The Devil's Chessboard

by David Talbot

  69Taylor . . . later called Donovan’s actions “ill conceived”: Ibid., 186.

  70“Most men of the caliber required”: Allen W. Dulles, “That Was Then: Allen W. Dulles on the Occupation of Germany,” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 6 (November–December 2003): 2–8.

  70the beneficiaries of politically motivated interventions: Salter, Nazi War Crimes, 7–8.

  70“The only motive which guided me was my ardent love”: Taylor, Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials, 535.

  71“Who in the world is responsible”: Ibid., 535–56.

  71it was likely . . . Wheelis, who smuggled the poison capsule: Ibid., 623–24.

  71For the badly conducted Nuremberg hangings, see “The Execution of Nazi War Criminals” by reporter Kingsbury Smith of International News Service, aw2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/NurembergNews10_16_46.html. See also: “Night Without Dawn,” Time, Oct. 28, 1946; “Hangman’s End,” Time, Aug. 7, 1950; and Taylor, Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials, 611.

  72For more on Murderers Among Us, see the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, http://www.umass.edu/defa/filmtour/sjmurder.shtml. See also: “German Rubble Film 1946–49,” http://mubi.com/lists/german-rubble-film–1946–49; and “Rotation 1949: Seeing Through Prison Walls,” German Cinema, 1946–49, University of Cambridge Web site, http://timescape.mml.cam.ac.uk/users/djw88/.

  Chapter 4: Sunrise

  75“To my great and . . . joyful surprise”: Jochen von Lang, Top Nazi: SS General Karl Wolff—The Man Between Hitler and Himmler (New York: Enigma Books, 2005), 138.

  75“Don’t worry”: Christopher Hibbert, Mussolini: The Rise and Fall of Il Duce (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 312.

  75“I am crucified”: Ibid., 287.

  76“My hands were tied”: Ibid., 312.

  76“there was a great danger”: Allen Dulles, The Secret Surrender (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 177.

  77Dulles identified himself as “special representative”: From a 1945 interrogation of Wolff by Allied officers, released by CIA under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act; Names file: Karl Wolff, NARA.

  78“I told Gaevernitz that under the strict orders”: Dulles, Secret Surrender, 177.

  79“I will never forget what you have done”: Ibid., 182.

  80“It would have made a lovely headline”: “Diary Notes by G.G. on the Rescue of General Wolff,” AWD papers, Mudd Library.

  80some historians would identify as the first icy fissures of the Cold War: See, for instance, Bradley Smith and Elena Agarossi, Operation Sunrise: The Secret Surrender (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 186–88.

  80some German divisions . . . were told not to lay down their arms: Kerstin von Lingen, “Conspiracy of Silence: How the ‘Old Boys’ of American Intelligence Shielded SS General Karl Wolff from Prosecution,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 22, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 74–109.

  80Truman later wrote in his memoir: Harry S. Truman, 1945: Year of Decisions (New York: Smithmark Publishers, 1995), 201.

  81“one of the most stunning triumphs”: Time, Oct. 21, 1966.

  81one of the “dandy officers of the SS”: Lang, Top Nazi, 119.

  82“Himmler was no businessman”: Ibid., 52.

  82For Dulles and Italian Superpower Corp., see Richard Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency (Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2005), 107. See also: “Italian Super-Power,” Time, Jan. 30, 1928; and William J. Hausman, Peter Hertner, and Mira Wilkins, Global Electrification: Multinational Enterprise and International Finance in the History of Light and Power (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

  83he was a “moderate”: March 9, 1945, Dulles dispatch from Bern, declassified by CIA under Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, NARA.

  83“The conclusions . . . must be left to history”: Dulles, Secret Surrender, 238.

  83“one of the unknown giants”: Lang, Top Nazi, viii.

  84a highly incriminating letter written by Wolff: Michael Salter, Nazi War Crimes, U.S. Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg (Abingdon, UK: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007), 51.

  84Wolff also played a key administrative role: Michael Salter and Suzanne Ost, “War Crimes and Legal Immunities: The Complicities of Waffen-SS General Karl Wolff in Nazi Medical Experiments,” Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion 4, no. 1 (2004): 1–69, http://lawandreligion.com/sites/lawandreligion.com/files/SalterOst.pdf.

  85Wolff relaxed on the villa’s terrace: Eugen Dollmann, Call Me Coward (London: William Kimber, 1956), 11–17.

  86had promised him “honorable treatment”: For the Dulles team’s promises to Wolff, see Salter, Nazi War Crimes, 118–21.

  87enjoyed a pleasant summer idyll on the lake: Lingen, “Conspiracy of Silence.”

  88Dulles went so far as to bury incriminating evidence: Ibid.

  88it was a way “to prevent me [from] talking”: Ibid.

  89he began to have his conversations secretly taped: Salter, Nazi War Crimes, 119.

  89Wolff’s letters to President Truman and Major General Lemnitzer, and Wolff-related correspondence between Dulles and Lemnitzer: AWD papers, Mudd Library.

  89Wolff insisted that Dulles must come to his aid: Norbert George Barr papers, 1942–1953, Columbia University Rare Books Library.

  91“It seemed like old times”: Gaevernitz letter to Dulles, June 18, 1949, AWD papers, Mudd Library.

  91“KW doesn’t realize what a lucky man”: AWD letter to Waibel, June 12, 1950, AWD papers, Mudd Library.

  92Hitler . . . “completely approved” of his Operation Sunrise machinations: Lang, Top Nazi, 339.

  93Wolff had developed a side business: Christopher Simpson, Blowback (New York: Collier Books, 1989), 236.

  93Wolff . . . “was most polite”: Wolff file, NARA. All of Names files released under Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act courtesy of Freedom of Information Act attorney James Lesar.

  Chapter 5: Ratlines

  95“At least in Dachau they had wooden huts”: Eugen Dollmann, Call Me Coward (London: William Kimber, 1956), 46.

  95“a delicate alabaster statue”: Ibid., 58.

  96His wife, Cicely, would rhapsodize about his “El Greco face”: Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s Master Spy Hunter (New York: Touchstone, 1991), 37.

  97In Rome, the two men conferred: Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (St. Petersburg, FL: Tree Farm Books, 2002), 166.

  97“He was talking like a young university lecturer”: Dollmann, Call Me Coward, 85.

  97“a leather-faced Puritan archangel”: Ibid., 30.

  98“We were all afraid you had been killed”: Ibid., 93.

  99In Naples, he was invited: Eugen Dollmann, The Interpreter (London: Hutchinson, 1967), 37–41.

  100Dollmann later tried to make sense: Ibid., 76–78.

  101“She loved crocodile in every shape and form”: Ibid., 117.

  101by reading selections from Hitler’s thick police dossier: Robert Katz, “The Talented Doktor Dollmann,” The Boot.it, http://www.theboot.it/dollmann’s_talent.htm.

  102Heydrich demanded that Dollmann take him: Dollmann, The Interpreter, 94–95.

  102“a self-serving opportunist”: Michael Salter, Nazi War Crimes, U.S. Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg (Abingdon, UK: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007), 73.

  103“one of my most disagreeable acquaintances”: Dollmann, Call Me Coward, 48.

  103For more on Rauff’s mobile crematoria, see Ernst Klee, ed., “The Good Old Days”: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders (Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky and Konecky, 1991), 68–74; “Walter Rauff: Letters to the Gas Van Expert,” Holocaust Education and Archive Research Team, http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/rauff.html; and “The Development of the Gas-Van in the Murdering of the Jews,” Jewish Virtual Library, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/vans.html.

  104Dollmann felt a firm hand: Dollmann, Call Me Coward, 108.<
br />
  105“Please call this number”: Author interview with William Gowen.

  105“a devious and arrogant son of a bitch”: Ibid.

  106Rauff would cap his bloody career in Chile: Names file: Rauff, NARA; “Wanted Nazi Walter Rauff Was West German Spy,” BBC News, Sept. 27, 2011.

  107“When I got to Rome”: Author interview with William Gowen.

  112U.S. surveillance of Dollmann began getting interesting: Names file: Dollmann, NARA.

  114Siragusa had proved very useful to Angleton: Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs (London: Verso, 2004), 109 and 227.

  116“From the little English I know”: Katz, “The Talented Doktor Dollmann.”

  Chapter 6: Useful People

  119But, still, the imposing figure struck her as “arrogant”: Author interview with Joan Talley.

  120“I want you to know I can see how much you and Allen care for each other”: Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994), 224.

  120“the most complex and overwhelming”: MB journal, Feb. 23, 1978, MB papers.

  120“those cold, blue eyes of his”: Ibid.

  120“that rather peculiar, mirthless laugh”: Mary Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy (New York: Morrow, 1983), 133.

  120“in the presence of superior possibilities”: William McGuire and R. F. C. Hull, eds., C. G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 258.

  121“like a robot, or a mask of a robot”: Ibid., 127.

  121“quite a tough nut”: Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy, 140.

  122“was constantly on his lips”: Ibid., 134.

  122“I married Allen”: Grose, Gentleman Spy, 75.

  123“some poor convicts”: Ibid., 74.

  123Her mother would make “fairy circles”: “Parents Journal,” MCD papers.

  123“We simply weren’t ready for Latin yet”: Ibid.

  124“To me it was a terrible strain”: Ibid.

  125“I suppose I did kill [Paul]”: MCD journal, Feb. 17, 1947.

  125“his life was somewhere else”: Author interview with Joan Talley.

  126“As for Allen, . . . when anyone was in trouble”: MB journal, Feb. 23, 1978.

  127“Dad asked for news”: Clover Dulles letter to Joan Talley, Feb. 18, 1945, MCD papers.

  127“My husband doesn’t converse with me”: Grose, Gentleman Spy, 246.

  128“My wife is an angel”: Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy, 241.

  128Clover drew herself as a crying, forlorn donkey: Ibid., 246.

  128“nothing short of a miracle”: “Freudian Analysis, Jungian Analysis,” May 7, 1947, MCD papers.

  129“My whole stomach had collapsed”: MCD dream journal, Nov. 25, 1945.

  130“no solution but for you and me to be killer whales”: Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy, 244.

  131“at the height of my sexual prowess”: Deirdre Bair, Jung: A Biography (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 2003), 488.

  132“He actually shimmered with it”: MB journal, Feb. 23, 1978.

  132“I longed for a life of adventure”: Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy, 7.

  132“One of my [OSS] colleagues was frantic”: MB, Columbia University oral history project, Schlesinger Library.

  133“What do those people actually do?”: Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy, 132.

  133he gave the psychologist an OSS number—Agent 488: Bair, Jung: A Biography, 492.

  133“Quick!” he barked: Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy, 152.

  134“Why the hell didn’t you go?” Ibid., 191.

  134“saturated with Nazi ideology”: Bair, Jung: A Biography, 494.

  134“Power was my natural element”: Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy, 112.

  135by Mary’s standards, he was by no means sexually reckless: MB journal, Feb. 23, 1978.

  135“In order to engage in intelligence work”: Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy, 89.

  135“I like to watch the little mice”: MB journal, Feb. 23, 1978.

  136“just like music”: Author interview with Joan Talley.

  137the spymaster kept asking the young man to “prove himself”: See Fritz Molden, Exploding Star: A Young Austrian Against Hitler (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1979), 203.

  137Joan found Fritz a “very erratic character”: Author interview with Joan Talley.

  138“would have gone on trying endlessly”: Letter to AWD, July 3, 1959, MCD papers.

  139The opposite of love is not hate: Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy, 95.

  Chapter 7: Little Mice

  142she christened her “house of horrors”: Erica Wallach, Light at Midnight (New York: Doubleday, 1967), 4.

  142“This business of nothing to look at”: Philadelphia Inquirer, March 29, 1987.

  143“Horror, fear, mental torture”: Wallach, Light at Midnight, 6.

  143“A person living a normal life”: Hermann Field and Kate Field, Trapped in the Cold War: The Ordeal of an American Family (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 101.

  144“I must admit that these days I find it hard to concentrate”: Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994), 257.

  145“Our war is over”: Joseph Trento, The Secret History of the CIA (Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing, 2001), 44.

  146“The difference between us”: Grose, Gentleman Spy, 267.

  146“that bastard”: Leonard Mosley, Dulles (New York: Doubleday, 1978), 251.

  147The CIA . . . “has the duty to act”: The Central Intelligence Agency: A Report to the National Security Council, Allen Dulles, chairman, January 1949, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/45/dulles_correa.pdf.

  147Dulles scrutinized the election tallies from Rome: Grose, Gentleman Spy, 285.

  148At least $2 million of the money: Christopher Simpson, Blowback (New York: Collier Books, 1989), 126.

  151“I want to work for world peace”: Mosley, Dulles, 49.

  151dedicate his life to becoming a “saint”: Tony Sharp, Stalin’s American Spy: Noel Field, Allen Dulles and the East European Show Trials (London: Hurst & Company, 2013), 16.

  151“by far the most practical field”: Ibid., 20.

  152“a stupid child in the woods”: Ibid., 29.

  153Schlesinger took a strong disliking to Field: Arthur Schlesinger Jr., A Life in the Twentieth Century (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002), 334. See also Schlesinger’s review of Red Pawn: The Story of Noel Field by Flora Lewis in The New York Review of Books, Feb. 11, 1965.

  154Hermann was taken from his cell for another round of grilling: Field and Field, Trapped in the Cold War, 155–70.

  155Operation Splinter Factor succeeded beyond the OPC’s wildest dreams: See Stewart Steven, Operation Splinter Factor: The Untold Story of the West’s Most Secret Cold War Intelligence Operation (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1974).

  155“The comrades are merrily sticking knives”: Mosley, Dulles, 277.

  155“Dulles wished to leave Eastern Europe devoid of hope”: Steven, Operation Splinter Factor, 146.

  156“He would never talk to me about his years in prison”: Schlesinger, Life in the Twentieth Century, 502.

  157“I was continuously interrogated”: Philadelphia Inquirer, March 29, 1987.

  157“From a European point of view”: Wallach, Light at Midnight, 396.

  157“Allen Dulles’s motives are easy to imagine”: From Erica Wallach interview with James Srodes, Feb. 10, 1993, courtesy of the George C. Marshall Foundation Library.

  Chapter 8: Scoundrel Time

  159“one of the greatest thrills of my life”: Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994), 280.

  159“the hangover philosophies of the New Deal”: Roger Morris, Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1990), 363.

  160“This
will be no junket”: Ibid.

  161he spent a frigid Christmas week: Ibid., 179–80.

  162“we have worked together”: AWD letter to Nixon, Feb. 20, 1961, AWD papers, Mudd Library.

  162“Allen Dulles . . . told him to keep quiet”: John Loftus and Mark Aarons, The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1994), 221; and author interview with John Loftus.

  163by demanding a congressional investigation of the controversial Bank for International Settlements: Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot, 1933–1949 (New York: Authors Guild Backprint Edition, 2007), 11.

  164by calling for the nationalization: See Jerry Voorhis, Beyond Victory (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1944).

  164“typical representatives of the Southern California middle class”: Anthony Summers, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon (London: Victor Gollancz, 2000), 46.

  164“young man fresh out of the Navy”: Ibid., 47.

  166“This is a friend of yours”: Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913–1962 (New York: Touchstone, 1988), 138.

  166“Of course I knew”: Ibid., 140.

  167“We’ve been had!”: Richard Nixon, Six Crises (New York: Touchstone, 1990), 10.

  168Chambers was “short and pudgy”: Ibid., 2.

  168“I am a graduate of Harvard Law School”: Summers, Arrogance of Power, 67.

  168“It absolutely ripped Nixon apart”: Ibid.

  169“One of the most trying experiences”: Nixon, Six Crises, 19.

  170“an orgy in unconscious self-revelation”: Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Journals: 1952–2000 (New York: Penguin Press, 2007), 153.

  170Nixon was a “sick” man: Ibid., 154.

  170“It was clear he did not want to proceed”: Ambrose, Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 178.

  171Some of this confidential information about Hiss: Summers, Arrogance of Power, 78.

  171The HUAC investigation could have been “acutely embarrassing”: Nixon, Six Crises, 21.

  172“He was no more concerned about whether Hiss”: Summers, Arrogance of Power, 67.

  173“We built [the typewriter]”: John Dean, Blind Ambition: The White House Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), 57.

  173“unparalleled venom”: Nixon, Six Crises, 67.