by David Talbot
DCI Director of Central Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency
ELD Eleanor Lansing Dulles
ELD interview, JFD OH Eleanor Lansing Dulles interview, John Foster Dulles oral history project, Seeley Mudd Library, Princeton University
ELD memoir Eleanor Lansing Dulles, Eleanor Lansing Dulles, Chances of a Lifetime: A Memoir (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980)
ELD OH Eleanor Lansing Dulles oral history, John Foster Dulles Collection, Seeley Mudd Library, Princeton University
Fraleigh OH William Fraleigh oral history, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
JFD OH John Foster Dulles oral history project, Seeley Mudd Library, Princeton University
JFK Library John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
MB Mary Bancroft
MB journal Mary Bancroft journal, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
MB papers Mary Bancroft papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
MCD dream journal Martha Clover Dulles dream journal, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
MCD journal Martha Clover Dulles journal, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
MCD papers Martha Clover Dulles papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
McKittrick interview Thomas McKittrick interview, July 30, 1964, John Foster Dulles oral history project, Seeley Mudd Library, Princeton University
Mudd Library Seeley Mudd Library, Princeton University
NARA National Archives and Records Administration
NYPL New York Public Library
OH Oral history
Pell OH The reminiscences of Herbert C. Pell, Columbia University oral history collection
Pell papers Herbert Clairborne Pell papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
RFK Robert Francis Kennedy
Schlesinger Library Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
Prologue
1“That little Kennedy”: Willie Morris, New York Days (Boston: Back Bay Books, 1993), 36.
2“the blackest day of my life”: James Srodes, Allen Dulles: Master of Spies (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1999), 532.
2“the secretary of state for unfriendly countries”: David Atlee Phillips, Secret Wars Diary: My Adventures in Combat, Espionage Operations and Covert Action (Bethesda, MD: Stone Tail Press, 1989), 125.
4chess master of the free world: Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), 143.
4“Do not comply”: Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius, A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm Sullivan & Cromwell (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1988), 115.
5“a legacy of ashes”: Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Anchor Books, 2008), 194.
6“My Answer to the Bay of Pigs”: AWD papers, Mudd Library.
6“The ‘Confessions’ of Allen Dulles”: Lucien S. Vandenbroucke, “The ‘Confessions’ of Allen Dulles: New Evidence on the Bay of Pigs,” Diplomatic History 8, no. 4 (October 1984): 365–76, www.intelligencedeclassified.org.
7“a very tragic man”: Stephen Ambrose, Ike’s Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 318.
7He soon began meeting with a surprising range of CIA officers: AWD calendars 1962–63, digital files series.
7He met with a controversial Cuban exile leader: Declassified CIA document, Mary Ferrell Foundation, www.maryferrell.org; G. Robert Blakey and Richard N. Billings, Fatal Hour: The Assassination of President Kennedy by Organized Crime (New York: Berkley Books, 1992), 194–99.
8the Kennedy presidency suffered from a “yearning to be loved”: From Oct. 21, 1963, draft of speech, “The Art of Persuasion: America’s Role in the Ideological Struggle,” AWD papers, Mudd Library.
8And on the weekend of the assassination: AWD calendars.
9“Our faults did not often give us a sense of guilt”: ELD memoir, 10.
10Democracy . . . was “cowed in mind”: I. F. Stone, The Trial of Socrates (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988), 143.
10“It seems we just went wild”: Author interview with Joan Talley.
Chapter 1: The Double Agent
15He later told the story of his border crossing with pulse-racing, dramatic flair: Allen Dulles, The Secret Surrender (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 16–17.
16One of his affairs . . . had a brutal ending: James Srodes, Allen Dulles: Master of Spies (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1999), 81.
17“the personal representative of President Roosevelt”: Dulles, Secret Surrender, 18.
17“Too much secrecy can be self-defeating.” Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994), 154.
17Donovan . . . wanted to station Dulles in London: Dulles, Secret Surrender, 14.
18He thought he could do a better job than Donovan: Douglas Waller, Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage (New York: Free Press, 2011), 146.
18Switzerland was a financial haven for the Nazi war machine: See Adam LeBor, Tower of Basel: The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank That Runs the World (New York: Public Affairs, 2013).
18Sullivan and Cromwell, the Dulles brothers’ Wall Street law firm, was at the center: See Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius, A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm Sullivan & Cromwell (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1988); and Christopher Simpson, The Splendid Blond Beast: Money, Law, and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1995).
19he broke down in tears: Lisagor and Lipsius, A Law Unto Itself, 134.
19Foster still could not bring himself: Grose, Gentleman Spy, 134.
19he had the gall to throw a gala party: Reinhard R. Dorries, Hitler’s Intelligence Chief: Walter Schellenberg (New York: Enigma Books, 2009), 92.
20“who from humble beginnings”: Grose, Gentleman Spy, 125.
20“Germany’s position is morally superior”: Ibid., 133.
20“rather impressed” with Joseph Goebbels’s . . . “sincerity and frankness”: Ibid., 116.
20“Juden” scrawled crudely on the door: Harold Bartlett Whiteman Jr., “Norman H. Davis and the Search for International Peace and Security” (unpublished dissertation, Sterling Library, Yale University, 1958).
20“those mad people in control in Germany”: Lisagor and Lipsius, A Law Unto Itself, 138.
21“somewhat similar views”: Charles Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), 283.
21Monitoring Dulles proved an easy task: Srodes, Allen Dulles: Master of Spies, 200–201.
22Stephenson was also willing to do the dirty work of espionage: See H. Montgomery Hyde, Room 3603: The Incredible True Story of Secret Intelligence Operations During World War II (New York: The Lyons Press, 1962).
22Stephenson was even authorized to kill: John Loftus, America’s Nazi Secret (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2010), 5; and author interview with Loftus.
22they sought advice from a British colleague named Peter Wright: Peter Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (New York: Dell, 1988), 204.
23Douglas’s hatred for the “unctuous and self-righteous” senior Dulles: William O. Douglas, Go East Young Man: The Early Years (New York: Random House, 1974), 259.
24“I turned and gave him a quarter tip”: Ibid., 146.
24Roosevelt grew so fond of Douglas: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt—The Home Front in World War II (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 526.
24“You stood me on my head”: Ibid., 257.
25resulted in at least two abortive coups: See David Talbot, Devil Dog: The Amazing True Story of the Man Who Saved America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010).
25Vanderbilt . . . tipped off Eleanor Roo
sevelt: Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., Man of the World: My Life on Five Continents (New York: Crown Publishers, 1959), 264.
25“He was a dangle”: Author interview with John Loftus.
26The secretive BIS became a crucial financial partner: See LeBor, Tower of Basel, 78–85; and first chapter of Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot, 1933–1949 (New York: Authors Guild Backprint Edition, 2007).
26“Somebody grabbed me from behind”: McKittrick interview.
27“an American [bank] president doing business with the Germans”: LeBor, Tower of Basel, 122.
27the “nasty crew in the Treasury”: McKittrick interview.
27Project Safehaven that sought to track down: Martin Lorenz-Meyer, Safehaven: The Allied Pursuit of Nazi Assets (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007), 178; and Donald P. Steury, “The OSS and Project Safehaven,” CIA online library: www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/summer00/art04.html.
28lacked “adequate personnel”: Neal H. Petersen, ed., From Hitler’s Doorstep: The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles, 1942–1945 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 420.
28“The Treasury [Department] kept sending sleuth hounds”: McKittrick interview.
28By playing an intricate corporate shell game: See Lisagor and Lipsius, A Law Unto Itself, 136–37 and 146–52.
28“Shredding of captured Nazi records”: Loftus, America’s Nazi Secret, 10.
30“In our uncompromising policy”: President Franklin D. Roosevelt radio address, Feb. 12, 1943, the public papers of FDR, vol. 12, p. 71, http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1943/430212a.html.
30“merely a piece of paper”: Hal Vaughan, Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 178.
31Perhaps the most bizarre was Stephanie von Hohenlohe: See Martha Schad, Hitler’s Princess: The Extraordinary Life of Stephanie von Hohenlohe (Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2004).
31“If news of such a meeting became public”: Martin Allen, Himmler’s Secret War: The Covert Peace Negotiations of Heinrich Himmler (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005), 131.
32a “flagrant” liar: Grose, Gentleman Spy, 157.
32Royall Tyler . . . was cut from similar cloth: See “Royall Tyler” entry, Dictionary of Art Historians, www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/tylerr.htm; and “Royall Tyler” entry in Dictionary of American Biography, 1977. See also Grose, Gentleman Spy; and Srodes, Allen Dulles: Master of Spies.
33Dulles broke the ice: Charles Higham, American Swastika: The Shocking Story of Nazi Collaborators in Our Midst (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1985), 190.
33Hovering over the tête-à-tête: See Allen and the Himmler profile in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org.
35Himmler even recruited fashion designer Coco Chanel: Vaughan, Sleeping with the Enemy, 188–89.
35he never lost faith in Dulles: Allen, Himmler’s Secret War, 275.
Chapter 2: Human Smoke
37The boys would rise early: AWD interview, JFD OH.
38the children would put small candles in paper balloons: ELD interview, JFD OH.
38“I never feared hell”: ELD memoir, 19.
38Once Allen flew into a rage: Ibid., 15.
38One summer incident: Ibid., 16; and Leonard Mosley, Dulles (New York: Doubleday, 1978), 27.
40The minister was a compassionate man: ELD memoir, 25.
40Edith Foster Dulles was “a doer”: ELD interview, JFD OH; and ELD memoir, 8–9.
40Foster’s callousness came into stark relief: ELD interview, JFD OH.
41“a very sensitive mouth”: ELD memoir, 104.
41Her brother’s letter stunned and infuriated Eleanor: Ibid., 138.
41“We can’t have too many Jews”: ELD interview, JFD OH.
41the fragile Blondheim . . . killed himself: Mosley, Dulles, 122.
43The doomed voyage of the St. Louis, see Gordon Thomas, Voyage of the Damned Minneapolis: Motorbooks International Publishers, 1994). See also the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Web site, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005267; and the Jewish Virtual Library Web site, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/stlouis.html.
43Morgenthau was so integral: Herbert Levy, Henry Morgenthau, Jr.: The Remarkable Life of FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2010), 320.
43Roosevelt . . . was the first presidential candidate to campaign against anti-Semitism: Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman, FDR and the Jews (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 42.
44“He never let anybody around him”: Levy, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., 203.
44Roosevelt began discussing a plan to rescue millions of German Jews: See Richard Breitman, Barbara McDonald Stewart, and Severin Hochberg, eds., Refugees and Rescue: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1935–1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009).
45In June 1940, he circulated a memo: The Long memo can be found on the PBS American Experience Web site, in the archives for its “America and the Holocaust” program, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/filmmore/reference/primary/barmemo.html.
45One Morgenthau aide later called the Long cabal: Ibid.
45“Breck, we might be a little frank”: Levy, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., 357.
45Long was convinced that he was being persecuted: American Experience.
45he fell for the most notorious anti-Jewish fabrication: Robert Dunn, World Alive: A Personal Story (New York: Crown Publishers, 1956), 421.
47Heinrich Himmler’s luxurious private train: Walter Laqueur and Richard Breitman, Breaking the Silence: The German Who Exposed the Final Solution (Hanover, NH, and London: Brandeis University Press, 1994), 13–14.
49Heydrich, who called himself “the chief garbage collector”: Robert Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2011), 196.
50“These are lies!”: Christopher Simpson, The Splendid Blond Beast: Money, Law, and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1995), 81.
50Schulte was not one of those men: Laqueur and Breitman, Breaking the Silence, 115.
51Leland Harrison . . . took a decidedly skeptical view: Ibid., 148–49.
52“Germany no longer persecutes the Jews”: Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, 197.
53The OSS agent sized him up as “somewhat naïve”: Lucas Delattre, A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich (New York: Grove Press, 2005), 111.
54One German cable reported that 120,000 Jews: Ibid., 194.
55“Why did Dulles choose not to emphasize”: Neal H. Petersen, ed., From Hitler’s Doorstep: The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles, 1942–1945 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 570.
55Rudolf Vrba . . . escaped from the camp: For Vrba’s and Wetzler’s miraculous escape and report on Auschwitz, see Rudolf Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz (Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2002); and the PBS program Secrets of the Dead, “Escape from Auschwitz” episode, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/episodes/escape-from-auschwitz/8/.
56“He was profoundly shocked”: Walter Laqueur, The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth About Hitler’s Final Solution (New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Transaction Publishers, 2012), 98–99.
Chapter 3: Ghosts of Nuremberg
58she was forced to hold her breath: Rebecca West, A Train of Powder: Six Reports on the Problem of Guilt and Punishment in Our Time (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), 10.
59“I can’t imagine that!”: Richard Overy, Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 499.
60“I have no conscience”: Ibid., 500.
60His first hours in captivity surely encouraged his optimism: Brigadier General Robert I. Stack’s OH: “Capture of Goering,” 36th Infantry Division Association Web site.
60“you will say I have robbed you of your sleep”: Michael Salter, Nazi War Crimes, U.S. Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg (Abingdon, UK: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007), 266.
61“This was a woman”: U.S. War Department documentary, Death Mills (1945). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdba86U2g68.
61“The hilarity in the dock suddenly stopped”: Gerald M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (New York: Signet, 1947), 45.
61“These were crocodile tears”: Salter, Nazi War Crimes, 272.
61“It was such a good afternoon”: Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary, 46.
62Churchill estimated the number: Overy, Interrogations, 6.
62“U[ncle]. J[oe]. took an . . . ultra-respectable line”: Ibid., 8.
62George Kennan . . . was one of those: Christopher Simpson, The Splendid Blond Beast: Money, Law, and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1995), 151–52.
63“piglike rush for immediate profits”: Ibid., 134.
63“I am almost the last capitalist”: Letter from Pell to President Roosevelt, Feb. 17, 1936, Pell papers.
63“Your administration has made possible”: Letter from Pell to President Roosevelt, Sept. 18, 1937, Pell papers.
64“Hackworth was well named”: Pell OH.
64“to make clear to every last German in the world”: Quoted in Simpson, The Splendid Blond Beast, 140.
65Pell arrived in a frigidly cold, war-torn London: Leonard Baker, Brahmin in Revolt: A Biography of Herbert C. Pell (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1972), 265.
66his political enemies were determined to never let him return: Pell OH, 588–93. See also Baker, Brahmin in Revolt, 302–3.
66“His hands shook so”: John Morton Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of War 1941–45 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967), 416–18.
66There are two reasons he was targeted: Letter from Pell to David Drucker, Sept. 28, 1945, Pell papers.
67Dulles’s offer of assistance . . . was a “God send”: Salter, Nazi War Crimes, 348.
67he had fallen into an OSS “trap”: Ibid., 374.
68Jackson stunned the OSS chief: Telford Taylor, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1992), 184–85.
