The king shrugged his shoulders. Donovan, unperturbed, suggested a less inflammatory policy. “Germany is still uncertain as to what you will do in the event that she demands passage through your country,” he said, “but if a decision is forced and you are no longer able to delay, you will then permit Germany to come through, although you will not participate with her.”
King Boris looked Donovan straight in the eye. To the American his smile seemed to suggest that the king loved his people and would protect their interests. There was little more Donovan could do, but before taking his leave, he said, “I wish you would tell me of your meeting with the officers who were involved in the conspiracy to kill you.”
The king told how the conspirators had burst in on him at 2:15 in the morning and remained with him until 6:00 A.M. Boris had watched the slow hands of the clock moving toward the dawn, conciliating, granting concessions to their demands, fighting for time with the belief that “conspiracy is strong in the dark but as daylight comes its strength is diluted.”
“I now understand your whole manner of dealing with Hitler,” Donovan said when the king had finished. “That you are seeking by gaining time, to dilute the force of his demands. I hope you are right about this, and that your attempt to deal with him in this way will not meet the fate of others.”
When he left Boris, Donovan was convinced that the king was still uncommitted and that there might be some hope for denying Bulgaria to the Nazis. Concerning the king he wrote in his diary, “I should say that he is idealistic, so much so as to have an overbelief in the virtue of peace; that he is honest, shy; but I fear he has been so successful in maneuver that he places too great reliance upon it, even when the time has been reached when decision and not maneuver is essential.”
Donovan did not appreciate that the king was neither shy nor honest. He did not know that Boris was in regular touch with Admiral Canaris. On January 22, the German ambassador phoned Berlin to report that Donovan had told the Bulgarian foreign minister that the United States would not allow Great Britain to be defeated. The next day a phone call from a German agent to Berlin reported that he had “told Boris that Franklin Roosevelt would give aid to Greece in the war against Italy.” Then only a few days after Donovan visited the Royal Palace, King Boris met with Twardovsky, head of the cultural department at the German Foreign Office.
“The King spoke derisively about the visit of the American Colonel Donovan,” reported Twardovsky, “who demonstrated to him once more how politically naive the Americans really are. Donovan has not the faintest notion of the political conditions and history of the Balkans, nor do these matters seem to interest him in the least. Donovan had asked him to remain neutral, to resist by force of arms any attempt by Germany to move troops through the country, and to put his reliance in the liberality of England and America. To him, the King, this sending of emissaries and all the talk of these gentlemen were evidence of American weakness. If America were strong, she would act and not threaten.”
Before quitting the legation for the Royal Palace, Donovan had left his briefcase in his bedroom. While Donovan was with the king, Earle entertained his Hungarian girl friend at the legation. When Donovan returned, Earle, anxious to hear about the audience with Boris, spirited her off upstairs. While the two men were conversing in the drawing room, the woman slipped into Donovan’s room, picked up the briefcase, and went off with it to Gestapo headquarters.
Donovan’s bags were packed and had been brought down to the door so that he could go to the train station that afternoon and catch the Simplon Orient Express for Belgrade. When he went to his room, he discovered that his briefcase was gone. Although the case contained documents, letters of introduction, his diplomatic passport, and a few hundred dollars, he was not really dismayed. When Donovan told him of the loss, Earle immediately phoned Bulgarian authorities, who promised to have the police investigate the presumed theft. Donovan then phoned U.S. Minister Arthur Bliss Lane in Belgrade and asked him to make necessary entry arrangements with Yugoslavian authorities so there would be no delay when the Orient Express reached the Yugoslav border.
The Germans now saw fit to put their propaganda machine into action against Donovan. Ian Fleming of the intelligence division of the British naval staff (who was later to create the fictional spy James Bond), sent the following transcript picked up by British Broadcasting Company monitors of a German broadcast on January 24, 1941: “Colonel Donovan, shortly before his departure from Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, discovered that he had lost his passport and other papers. It is now known that he lost his passport, important notes, dollars and paper money, and some letters from the White House during a tour of nightclubs in the Bulgarian capital.” A second broadcast on the same day stated:
In war, England employs the notorious method of letting others fight for her. Why shouldn’t she attempt the same in the field of propaganda? They have asked a certain gentleman on the other side of the Atlantic to oblige them by touring the countries in southeastern Europe with a view to furnishing information. Maybe those who dispatched this emissary have banked on certain circles which today still look up to the United States in respectful veneration. Credentials and a passport with a recommendation from Washington are thought to make more attractive the mission on which Mr. Donovan is engaged. We hold that the loss of his passport does not necessarily mean that his information tour has failed, as he did not miss the opportunity of carrying out the most searching studies of Sofia by night. In any event, however, we strongly doubt that the information collected during his nightly tour of Sofia will constitute a contribution towards . . . [a few words inaudible in the transmission]. We can, however, offer Mr. Donovan some comfort; the prospects of his tour of southeastern Europe have not been changed through the loss of his passport.
That Donovan and Earle were together suggested still another propaganda broadcast to the Germans. German-controlled Radio Paris announced, “The U.S. minister in Bulgaria, Earle, started a scandal in a Bulgarian nightclub. Under the influence of drink, the Jewish and Masonic minister fought with peaceful customers. The day before, at a reception held at the Soviet Legation, he had been hopelessly drunk. It may be significant that it was in the company of this drunkard that Colonel Donovan lost important diplomatic papers.”
At the Sofia railway station the westbound Simplon Orient Express chuffed restlessly, waiting for Donovan and Lieutenant Colonel Dykes. Passengers grew worried because it had been announced that this train would be the last from Sofia to cross the border into Yugoslavia. The border was to close that evening to further traffic, and all train schedules had been suspended. Only travelers bearing diplomatic passports were to be admitted into Bulgaria. Tensions were mounting, and a German invasion was feared. The police were making a last frenzied search for Donovan’s briefcase, but they could not find it. When Donovan arrived on the station platform, reporters buttonholed him and begged for a statement.
“I am leaving Bulgaria with the most pleasant impressions of this small but wonderful country,” he said, “of this hard-working and progressive people and their kind-hearted, democratic, and sincere king.” Donovan was still without his passport when he climbed aboard the train and settled down in his compartment for the journey to Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
As the train rolled toward the border, Donovan thought about Bulgaria’s vulnerable situation. It was apparent that the Germans had already filtered in, he later told the War Department. “They were occupying the northern hills of Bulgaria, as watchers against the expected attack of the British against the Romanian oil fields, and as you go through the streets you trip over the number of Germans who were there on ostensibly economic missions. It was very clear after leaving Bulgaria to see that when the German knocked, the Bulgars would let him in.”
Donovan also observed how a powerful military apparatus could win battles without firing a shot. “I saw the Nazi military machine at work, seeing how it was used, not for fighting but for intimidation—to impose upon
weaker countries Nazi economic and political philosophy. It was just as it used to be in our high school books, where we read that the soldiers of ancient days prepared for the taking of a city by first undermining its walls. This modern Nazi warfare is carried out in the same way. And this I saw with my own eyes and at close hand—how the advance was made in southeastern Europe by political sapping and disintegration.”
The Yugoslav and Turkish ministers to Bulgaria were also on board the train, and they joined Donovan for dinner. As they enjoyed the sumptuous cuisine of one of the world’s most celebrated trains, they talked earnestly about the German threat that hung over the Balkans. Could a Balkan alliance of Greece, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia be created to deter the Germans? Should pro-British Turkey join such an alliance?
Donovan was in Belgrade when the Bulgarian police brought his briefcase to the American Legation in Sofia. They explained to Earle that it had been discovered in a trash can, wrapped in old newspapers. Only the currency was missing.
From January 29, 1940, to April 16, 1942, a ledger was kept in Berlin of all German intelligence reports shown to Hitler to begin his day. At the Führer’s insistence Walther Hewel, liaison officer between Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hitler, started each morning’s briefing with the latest report on the activities of Colonel Donovan. Hitler, doubtless regretting the occasion nearly 20 years earlier when he confided in the man who would become America’s intelligence chief, exploded with rage at every Donovan success and chortled with glee at Donovan’s frustrations. Hitler was delighted when he learned that a quick-witted Abwehr agent had made off with Donovan’s briefcase, and Canaris congratulated his woman in Sofia.
The documents in Donovan’s briefcase portraying British and American plans should Germany invade Bulgaria were of seeming great importance to the German high command. Their contents were radioed in secret code to army commanders and to key German diplomats. The British, listening at their cryptanalysis center at Bletchley Park, in turn read the German messages and had reason to congratulate themselves and that extraordinary agent and diplomat William J. Donovan. The Germans had taken the bait. Dr. Joseph Goebbels was delighted to announce in Berlin that Donovan had lost his papers because he “got himself into a state of complete drunkenness.” Both the British and the Germans were very happy about the same event.
British intelligence reports say of Donovan’s stay in Sofia: “He did not dissuade the Bulgarian leaders from their pro-German policy, but he did implant in their minds a measure of doubt as to the wisdom of that policy. In result, they hesitated before implementing their proposed intervention on Germany’s side, which would have allowed German troops unrestricted passage through their country. Mr. Churchill had intimated that he would be content with a delay of 24 hours. Donovan secured a delay of eight days.”
22
Mediterranean Intrigue
LATE ON WEDNESDAY, January 22, 1941, Arthur Bliss Lane, American minister to Yugoslavia, waited in the railroad station in Belgrade. After Donovan had phoned him early that afternoon from Sofia, Lane had contacted Yugoslav officials, who had cleared Donovan’s way through the border checkpoint. As soon as the Orient Express eased to a halt, Donovan stepped onto the station platform.
Back in Washington, Cordell Hull had opposed Donovan’s mission because he thought that any U.S. involvement in the Balkans would be dangerous. He also considered Donovan’s heady mixture of intelligence, intrigue, and diplomacy to be unbecoming an American official. Many of the American diplomats stationed in the Balkans shared the secretary of state’s views, and Arthur Bliss Lane was one of them. It had not helped matters when Lane learned that Donovan was coming to Belgrade, not through U.S. diplomatic channels but through the British Legation. It was also disquieting to Lane that Roosevelt, Churchill, and Donovan cloaked the entire mission in mystery while at the same time employing contrived leaks to the press to put psychological pressure on Axis agents, diplomats, and policymakers.
Lane took Donovan to his residence, where Donovan briefed him for several hours on the situation in Bulgaria, British strategy, and how the United States might act in the region. Lane had a message for Donovan that had just arrived from President Roosevelt. The President urged his confidential emissary to let Yugoslav leaders know that “the United States is looking not merely at the present but to the future, and any nation which tamely submits on the grounds of being quickly overrun would receive less sympathy from the world than a nation which resists, even if this resistance can be continued for only a few weeks.”
Until he reached Belgrade, the British had been making arrangements for Donovan, but now Lane took over. Thursday proved to be a strenuous day. First of all, in the morning Lane took Donovan to call on Prime Minister Dragisha Cvetković. The prime minister and Foreign Minister Alexander Cinkar-Marković had already decided to throw in their lot with Germany. They had been to Berchtesgaden to see Hitler and had agreed to join the Axis. Donovan’s appearance in Belgrade was upsetting, but Cvetković appeared friendly and cordial. He assured Donovan that the Germans would not invade the Balkans. Hitler, he said, had no immediate designs on either Britain or Turkey but would strike next at the Soviet Union. Cvetković explained that the Serbian part of the Yugoslav population would reject any alliance with the Axis, but the Croats, for their part, would oppose siding with the Allies. Donovan contented himself with telling the prime minister what President Roosevelt had to say about nations that did not stand up to Hitler.
At noon Donovan and Lane were at the American Legation for a press conference. Donovan began by telling the correspondents that he would not discuss details of his European trip. The New York Times man wrote:
Told that the Axis press was attacking his mission as “typical American interventionism,” Colonel Donovan replied, “No comment.” The Colonel chatted easily with the Yugoslav and foreign journalists, but avoided all questions relating to his visit.
The disappearance of his diplomatic passport in Sofia yesterday was explained by Colonel Donovan as an unaccountable loss.
“It simply disappeared some time before I boarded the train,” he said.
He denied that his briefcase, luggage, and documents were stolen at Sofia, stating that his luggage was all intact.
“As for documents,” he added, “I carry them up here,” and tapped his forehead.
Donovan hurried away from the press conference to lunch with Prince Paul, the regent for 17-year-old King Peter. Donovan told the prince of Roosevelt’s view. Prince Paul commented that his country might resist the Germans but that he distrusted the intentions of the Bulgarians, and his own countrymen were hopelessly disunited. The Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were at loggerheads.
“I talked with Prince Paul, and it was very apparent that he was in difficulty,” Donovan said in a speech made after he returned to the United States. “He was working for the unity of his people and he said, ‘If the German comes in and attacks us, then we will fight.’
“I said, if they go into Bulgaria and are on your flank, what will you do?, and he said, ‘Then we can do nothing, because Croatia will not be with us.’ So there was a man attempting to get unity of his people, not being able to get it because at the crucial moment [he] would find that disintegration he feared, and upon that Germany played.”
There was no real possibility of Yugoslavia’s joining a Balkan entente. At least the regent maintained that his country would remain neutral at all costs and that he would refuse German demands for war materials, bases, and the passage of troops through Yugoslav territory. Donovan assured the prince that if the Yugoslavs let the Germans cross their boundaries without opposing them, the United States would not intercede on their behalf at the peace conference that would occur after the Allied victory. Donovan was impressed by Prince Paul.
From his audience with the prince, Donovan drove out to Avala, where he placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and then met with the Croat leader Vice-Premier Vladko Maček, back in Be
lgrade.
“If the German asks to pass through freely, we will not permit it,” Maček told Donovan.
Maček reported that German soldiers were massed on the northern border but Yugoslavia hoped to forestall an invasion until ready to resist effectively. It would help, he said, if a Russian-German conflict broke out, and this was imminent.
Each of Donovan’s presumedly secret conversations with Yugoslav leaders was passed on in one way or another to German intelligence. On January 30 a report to Berlin contained details of Donovan’s talk with Maček. Donovan was reported as saying that “the Balkan states and Turkey were aware that American aid to Great Britain would be decisive. No one should be taken in by German propaganda. America would support Great Britain.”
Donovan’s conversation with Prince Paul was also reported to Berlin, and Smiljanović, the Yugoslav secretary of state for foreign affairs, informed the Vichy French chargé d’affaires that his government’s true policy toward Donovan’s mission was to play for time. Vichy let Berlin know. German agents tracked Donovan on his travels around Belgrade to be sure that informants among the Yugoslavs reported on every interview.
Late on Thursday afternoon Donovan met with Foreign Minister Cinkar-Marković, who attempted to break the appointment. He was pro-Hitler, and he had no stomach to talk to the American emissary. When a smiling Donovan walked unannounced into his office, the foreign minister judged that this genial American scarcely could be the dangerous agent that his friends in the German Abwehr portrayed, and he relaxed and was genial in return. Only when Donovan had gone did he begin to fear what the Germans would think when they discovered he had been talking to the American. It was Cinkar-Marković who issued an order censoring all mention of Donovan’s presence from Belgrade newspapers. The less said about the American the better.
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