Presidential Mission

by Upton Sinclair

  “One thing more,” added this modest American. “You must understand that in me you have a rank amateur on all these difficult subjects. I am by profession a Kunstsachverständiger, and what I know about jet propulsion and wind stresses and air-cooled motors I have learned through the skin, as it were, by constantly hearing talk about airplanes, and prior to that, oil, and prior to that, gun-making and explosives. I will tell you to the best of my recollection what I have heard, and if it does not quite make sense you will have to forgive me. I took the trouble to visit the library yesterday and this morning, to learn as much as I could about your own work, so that I might not appear too completely an ignoramus.” Lanny said this on chance that the Professor might have been told of his visits.

  The elderly scientist assured him that this had not been necessary, that it was surely not to be expected that an authority on old masters should understand the principles of the recoil and all its corollaries. Lanny, reassured, proceeded to repeat one by one those statements and formulas which he had carried in his head during a month of turbulent events, including a parachute landing which might well have knocked all ideas out of any head. The statements were correct, but they were things the Germans were almost certain to know already, and this proved to be the case. The severe old Prussian, mollified by Lanny’s extreme humility, and perhaps hoping to encourage him to speak freely, would remark: “Ja, Herr Budd, that is important, but we have been familiar with it for some time.” Once he went so far as to say: “Your people will not get very far along that line; we tried it out and it proved a false lead.”

  Lanny talked about rocket cannon. He had seen a British creation, a fantastic thing that looked like a church organ, with twenty big barrels; it was mounted near the coast for the purpose of protecting ships in the Channel against dive bombers, by roofing them over with salvos of rockets. Lanny could be sure that the Germans knew all about this, for they had a six-barreled mortar which was fired like the chambers of a revolver and could shoot fifty-pound rockets at the rate of one every second. Lanny added: “I have heard my father talk about what is called a ‘Katyusha,’ a Russian device that is carried on a truck; they have a larger one with thirty barrels, so arranged as to cover an area where there are tanks.”

  “Ja,” replied the other, “we have captured many of them; but we were unable to get across the Volga, where the enemy had them lined up on the far bank, under the trees.”

  “Wie Schade!” said Lanny.

  II

  All this was preliminary so far as the P.A. was concerned. He was letting the somewhat grim old man get used to the sound of his voice and come to like him a bit if such a thing were possible. Then, with the utmost casualness, the P.A. remarked: “Another thing that might interest you—they are trying to apply the rocket principle to airplanes.”

  It was comical to observe the Professor’s efforts to gather information about this matter without revealing his great concern. Lanny deliberately teased him by talking generalities, many of them collected from the Professor’s own published papers. He explained in his father’s words the difficulty of planes, that it took twice as much power to get into the air as it took to stay there; and this had suggested the idea of auxiliary rockets, called “boosters,” to aid the take-off. This would have been a dreadful thing to reveal—but for the fact that the learned Prussian had written a paper about it in 1938. Lanny said that his father had an experimental plant where he was trying out such ideas. “Somewhere in the deserts of the Far West, Nevada, I believe.” The last two words were for Lanny’s protection, the plant being in New Mexico.

  “Do you know whether they are doing anything with the idea of jet-propulsion planes?” inquired the Professor. He tried his best to appear casual, but Lanny thought that as an actor he was a great physicist.

  “I know that they have passed the ‘mockup’ stage, if you know what our airplane men mean by that term.”

  “I do, Herr Budd.”

  “Whether they have a practical prototype, I do not-know.”

  “Do you know what speeds they are hoping to attain?”

  “I have heard them talk about five hundred miles an hour. They talk about supersonic speeds, but only as a speculation. The difficulty there will be the air friction, and the blacking out of the pilot on even the slightest change of direction. As you no doubt know, Professor, the British are far ahead of us Americans on this subject. Some British engineers arrived at my father’s plant just before I left. I could easily make friends with them and bring you a report on what they are doing.”

  “That might be extremely useful, Herr Budd. You expect to return to us?”

  “The Führer has given me a commission to carry out. I cannot be sure how long it will take, but I hope to return and make a report to him, say, in a couple of months.”

  This friendly chat continued for some time, but without Lanny’s getting what he wanted. The elderly Prussian was like most of his tribe; he held to the belief that it was more blessed to receive than to give. He seemed to Lanny the perfect type of the hard materialist who was a military man regardless of whether he called himself a politician, a diplomat, a historian, a scientist, a philosopher. Their favorite theoretician, Clausewitz, had said that war was diplomacy carried on by other means; and now here was science, using the same means. In Lanny’s mind, as he chatted so urbanely, was an image of the horror that these world-famous gentlemen were bringing into the world; long and thin like a lead pencil, with a point as sharp as a needle, a warhead filled with high-powered explosives, and a tail that spit the flames and fumes of hell. It would be thirty or forty feet long and of the thickness of a barrel or perhaps a hogshead, and would be installed on a launching platform hidden in a forest, or in the mouth of a cave, or a sloping tunnel with an entrance well camouflaged. Always these platforms would be aimed at the vast sprawling city of London, with its more than eight million inhabitants. A button would be pressed, and the demon thing would shoot out a blast of flame from its rear and leap into the sky at a speed of a thousand miles an hour or even more—who could guess?

  III

  The visitor satisfied himself that this man of scientific murder did not take any pleasure in talking. So Lanny tried one last device, which had worked in other cases. “Professor Salzmann,” he remarked, “it might be a good idea if you would tell me exactly what you would like me to find out for you. You understand, I am sure, that I dare not bring any notes into Germany. Whatever I bring has to be memorized, and there is a limit to what my untrained mind can retain.”

  The Prussian took a few moments to think about this. Obviously he couldn’t ask questions without revealing what he didn’t know, and that might be telling a lot. Here sat this mysterious American, a traitor according to his own country’s standards and a novice according to the Professor’s. He had notepaper and a pencil poised—for it was all right for him to have notes in Germany, he explained; he would learn them by heart and destroy them before he went out. The Professor might well have reflected that if he failed to show proper co-operation with this stranger, he might be reported to the Führer and become the target for one of those fearful tirades, which every person of importance in Naziland knew about and dreaded.

  The way out of this dilemma was to confine the questions to the subject of American and British progress. What fuels were they using, what type of combustion chamber, what size of projectile, what speeds, what possibility of radio control? The visitor, disappointed but not showing it, wrote these down and promised to do his best to obtain the answers. Then he added: “I don’t want to take any more of your time, Professor, but there is one other matter that the Führer showed interest in: our American researches into atomic fission. He told me that he had declined to take this matter seriously, but he appeared to waver when I told him of the immense sum, more than a billion dollars, that Roosevelt has set aside for the project.”

  “You are informed about nuclear researches then, Herr Budd?”

  “It so happens
that I have an art client in Princeton, New Jersey, Mr. Alonzo Curtice, who has a valuable collection of paintings, and invited me to visit his home and prepare a catalogue for him. While there I heard a good deal of discussion among the research professors—this before they were taken into the government project, and so they talked freely. Afterward I told my father about it, and listened to discussions with some of his technical men. The Führer seemed to think it might be a good idea if I talked with one of your people; he mentioned Professor Walter Gerlach.” This wasn’t so, but Lanny was taking the chance that Hitler wouldn’t remember every word he had spoken at a crowded and anxious time.

  “Professor Gerlach is out of the city at present, Herr Budd; but Professor Plötzen, who directs our theoretical work on such projects, is available, and I am sure would be happy to meet you. When would be convenient for you?”

  “The sooner the better, because Reichsmarschall Göring told me over the telephone that he expects to arrive in town and wishes me to spend the week end at Karinhall.”

  That was the way to impress the mind of a Nazi Fachgelehrter! Salzmann took up the house telephone and gave a room number and asked for Professor Plötzen. Then he said: “Get him at his home,” and talked with Lanny for a minute or so until the phone rang. “Plötzen, this is Salzmann,” he announced. “There is a gentleman in my office with whom I think you should talk. Oh, I am sorry! Yes, I will ask him.” Then to Lanny: “The Professor says he is not feeling well, but if you would be good enough to go to his home this evening—”

  “Certainly, Professor Salzmann.”

  “The gentleman will come. Eight o’clock? Very well. His name is Budd—bay-oo-day-day. He will show you a letter of introduction from a person of importance. Heil Hitler!”

  Lanny jotted down the address on his notepaper. Then he said: “Unless I am mistaken, I have met Professor Plötzen somewhere. I think it may have been at the home of General Graf Stubendorf, or possibly at the Fürstin Donnerstein’s. Both are old friends of mine.”

  “It might be,” said Salzmann—and could it be that there was a little more cordiality in his cold tone? “Plötzen goes into society occasionally. He is one of those cases of a man of means who takes scientific learning seriously, and works at it as hard as if he were obliged to. I hope that his indisposition will not prove serious.”

  IV

  The two men parted with expressions of high esteem, and Lanny went out and found himself a restaurant and ate a meal. He read in the Völkischer that there was bitter fighting on the soggy-wet plains in front of Kasserine Pass, and also on the snowbound plains of the Ukraine. He studied a pocket map of Berlin, and then went out and groped his way through the blackout to the Underground. He prayed that there wouldn’t be an air raid while he was down there, because then the stations filled up with mobs of people, so that you couldn’t get out until some time after the raid was over. So far the Allies had been considerate of this P.A.; there had been only two raids, and neither had touched him! He crossed the fingers of the elegant furlined gloves which had belonged to Hilde’s son, and which she had lent to her guest with tears in her eyes.

  Emerging from the Underground, Lanny felt his way along a slippery street, thinking that he could share the feelings of a blind man; thinking how cruel it was that men should be using their powers to make other men miserable. Two lines of poetry haunted his mind:

  Where savage beasts in forest midnight roam,

  Seeking in sorrow for each other’s joy.

  Even while he was helping to win a war, Lanny hated that war and all others; he hated the lies he had to tell fully as much as those he had to hear. He was a man with a divided mind, and this put him at a disadvantage with men like these Nazis, who were never troubled with doubts and had consigned all scruples to the dustbin of history.

  The P.A. was going into another adventure, one of the strangest; but he had no idea of it, and thought it would be just one more duel of wits such as he had come from in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. He made his way slowly along a fashionable street, stopping at corners to listen carefully before he ventured across. He found the right number without striking any matches, something that was strengstens verboten. He went up a flight of steps, evidently belonging to a fine home; he groped and found a button and pressed it. A door was opened, and revealed a darkened interior, for it was also verboten to open a door while lights were burning inside. He asked: “Is this the home of Professor Doktor Plötzen?” And a voice replied: “Ja, mein Herr.”

  It flashed over the caller that the voice had a familiar sound, and his thought was that it must be the Herr Professor whom he had once met. The next moment the light was turned on, and Lanny was half blinded because he had been so long in the dark. He stared, and couldn’t credit what he saw; he all but took a step backward. The man confronting him, in the black costume of a butler, was Bernhardt Monck!

  “Herr Budd?” inquired the familiar voice. Lanny was able to make himself say: “Ja.”

  Like a proper butler, the man stepped toward him to take his coat and hat; then, in a voice barely audible, he whispered: “Message in your overcoat when you leave.”

  Lanny nodded slightly, took off his overcoat and hat, gave them to Monck, and then obeyed his sign to ascend the stairs. Monck followed, and at the head of the stairs bowed the caller into a room. “Herr Budd,” he announced, and promptly departed.

  V

  The presidential agent found himself in a moderate-sized, tastefully furnished drawing-room, confronting a gentleman who afforded a curious contrast to his colleague Salzmann. He was tall and slender, obviously something of a dandy, though his present costume consisted of a brown silk dressing gown and a pair of gold-embroidered bedroom slippers. He had been lying on a couch, and sat up to greet his visitor, apologizing for his indisposition. He was a man of forty or so, urbane and sensitive, and his conversation soon revealed that he was interested in all the cultures of Europe; he was pleased to meet an American and to hear what was going on in the outside world. He remembered having met Lanny at one of the Abende of General Graf Stubendorf, and of course Lanny politely pretended to remember him. They talked about their mutual friends at home and abroad, and it was more like something out of the Almanach de Gotha than a conference on nuclear fission.

  Lanny had begun to wonder: Could it be that this was a secret anti-Nazi, and that he was in league with Monck? But no, the man suddenly remarked: “We are playing truant and must get down to business. Salzmann tells me that you are one who is not willing to turn Europe over to the Russians.”

  So Salzmann had telephoned again! Lanny wondered: What had he said? Perhaps: “You can trust this man.” Or perhaps: “Watch out for him.” It might take some time for Lanny to find out which, for Plötzen would be a better actor than the crusty old Prussian.

  Anti-Bolshevism was Lanny’s cue. He said that he had been something of a “Pink” in his early days. (“Most generous-minded young men are, Herr Budd,” put in the host.) But soon he had come to realize what was behind the storm clouds in the east: not a new birth of freedom, but the old Tartar despotism. He and his father had tried in every way to keep their country out of the war, and now that it was in on the wrong side, Lanny was doing what one man could to correct the error. “I have been carrying diplomatic messages for the Führer; you understand this is confidential in the extreme.”

  “Oh, surely, Herr Budd.”

  “I came upon some information regarding the progress of what is called atom splitting in America. Immense sums are being devoted to it, the idea being that the nuclear forces may be used to make a bomb. Also, they and the British are working on jet propulsion. I mentioned these matters to the Führer, and he sent me to see Professor Salzmann.”

  Lanny gave his elaborate explanation about being a rank amateur, able to do nothing but repeat phrases and sentences which he had heard. The other replied, as courtesy required, that he would make all allowances for this. Then Lanny said: “One thing I understood clearl
y. It has been found necessary to discover a substance which will retard the chain reaction and thus make possible its control. It has been found that deuterium oxide will do this.”

  “Ach, ja, schweres Wasser,” said the German. “We are acquainted with the principle.”

  Lanny had known as much, and one of his assignments had been to find out where and to what extent the Germans were making heavy water. The Americans were using graphite, and this was a secret that all the torture instruments of the Gestapo could not have dragged out of the P.A. Said he: “The trouble with heavy water is that it is so difficult to make, and so costly.”

  “That is a problem we have solved,” replied this gentleman turned scientist and smiled indulgently. “Perhaps it may be that German science will keep in advance, even without billion-dollar appropriations.”

  “I sincerely hope so, Professor. I was shocked to hear the Führer reveal his indifference to this important subject. I did what I could to bring him to a realization of the danger; but it appears that he has convinced himself that rockets and jet-propulsion planes will win this war.”

  “We are making great progress there; but I consider it a calamity that we cannot spare enough for a real program of nuclear fission. I have put up small sums from my own purse, in spite of having suffered great reductions of income. The trouble is that no money can buy the things we need. The approved war programs take all the materials.”

  VI

  This pair chatted on, but with one lobe of his brain Lanny was trying to think about Monck, and what his presence in this house might mean. The sight of an O.S.S. agent—for such Monck had become—made a great difference in Lanny’s procedure with the master of the household. Lanny had understood from Monck’s whispered words that they were to meet, and Lanny would find out what Monck was doing, and what he knew. There was no use in Lanny’s trying to get information which Monck might already possess. To meet this genial “atom splitter” a second time would be easy enough if it proved necessary. The art expert would please him and be his friend.