sincerely,

Earle F. Cooke,

Lt. Colonel Commanding B Branch

I took a deep breath and read the letter again, slightly astonished that G -2, SIS, and the OSS were all prepared to disobey the spirit, if not perhaps the letter, of a presidential order regarding spying on the Russians. I asked myself what Roosevelt would have said if he had become aware of Cooke’s letter, and then decided that it was as likely as not that Roosevelt knew about it anyway. I had already formed the impression that saying one thing and then doing another seemed fairly typical of FDR. He might even have authorized this particular intelligence initiative against the Soviet Union.

That scared me. Spies of any shade were taking a big risk in America.

I read the letter a third time. They had already managed to determine that Sohnchen had a wife named Lizzie. Mrs. Philby was not called Lizzie, but Litzi, and since Philby wasn’t an American, the FBI effort would, very probably, not get very far. That was good. And Colonel Cooke had written that he was cautious about the chances of successfully decrypting Bride. That was good, too. But the letter worried me all the same.

I rewrapped the parcel carefully and considered my options. Losing the case was out of the question; besides, that would only draw attention to me. Indeed, if they already had suspicions about me, losing the case would only confirm them.

I returned the parcel to the leather suitcase and then relocked it before placing it beside the front door. Then I went upstairs to pack my own bag, telling myself that I might easily be robbed in Cairo. Failing that, I might perhaps rely on British red tape and bureaucracy to slow things down a little, perhaps even frustrate them completely. It wasn’t much to rely on. But for the moment it was all the hope I had. But I also had to admit there was a part of me that didn’t care.

Later that same evening I drank too much and got out the part of me that didn’t care and had a closer look at it. Underneath the bright lights of my living room it didn’t look nearly so blase. Which was how it came to me that I should write Diana a letter before I crossed the Atlantic again, just in case a German submarine decided to gather me to the Lord.

As love letters go, it wasn’t Cyrano de Bergerac, but it was not bad for someone as out of practice at writing that kind of thing as I was. The last time I had dipped a pen in a bottle of blind adoration before applying the nib to some finely laid notepaper I’d been about nineteen years old and in my first year at Harvard. I don’t remember the girl’s name, or what happened to her, except to say that she never replied.

I sat down at my desk and let my heart run around the room naked for a while so I could describe how this looked as accurately as possible. Then I picked up my best pen and started to write. Probably I played up the secrecy and danger of the mission ahead of me more than I should have, but the part about how stupid I thought I had been and how much I cared for Diana read accurately enough. I wondered that I hadn’t thought of writing to her before. I might even have used the word “love” once or twice. More if you counted the corny little poem I started, finished, and then tossed in the wastepaper basket.

I laid my letter to Diana on the hall table with a note to Michael asking him to post it first thing in the morning. Ten minutes later I crumpled up the note and tossed it in the wastepaper basket alongside my crummy attempt at a love poem. I had decided that I would post the letter myself on my way to Hampton Roads the next day. Finally, I tossed the letter on the front seat of my car and drove up to Chevy Chase, intending to put it in her mailbox so that she might read it over breakfast and realize the justice of giving me a second chance.

It was raining by the time I got to the little town of Chevy Chase and the 1920s-vintage colonial where Diana lived. By now I had convinced myself to forget about the letter. If her car was there I was going to ring her doorbell, throw myself on her mercy and my knees, and ask Diana to marry me. In a church, if she wanted. With witnesses present to make sure we both meant it.

I parked on the street and, ignoring the rain, walked toward the verandah, trying not to make a mountain out of the molehillshaped Nash coupe that was in the driveway behind Diana’s ruby red Packard Eight. A dim light burned behind the plush velvet curtains in her drawing room window, and as I approached the house I could hear the sound of music. It was easy, unhurried music. The sort of music you like to have in a seraglio when you don’t want to listen to anything except someone else breathing softly in your ear.

I stood on the verandah and, forcing myself to play the Peeping Tom, looked in through a fissure in the curtains. Neither of the two people lying on the rug in front of the fire saw me. They were too busy doing what two people do when they have decided to see just how far they can throw their clothes across the room. Doing what I’d done myself on that same rug just a few weeks before. And the way they were doing it, it looked as if it was going to be a while before Diana was free to listen to my proposal of marriage.

Suddenly I seemed ridiculous to myself. Especially the notion about asking her to marry me. It was quite obvious to me that the very idea of marrying me couldn’t have been further from her mind. With no other idea in my head I returned to my car and, for quite a while, just sat there trying but failing to detach my mind from what was happening on that rug. Half of me hoped that the man would come out so that I could get a better look at him. I even constructed a little scene that had me facing them both down, but the more I thought about that, the uglier it seemed. And as the dawn came up I took the envelope, placed it in her mailbox, and drove quietly away.