A Man Called Intrepid

by William Stevenson

  “If ‘Torch’ collapses or is cut down,” Churchill signaled, “I should feel my position painfully affected in view of my promises made to Stalin with the President’s approval.”

  Admiral King in Washington said it was the British now who made light of the hazards after dramatizing the dangers of a cross-Channel invasion. The Americans, who thought the risks worth taking in the Channel, now suffered a fit of nerves about North Africa.

  Churchill called it “a formidable moment in Anglo-American-Soviet affairs.” He was under heavy strain and had to be protected by Stephenson, who knew Roosevelt thought the Prime Minister’s judgment was disturbed by the insistent Russian demand for more supplies and more action. The PQ convoys* from Britain to Russia were threatened by TORCH itself. PQ 18 had sailed after Russian protests against suspension of these suicidal supply runs through northern waters. On September 14 the War Cabinet in London learned that although no previous convoy had been subjected to such repeated German air attacks “twenty-seven ships out of the forty in convoy have arrived in Archangel.” The yardstick was that the PQ convoys should continue provided half the ships got through. By those standards, as Stalin well knew, the British must continue their PQ convoys. But delays with TORCH meant that the next PQ sailing would have to be put back: the British simply did not have enough ships and escorts for both.

  In the middle of dealing with this crisis, Churchill had to cope with a domestic political challenge. Its nature was disclosed to the President by Stephenson because the crux of the matter was a War Cabinet minute labeled Confidential Record: Not for Circulation.

  “The challenge comes from the former British Ambassador to Moscow, enthroned as Lord Privy Seal: Stafford Cripps. Cripps is re-guarded with a jaundiced eye by Churchill. He was a pacifist until Russia was invaded. As a socialist, he is entitled to a position within the all-party Cabinet. Cripps expressed dissatisfaction with the machinery for central direction of the war and threatened to resign. This could spell disaster. Churchill has written to Stafford Cripps: ‘Great operations impend which are in full accordance with your own conceptions and on which we are all agreed. . . . We must have fibre and fortitude.’ ”

  The Lord Privy Seal still kept running interference. Churchill, weary and sick, wondered if there was something Machiavellian about Cripps’s behavior. Finally, Cripps was warned that his actions were dangerously distracting. “If TORCH fails,” Churchill repeated, “we are all sunk.”

  Fears for Churchill’s health mounted with the suspense. “Winston’s very low,” Stephenson told Roosevelt.

  “He finds it harder to wait for action than I do,” said Roosevelt, glancing at his useless legs.

  But now even the President was betraying impatience. American equipment and troops were in some cases to be transported by British ships diverted from the Russian convoys. These ships could not be ready before November 8. Roosevelt wanted the ships for TORCH but he also wanted a resumption of the convoys to Russia—a contradictory request, received with silence in London. The calculations there had been narrowed down to a simple proposition: if the Soviet Union was to get relief from enemy pressure, it must choose between short-term aid in the form of supplies or long-term benefits from TORCH special-intelligence operations, which were the dry run for mass uprisings planned throughout Europe. If TORCH worked, a start would be made in undermining the enemy. The trouble was that TORCH was running behind schedule.

  On Wednesday, September 23, ULTRA picked up German signals disclosing that Rommel had quit the desert to be treated for nasal diphtheria, chronic stomach ailments, and poor blood circulation. Mussolini saw him in Rome next day and expressed the view that Rommel’s ailments were psychological, ULTRA took note. All was reported through Stephenson to Roosevelt. The President commented that Rommel must have suffered a demoralization more severe because he had been accustomed to a diet of victories “based on intelligence from inside the British camp which, thank God, we have now terminated.”

  Roosevelt’s remarks were passed along with another request for Churchill to reconsider the PQ convoys. The President noted that since the Russians were just now performing so splendidly at Stalingrad, it seemed wrong to tell Stalin that the British convoys could not sail. Roosevelt signaled: “I would like to suggest a different approach in which PQ 19 would sail in successive groups.”

  Churchill’s reply was terse: “The convoy is not sailing and there is no way to conceal this from the Russians. We are preparing to sail ten ships individually during the October twilight. They are all British ships for which the crews will have to volunteer, the danger being terrible and their sole hope if sunk being Arctic clothing. The chance of crews from sunken ships surviving in open boats is very remote.”

  Now the Russians again accused Britain of secretly conspiring with the Nazis; this was why convoys to Russia were being suspended. The accusations were based on the strange flight of Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess to England. A statement was issued from London on October 21, flatly denying any conspiracy. Roosevelt asked Stephenson if any more was known about Hess. “Only that he’s quite mad,” Stephenson replied. “Unfortunately, we can’t convince Moscow.”

  General Mark Clark made his secret journey to North Africa the next day. Eisenhower moved his headquarters to Gibraltar, adopting the code name HOWE. Fast troopships began to assemble for the dash to TORCH beaches. Stephenson again called on Roosevelt before flying to London. The President said gleefully that he was glad to recognize the old firm of MARK, HOWE & TORCH was setting up shop on the Rock, “for wasn’t Gibraltar the symbol of permanence for some well-known American insurance company?”

  Less than 200 miles from TORCH, the British 8th Army began to sweep forward. “The battle which is now about to begin will be one of the decisive battles of history,” declared General Bernard Montgomery in Cairo.

  In restaurants and bars from Marseilles to Casablanca, a campaign of misinformation got underway. Rumors were leaked by Allied agents that an Allied invasion fleet was moving toward Dakar on the South Atlantic coast of French Africa. Murphy’s spadework now yielded results. He had used his diplomatic window into the Third Reich to study Nazi espionage. The Germans ran spy schools, using instructors from the Vichy French, to produce experts in African tribal languages and customs. Murphy had pretty well pinpointed the enemy’s agents. A flood of “security leaks” and gossip was directed toward them. The Nazi command headquarters at Wiesbaden, analyzing the false reports, concluded that the Allied armada was heading for Dakar, some 2,000 miles from the impending action. The German Mediterranean fleet, long-range aircraft, U-boat wolf packs and raiders were thus misdirected, away from the scene of action. Even the passage of 151 Allied ships through the narrow Gibraltar strait was misinterpreted with the help of planted reports: double agents told their German contacts that the ships were rushing aid to starving Malta.

  On November 5, when small boys in England celebrate the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament, Churchill wrote a message for the men already fighting west of Cairo: “I propose to ring the bells all over Britain for the first time this war. Try to give me the moment to do this in the next few days. At least 20,000 prisoners would be necessary.”

  To Roosevelt, a personal message was sent that scarcely concealed Churchill’s pride. “He had been pricked for too long by sniping critics,” Stephenson recalled. “He found these the most trying weeks of the entire war. He hated to have it thought that he, or his people, lacked guts or stamina because he knew how untrue it was. Now he began to see daylight. He asked me to convey to the President the news that after twelve days of heavy and violent fighting, his troops in the desert were inflicting a severe defeat on the enemy. It was his answer to suggestions of reluctance to fight. And the British 8th Army had done it before relief came.”

  The TORCH armada slid through hostile waters untouched. At each of the landing areas, secret-army radio transmitters were now in contact with troopships and escorts, reporting the disposition of pro-Nazi Fr
ench units of the three fighting services. Guerrillas began a series of sabotage operations timed to diminish any resistance. In London, SIS men moved into the studios of the British Broadcasting Corporation with copies of a message to be inserted into regular programs beamed to enemy-held territories. “Robert has arrived.”

  That Thursday, children in the Strand were singing “Remember, remember, the fifth of November . . . Gunpowder, treason and plot” as Stephenson walked toward Downing Street. There were none of the usual bonfires except those lit by German bombers, no firecrackers except those of antiaircraft red tracers. But there were young urchins with straw-stuffed dummies depicting Guy Fawkes, the man who had failed to destroy the Mother of Parliaments. At five minutes to midnight, sitting with Churchill, he heard a BBC piano recital interrupted by a communiqué from Cairo: “The Germans are in full retreat.” And still, miraculously, TORCH went unreported.

  On Friday the key installations in Algiers were quietly surrounded by young guerrillas. Elsewhere, post offices and prefectures, radio stations and police posts, government quarters and transport centers were infiltrated by those Frenchmen loyal to General Charles Mast, on whom authority would legally devolve. Mast, once the very model of a proper St. Cyr military graduate, had become a convert to the rough guerrilla style on the night he dived with General Clark into a wine cellar.

  Saturday passed. Churchill mulled over a message from Cairo: “Ring out the bells . . . 8th Army advancing.” But Churchill wanted confirmation about the 20,000 prisoners.

  Early Sunday, the then secret War Cabinet minutes recorded: “24 hours ending 0700—November 8, 1942—French North Africa. Operations commenced early this morning to occupy French Morocco and Algeria to provide base for advance on Tunisia.”

  In the White House, the President received the message that signaled the closing of the first phase in the history of British Security Co-ordination. “Landings taking place at Algiers and Oran. . . . Landings at Casablanca . . . Reports received from American and British forces indicate early success. . . . In Egypt the pursuit of the enemy continues.”

  Sitting in the U.S. consulate at Gibraltar, Generals Clark and Eisenhower listened to the chorus of radio announcements to the waiting armies in the shadows, and the repeated BBC call: “Listen Yankee Pilgrim Franklin Lincoln . . . Robert has arrived. Robert has arrived.”

  Stephenson flew back to New York by the usual route with reports from TORCH and El Alamein. BSC had achieved the purpose implicit in its title: co-ordination of security. Little Bill would present an even lower profile now. Big Bill Donovan’s future rested upon convincing the Joint Chiefs of Staff that co-operation and integration of intelligence did work; that the British had something of value to offer; that rag-tag-bobble mobs of rebels were worth more than their lack of arms would indicate.

  Hard times lay ahead. Nobody pretended guerrilla warfare could do more than prepare the way for regular armies. There would be arguments about the secret operations in North Africa and revived doubts about the President’s cozy relationship through unorthodox channels with the Prime Minister. But it could never be denied that American losses in TORCH were light because at El Alamein the British had finally destroyed “nine-tenths of the enemy’s tanks and three-quarters of their guns.” Nor could it be doubted that intelligence operations at Dieppe had made this possible, or that already a fresh wave of hope lifted the spirits of the resisters in Europe as the code sentence was finally heard: “Robert has arrived.”

  It was eighteen months since Stephenson had signaled Churchill: “I have been attempting maneuver Donovan into co-ordinating all United States intelligence.” Now Donovan was to get overriding authority to operate in the fields of intelligence, sabotage and counterespionage, and to conduct guerrilla operations.

  On Sunday, November 15, 1942, it was confirmed to Churchill that 40,000 prisoners had been taken, double the number he requested. For the first time in more than three years of war, the church bells pealed across Britain.

  “Now this is not the end,” the Prime Minister signaled INTREPID and FDR. “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning.”

  For both Churchill and Roosevelt, it was the end of the beginning in two fields of warfare that could not be discussed openly. “Atomic bombs and guerrillas seemed at opposite ends of a spectrum ranging from sophisticated to primitive,” said Stephenson. “This was really not so. Each agent, saboteur, and partisan had to be brought together in a most intricate design to create the final war-winning explosion just as much as atomic particles had to be properly juggled. Nuclear warfare and the Baker Street Irregulars intertwined, and for the balance of the twentieth century, the world would be changed by this bizarre relationship between the physicist and the guerrilla.”

  Communist agents within the Allied intelligence agencies saw this, too.

  * PQ supply convoys were coded by BSC, which reported to Roosevelt that the last to get through had lost twenty-five out of thirty-six British merchantmen, together with cargoes of 430 tanks, 210 aircraft, and 3,350 vehicles for the hard-pressed Russians.

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  New and even more mysterious misunderstandings bedeviled American and British intelligence agencies after TORCH. Signals went astray. Questions went unanswered.

  Stephenson was notorious for catching small imperfections in his far-flung enterprises. Now time was against him. He was reading through the night, as reports and signals piled into BSC. They arrived according to priority, a system far from foolproof. A significant action might start so modestly that early reports went to the bottom of the pile.

  A seemingly routine request from Hoover was given a low priority. “The FBI director asked for information only available in London,” recorded the BSC Papers. “The response was insufficient in speed, quantity and quality.”

  Hoover had asked for further data on subversion. He told Stephenson in late 1942 that he suspected Communist sympathizers had buried his request.

  Stephenson was in the thick of a dozen battles. His grueling schedules averaged out at twenty working hours each day of the war. More than 30,000 experts, engaged in communications-intelligence throughout the world, were linked by invisible threads to BSC in New York. Each fresh crisis was analyzed by Stephenson and, when feasible, turned over to an officer who had both the freedom to act and the responsibility of reporting only when the case was resolved. A familiar spectacle was the expressionless face bent over documents, digesting each page in what seemed like split seconds. Now, hearing Hoover’s concern, he shot off a signal. Dated November 9, 1942, it went to C, the chief of the British establishment Secret Intelligence Service:

  I have arranged, on my personal word to Hoover, the appointment to us of a trusted FBI representative as liaison with us on Communist activities exclusively. . . . If I am not to be accused once again by Hoover of withholding relevant material from London, it will be essential that you personally instruct that I be promptly supplied with all available material so I may implement our promises and so that it will not be necessary for Hoover to turn elsewhere. . . .

  Despite sharply worded reminders, C’s reply came after Christmas: “My officers are already engaged in careful and exhaustive survey of Communist material. . . .”

  C at the time was General Sir Stewart Menzies, who had been in intelligence since 1915. He was an honest soldier but quite at sea with men like Hoover. His career and background exemplified the narrow confines of regular British secret agencies. He had grown up among men who “played the game,” never cheated, and consequently (this is hard to imagine today) never dreamed of distrusting a colleague.

  The colleague whom C should have distrusted was Kim Philby, the Soviet spy, handling routine INTREPID traffic. After the Japanese surrender, Hoover had discussed his own confusions with Stephenson. He sensed something wrong, could not put his finger on it, and for a time withheld co-operation. This gave way to his feeling that INTREPID’S expulsion might be precisely what the Soviet Union so
ught. Stalin did not want strong and independent revolutionary armies that would challenge his authority in postwar Europe. Thus he would be accused by Tito of depriving the Yugoslav secret armies of help, even though they held down a significant part of the German Army and relieved pressure on Russia.

  The covert diplomatic policy of INTREPID in the latter half of World War II was designed to keep the Americans involved in the secret wars while managing the rapidly expanding resistance movements against Axis tyranny. The prefabricated suburbs of Bletchley Park to take care of expanding ULTRA teams exemplified the magnitude of secret warfare and the methods by which Stephenson bartered for U.S. support. Seven thousand “boffins”—experts in a variety of recondite skills—poured out vital intelligence, which continued to reach Roosevelt and impress him with British work in this field and the need to keep on getting it. Brilliant men served ULTRA: sharp-witted dons, wayward professors, eccentrics who hated the dreary routine and the heavy secrecy that fettered their freewheeling intellects. Felix Fetterlein, once cryptographer to the czars of Russia, decorated one end of the spectrum of talent. At the other end was a former Merchant Navy radio operator who seemed telepathic in his ability to read the weak and distorted signals of a distant agent.

  Meanwhile, the regular service intelligence agencies charted future postwar policy, reverting to their old preoccupation with rank, salary, advancement, and the comforts of the club. The Baker Street amateurs bore the load and the Kim Philbys burrowed away unnoticed.