“Soon, Mr. Oakes. Goodbye.”
21
Walter Ulbricht was by nature a volatile man, notwithstanding his carefully cultivated Prussian equability. He thought it proper in a leader to be publicly impassive. To be sure, he also thought it correct that revolutionary fervor on appropriate occasions be expressed, which is why when the time came, as it did every few months or so—mostly at public rallies—it was arranged that the public should be raucous in their support of Ulbricht, the GDR, the Communist Party, Stalin, Lenin, and Marx. On these occasions he could be seen to display a steely smile, half gold ever since his teeth had been redone in 1944 when he was a war refugee residing in Moscow, awaiting the liberation of Germany. On these days the roar of the crowd reminded unfriendly observers of the passion shown, not all that long ago, toward Ulbricht’s predecessor as German leader—the point Henri Tod was always making, that the differences between the Nazis and the Communists were stylistic and theoretical and unimportant, their similarities being the cohesive thing.
In recent weeks Ulbricht had been training his nephew to take minutes. (“You simply must develop orderly habits if you are to be of any serious use other than to indulgent uncles.”) Ulbricht was pleased by the progress his nephew was making. The first two or three sessions were marred by Caspar’s penchant for interpolating his own comments or asides. Thus one day Colonel Hassel, the chief of the Vopos—short for Volkspolizei, or People’s Police—had discussions with Caspar’s uncle on how to deal with the East Germans who traveled to work during the day to West Berlin, returning at night. On their return, Colonel Hassel complained—usually after prolonged visits to West German bars—some of the Grenzgänger would pick political arguments, teasing and even vilifying the Vopos, and sorely trying their patience. Caspar recorded the discussion and wrote in parentheses, “Why not shoot them, Uncle?” The spirit was commendable, but, Ulbricht sternly explained, minutes of conversations between the chief of state and his subordinates were not invitations for the minutes-keeper to inject his personal views. Caspar bowed his head slightly, and said he understood. And although now and again he slipped, his minutes were by July very near to exemplary.
The reason this morning for Ulbricht’s special excitement was the word from Khrushchev that perhaps the time had come for another meeting of the heads of the Warsaw Pact. Ulbricht’s experience with Khrushchev was extensive enough to lead him to translate what Khrushchev was saying: He desired another meeting but he wished, for whatever reason, that Ulbricht request him to convene it.
He brought into the cabinet room that morning Erik von Hausen, his chief of staff; General Zippker, his chief of intelligence; and Professor Hans Wittvogel, who served him as general adviser. These were his most intimate confederates, and although Ulbricht did not hesitate to overrule them, he tended, in talking with these three men, to listen, and to weigh what they said.
They sat around the meeting table, Caspar in a chair up against the wall, taking notes on his stenographic pad.
“I think, gentlemen,” Ulbricht began, having relayed to them the news of Khrushchev’s message, “that this time we shall prevail. But I think it is important to give some thought to the communication Chairman Khrushchev evidently expects from me. My impression is that he desires something in the nature of an appeal to which he would be seen as deferring, with qualifications we do not yet know. I would suppose he wants something that goes beyond a mere restatement of our difficulties in dealing with the desertions to the neofascists. That complaint, however acute the problem for us, is one he and our colleagues in the Warsaw Pact are so accustomed to hearing, it is unlikely that it would be possible to restate it with novelty or urgency. We must not forget the rebuke of last March.”
“Permit me, Herr Ulbricht”—Professor Wittvogel never referred to him simply as “Walter” if there were others in the room. “We must, I think, attempt to make congruent policy here, anticipating Chairman Khrushchev. Remember, the Chairman does not let a day go by without warning the West that he intends to complete a peace treaty with us. He implies that were he to do so, the future of all of Berlin would be a matter for us, the GDR, to decide. To be sure, occasionally he equivocates. Last week, in speaking with the American John McCloy, he made reference to how confident he was that the western part of the city could be kept in some way distinct. What the entire world is wondering, and the entire world—am I correct, General Zippker?—includes GDR intelligence, is How far exactly does Chairman Khrushchev intend to go? If he indeed plans to conclude a peace treaty with us, we cannot delude ourselves that our subsequent dealings with West Berlin would be ours to resolve, however ‘sovereign’ over all of Berlin the treaty theoretically makes us. We would need a preunderstanding with Moscow. Chairman Khrushchev does not, I assume, know whether or at what point the Allies will use force to resist us. He presumably knows that they will do so under certain circumstances. Inasmuch as I think we all believe that he does not desire war, he must control the circumstances that might lead to war.”
“You are saying, then, Hans?”
“That Khrushchev may be waiting for us—for you, Herr Ulbricht—to communicate with him some such message as: ‘Eventually you—the Soviets—will of course conclude a peace treaty with us. But more urgent for the GDR, at this moment, is to stop the flood of refugees. Accordingly, if you will back us in a limited venture, to contain the refugees, we will agree not publicly to press any immediate claims to sovereignty over West Berlin.’”
General Zippker interjected. “But, Professor, surely it is quite generally understood that we would not press claims over West Berlin that had not already been … authorized in Moscow? Surely it is quite obvious to the whole world that our military is not capable of taking on all of NATO?”
“I am making a slightly different point, Hermann. It is that Chairman Khrushchev may desire that we stake out a position in the presence of the Warsaw powers’ leaders. And that position would be that we are prepared to settle for a compromise if Moscow will back us in the matter of the refugees. Otherwise, Chairman Khrushchev might be afraid of appearing to back down on his pledge to conclude a peace treaty that would leave the future of all of Berlin in our hands.”
Ulbricht looked pensive. He leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps the safest way to proceed would be to address Comrade Khrushchev privately, and to enclose with that communication a projected draft communication to the Warsaw leaders. This would need to be accomplished in great privacy, because it is of course an invitation to the Chairman to edit our ostensibly spontaneous communication to him and the Warsaw leaders. Indeed, Professor Wittvogel, I think this important enough for you to convey to Moscow personally. Possibly you can take it directly to the Chairman. More probably, Gromyko will insist on its being delivered to him. I will have a draft of the proposed statement by the end of the morning, and you would all oblige me if you would meet me here again at three P.M. to review it.”
“Of course, Herr Ulbricht,” said Professor Wittvogel.
“To be sure,” said Erik von Hausen.
“Indeed, Mr. Chairman,” said General Zippker.
Walter Ulbricht called for his secretary, and waved at Caspar to leave, but suddenly thought better of it.
“No, wait. Listen to my dictation, and incorporate what I say in your minutes.”
The secretary asked whether the Chairman, before he began, would take a call from Colonel Hassel of the Vopos. “He says it is very important, sir.”
“Very well, get him on the line, but be quick about it.”
And a moment later. “Yes, Hassel, what is it? Which one of the swine? Schweig? You have reason to believe he was with Tod that night, you say? Well don’t tell me you have reason to believe he was with Tod, find out if he was with Tod. Surely I do not need to remind you how to do that. What you say? Ah. You overdid it. Maybe I do need to send you back to the academy. Does the doctor confirm that? Well, let him lie a few hours. If he does come to, go back to work on him. If he’s still out
by dinnertime, polish him off. Oh yes, take a photograph; send it to his parents. Save a copy for me. Very well.” Ulbricht hung up.
“To Chairman Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
22
His mind wandered during the story about what had happened to Lady Anabella when she was packing up to move herself and the children to America for the summer. He was actually glad that the story was so protracted, because it gave him cover, and last night’s speech was very much on his mind. It is a distinct disadvantage for presidents, he had begun to notice very early in his term, that they can’t easily be inattentive, the reason being that they are hardly ever so situated as to be other than the center of other people’s attention. Ordinary people, in the company of four or five or more persons, can more safely permit their minds to wander. Those skilled in doing so are, moreover, very good at evasive operations, and these he had practiced over his nonpresidential years, particularly on the campaign trail, and rather prided himself on his proficiency. But if every story is designed to catch the attention of the boss, and every piece of gossip is aimed at his special titillation, to say nothing of the ponderous proposals which are sculpted exclusively for the boss’s examination, he being the only person whose reaction to them counts—what is one then to do, except listen, or run the chance of coming very close to being excommunicably rude, as if to say, “Nothing you utter can possibly be funny, interesting, or profound, and therefore I do not deign to listen”? Fortunately, in this case it was family, so that in fact the long story was primarily addressed to his wife … How he had worked on that speech. Any speech, he reflected, that in part satisfies Acheson and Fulbright, from both of whom he had heard congratulations, was at least high diplomacy. But how had it really gone over in Moscow? Oh, they were saying the usual things, but had they got the message? What message? Waal … His train of thought was interrupted. He was dragged directly into the discussion, a point of controversy having been brought up. His views having been solicited, his opinion was given, and it was the consensus that he had acquitted himself marvelously … What message? They were in the private quarters, and his wife said it was time to look in on Caroline, and there were general movements suggesting the diaspora for which he longed, so that he could complete his thinking. That damned fool Fulbright, saying on “Issues and Answers” that he didn’t understand why the East Germans didn’t just go ahead and partition the city, that being after all their right. Jee-zus, you would think a Rhodes scholar would have got that straight by now, that the East Germans don’t govern East Berlin: under the treaty and protocols, administrative control of the Eastern sector was given over to the Russians only subject to corporate understandings, one of these being continued right of access by all Berliners to all of Berlin, by all occupying powers to all of Berlin; and, incidentally, under the protocols no German in military uniform was even allowed to set foot inside Berlin, for God’s sake. He was interrupted. Yes, he agreed, as he prepared to usher Anabella to the elevator, it had indeed been an extraordinarily rich season for people dying. No, he had never actually met Ernest Hemingway, though they had corresponded. No, he had never met Augustus John, and there was a lot about him, he thought to himself, that he admired that had nothing to do with art. Yes, he knew Ty Cobb had died; in fact he had dispatched a telegram to Ty Cobb’s widow professing that in his youth he had worshipped her late husband, which wasn’t strictly true, because he was as uninterested in baseball when Ty Cobb was making home runs, or whatever, as he was today. Indeed they would see Anabella again soon at Hyannis Port, perhaps this weekend, no doubt arrangements have been made, don’t hesitate to let us know if there is anything you need. Whew … What message? He went into the Lincoln bedroom, where the Emancipation Proclamation had been executed, and sat down. What message? Well, he had defined the threat to Berlin. To Berlin? Well, no. He had said, “West Berlin.” The people he associated with had pretty well got him into the habit of talking about “Berlin” as West Berlin. He had to face up to it that the cable that had come in from General Watson, U.S. Commandant in Berlin, had nagged him. General Watson said all the usual, pleasant things about a presidential speech, but paused to register his dismay that the President who had referred every few seconds to the city had in every single case referred only to West Berlin. Did this communicate to the Russians that United States concern was exclusively for West Berlin? He had defined the threat, and elaborated what were U.S. interests in West Berlin. I mean in Berlin. He had gone over all that—the integrity of NATO, the whole bit. Then came the stick: He asked Congress to mobilize certain military units. How can you get any plainer than that, Nikita, you old fart?—and indications from congressional leaders were solid. Hell, 85 percent of the people, in the last Gallup, said they were willing to risk war to defend Berlin. Then he had finished with the carrot. He was entirely willing to negotiate differences with the Soviet Union. That would give Khrushchev, if he wanted it, the excuse to delay on his ultimatum, right? That, backed up by the mobilization. It certainly had not helped that Britain’s defense minister Harold Watkinson had said he didn’t think it was necessary to send a division right now to Berlin—the Brits are under strength as it is in West Germany, with fifty instead of fifty-five thousand men there. And the French! De Gaulle has pulled two of his four divisions out of Germany to help out in Algeria. To help continue French colonialism—watch it: De Gaulle may be listening. He would not find that at all funny. Anyway, the Soviet Union has got to have the impression we are standing by our guns. Where are our guns? Oh yes, in Berlin. Where in Berlin? He found he did not really want to answer that question, so he interpreted a voice calling out in the hall as if directed at him, though he knew it was the butler who was being called. So he showed up, and said he was terribly sorry he had been absent—he thought dear Elsie had left the White House along with the other guests. By all means dear Elsie should stay on, have a nightcap or whatever; he was going to have a Coke himself, which order he gave to the butler, who was standing there, since he too knew that it was he, not the President, who had been summoned.
23
Blackford had been gone a mere forty-eight hours, but right away he noticed that the strain in Berlin had mounted. Ulbricht had ordered the number of Vopos regulating the transfer points to be increased by a factor of six. The commuters were beginning to feel seriously threatened when they went out in the morning to work. And those who set out accompanied by their baggage and obviously intending to stay in West Berlin were being harassed almost to the point of physical detention.
And Bruni had been right. The day after Blackford left he had heard again from Tod, and this morning yet another communication, this one advising Bruni, using the code only the two of them knew, that he was to meet an emissary at Residence Four at ten o’clock, and that she was absolutely to be trusted. Tod’s handwriting, well known to Bruni, appeared on the back of a picture postcard of a slight, pretty girl, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three, dressed in a bathing suit and laughing as she stood on the beach of what appeared to be a lake, laughing at something someone was doing, or not doing.
“She came promptly at 10:05. I got right to the point and asked where Henri was. She replied by asking me for some kind of proof that I was Bruni. That stumped me. I don’t tattoo my name on my chest. Then she made it easier for me. ‘What did Henri tell you once about your name?’ I remembered,” he laughed. “‘He told me he thought Bruni was a nickname for Brunnhilde.’
“So she relaxed right away. She told me that Henri had indeed been shot that Saturday, but that he had got away, and she and her ‘companion’ were looking after Henri; that at first he had had a considerable fever, but they had got some penicillin, and his strength has been going up and his fever down. It was thirty-eight degrees this morning—”
“How much is that in real money?” Blackford interrupted.
“That,” Bruni reflected, “is about one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Then she said
he was busting to get back here, but also, the girl said, mostly because he was getting very useful information which he wanted to get to us right away, but didn’t want to convey it through a third party, even through the girl herself.”
“Does he want us to go in and get him?”
“I told her we had contingency plans for getting him out. But then what I did was write down a medical questionnaire on the basis of which I can do a better job of diagnosis. I told her we ought to get a blood sample. I gave her a twenty-minute lesson on how to do it, and had her experiment on me. She says she has a friend, a nurse, former roommate, and she’s quite sure she can get Henri’s blood over to her and have it examined for infection. She’s coming back over here tomorrow morning, and on the basis of the information she brings I can make a pretty good judgment as to whether we’re better off letting him sit it out there for a few more days, or whether we ought to take the risk of bringing him in and giving him treatment here.
“Meanwhile,” Bruni picked up a clipping, and handed it to Blackford, with a bow of the kind one makes when one expects one’s achievement to be applauded, “here’s an account by Spartacus.” “Spartacus” was the principal hatchet man-toady-gossip columnist in the East Berlin Neues Deutschland. In today’s column his readers were informed that Henri Tod had run off to Bonn to conspire with the government’s “Nazi generals.”
“Nice going.”
“I don’t suppose I should ask you what you have been up to?”
“That’s right,” Blackford said. “You shouldn’t.” He smiled. You will know, pretty soon now. Unless, Blackford thought, Mr. Frank turns out to be nothing but a con man. A con man twenty-five thousand marks richer than he was yesterday morning.
Henri Tod was at once restless and elated. Saturday night he had very nearly been apprehended and very nearly been killed. He was saved—by a young confidant of Walter Ulbricht who proceeded during Henri’s convalescence to bring him not only medicine for his wounds, but news of that very morning’s most intimate meetings between Ulbricht and his confederates. When he first saw the minutes of Friday morning’s meeting, Tod was breathless with excitement. In Caspar Allman he had a direct link with the inner mind of the enemy. Could the whole business be a flamboyant, spectacular charade? Only if he, Henri Tod, had plotted, last Saturday night, to grope his way, in the dark, to come to rest at a remote siding of the Berlin Ostbahnhof, at this particular car, at this particular moment.
The Story of Henri Tod Page 16
