“They call me the father of central intelligence,” Donovan told a friend when he received the news from Monnet,
but I would rather be remembered because of my contribution to the unification of Europe. Until the great heartland continent of the West is truly unified there can be no assured future for all of mankind. Today unification is critical because it contributes to the defense of the West, but tomorrow it will be a great source of strength through peace. One day the Iron Curtain will lift and the captive nations of the East will become part of a United Europe. Even Russia, purged by future events of its desire to bully and subdue its neighbors, will be a member, and given the innate genius of the Russian people, a highly respected and valued member. When Europe is truly unified, it will flourish, and Communism will be shown for what it is, not the wave of the future at all, but a dead ideology out of a cruel past which has been employed by cynical masters to control common mankind.
Donovan immediately got in touch with such supporters as Bernard Baruch to raise more funds to support the Europeans in their effort to unite. When Dwight Eisenhower was elected president in November 1952, Donovan was boomed by supporters as a possible secretary of defense. He liked the idea.
“He came to Washington and took a suite,” said Guy Martin. “When nobody called him, he became irritated. I told him that he would have to organize a campaign if he really wanted to be secretary of defense. He wouldn’t do things that way. He was very destructive of his own interests.”
In 1953, the 70-year-old Donovan continued to work for a united Europe, and on April 16, he gave a luncheon at New York’s Waldorf Astoria to enable Konrad Adenauer to speak on the subject. That summer Donovan went to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to see the Tenth Special Forces Group in training. Colonel Aaron Bank, the first commander of the Green Berets, took him into the field to watch his men in action.
“Although it occurred indirectly,” said Bank, “there is no doubt that OSS gave birth not only to CIA but also the Green Berets in 1952. All the Green Beret training programs, maneuvers, concepts, and conduct of operations were based on those of OSS. I feel that Donovan should have bestowed upon him the honor and credit for this continuity of the heritage and traditions established through his genius and foresight. Another tribute for his extensive contributions to advance the very important field of unconventional warfare.”
Donovan was much impressed by the young men of the Green Berets. In the world of the 1950s and the decades to come, the defense of the western world would in good part depend upon unconventional warfare. The United States must have the means to aid resistance movements wherever necessary without becoming involved in a major military adventure, which would be self-defeating by its very nature.
On July 29, 1953, President Eisenhower appointed Donovan ambassador to Thailand. It was to be his task to evacuate to Taiwan Chinese Nationalist troops who had retreated into Thailand when the communists came to power in China. The soldiers had been attacking the Chinese Reds in Yunnan, and China threatened to invade Thailand to bring an end to the harassment. At the same time Donovan was to make a study of the political, military, and economic situation throughout the nations bordering on China. Donovan immediately got in touch with former OSS people who had remained active in Asia and asked for recommendations. He contacted former agents in the field.
“They’re scraping the bottom of the barrel to send out an old guy like me,” he told a former guerrilla fighter from Detachment 101 who came to his New York law office in response to his summons.
For a moment he looked his 70 years, but then his eyes twinkled youthfully.
“It is good to have one more challenge to meet,” he said.
While Donovan was talking with his old OSS friends, the FBI incongruously was checking his security. In Buffalo an FBI man asked Frank Raichle, Donovan’s friend since 1920, whether Donovan’s mother and father had been born in the United States. The President might know who William Donovan was, but the Buffalo office of the FBI did not. The Australian foreign minister also knew who he was, and when he heard that Donovan was to be Eisenhower’s ambassador in Bangkok, he went to see Gen. Walter Bedell Smith.
“I asked Bedell Smith about General Bill Donovan’s appointment as American Ambassador to Thailand,” Foreign Minister R. G. Casey wrote in his diary. “As I expected, this was not a chance appointment. He is concerning himself closely with the equipping and training and general strengthening of the Siamese forces. They didn’t send such a high-powered man to a relatively small post like Bangkok for nothing. Wherever Bill Donovan goes, something starts to happen.”
As would any other ambassador going out to his post, Donovan went to the State Department to meet the Thai political desk officer.
“You’d better find out who’s on the political desk,” he had been advised by a State Department official. “The political officer can kill an ambassador.”
Kenneth Landon was in his office when he heard Donovan’s well-known voice in the hall asking to see the political desk officer. He hurried to the door to welcome his old OSS chief. “He fixed me with his blue eyes,” remembered Landon, “put his arms around me, and said, ‘I’m saved.’”
Donovan might have the friendship and support of the political officer, but Walter Robertson, assistant secretary for the Far East, disliked him. Donovan had shown little patience for the “old China hand” views of Congressman Walter Judd, and Robertson was “Judd’s man.” One day Donovan walked into Landon’s office.
“Kenneth, my boy,” he said, “I’m going to Bangkok in just a few days, and I can’t get an appointment with Walter Robertson.”
“That’s outrageous,” said Landon. “I’ll call his office.” When Robertson answered the phone, Landon asked, “What’s the problem?”
“Just too busy,” said Robertson, and began a tirade.
“I’ll let you talk to Bill Donovan!” interrupted Landon, and handed the phone to Donovan, who listened to the angry assistant secretary with a smile on his face.
“Walter, this is Bill Donovan,” he finally cut in.
“It was a dirty trick, but Robertson deserved it,” said Landon later. “He had to invite Donovan up to see him.”
Donovan returned in an hour and gave Landon a bear hug. “I had a very interesting conversation whether he wanted it or not,” he said.
Landon went with Donovan to Bangkok, where they arrived in November. Donovan set about the evacuation of the Nationalist troops, which he considered an urgent matter. The Chinese communists had already organized a spurious Thai Autonomous People’s Government in Yunnan, and Donovan wanted to remove any pretext for a Chinese invasion. Donovan, Landon, and a small detachment of U.S. Marines went with Thai officials to northern Thailand to arrange for the Nationalist guerrillas to surrender.
“Each group,” said Landon, “was to meet us at a certain spot and turn in their weapons.”
The first 50 soldiers brought along a 9-by-15-foot portrait of Chiang Kai-shek but not a single weapon. Donovan cabled the U.S. Embassy in Taiwan to get the Chinese Nationalist government to order the men to bring out their weapons as well. Karl Rankin, U.S. ambassador in Taiwan, did his best to persuade the Chinese Nationalists to send such an order, but he was told that if Donovan did not lay off, they would make public the CIA’s involvement with the guerrillas. Rankin cabled Donovan to this effect.
“The Chinese and the Soviets already know,” Donovan cabled back, “so keep up the pressure.”
Donovan insisted that the soldiers bring out their guns, and from then on they brought out rusty old flintlocks. “They never did turn in their real weapons,” said Landon.
Moreover, some of the soldiers themselves never came to the amnesty points where they were to meet Donovan and the Thai officials. In their place they offered boys from Burma’s Shan state, whom Donovan rejected at a glance. By patience and determination Donovan was finally able to gather some 4,000 soldiers, about 90 percent of the total. He arranged for trucks to take
them to the nearest airport, from where they were flown directly to Taiwan.
“As we hiked along the jungle trails in all that heat from one rendezvous to the next, Donovan walked the legs off of us all, even the young marines,” said Landon.
“Uncle Bill, you ought to take it easy,” suggested Landon to Donovan. “You’re not a young man any more, and you’ll die in all this heat.”
“What’s the matter with that?” demanded Donovan.
Red-faced, perspiring, grown plump instead of stocky, the old hero bridled. He wanted to die in the field, and the jungled mountains of the Thai-Burmese border seemed as good a place as any. When the job was finished, Donovan returned to Bangkok.
Twenty-three-year-old William J. vanden Heuvel, an air force lieutenant, was Donovan’s personal assistant. He accompanied Donovan as he now set about strengthening Thailand and making it an integral part of the regional defense. “I had the privilege of sitting in with him at conferences with Nehru, Syngman Rhee, the Generalissimo,” he recalled. As Donovan went about his journeys he found himself being tagged by what he at first took to be Soviet agents. Then to his delight he learned that the agents were from the CIA. Allen Dulles apparently did not trust his old mentor.
Ruth Donovan, who in these last years of Donovan’s life had drawn close to him again, was with him in Bangkok, and he now showed her the courtly attention and concern that had never failed to win a woman. They enjoyed their time together, and this was to remain so after their return to New York. Their grandchildren came to visit them in Thailand, and so did Carleton Coon.
Coon last saw Bill Donovan alive in Bangkok in 1954. “He and Ruth Donovan and Gordon and Eleanor Browne (also living there) and Lisa Coon and I were about to go riding elephants into a jungle,” Coon recalled, “to visit a large cave that might have an archaeological deposit on its floor. Bill sent his aide Mr. Rafferty along in his place, because a Donovan grandchild had cut his grandfather’s eyeball with a glazed page of the Saturday Evening Post.”
The French were at the time fighting the rebellious Vietnamese, and Donovan commented to James Burnham that the fall of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia would lead “to the toppling of one after another of the row of dominoes—Thailand, Burma, Malaya, and then next Indonesia and the Philippine Republic right up to New Zealand and Australia.”
Taking into consideration geopolitical and strategic relationships, Donovan worked to create a regional system that he still felt must become a “combat theater” under a combined military-political theater command. He had done the intelligence job, but he was now fatigued and not very well, and he no longer had any expectation of becoming the commander of the theater that he proposed. On May 7 Donovan sent his resignation to President Eisenhower.
Eisenhower wrote back on May 26, 1954, that he had “a feeling closely akin to dismay” at the thought of losing Donovan. “Because of the emergency conditions now existing, it is possible that Foster [Dulles, the secretary of state] may ask you to remain for a few weeks extra; however, I assure you that if he does, it will only be for the reason that the situation of the moment is both fluid and difficult. Obviously we need competent and experienced representation in that region.
“In any event, once you return here I shall want to have a talk with you,” the President concluded. “Possibly if you cannot be with us longer on a ‘full time’ basis, there may be some consultative function that would appeal to you.”
Donovan returned to the United States in the late spring to talk over the situation with President Eisenhower. He agreed to stay on in Thailand a while longer. “Bill was temporarily in Washington, and had made all arrangements to return to Thailand by way of the Pacific,” recalled Tracy Voorhees, a friend who was working with NATO. “I was in Washington, temporarily, and was about to return to my NATO job in Paris. Bill said, Well, Tracy, if you are going that way I will go along with you.’ So he cancelled all of his reservations to go by way of the Pacific, and went around the world in the other direction as an act of friendship for me.”
Donovan stayed with Voorhees in Paris for three days, and when he left, he handed him his black dinner coat. “Tracy, just take this back to America the next time you go, will you? I don’t think I will have any need for it in Thailand.”
There was a look on his face that suggested he felt he might never have any more need of it.
In Bangkok Donovan threw himself back into his mission, carrying out Eisenhower’s new orders. He found himself impatient with the intrigues of the Thai generals and politicians. He spent more and more time with his family or just getting to know the Thai people and their city. One day as Landon and he were driving back into the city, Donovan said, “I want to do something big for Thailand. I want to do something that will help the people. What can I do?”
“Redirect the Mekong across the Khorat Plateau,” snapped back Landon. “Build dams, navigation, power, irrigation. You’ll really have made an impression.”
“You know, that’s an idea. I’ll go out and survey it.”
Donovan sent a series of top-secret reports to Eisenhower covering preliminary investigations of the value of a dam on the Mekong.
“They’ll make 150 copies of each report,” said Donovan to Landon, “and send one to everybody. In this way the idea will get across. It is important to mark a report ‘top secret’ to be sure it gets maximum distribution.”
In time the Army Corps of Engineers arrived in Thailand to begin work on a great dam, which has indeed provided the Thai people with irrigation water, electric power, and improved navigation.
Eisenhower accepted Donovan’s resignation “with extreme reluctance” on September 15, and on October 1 Donovan’s law office announced that he was resuming the practice of law. Said Newsweek magazine:
This week Donovan could take a substantial portion of the credit for another achievement—the creation of an anti-Communist bastion in Thailand and the welding of a first-class fighting force in a nation known more for peacefulness than bellicosity.
Donovan stopped Communist infiltration in Thailand. He created an atmosphere of trust toward the U.S. and began operations to help bolster Laos and Cambodia. Donovan’s energy and drive captivated the Thai. Despite his 70 years, he moved about the country constantly, getting to know the people. He hustled back and forth between Washington and Bangkok, cutting through red tape to get things done.
Last week, his quiet work paid off. As the Indochinese war limped toward its tragic conclusion, the Thai announced that they would double the size of their training forces and welcome a large American military mission.
Donovan went to Chicago in October 1954 and met with several former OSS men in a suite atop the Conrad Hilton. A violent rainstorm lashed Grant Park below. Gusts of wind rattled the windows as Donovan talked about his mission to Thailand. He spoke of old friends and causes, of strategies that had helped to win the war, of his concern for the situation in Southeast Asia.
“Ho Chi Minh has signed a peace with the French, but it is meaningless,” he said. “He will follow the classical Communist doctrine, negotiate when you are weak and the enemy is strong, attack when you are the strongest, but always to wage war. There is no such thing as peace to any Communist unless it is the peace of the grave.”
Donovan’s face was ashen. His voice had become softer and softer as he talked. He explained in detail his plans for an integrated defense of Southeast Asia.
“It is not essentially a military matter,” he said. “It is a political struggle which must be won in the stomachs of the hungry and in the minds of the people. In Washington they think that American military might is the solution to the problem, but any intelligence man knows this is not true.”
“General, have you told the President this?” asked a former OSS man.
“I’ve told everybody I possibly can,” he replied, “but the politicians in Washington never listen to any unpleasant truths from abroad that may force them to take action that would be unpopular at home. The
re is nothing more perplexing than to know what should be done in a critical situation and to have the authority to do the thing in the hands of somebody else who has insufficient background in foreign affairs to make the correct decision.”
The night grew late, and the storm mounted in fury. Listening to Donovan, the OSS men realized for the first time that he was an old man and a very sad one.
Nonetheless Donovan still had work to do. He testified before the Clark Task Force of the Hoover Commission, which was investigating the American intelligence establishment, and he became chairman of the National Committee of the International Rescue Commission to help refugees from Soviet-dominated states. In 1956 he went to the border of Hungary to assist the 10,000 Hungarians who had fled their country after Russian tanks put down the Budapest uprising. He raised $1.5 million for the refugees.
“There are two and one-half million refugees in the West who have fled Communist oppression,” he wrote in a fund-raising letter. “Each individual is a living witness against the brutality and terror of Communist totalitarianism. In their national committees and governments-in-exile, refugee groups have taken energetic and effective measures of resistance to the Soviets. Their existence is a symbol of successful opposition.”
On a day not long after Donovan’s return from Hungary, Walter Berry, his secretary, heard him cry out in his office. Berry hurried into the room to find Donovan slumped in a chair, wearily passing his hand over his forehead.
“Are you ill, General?” asked Berry.
“I’m all right, Walter.”
But Donovan was not all right. Some months before, at Ruth’s insistence, he had gone to see a doctor and had been told that he was suffering from arteriosclerosis. The doctor’s advice that he refrain from strenuous work had not kept Donovan from going to Hungary. Now in his office he was having a mild stroke. He would not let Berry send for a doctor. When he felt better, he sent for his car and went home for the day.
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