Presidential Agent

by Upton Sinclair

  IV

  The development of this conflict had been slow and had passed through various stages. When Hansi and his younger brother had come to visit Lanny at Bienvenu, his home on the French Riviera, Hansi had been sixteen. He had listened to Lanny’s ideas of peace and brotherhood based upon the principles of social justice; a gentle idealist, he had taken fire and thereafter called himself a Socialist. Bessie Budd had met him when she was very young, and she had taken fire in her turn and had carried the ideas to her own extreme. She had made up her mind that the capitalist class would never voluntarily give up its mastery of industry, and so she had become a Communist.

  Lanny always said that this was because of her Puritan ancestry and upbringing. She had to be fanatical about what she believed, and she had to force others to agree with her. Hansi loved her and had been willing to be forced. He had never joined the party, but he had played at concerts for it and had been willing for Bess to give a good part of their earnings to the cause. Then had come the Spanish Civil War, and this crisis forced the radicals, of all shades of pink and red, to unite against the horrors of nazi-fascism. But, watching that war, Hansi saw the Communists wrecking the cause by their determination to rule and oust all others. Also, he had learned about the dreadful purges in the Soviet Union.

  Then had come the deal between Stalin and Hitler. Lanny had got some information and had foreseen it. He had hinted as much to Bess, and she had flown into a rage with him for even suggesting such a vile idea. ‘You talk like a Fascist!’ she had exclaimed—and that was the worst thing she could think of to say. So, when the deal was actually announced, Bess had to turn one of those somersaults which the Communists learn in their intellectual gymnasium. She followed the party line and began making excuses for the deal, saying that Stalin had learned that the Allies were about to make one, and he had been smart and jumped the gun on them.

  That was where the real quarrel started; for, to Hansi Robin, Hitler was the murderer, the beast, and to compromise with him was unthinkable. The husband and wife argued until they could no longer stand the sound of each other’s voices. They could live together only upon the basis of never mentioning the subject which was nearest to the hearts of both. But then had come another sudden development, like a sponge wiping the slate clean before their eyes. Hitler had attacked Stalin, and Stalin had automatically become an ally of the Allies. Once more the Soviet Union was the friend of democracy and peace, and once more it became necessary for all shades of red, pink, and lily-white to get together and give aid, both material and intellectual, to the Russians.

  Hansi and Bess in their enthusiasm had gone to Russia to give their kind of help—beautiful music. They had lived in Russia for almost two years, but it hadn’t worked out as they expected. Bess, the true party member, could be trusted in part; but Hansi, the Socialist, could not be trusted at all. Patriotism, nationalism, had become the party line. Put none but Russians on guard! A Socialist heretic could not open his mouth without saying something wrong. In the concert hall the crowds would welcome him with tumultuous applause, but the ordinary Russians would not dare invite him into their homes. To have anything to do with a foreigner was to come under suspicion; and then at two or three o’clock in the morning would come the visit of the secret police and the indiscreet person would disappear from sight.

  Hansi had learned Russian, and he listened to the conversation of his wife’s party friends. He had come back to America convinced that Red communism and Nazi fascism were identical twins, the only difference being in the colour of the shirts they wore. Their doctrines were different, but the techniques, the practices, were the same, and it was these latter which counted in the long run.

  ‘All you have to do’, he said to these three trusted friends, ‘is to study the goals for which the old-time Tsardom fought its wars. Then in the newspapers you watch Stalin making the very same demands: ports on the Baltic, access to the Adriatic, control of the Dardanelles, possession of the oil in Persia, and warm-water ports on the Pacific—Dairen and Port Arthur. All these the Tsars considered their birthright; and Stalin set Sergei Eisenstein to making a moving picture glorifying Ivan the Terrible, the most murderous of all the old-time Tsars’.

  Lanny responded, ‘It worries us all’. He was mild about it because he too had a problem in his home. Laurel had become somewhat fanatical on the subject of peace. It was not that she loved the Soviet Union, but that she feared to hate it, or to let anyone else hate it. And Lanny didn’t want to say anything to excite her—at least not until that new baby was safely launched into the world. Laurel was thirty-nine and might never be able to have another.

  V

  Early the next morning Freddi drove Lanny to La Guardia Airport. Laurel wouldn’t go along; she couldn’t bear to watch a plane take off, knowing that it was carrying the most precious freight in the whole world. The plane was so slow in starting—so agonizingly slow—and it seemed to wait until the last fraction of a second before lifting itself off the ground. Laurel’s heart would stop beating, and that wasn’t the proper thing for a double-burdened heart to do. She preferred to stay at home and imagine it all.

  But with world-traveller Lanny Budd it was an old story. He settled himself in his seat, strapped himself tight, and hardly bothered to look out of the window; he was more concerned to look in the morning paper and see what Stalin was going to do about Turkey and the Dardanelles. When he was through with that he started on a pamphlet Turner had given him; it was issued by the Treasury Department and was called Know Your Money. Lanny had torn off the title page so that no one would know what he was reading, and when he had thoroughly digested the contents he would get rid of the pamphlet. The subject was a new one for him, and he fixed all the details in his memory.

  The plane’s first stop was at Gander on the island of Newfoundland, a place that would always be marked with a red circle on Lanny’s mental map. It was from here that he had set out five years ago over the same flying route and had come so near to losing his life. He shivered when he thought of the strange psychic warnings he had received and had chosen to disregard. Then it had been winter, and now it felt like winter in latitude fifty degrees north.

  The traveller wandered about to stretch his legs and admire the growth of a great airport and the technique of its operation. Then a bell summoned him, and he got on board, and they were off again. If the weather was bad they would stop at Iceland, but since it was good they headed straight on to Prestwick in Scotland. Once they sighted a thunderstorm ahead, but they made a wide swing around it, and it was fascinating to watch the lightning stabbing into the sea. They reached Prestwick at suppertime, and Lanny took another plane to Croydon Airport near London.

  Waiting for him there was Alfred Pomeroy-Nielson, member of Parliament and heir-apparent to a baronetcy. He had been a flier for the Spanish People’s Republic during its war for freedom, and Lanny had driven him to his post of duty in Madrid. They had had other adventures together, but the greatest of all, as they both agreed, was the political struggle of the people of Britain. You might say that Alfy had been born a member of the British Labour party, and on the basis of his father’s long service and his own record in the Royal Air Force he had shared in the electoral victory of a year ago.

  Now Lanny had brought messages from his father and his mother and his younger brother and all the news about their activities. Alfy, in turn, told about the legislative programme now being put through, which would make it possible for every child born in Britain to get enough food to grow into a sound adult, and an opportunity to develop whatever talents he might possess. It would be the first time in the history of that landlord-ridden island, and to the two idealists it would be the beginning of a new stage of civilisation.

  Next morning Lanny Budd took off on a plane for Berlin. He had memorised all his notes and torn up the paper into small bits and dropped it down into the sewers of London. The only papers he had in his suitcase were English magazines, and his notebook contain
ing the names and addresses of a number of persons in Germany to whom the U.S. government had returned valuable paintings which the Nazis had stolen. The paintings might be for sale, and Lanny might find time to look at them.

  VI

  Once more the art expert flew over the green fields and the bombed towns of Germany and came to that ghastly skeleton of a national capital. Once more his plane slid down on the Tempelhoferfeld. When the war had come to an end the American armies had stopped at the River Elbe, desiring to be polite. They might easily have moved on and taken more territory, but they had not wanted to appear to be grabbing something from their Russian Allies. The Russians had moved into Berlin, and at a conference the city had been divided into four sectors, Russian, French, British and American. The Russians had got the eastern portion. They had already grabbed the machinery from the whole city, torn it loose, and carried it away; but unfortunately they had no place to store it, and a good deal of it was left out in the rain and ruined.

  The French, American, and British zones of Germany all lay west of the Elbe, so here was this peculiar situation: each country had a sector of Berlin, a little island, as it were, lying seventy miles or so to the east of the Elbe and reached only through Soviet-held territory. It was all right so long as Stalin remained an ally, and in the mood of an ally; but unfortunately he had begun to show an entirely different mood. He had forbidden fraternising between his troops and the Western troops, and he was making more and more difficulties for transport coming by railroad and autobahn.

  Lanny had been told that he would be met at the airport, and when he stepped from the plane he was greeted by an alert young American. ‘Mr Budd?’ said he, and Lanny smiled and answered, ‘Christopher Columbus’. The young man gave his name, escorted Lanny to a car, and started briefing him even while they were driving to the office. He was one of several Treasury agents who were on the trail of Himmler money throughout Germany, or those parts of Germany in which they were permitted to work. Where the Russians did not permit them they were working under cover, sometimes through foreign agents whom they might or might not be able to trust.

  The man had some melodramatic tales to tell, but Lanny was not surprised by them. He had learned to think of the Nazis as criminals, and among the cleverest and least scrupulous. The fact that they had been operating under the label of a government made no difference in his thoughts. To reproduce the money of an invaded country would appeal to them as the obvious way to get possession of whatever they wanted in that country—and they would want everything of value. As for the neutral lands, well, there was no neutrality in the Nazi psychology; if you weren’t one of them, you were against them. In the neutral lands the British pound and the American dollar had become international currency, and to manufacture this currency was the obvious and convenient way to get both raw materials and manufactured goods.

  VII

  The southwest sector of Berlin, the residential part, had been the least bombed, and the various American services had their headquarters there in fine old mansions. In one of these Lanny was introduced to a couple of the agents, and they got right down to business, knowing that they were dealing with a man who was in a hurry to get back to his affairs. Three different trails—all Polish, they reported—had led them to the village of Stubendorf. Polish nationals who were selling counterfeit money at a large discount—‘pushers’ they were called—had been patiently trailed by a Polish agent in AMG employ, and they had gone to Stubendorf to replenish their supplies. One of the men was under arrest now, but he wouldn’t talk.

  ‘Of course if the N.K.V.D. had him’, said Morrison, one of the agents, ‘they would torture him and perhaps wring the secret out of him; but we can’t do that’. He went on to explain, ‘We are obliged to work with foreigners because Americans are too conspicuous for this sort of thing. We do our best to check on our agents, but, of course, we can’t help making mistakes. And if the criminals, whoever they are, become too alarmed they will move elsewhere. It is no great job to transport a few bales of paper, and the copper plates are small and can be slipped into the pocket of an overcoat. You can see we have no small problem’.

  Lanny asked the crucial question, ‘Do you have any clue as to whether these operators are Nazis or Communists, or just individual criminals?’

  ‘We have no clues in this Stubendorf case. We have found all three varieties in other cases, and we learned that it doesn’t make much difference; the operations are much the same. The queer money is used to purchase goods, and then the goods are sold on the black market. It doesn’t matter whether the profits are spent for Communist propaganda or for women and liquor and nightclub entertainment’.

  Lanny replied, ‘It makes some difference in the psychology of the operators and the methods of approaching them. It makes a difference in the kind of persons among whom one might expect to pick up clues. From what you tell me it sounds as if there must be a considerable group, and here in Europe such a group usually has an ideology. Have you thought that this crowd might be Vlasovites?’

  ‘You have me there, Mr Budd. I have heard the name, but I don’t know about them’.

  ‘Vlasovite is the name for a Russian or Pole who went over to the Nazis and entered their military service. Some did it because they were reactionary; most of them I suppose were just mercenaries. There was a whole division or more of them, commanded by a General Vlasov. Needless to say, to the Reds they are the devil incarnate. Some might have been at Sachsenhausen, as guards or interpreters, even as prisoners if they were engravers or had committed crimes. They might have got away with bales of the money, and the Poles might have fled to Poland; they might have had to change their names and conceal their past, or they might be living as outlaws, hiding in the forest, working as an underground against the Reds. If Kurt Meissner is there, he would be sympathetic to such a group. You can see that the situation is complicated’.

  ‘Our men have been getting quite an education, Mr Budd, and you can help it along if you will. Bernhardt Monck tells me that you know more about these matters than any other American he has met’.

  ‘Monck flatters me, Mr Morrison, because he and I think alike on political and social questions. I know Stubendorf pretty well because I began going there to spend Christmas when I was fourteen years old. I visited Kurt Meissner’s family, and later on I came to know the Graf. In 1913, as you know, Stubendorf, in Upper Silesia, was a part of Germany. Then came the First World War, and the Allies turned it over to Poland; Kurt and all the family were bitter against the Allies for that. Germans and Poles have hated each other ever since they existed, I suppose. Then came Hitler, and Stubendorf became German once more. Now it is Polish again—but I suppose that means the same as being Russian’.

  ‘More and more nearly the same, Mr Budd. As you know, the Soviets agreed to the setting up of a democratic government in Poland, but they are making it more and more farcical all the time’.

  ‘Do they still let visitors in?’

  ‘They are making it more and more difficult. They are making Poland over into a satellite state and they don’t want any outsiders watching’.

  VIII

  Morrison gave Lanny a briefing on the political situation as it stood at that moment in Poland. At the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin had agreed that the Polish people were to be permitted to choose their own form of government. All political parties were to be granted equal rights; but the Socialist, Democratic, and Labour parties had all been suppressed, and their leaders were in prison or in the underground or in exile.

  ‘“Free and unfettered elections”—that was the phrase, Mr Budd’, said the agent; and Mr Budd answered that he had been at Yalta with President Roosevelt and had read the text of the agreement before it was submitted to Stalin and approved by him.

  ‘Now’, said Morrison, ‘the government is being run by three Communists. The only party which they allowed to continue was the Peasant party; they hoped to win this over by their programme of
re-distributing the land and socialising all industry. They thought they were strong enough to carry a referendum, and it was held. The vote was on the abolition of the senate; and the result, according to the Peasant party leaders, was about eighty-five per cent against the proposal. But the Reds held up the election results for twelve days and then announced that nearly eight million votes had been cast for the abolition of the senate, and fewer than four million votes against it. Such were free and unfettered elections in the Communist understanding of that phrase’.

  Lanny was warned that he would find Poland in a pitiable state of disorganisation. Soviet artillery had blasted towns and villages to pieces, and in many of the towns the streets were not yet cleared of rubble sufficiently to drive a vehicle through them. There were unbelievable shifts of population going on. More than eight million Germans had fled from Poland into Germany; to take their places a million and a half Poles had fled from the provinces which the Kremlin had taken over in the East; they had come into the new lands evacuated by the Germans. In addition nearly a million Poles who had fled from the Russians into Germany and Austria and Western Europe were now coming back to their homeland. The population of Warsaw had diminished from a million and a quarter to half a million. All this meant swarms of half-starved people on the roads, riding in oxcarts or trundling handcarts, or plodding along with their few possessions in bundles on their heads or their backs. It was very depressing, and also very insanitary.

  Morrison explained that Lanny, of necessity, would be on his own from this time on. They had not arranged hotel accommodations for him, for he must not appear as an official person. Lanny replied that he knew his way about Berlin; he had been here only a few months previously. Although he did not smoke he had brought along packages of American cigarettes and knew how to get favours from hotel clerks, cab drivers, and other persons whose talk might be helpful.