by Larry Loftis
“Your objective,” he added, “is to deliver the envelope without its being… interrupted, confiscated.”
* * *
The Penn Central train was crowded, but it took Aline only a few minutes after departure to spot him.
Losing a tag was simple if your timing was good, and she decided to use the oldest trick in the book. When the conductor announced that Fredericksburg was the next stop, Aline slipped into the restroom. She could feel the train slowing, and then stopping as the conductor announced the arrival.
She waited.
When the train started rolling again, she threw open the lavatory door, bolted for the exit, and jumped onto the platform. Turning back she saw that her tag had not had time to follow. She had lost him, but her exit created a new problem: how was she to get to Richmond on time? There wasn’t another train until four thirty, and no buses until after that. She was carrying little money—certainly not enough for a taxi—which left only one option.
She hitchhiked.
When she finally arrived in Richmond she found that the address Williams had given her was a hotel. She went to the front desk and asked the clerk if the man whose name Williams had let her briefly see was in. The clerk said he was not.
Aline checked her watch. She had lost valuable time on the side route and knew she’d have to hustle to make the five o’clock return train.
The clerk asked if she could wait and Aline shook her head. It was already 4:45 and she had to go.
At the station, she called the hotel and asked the operator to ring the guest’s room. It was now a few minutes before five o’clock and fortunately the man was in. She gave him a description of the station booth she was calling from and told him he’d find the envelope in the phone book tucked among the R pages.
He sounded pleased and she boarded her return train, making it back to The Farm without further incident.
Her next assignment was a bit more complicated. Williams told her she was to go to Pittsburgh and get a job at an aircraft parts factory. Complicating things, she would have no identification, so her ingenuity would be tested. If she managed that, he went on, she was to return to the factory the same night, break in, crack the office safe, and retrieve a conspicuous envelope containing valuable information.
He handed her a set of blueprints showing the location of the factory office and safe. As Aline studied it, he gave her a small card.
“Here’s the number to call if you land in jail.”
She gave him a sidelong glance and Williams shrugged. It wasn’t uncommon, he said, and he assured her that they would spring her if she got caught.
Aline went to Pittsburgh, found the factory, and charmed her way into a job without much trouble, but the criminal mischief was a bit more challenging. She broke in that night and cracked the safe, but there was no envelope. She stared into the empty void for a moment and then it happened.
The alarm went off.
She raced out of the factory, adrenaline surging, and high-tailed it back to the station. Boarding the return train in the early-morning light, she mulled what Ryan had said about Spain, its importance, and her role in it. What she was about to do—however large or small—seemed to be an important part of the OSS operation, and of the overall Allied strategy to win the war. But after tonight’s fiasco, would she still be chosen for the assignment?
Stepping into the first compartment she placed her small traveling bag on the floor and sat opposite a man looking out the window. Before she could collect her thoughts, the man turned to her.
“Would you like me to put your suitcase on the rack?”
Aline’s eyes widened. Pierre!
She jumped up and grabbed her bag. “I’ll have to go to another coach. You know we’re not allowed to speak to colleagues outside The Farm.”
Pierre took the bag from her and stowed it. “Don’t worry about that. Nobody we know is on this train.”
Aline was torn. She didn’t want to break protocol, but before she could object, Pierre pulled her down next to him. It was not an unwelcome gesture.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Pierre grinned. “And you?”
Aline kicked herself. Of course Pierre wouldn’t say what he had been doing, nor would she. It was The Farm’s first rule: secrecy. She changed the subject, and they talked about the war for a few minutes as other passengers boarded.
“I wanted to be alone with you for a long time,” he finally said, leaning close.
Footsteps sounded by their door and he sat back. It was the conductor, who collected their tickets. Before Pierre could continue, though, a woman with a small child entered their compartment, followed by an army officer.
Aline and Pierre pretended not to know each other for the rest of the trip, and she wondered again what he was doing there. The train arrived at Penn Station and Pierre pulled her bag down from the rack. While the others in the cabin were gathering their things, he whispered: “You will have dinner with me?”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
Snatching her bag, she squeezed into the herd of exiting passengers and looked for her connecting train to Washington.
Back at The Farm she told Captain Williams what had happened with the break-in, and he informed her that she had gone to the wrong office and broken into the wrong safe. Still, he said, her partial success had earned her a C+.
She didn’t mention seeing Pierre on the train.
* * *
Over the next few days she continued with Morse, cipher, and the shooting range during mornings and afternoons, and the study of Spain at night. So that others wouldn’t know the specifics of her upcoming assignment, she pulled multiple books for other countries as well. She talked with Pierre several times during the week, still feeling that electric connection to him, but they were never alone for more than a few minutes.
Finally, it was over. From dawn to midnight, November 1 to 21, her training had continued without a break. Aline was a cipher expert now, adept at Morse and coding, and able to handle almost any weapon. The study of Spain had been fascinating, but she knew she needed to brush up on her Spanish to be close to fluent. Williams told her that she had passed the training, and that she’d need to go to Washington the first week of December for final instructions.
On her way to the capital, Aline couldn’t help but think of Pierre. She was riding in the same Chevy that had taken them to The Farm a month earlier. They had planned to see each other the following Sunday, but it would be for only a few hours. Still, she couldn’t wait.
At the Q Building, Frank Ryan was all smiles.
“I guess this is our last meeting, Butch. You’re on your way.”
Aline nodded, butterflies swarming.
“You certainly wanted to get into the war badly that night I met you at my brother’s house. Well, you’re in it and you’ve earned your way. Here’s what you’re going to do.”
Ryan explained that Aline would be cipher clerk in the OSS Madrid station, which was very small. At the moment, he said, there was only a station chief, a senior coder, and two secretaries. They’d be sending a radio man at some point, along with a financial officer, a Basque expert, and eventually two more cipher clerks. Because the station’s coding room was swamped, he was going to do his best to expedite her travel.
“When I met you in New York,” he went on, “I had just come back from one and a half years in Spain. I’m the guy who recommended you for this role, and I’m still the guy. You fit into the scenario as if made for the part. But if you fail, it’ll be my failure also.”
Aline shifted in her chair. She hadn’t before considered that Ryan’s reputation was on the line in recruiting her.
“You’re not having second thoughts?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m scared, excited, but dying to go. I hope you haven’t overestimated me.”
Ryan reassured Aline that he had confidence in her, and said he was very proud of her. The only thing left now was to
meet Whitney Shepardson, chief of OSS’s Secret Intelligence branch. At The Farm she’d been told that he was OSS’s most powerful man next to Bill Donovan, and he was considered a legend by many. He held degrees from Oxford—where he was a Rhodes Scholar—and Harvard Law School, but he chose international affairs as his occupation. At the close of World War I, the State Department had sent him to the Versailles Peace Conference as an aide to Edward House, President Woodrow Wilson’s chief adviser, and later he served as secretary to the commission that drafted the Covenant of the League of Nations.
Aline was shown into Shepardson’s office and found its occupant to be a distinguished silver-haired man whose deeply lined face suggested either too much reading or too much pressure. Shepardson rose to greet her and invited her to have a seat.
“I hope you will speak freely to me,” he said. “Personal contact with my agents is worth ten of these reports.” He held up some papers and set them aside. He then asked her the same question she’d been asked so often lately: Why did she want to join the war effort, particularly in a role that might very well be hazardous?
“Mr. Shepardson, every boy I know is in, including two of my brothers—both younger than I. I love my country as much as they do, and I am just as willing to risk my life. It’s not fair that only men should be allowed to fight for this great country.”
Shepardson smiled, apparently liking what he heard. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity to do something for your country, Miss Griffith. Perhaps more than you realize.”
The chief spoke to her about the importance of Madrid, about the enemy’s presence there, and about Operation Anvil, the Allied plan to invade southern France. Some of the Madrid station’s work would involve that plan, he said, and she would likely come across it in her decoding.
“Your cover will be the American oil mission,” he explained, “which is the same for many of our agents there, although we have others using the cover of international companies with offices in Spain. Tell your family and friends to write you through your APOV number. All letters you send will be censored.”
Shepardson showed her to the door, letting her know that she would be contacted at the proper time for travel arrangements. “God bless you,” he said as they parted.
With OSS’s official approval, Aline went home to Pearl River to wait for news of her departure date. The following Sunday, December 5, she met Pierre at the Plaza Hotel. It was a violation of OSS protocol and Aline should have known better, but it was the last chance she’d get to see him before he was off to who-knew-where the following day.
She had carefully planned her attire, wearing her best Hattie Carnegie suit—a blue tweed—with matching cape and hat. Pierre was late, but that didn’t matter when their eyes met and he kissed her hand under the glittering chandeliers of the Plaza Hotel lobby. Pulling her close and taking her arm, he suggested they walk across the street to Central Park.
They wandered around the park, peeked inside a museum for a few minutes, talking about everything but the future. Aline wondered where the OSS was sending Pierre, but she couldn’t ask and he couldn’t tell her. At one point he alluded to danger ahead and suggested that he might not return. Occupied France, Aline figured.
Pierre then took her to lunch at the most popular place in town: the Stork Club. A favorite haunt of celebrities like Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra, the Stork Club hosted some twenty-five hundred people on a busy day. It was a marvelous outing and Aline couldn’t have been happier.
Pierre ordered champagne, which she had never tasted, and when it arrived he took a small box from his pocket and placed it in front of her. It was from Cartier.
She pulled the ribbon and gasped. Inside was the most stunning ring she had ever seen—a twisting gold band encircling a sparkling sapphire.
She looked at Pierre, swept away. “I don’t think I can accept such a valuable gift.”
“Of course you can. I want you to remember me.”
“I’ll remember you no matter what.”
Pierre smiled and nodded toward the box.
Aline put the ring on and to her surprise, it fit perfectly.
It all seemed a dream. And like a dream, it had to come to an end.
It was now four o’clock. She had to catch her train, and Pierre had to be on his way to wherever he was going.
They said goodbye and Pierre pulled her close and kissed her.
I. On the evening of April 14, 1931, 29,953 monarchists had been elected, while only 8,855 Republican candidates had been elected.
II. The Abwehr was German military intelligence. The Nazi party had their own intelligence branch called the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), directed by Ernst Kaltenbrunner. The head of the SD’s foreign intelligence arm, whom Aline would later see in Madrid, was Walter Schellenberg.
III. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, Hitler’s private Nazi army.
IV. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris would later be arrested and executed for his part in the July 20, 1944, attempt to assassinate Hitler.
V. Army Post Office.
CHAPTER 4 THE CLERK
While Aline was eager to depart for her assignment, OSS’s Secret Intelligence office had a number of administrative matters to address before she could leave. They had ordered her overseas security check when she finished her training at The Farm, but it would take weeks to process.
The OSS also had to work out a compensation plan with the State Department. Since Aline’s cover was as a clerk for the American Oil Control Commission, the State Department would issue the check that would be her formal pay. From them she would receive a salary of $1,800 per year (less than the $2,400 salary she made modeling for Hattie Carnegie). Secretly, she would also receive $1,000 per annum from the OSS. And since she would be on call for the code room at any hour, and was likely to have assignments outside normal office hours, the State Department factored into her regular pay an additional $390 per annum for overtime.I
On January 10, 1944, Ryan put in a request for Aline’s expedited transport to Spain and was informed that it would take two weeks. The identity and travel schedule of high-ranking military and intelligence officers going to Europe was top secret, and passage across the Atlantic was hard to come by. As a result, most OSS agents traveled to their destinations by sea. Because of Madrid’s desperate need for Aline’s services, however, Ryan wanted something else, something faster.
Aline’s transportation was so top secret that the means of transport was not mentioned in the OSS scheduling. Traveling with Aline were two men, identified only by their initials: “J. H. M.” and “W. L. M.” NARA
* * *
Aline sat in her room at the Biltmore Hotel in midtown Manhattan looking out the frosted window at the softly falling snow. It was January 27 and she had been cooped up here on the fifteenth floor for two days, unable to speak to anyone. This was normal protocol for passengers departing for Lisbon on Pan American’s Yankee Clipper, the only air service from the US to Europe. The navy feared lurking German U-boats might target the seaplane as it was taking off, or Luftwaffe fighters might cause trouble along the flight path to Lisbon, so passengers never knew until the last minute when they were to depart. They were told to wait in their hotel rooms, perhaps for days, until a call came telling them that it was time to leave.
The Clipper was a Boeing 314 long-range flying boat, one of the largest aircraft in the world. It provided luxury transportation that only the wealthy could afford in peacetime, and only high-ranking diplomats and senior military officers could utilize in wartime.II In addition to private sleeping quarters, it had a formal dining room, lounge, bar, and a women’s dressing room. It even had a honeymoon suite.
Since only twelve had been built, getting passage on the Clipper was rare, even for top-level officials. That Aline had been selected for passage on the Clipper spoke volumes about what the OSS thought of her skills and potential. OSS staff working in the Madrid office, including station chief H. Gregory Thomas, all had traveled by sea—a two-week j
ourney just to reach Lisbon.
Finally, late that night the call came, and ten minutes later there was a knock at the door. Two men greeted her without giving their names and said they’d escort her to the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia Field. They also said they would be joining her on the flight. Aline’s traveling companions were James H. MacMillan and William Larimar Mellon, Jr., one of the heirs to the Mellon banking fortune. MacMillan was to be Madrid’s deputy chief and financial officer, and Mellon would be the office’s expert on the French-Spanish escape line, a route of safe houses through which downed Allied pilots and blown spies could make their way to safety in Gibraltar, and from there to England.
When the trio arrived at the pier, Aline was struck by how dark it was. Cloud cover masked the moon, and with all the city’s millions of windows covered in blackout curtains, the New York skyline had vanished. It was pitch-black and cold. A man in military uniform escorted them from the car to a small motorboat. Aline, MacMillan, and Mellon got in and moments later they were bouncing along the waves toward the giant Clipper.
Aline had never flown before, or even been near a plane, and the sheer size of this behemoth floating on the waves took her breath away. It was 28 feet high, had a wingspan of 152 feet, and weighed some 82,000 pounds.
She boarded with the others and was surprised to see that the interior was not set up with rows of seats but looked more like a living room; there were armchairs and sofas arranged so that passengers could converse as if sitting in a hotel lobby. She grabbed an open armchair, and moments later the Clipper’s engines roared to life and the plane began rumbling across the choppy water.
Pan American’s Boeing 314 Yankee Clipper.
When they were airborne, a man sitting across from her pointed out that she was the only woman on board, something she had already noticed. He chattered away, describing the dining room upstairs, telling her, “We travel in luxury.”
