The Ambassador

by Yehuda Avner

  “Christ, I’ll have a gin, I suppose,” Boustead said. “A bit rattled to tell you the truth, old chap.”

  “I thought you were made of sterner stuff.”

  “Don’t try talking English-English to me. It doesn’t sound right from you. Your accent has gone rather German, in fact. Aren’t you keeping up your American language practice with your lovely wife?”

  The reminder of Anna chilled Dan. He said nothing.

  “I had been looking forward to coming back out here. Been on desk operations since I left Berlin,” Boustead said. “An office in Whitehall the size of a hatbox, that was the extent of my roving. London’s a bloody dour place at the best of times, once you’ve felt the Middle Eastern sun on your neck. Anyway, I haven’t had a day in the field in all that time until now, and I must say as soon as I arrived in Cairo I felt rather exposed, so near the front line.”

  “I’m glad you have time to meet me at such short notice.”

  “Ah, rather lucky for you that I was here. I don’t usually travel with the PM, but his intelligence staff was expanded for the big chinwag with FDR. With my background in the Middle East, Winston insisted I come along.”

  Winston. Did first-name terms mean the British leader would listen to Boustead? Dan hoped so.

  The waiter returned. Boustead gulped hard at his gin and put the glass on the table. He glanced down at the jackboots and gray riding breeches Dan wore. “I say, that’s definitely not Israeli army gear.”

  “It’s the bottom half of Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann’s uniform.”

  Boustead drank the rest of the gin. His face took on its old cunning.

  “That’s better,” Dan said.

  “You’ve got him, have you? You bloody devil, Lavi. By God, where is he?”

  “Here in Cairo. I’m hoping to introduce him to your boss.”

  Boustead licked the tip of his mustache. He gave a knowing smile. “Only too happy to help, my dear chap.”

  Chapter 61

  For Roosevelt, the war was less than two months old. He had been drawn steadily and not unwillingly closer to involvement by Churchill’s persuasions over the previous year. Still, it was Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s foolhardy desire to take on every world power at once that had brought the American president to this conference with the British prime minister, a short walk from the east bank of the Nile. Through the open French doors of the balcony, Dan watched the lowering sun purple the surface of the ancient river. Beyond the water and across the Libyan Desert, the Eighth Army continued its fight against Field Marshall Rommel’s Afrika Korps. The British came in second best in every measure, but it was in leadership and battle experience that they were most badly outmatched. That, Dan knew, was Ben-Gurion’s opportunity.

  Churchill sat in a deep armchair, across from FDR. The Israelis had few worries about securing the agreement of the British leader. He had been an early backer of a Jewish state. The British needed support in North Africa, and Churchill was particularly given to outrageous schemes that might change the strategic situation dramatically. Boustead had arranged this meeting swiftly because he knew Dan’s plan was tailor-made to appeal to the British prime minister’s renegade streak. But for the plan to succeed, it needed Roosevelt’s support.

  Churchill growled, “Shall we begin, Franklin?”

  Roosevelt rolled his hand back on his right wheel and brought his chair toward them with a sigh. He smiled wanly at Ben-Gurion, who was swallowed by the hotel’s deep couch, his high-waisted pants riding up almost to his chest. “Mister Prime Minister, we’ve had only a few moments to look over the translation of the document presented to us by your colleague, Ambassador Lavi. The minutes of a conference at—” He glanced at the papers in his lap.

  “Wannsee. A suburb of Berlin.” Dan tried to subdue his nervousness at meeting these two powerful leaders. Calm down. You were face to face with Hitler, he told himself. These are men you can handle, if only because they aren’t insane. Focus on the issue.

  “Well, we shall have to check on its validity, of course. Before we can decide on a course of action.”

  Ben-Gurion waved his hand and shifted his tubby body forward. “No need, Mister President.”

  “To check its validity? Or do you mean there’s no need to deliberate over what to do?” Roosevelt’s smile was thin.

  “We have an excellent method by which you may assess the truth of what is contained in this document. We also know what you must do.”

  “Do you?”

  “Mister President, if you’ll allow me.” Dan rose and went into the anteroom. Boustead waited among the British and American military adjutants and the soberly suited diplomats, clad in his olive green dress uniform. Dan nodded to him, and the major swiftly turned to open a door and ushered out Polkes and Eichmann. Polkes was still feeling the effects of his Gestapo ice baths, sneezing and coughing. Eichmann sulked, one of his cold, matinee-idol eyes swollen from Bertha’s punch. His shackles rattled as he shuffled across the room. He looked about at the stern faces of the Allied officers and halted.

  Boustead beckoned for Eichmann to keep moving. “Come on, old boy. Jedem das Seine.” Dan remembered Shmulik quoting those words, the phrase inscribed over the gate at Buchenwald concentration camp. Everyone gets what he deserves.

  Polkes dragged the German into the main suite. He stood him beside Ben-Gurion’s sofa, facing the two Allied leaders.

  Roosevelt regarded the bedraggled man coolly.

  “Introduce yourself,” Ben-Gurion said.

  Eichmann snapped his heels. His shoes were soft and made no sound, but the chains on his ankles clicked. “Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann. Commander, Central Office for Jewish Emigration, Gestapo Office IV-B4, Reich Main Security Office, Berlin.”

  Churchill lit a cigar. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

  Roosevelt twitched his eyes toward Dan. “How do you come to be here?” Searching for the correct manner of address, he settled on, “Herr Eichmann.”

  “I am a prisoner of war. I must protest against my treatment—”

  “You’re a criminal, not a prisoner of war. Israel is not at war with Germany.” Ben-Gurion pulled at a bushy eyebrow and directed his comment at the American leader. “Or not yet.”

  “What evidence is there as to this man’s identity?” Roosevelt asked.

  Dan took a booklet of folded tan cardstock from his pocket. It was printed with Gothic script. SS-Ausweis. SS identity card. He opened it. A circular stamp containing the spread wings of the eagle and the swastika crawled over the edge of the holder’s photo. Dan passed it to Roosevelt. The president took the card hesitantly, as though it might carry some infection. The card displayed Eichmann’s smug features.

  Then Dan walked over to Eichmann and grabbed his shirt, wrenching it open and yanking it to the left. He lifted Eichmann’s arm. A small blue tattoo stood out on the pale skin a few inches below the armpit. “The SS have their blood group tattooed here on their bodies. Wehrmacht soldiers do not.”

  Roosevelt laid the identity card on the coffee table. He displayed the front page of the Wannsee document to Eichmann. “You recognize this?”

  Dan held his breath. Would he deny it? He felt sure Eichmann was proud of his work. He wouldn’t see the criminality of the plan, its violation of every human law.

  Eichmann gave one curt nod of his head. “I prepared this document.”

  “You don’t deny the content?” Roosevelt said.

  “I do not. This project is at the heart of the historic mission of National Socialism. It is the Führer’s order and it will be carried out, whatever my fate. If my part in the final solution of the Jewish question has been played, then I am content to have done my duty.”

  Disgust clouded Roosevelt’s face. It seemed to Dan that it was more powerful than his skepticism. He gestured toward the Israelis. “These gentlemen suggest that there is a network of death camps in Poland.”

  “I have nothing more to say.” Eichmann lifted his ch
in. “I am a prisoner of war and I am under no obligation to discuss the final solution of the Jewish question with men such as you, whose politics are controlled by the Jewish cabals on Wall Street and in the City of London.”

  “It seems to me,” Churchill said, “that Jews have far more influence over German policy than they do over British or American matters of state.”

  Eichmann looked confused. Ben-Gurion jerked his thumb at Polkes and the big man dragged Eichmann out of the room. Boustead shut the door behind them and perched against the sideboard, close to Churchill. Dan sat down next to Ben-Gurion.

  Roosevelt rubbed his brow. “You’re going to ask us to bomb the camps again, Mister Prime Minister?”

  “Do not call them camps, Mister President. Camps are places where soldiers bivouac or children gather for fun. These are extermination factories. They are bloody abattoirs for an entire people.” Ben-Gurion made a fist and shook it. “This is no longer a matter of Jewish survival. It is a question of the moral compass of the Allied nations. We present you here with documentary and human testimony about the enormous crime the Nazis are in the process of committing. To do nothing is to engage alongside them in the annihilation of millions of people.”

  “These camps in Poland are not military targets,” Churchill said.

  Dan recognized the comment for what it was—a prompt, an opportunity to counter FDR’s most likely objection to the Israeli demand. Churchill was already on board.

  He took his cue. “Mister Prime Minister, if I may. The Jews being transported to the ghettoes and the death camps are to be worked to death in munitions factories located within the perimeters of these camps. One of my colleagues at our Berlin embassy obtained construction plans for the camp at Auschwitz, in southeastern Poland. The purpose of the camp is to exterminate Jews, but also to create a synthetic rubber and to utilize the Jews as workers in this project. Such projects could undoubtedly be categorized as vital to the German war effort.”

  Dan watched Roosevelt as he considered the situation. He realized that his fingers were clenched tight around his knees. He wanted to shout at the American to make up his mind. Every second that passed took them a moment closer to the extinction of his people. It was a second in which his wife remained at risk. Perhaps even the one during which she drew her final breath. Ben-Gurion reached for him and laid a steadying hand on his own.

  The Old Man’s signal was understood. Dan had to be the ambassador, the diplomat, the man who convinced others through reference to paragraphs and clauses, not through shouting and emotional appeals. He spoke once more.

  “I refer you to page fourteen. The third paragraph from the bottom of the page.” He read off the English translation he had made on the plane to Cairo. It was in Roosevelt’s lap, and on the coffee table before Churchill, but he wanted them to hear it read aloud. “‘With regard to the issue of the effect of the evacuation of Jews on the economy, State Secretary Neumann’—he’s from the office of the Four-Year Plan—‘stated that Jews working in industries vital to the war effort, provided that no replacements are available, cannot be evacuated.’”

  Churchill murmured and shook his head.

  “Please turn to the final page,” Dan said. “The end of the paragraph third from bottom, and the penultimate paragraph. This is from Bühler, of the Nazi office in control of Poland, discussing the Jews presently in his sphere. ‘Of the approximately two and a half million Jews concerned, the majority are unfit for work.’ He goes on to say that he has ‘only one request, to solve the Jewish question as quickly as possible.’ He also wishes that to be done ‘without alarming the populace.’”

  “Jesus Christ, who the hell are we fighting?” Roosevelt said.

  “The bloody devil himself.” Churchill sucked on his cigar.

  “Not the devil, sir. You are fighting men like Eichmann.” Dan pointed toward the door through which the SS man had been taken. “I have been in daily contact with them since 1938, when Prime Minister Ben-Gurion sent me to Berlin as Israel’s ambassador. I know them to be capable of barbarities beyond description, of cruelty beyond credence for two humane men such as you. It’s almost as though you must be inhuman yourself to even accept that such inhumanity could be carried out by man. Perhaps I can accomplish this more easily than you. You see, they classify me as subhuman. Because I’m a Jew.”

  Roosevelt looked sickened. “My God.”

  “I don’t expect you to help us out of concern for Jews,” Dan said. “Unlike the Nazis, I know that Jews don’t dictate your every move. You’re fighting a war. You must act according to strategy and, no doubt, you will entertain inhuman ideas yourselves before victory is won. That is in the nature of war. However, my prime minister has a strategic incentive for you to intervene.”

  “Before I get to that.” Ben-Gurion laid his hand on Dan’s shoulder. “My colleague’s wife, Anna Lavi, is an American citizen, born in Boston, and a Jew. She is presently on her way to the death camp at Auschwitz.”

  Roosevelt snapped his attention back toward Dan. Churchill lowered his cigar and stared with a guarded astonishment.

  “Yet Dan is here,” Ben-Gurion said. “To my mind, his actions provide you with a physical symbol of the resilience of our new country. He has been my ambassador in Hell. He has been in the place where the slain lie, and he carries their plea to you. Now I will lay out for you his plan for the exorcism of Satan.”

  Churchill rumbled a low, appreciative murmur.

  “At the foundation of our state, in 1938, our army, the Israel Defense Force, faced immediate attack from all sides. The armies of the Arab nations descended upon us. But we fought them off.” Ben-Gurion’s reedy voice rose. To the Allied leaders it no doubt seemed that he had slipped into the mode of political address, as if there were a large gathering in the room. Dan recognized that Ben-Gurion was, in fact, reliving some of the desperation of those days, when all Zionism’s achievements were threatened.

  “In those days, our army was a ragtag band. It was more a set of militias than a national military. But the War of Independence was a true proving ground for our officers and our troops. They are now better equipped, more experienced, and more ready for war than any unit in the British army, I’d say. Certainly more so than the US army.”

  Roosevelt tapped his thumb against his wheelchair. He was irritated, perhaps because he had no counter to the argument. The US wouldn’t be ready to put troops in the field with any real expectation of success for almost a year.

  “Here is what we propose.” Ben-Gurion slapped his palms on his thighs. Time for the deal. “Israel will join the war against Nazi Germany. Until now we have been pressured by Berlin to remain neutral and we complied because to go against Hitler was to abandon the Jews of Europe to that madman’s depredations. Now we have proof that he intends to exterminate all Jews, and that his policy of sending them to Israel or elsewhere has been abandoned. So we shall join with you, the Allies.”

  “Very good.” Roosevelt’s tone demonstrated that he was waiting for the caveat.

  Ben-Gurion wasn’t done selling yet. “The British army in North Africa is under threat. The battle with the Afrika Korps is finely balanced. You recently had a bad defeat at Tobruk and other reverses all across the Western Desert.”

  Churchill grumbled and loosened some phlegm.

  “With the Israel Defense Forces at your side, you will have the numbers and the desert experience to defeat Rommel swiftly. You will have an extra layer of protection for the Suez Canal, the lifeline of Britain’s Asian colonies. Think how disastrous it will be if Rommel succeeds in his plan to drive on beyond Egypt to the Persian Gulf. It would end Germany’s dependence on the Romanian oilfields, currently threatened by the Russian advance, and would revive Germany’s flagging Panzer armies.”

  The British prime minister grew excited at these new strategic possibilities. Boustead had assured Dan he would. “By God, we’d be finished with Rommel in a month,” Churchill enthused. “Franklin, we could move ahead
with a strike against Italy. Once North Africa is won and the Suez Canal is secured, we can invade Hitler’s soft underbelly, as we’ve discussed.”

  Roosevelt slipped a cigarette into his long black plastic holder. “And much earlier than we had planned.”

  “Our forces will take Italy by the end of this year. From there we could strike through France to open up the Channel ports for a landing.”

  “It would certainly get Uncle Joe Stalin off our backs with his bitching for us to open up a second front in Europe.”

  Churchill stabbed his cigar toward FDR. “Not to mention that we would be the ones to control Europe, not Red Russia.”

  “Now Winston, I can handle Uncle Joe.”

  “Certainly you can.” Churchill licked his lips. A nervous tell that Roosevelt appeared to miss. The Briton was less than convinced of Roosevelt’s ability to deal with the Soviet dictator. “Nonetheless, we’d be negotiating with Stalin from a position of power. He will still be pushing the Germans back through the Ukraine and Belorussia while we’ll be crossing the Rhine. Berlin will be ours and the Reds will be kept out of Western and Central Europe.”

  Churchill’s assessment was even more enthusiastic than Dan had hoped. It was also accurate. He could see that Roosevelt wanted to go for it, but something held him back. Dan cut in. “Ending the war in Europe will give Stalin the incentive to declare war in the east, against Japan. That would relieve the United States of its solo burden in the Pacific theater.”

  A little color rose in the president’s cheeks. He smiled. “I gather you’re a Harvard man, Mister Lavi, as am I.”