A World to Win

by Sinclair, Upton;

  “Shall you continue to pose as a secret sympathizer with Fascism?”

  “I have worked out a rather complicated technique in the course of the years, and I vary it according to the person I am with. Most of the time I am the art lover, the ivory-tower dweller, the lotos-eater, careless of mankind. Something that will amuse you—I was wearing that role the evening I met the lady who is now my wife, and she gave me a fine dressing down, called me a ‘troglodyte.’ But most of the time that role satisfies people in the haut monde.”

  “I’ve an idea you may find it different now that we’re in the war, Lanny. People have taken sides.”

  “I have learned to shade my statements and put on a little smile which makes me enigmatic and mysterious. With those who are Fascists at heart, or without realizing it, I can take the attitude of my former wife, Lady Wickthorpe, who has become a pacifist and humanitarian; she deplores mass slaughter, and perceives so clearly that it cannot help anybody but the Reds. These lofty sentiments break nobody’s bones.”

  “I am told that conditions are changing fast, in France especially. The Germans are making themselves bitterly hated, and the underground is spreading fast.”

  “I am prepared for that, and I may feel free to make the real truth known to more persons than in the past. I had to use extreme care so long as I was going into Hitlerland; but I’ve an idea that my visit to Stalin has put an end to all that. It is hard to believe the Nazis wouldn’t get a report of it. Indeed, I decided that my goose was cooked last September, when I was brought into Halifax after the plane crash. The hospital people found two passports on me, one of them under an assumed name. The nurses knew about it, and it must have been whispered all over the town. I am bound to assume that the Germans would have agents there, and that the story would get to Berlin. So far as I know, the Führer never had but one American friend, and if that one was revealed to be a spy, it would make a trèmendous scandal among the insiders. I rather think I may get echoes from it when I meet the old-time Social Democrat and labor leader who is my contact in Geneva.”

  “I get your point, Lanny,” said F.D.R. “Let it be understood that I don’t ask you to go into any German-held territory, or Italian. We have many others who can do that, and at less risk.”

  VII

  They had come to the crucial part of their talk, about which Lanny had been dreaming for half a year. The Big Boss fell silent, looked at him steadily, and began in a grave voice: “I am going to share some information with you, Lanny—top secret. You will understand without my saying it, you are not to drop any hint of it to any person.”

  “Of course, Governor.”

  “I have to specify, not even to your wife.”

  “My wife has never asked me a question, once I had told her that I was pledged.”

  “Churchill came here just before Christmas, as you probably heard; he brought a large staff, and we threshed out the problems of world strategy. We both agree that Germany is our principal foe and must be beaten first; but we differ as to the best way to get at him. I would like to cross the Channel and seize the Cherbourg peninsula. I would do it this summer, even poorly prepared as we are. The Russians are pleading for a second front; they are in desperate straits, and we fear they may be knocked out of the war. But Churchill won’t hear of it; he is afraid of another Dunkerque. He keeps talking about what he calls ‘the soft underbelly of Europe.’ He is hypnotized by the idea of breaking in by the back door. As you know, he tried it in the last war.”

  “I have heard him explain his failure, to his own satisfaction.”

  “I doubt very much if I’ll be able to change him. In any case, I am determined that we shall fight this year; and if it can’t be Cherbourg, then it’ll be French North Africa. In either case, it will be the largest expedition ever to cross an ocean and will involve a colossal amount of work; something like a thousand ships, with landing craft, artillery, air support. Have you picked up any hint of all this?”

  “I haven’t been any place where there were hints, Governor. I can see the strategy—to make the Mediterranean safe, shorten the route to Suez, and be in a position to take Rommel in the rear.”

  “Just so. And if we can take Tunis we shall be able to cross to Sicily, and then to Italy.”

  “Italy would be dreadful country to fight in, Governor. I have motored through it, and it is a bootful of mountains.”

  “We shall have command of the sea, and soon, I hope, of the air. If we can take the airfields in southern Italy we shall be in a position to bomb southern Germany and the munitions plants which Hitler has built in Austria, imagining them safely out of reach.”

  “That all sounds fine to me, Governor.”

  “The main point is that we shall be doing something, and giving our troops actual battle practice, the only way they can learn. Also, we shall be showing the Russians that we mean business; every division that Hitler has to send to stop us will be one more missing from the eastern front.”

  “You want me to go and spy out the land?”

  “Go first to Vichy and meet the leaders, as you did before. Let them talk, and tell you how they feel about us, and what they expect us to do, and what they will do in reply. Then you might meet your friend in Toulon and get acquainted with some of the underground people. Sound them out on the all-important question of their Fleet, and what we have to expect from both officers and men.”

  “They won’t talk to me, Governor, unless I reveal the truth about myself.”

  “Use your own judgment. If you can meet the right people and get anything of value, you may tell them that you have been sent by me. Tell them that our armies are coming, and soon, but don’t say where or when. Give them money, if they are dependable and can use it to our advantage. We must have a new arrangement about money, Lanny, for we are spending it, really spending now. Nothing counts but saving the lives of our men and furthering our objectives.”

  “I see what you mean, Governor. I don’t want any money for myself—”

  “I am paid a salary, Lanny, and so is everybody I am putting to work. You are a married man now, and you have to think about a family.”

  “My wife is very proud of earning all she needs, so put me down as one of your dollar-a-year men. But when it comes to distributing money to the underground, I’m willing of course. I have the good fortune to know one absolutely reliable man, and have no doubt that he will be able to lead me to others.”

  “I will arrange to have a hundred thousand dollars put to your account in your New York bank. I shall not expect any accounting, except in a general way, when we meet. When you can use more to good advantage, let me know.”

  “What the underground needs, Governor, is not so much money as arms and explosives.”

  “When you come back, bring me the names of such persons as are willing to be known to us. I will turn them over to Donovan, and his agents will get in touch with them. We have many ways of getting supplies into France now, and we shall have more. However, I don’t want you to go deeply into that sort of thing, which is bound to be dangerous. What I want from you is information from the top people, with whom you have had so much success. It’s all right for you to go to Switzerland and see what your German man is doing, and give him whatever money he can use; but don’t stay long. I’d rather you would go to North Africa and meet the top people there, and find out what their attitude is now and what it’s likely to be when we come. I don’t need to go into details, you will understand what is needed.”

  VIII

  So there were the orders, not very different from what P.A. 103 had received in the past and what he had expected now. His quick mind started thinking up questions, but before he could speak his Boss began: “Do you know Robert Murphy?”

  “I met him in Vichy, but only casually. You may remember, you advised me to keep away from Admiral Leahy and the rest of our staff because they might suspect that I was the mysterious ‘Zaharoff’ who was sending reports through the Embassy.”

>   “I have sent Bob as our counselor to North Africa. He has been provided with a staff of vice-consuls, about a dozen. They are carefully chosen men, mostly young; they know French, and of course their consular duties are nominal; they are there to prepare the way for a possible invasion. You will inevitably meet them and form an impression of what they are doing. I am not sending you to watch them, but if you see anything that I ought to know, you will tell me about it; that goes for good things as well as bad, their successes as well as their inadequacies.”

  “I understand, Governor.”

  “You will find Bob Murphy a delightful fellow, warmhearted and genial—perhaps too much so for the sort of people he will be dealing with. He is one of what you have called my ‘striped-pants boys.’”

  “Your cookie-pushers, Governor.” Lanny grinned.

  “Also, he is one of those liberal Catholics whom you find it hard to believe in. But you will recognize that he is the sort I have to send to Vichy France and to their colonies. You will like him personally, and will discover that he has a nasty job. I need not tell you that the enemy agents are swarming in that region and are pretty well in command of its affairs.”

  “I realize that. Do you wish me to approach them secretly and pretend that I am still their friend?”

  “I leave that to your judgment. I doubt if you could get much from them, because they will naturally assume that you must be their enemy now. I am more interested in what you can get from the French, of all groups. They are bound to know that we are coming sooner or later, and they will be trimming their sails to the new wind. You will encounter many varieties of intrigue.”

  “Algiers will be a nest of rattlesnakes, Governor; I’ll do my best not to get bitten. Am I to give Murphy any hint of what I am doing?”

  “Not at the outset, I think. He’ll no doubt have his suspicions. Tell me this, can you manage to work your camouflage in that part of the world? Is there any art there?”

  “Wherever there are wealthy French residents, there are always paintings, and maybe good ones. I have come upon old masters in unexpected places, and to be looking for them in those colonies would be as natural as looking for spinning wheels and grandfather’s clocks in Vermont or New Hampshire. There must also be Moorish art preserved there. I don’t know much about it, but I could bone up in the library and be an ‘authority’ in a week or two. I’ll try to interest one or two of my clients in the idea, and then I’ll be able to write letters and send cablegrams from the field. That impresses the censors, and of course they inform the authorities, and presently they begin to think that I may really be what I pretend to be.”

  “Fine!” said the President. “I am beginning to believe it myself.”

  “But of course I won’t be able to interest the State Department gentry in Moorish art. It’s up to you to see that I get a passport to all these places you have suggested.”

  “I’ll have Baker attend to that at once. How soon do you think you can go?”

  “I ought to have a week or so to attend to personal matters. I want to get my wife settled in New York, and take her to Newcastle and introduce her to my father and his family. My father may have some request to make of me—and that’s important, because it provides an extra camouflage and enables me to meet influential people. I suppose you will want me to talk with Professor Alston about this project?”

  “By all means. He will have many suggestions to make. Take your time, but no more than is necessary.”

  “Am I to send you reports in the usual way?”

  “Through our chargé when you are in Vichy, through Harrison in Switzerland, and through Bob Murphy in North Africa. I will instruct Bob that letters for me marked ‘Zaharoff’ are to be forwarded by diplomatic pouch, unopened.”

  “By the way, Governor, that reminds me—an odd thing. As you know, I amuse myself by delving into psychic phenomena. Most of my friends take it as a sign that I am slightly cracked, but they can’t explain the things that happen.”

  “I have known of such experiences, Lanny, and am not surprised that you are interested in the subject.”

  “At my mother’s home on the Riviera there is an old Polish woman who is a medium. She has been a family pensioner for the past fifteen years. Whenever I go there, I never fail to try a few sittings, and one of the ‘spirits,’ or whatever they are who never fail to announce themselves, is old Zaharoff. He fusses and frets because I won’t pay a debt he owes a man at Monte Carlo, but he never tells me any way to get the money. The last time I was there, about a year ago, he gave me quite a shock by announcing that he was greatly displeased by the way I was making use of his name. You understand, I have never mentioned that fact to a living soul, and I thought you and I were the only two persons who knew that I was ‘Zaharoff.’ Of course, it may be that the medium got that out of my subconscious mind; anyhow, it makes me uneasy about having other people experimenting with Madame. My stepfather does it continually, and he might talk about it, simply because he wouldn’t have any idea how important the secret is.”

  “I get you,” said F.D.R.

  “It set me to thinking about the name. The old munitions king didn’t have many intimates before his death, and if one of my reports were to fall into the hands of the Gestapo, they might set out making inquiries among the old man’s heirs and business associates and thus come upon my name. So I think we had better have a new deal and bury old Sir Basil.”

  “All right,” said the President, “choose a new name.” Then, before Lanny could speak, he added: “A North African landing is known as ‘Operation Gymnast.’ That is top secret, but if ever you get into a spot and want to convince one of our people that you are an insider—somebody like Bob Murphy—you can use it.”

  “O.K.,” replied Lanny. “It might be a good idea for me to have a name along the same line. Suppose we say ‘Traveler.’ I seem to be earning that fairly.”

  “So let it be, and I’ll give the necessary instructions. Also, I’ll list the name with my private telephone service, and any time you call the White House and give the name, you’ll reach me if I am available.”

  “Fine, Governor! Thanks a million.”

  “The thanks arc all yours. And one thing more. Get me a visiting card out of that desk drawer.”

  Lanny had done this once before and knew where to look. The President took the card and wrote on it with his fountain pen: “My friend Lanny Budd is worthy of all trust. F.D.R.” He handed that to the secret agent, saying: “Better sew it up in the lining of your coat or some safe place, and use it only when you are sure it is needed.”

  The agent replied: “If I get into a jam with the enemy, I’ll chew it up and swallow it!” Little did he guess what a seer he would prove to be.

  IX

  Business first, then pleasure. “If you can spare the time,” said the Boss, “you might stay for tea and meet some of the family. You don’t have to be so carefully hidden from now on.”

  Lanny said he would be glad to stay. A button was pressed, and an amiable Negro man appeared, the same Prettyman whom Lanny had seen many times dozing in a chair just outside the President’s bedroom door. The master was wheeled from the library, up the ramp, and along the hall to the drawing-room at the other end of the house. There was a tea service waiting, and Lanny met for the first time the tall, active person whom the newspapers were wont to call the “First Lady of the Land,” and whose picture he had seen so many times.

  The First Lady was splendidly dressed in a pale blue panne-velvet gown, adorned with “diamond clips” in many places. She had the same delicate blond coloring of eyes and skin which had once caused Lanny to say of Bernard Shaw that he was the cleanest-looking person he had ever seen. In her story of her own life she had stated that since she had not been blessed with a pretty face she had had to cultivate other gifts. But Lanny thought her opinion of her own face was certainly a mistaken one; she was not only pretty, she was an exquisite person. Her blue eyes smiled constantly, even when she
was occupied with the tall silver tea service. There was no trace of that gaucherie in gestures and posture which news-camera men somehow managed to put into her photographs. Perhaps their employers always chose the worst!

  Eleanor Roosevelt had been her name before her marriage—she was Franklin’s cousin. She had married him and brought up five children, whom her mother-in-law considered she was spoiling. Her political enemies had considered that these children wanted too much money, and too many divorces; but now the four tall sons were in the service and doing their painful duties, so that clamor was for the most part stilled.

  The young Eleanor had played tennis, and the mature Eleanor played politics, and in that game half the country finds fault with whatever you do and attributes it to the worst motives imaginable. The conservative half considered that Eleanor gadded about too much, especially in wartime; they insisted that woman’s place was the White House, and that it was a deplorable thing for a President’s wife to be filling the place up with all sorts of riffraff—movie actors and dancers and labor leaders and even Negro singers. They found it intolerable that she should go flying about the country, making speeches to women’s clubs and “radical” conventions and what not; they didn’t like the sound of her voice, rather high-pitched and tremulous over the radio, nor anything that she had said over a period of ten years. They insisted that she made too much money, and refused to pay attention to the statement that it all went to charity. In short, they just didn’t like her; and the worst of it was, she didn’t appear to mind it in the least, but went serenely ahead to manifest her able personality and give pleasure and advice to millions of the plain people who wanted it.

  Now here she was, seated behind a tea-table, smiling brightly. She knew that this caller had been in her husband’s service without pay, and was going off again on a dangerous mission. She set out to be agreeable to him, and he had no trouble in believing that it was because she really liked him and was interested in what he had to say. She had heard of his escape from Hongkong, and who wouldn’t want to hear about that? Lanny, who liked to talk, told about it; then he told about Ching-ling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen, founder of the modern Chinese Republic. She was another gracious lady, born just halfway round the globe, yet her social ideals and political program were in complete harmony with those of the First Lady of the Americans. So powerful are the forces which are making the modern world, and are making it one world, whether or not anybody wants it so.