The Last Goodnight

by Howard Blum

  And in fact no further explanation was necessary. Betty knew the telegrams were pure intelligence gold. Here was proof that the Vichy embassy in Washington was working hand in hand with the Germans; the French navy surely had no tactical interest in British ships. More of a concern, the embassy was also clearly providing the Nazis with information that would allow their U-boats to ambush English ships as they steamed out of US ports.

  The consequences, Betty understood, would be significant. As soon as the BSC cabled London, the Admiralty would change the redeployment schedule of its warships in American dockyards, and this time make sure the dates remained a closely guarded secret. And the Foreign Service would use this incriminating evidence to bolster its ongoing plea to the US State Department that restrictions on Vichy’s operations in America were necessary.

  Already looking to the future, Betty was confident that she had turned Charles. She would move on with his help to unlock the larger secrets that the embassy held. And no less a long-term blessing, she could count on her lover returning to her bed.

  BUT AS IF PLAYING THREE roles—reporter, secret agent, and mistress—were not a sufficiently complicated juggling act, another of Betty’s lives chose this inopportune moment to intrude. Her husband arrived in Washington.

  Arthur had been summoned from Chile to participate in trade talks with Lord Halifax, the British ambassador to the United States, but he also found the time to call on his wife. Seated in the living room of the house on O Street, he piously announced that he was willing to offer Betty a second—or was it a third? a fourth?—chance. Struggling to find a calm and steady tone, he explained that, after much agonized thought, he was now able to forgive her transgression with the American naval lieutenant. He would forget about Paul Fairly, and that would be that. They could continue as man and wife.

  Betty listened in silence. If Arthur had landed in a spaceship from another planet, he could not have been any more alien to the life she was now living. She found her cold, flat voice and slashed away at him mercilessly.

  Paul Fairly? she repeated, as if it were the name of some obscure character in an ancient text, which to Betty’s way of looking at things it was. She was no longer seeing him, she said (which was almost the truth: they still had a professional relationship; he remained her conduit to US naval intelligence). She had fallen in love with a Frenchman. He was married, and whether he would ever get a divorce remained uncertain. But regardless, Arthur should use the letter she’d already given him admitting to her affair with Paul to obtain a divorce. She would never, ever go back to him.

  What about Denise? Arthur tried.

  The question only hardened Betty’s heart. It would be impossible to raise a daughter in Washington, she coolly replied. After all, America no doubt would soon be joining the war; Denise would be better off in Chile. When the fighting stopped and it was a safer world, then she’d see about negotiating a visitation schedule.

  Arthur left their brief reunion convinced Betty had taken leave of her senses. She was running head-on from one passionate affair straight to another. She had no interest in her daughter; she hadn’t even asked to see a recent photograph of Denise. And she was calling herself a reporter even though she had no job, nor had she published, as far as he could tell, any articles. She had become, he would write his sister, “impossible.”

  “Betty was living,” he said, “in a world of make believe.”

  Which, as any spy could’ve happily confirmed for him, was the only world in which she’d ever really wanted to live.

  MEANWHILE, IN ANOTHER OF BETTY’S turbulent lives, Brousse continued to cooperate, answering her more pointed questions, talking more freely about embassy matters. However, he remained only “semiconscious”; that is, he was aware of what he was doing even as he still guardedly maintained the illusion that he was not betraying his government. Each week Betty and Pepper discussed whether the time was right to make the pitch—to ask Brousse, in effect, to sign on the dotted line and become fully operational. And each week Betty convinced her handler to wait. They both knew that if they moved too quickly, if their timing was not perfect, Brousse could bolt. The operation would be blown, and along with it Betty’s cover.

  Then the moment they’d been waiting for unexpectedly came their way.

  “Will you come back to France with me?” Brousse suddenly asked one evening as he lay in Betty’s bed. “I can’t leave without you.”

  It was July 1941, and their affair—and Betty’s operation—was two months old. That day Brousse had been abruptly ordered home; the Vichy government had decided to abolish the press attaché’s position. Henry-Haye had offered him a compromise, but it was a small one: from a private fund, the ambassador could scrape together $600 a month—half of Brousse’s previous salary—and Brousse could stay on at the embassy, working as Henry-Haye’s personal assistant. But a man with Brousse’s refined tastes and high style could never get by on such a pittance, and given the rocky state of his marriage, he couldn’t ask his wife to supplement his salary more than she was already doing. In fact, he suspected that Kay was getting ready to leave, and when she left she’d take her money with her. No, he told Betty, the only practical solution was for him to return to France. And he wanted Betty to accompany him. “I love you,” he said solemnly.

  Betty was elated. It filled her with joy to have the man she loved announce that he loved her too. But even as her heart soared, her operational mind was working at full speed. Here was a chance, she told herself excitedly, to go behind the lines in occupied Europe. She’d have perfect cover—the mistress of a Vichy diplomat. She’d be invaluable to the Service. And, oh, the adventures she’d have.

  As soon as Brousse left, she was on the phone to Pepper. Yes, he agreed, it was a scenario that presented intriguing possibilities. But first, before anything else could be contemplated, the embassy op in Washington had to be played out. The moment had come, he concluded with an unwavering certainty, to make her pitch. “It’s now or never.”

  “Now or never,” Betty echoed, resigned.

  She confronted Brousse and offered up a bounty of rewards in return for his allegiance. As she’d done with so many others, she waved a false flag. She knew Brousse detested Britain, the former ally that just a year ago had so mercilessly bloodied the French fleet off Oran. Betty suspected that if she asked him to spy for British intelligence, he’d turn her down flat. Instead, she looked her lover deeply in the eyes and, a stagy tremble in her voice, revealed her big secret: she was an American agent.

  Before he could respond, Betty quickly explained that her activities were not aimed against France but rather against the Vichy collaborators, the likes of Pétain and Laval, foot soldiers for the Nazi invaders. Here was an opportunity, she insisted, her argument deliberately tapping straight into his patriotic soul, to restore French honor, to soothe the sting of defeat, and to make sure German troops never again goose-stepped down the boulevards of his beloved Paris.

  And she was practical. Betty stated that the US Treasury would pay him for his efforts (although, of course, the money would be coming from London). The Americans would make generous monthly cash payments to supplement the meager salary Henry-Haye had offered. He could enjoy his well-heeled life in Washington for a while longer, and even better, he would no longer have to depend upon his wife’s charity.

  But in the end, perhaps her strongest argument remained unarticulated. She was tacitly offering Brousse the opportunity to continue their romance. Share my important work, Betty signaled as she sat across from him, her beguiling beauty casting its heady spell, and we can share a life.

  Before the night was over, Brousse agreed. He would spy for the Americans.

  FOR BETTY, FOR THE AMERICANS, for France, for the money—whatever the reason, or reasons, once Brousse was on board, he proved to be an extremely valuable agent. He had a good memory, and he liked the game; he’d even go as far as to take notes openly as the ambassador read out the day’s cables to the se
nior staff. He produced so much raw product that Betty was now making two or three trips each week to New York to deliver this windfall to Pepper.

  But Pepper was a demanding handler. He told Betty that Brousse could do even better, and so she obediently went to work. By November she had persuaded her agent to pass on decoded copies of every cipher telegram the embassy sent or received. Novice but nevertheless gung-ho, Brousse also produced an impressively detailed daily written report, a catalogue of each day’s secret goings-on inside the embassy.

  There were mountains and mountains of raw intelligence for the BSC analysts to pore over. The movements of the French fleet; communications with French colonies, including Martinique, where the gold reserves were stored; the identities and activities of Vichy agents in America; Vichy’s messages to the State Department and even to the president; assessments of US and British intelligence operations—the Service had knowledge of virtually everything that went on inside the embassy.

  With a showman’s flair, Stephenson compiled the troves of information collected from the embassy—while Brousse was the jewel in the BSC’s crown, they had other sources, too—into a dossier and had it delivered to his new friend, Franklin Roosevelt. The president, who loved a good spy yarn, eagerly read it “as a bedtime story.”

  It was “the most fascinating reading I have had for a long time,” the excited president let Stephenson know the next day. “The best piece of comprehensive intelligence I have come across since the last war.”

  EACH DAY WAS FILLED WITH risks. Brousse would peruse a cable marked “Secret,” only to place it surreptitiously in his jacket pocket when he hoped no one was looking. Then he’d invent some excuse to leave the embassy and meet up with Betty. She’d get it photocopied, as Brousse paced anxiously, trying to think of anything but the ticking of the clock and what would happen if the ambassador requested that particular cable at that moment. The copy made, Brousse would hurry back to the embassy. All stealth, trying to ignore the piercing needles of fear, he’d replace the cable in its proper file.

  They both dreaded “the Vichy secret police,” as Brousse with a grave respect referred to the embassy security detail. If they were under surveillance, they knew their operation would be swiftly exposed. Brousse would be killed. And no less likely, Betty would vanish too.

  The BSC did its part to protect its star source. When it covertly passed on the evidence to the New York Herald Tribune, leading to a startling series of articles with headlines like “Vichy Men Play Nazis’ Game Here in Shelter of Embassy” and “Vichy Embassy Heading Clique of Agents Aiding Nazis,” they made sure that Brousse was identified as a key conspirator in “the underground work of Vichy in the United States.”

  The BSC, which kept the specific activities and identities of its agents secret from the American authorities, also made it a point to pass on derogatory intel about Brousse to the FBI. “Brousse is the most evil element in the embassy and has a bad influence on the Ambassador. Haye is completely committed to the Laval/Darlan policy and Brousse works closely with him,” stated a Bureau report with utmost certainty.

  But these efforts to reinforce Brousse’s cover earlier were of little operational consolation to an agent who each day took new, large risks. Each night as Betty and Brousse lay together, they found themselves wondering if a stray night noise could be the muffled sound of the Vichy secret police creeping up the stairs, and if this night would be their last. The danger intensified the excitement they shared in their every moment together.

  Chapter 45

  IN A WORLD FAR REMOVED from the two lovesick spies, yet only blocks away—in the White House Oval Office—the prime minister and president, surrounded by their political and military chieftains, held a war council. At the tail end of December 1941, just two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the war, Churchill had come to Washington to discuss strategy with his new ally. High on their agenda was how they would coordinate their common fight against the Nazis. And perhaps not unexpectedly, considering the complex egos, ambitions, and self-interests of the many participants, the conference soon became quarrelsome.

  The confident American warlords envisioned the European war unfolding quickly and decisively. They wanted to launch an Allied drive within months, straight through France toward Berlin.

  The English generals, still reeling from their army’s desperate evacuations from France, Greece, and Norway, were more cautious. Even though Russia had stopped Germany’s massive invasion just outside Moscow, they predicted that the attack had not run its destructive course. Hoping the Russians would inflict further damage on the German army, the wary British were opposed to a single large-scale campaign. First encircle the Reich, let the Russians conclusively repel the German invaders, and encourage the subjugated nations to rebel, they argued; then an Anglo-American force could charge into a tottering Germany.

  Churchill endorsed this approach, vehemently arguing for a tactical first step code-named Super-Gymnast—a joint Anglo-American invasion of North Africa. Brandishing his cigar like a weapon, an impressed participant at the session would recall, he repeatedly reeled off the advantages of the Allies’ beginning their military partnership with waves of troops landing on the sandy shores of Africa: Rommel’s Afrika Korps would be trapped; the short, direct sea lanes through the Suez Canal would be reopened; American troops would get their baptism under fire in less harrowing conditions than they would in a massive attack through well-fortified France; fewer resources and not as much training would be required; Vichy might very possibly rethink its support of the Reich; and, the empathetic bottom line of his argument, the operation could be launched fairly quickly, with American soldiers providing support to the embattled Soviets within the year.

  Unpersuaded, the American military officials continued to dismiss a North African invasion as a sideshow. By the end of the conference, the bickering participants felt that its code name of Arcadia, evocative of the pastoral paradise of Greek mythology, was pure wishful thinking. The Anglo-American partnership seemed to be falling apart even before it had marched off to war.

  Nevertheless Churchill, tenacious and supremely confident, returned to London determined to prevail: if necessary, he’d convince Roosevelt to overrule his reluctant generals. He informed his advisers to prepare for an invasion of North Africa.

  As the British war machine mobilized, the Secret Intelligence Service went to work too. The spymasters understood that surprise would be key if the invasion were to succeed. Knowing the movements of the French fleet in the Mediterranean would give the strategists an enormous advantage in planning the timing and locations of the Allied landings, and it would direct Allied air power to the location of the French ships. Intelligence would provide the tactical edge in a campaign that would determine the future course of the entire war.

  In March 1942, C, using his personal cipher, sent a flash cable to Intrepid. A message from the head of service always received immediate attention, and the BSC wranglers went to work decoding it as soon as it came in. A half hour later Stephenson read the crisp decrypted message: the Admiralty “wished to obtain a copy of the French naval cipher, a copy of which was used by the Naval Attaché in Washington.”

  Stephenson read it twice in rapid succession, and when he was done he was still shaking his head with wonder and, he’d later concede, a bit of rage. Why didn’t London ask him for something easy—say, the key to the bullion depository at Fort Knox or a tap on the president’s private phone line? He couldn’t help believing that Sir Stewart Menzies, who he felt had always dismissed him as Churchill’s man in America, a well-connected amateur who should never have gotten the job, was setting him up to fail. Imperious London might “wish to obtain,” but he lived in the real world of armed guards, steel doors, and locked safes. How was the BSC going to extract the ciphers—every nation’s most closely guarded secrets—from Vichy’s well-guarded embassy? And, a further complication, while America had gone to war against the Axi
s powers, its relationship with Vichy was still officially “neutral.” The Washington embassy would also be protected by the FBI.

  He met with Dick Ellis, the MI6 professional who had been sent over from London to be his second-in-command, and with John Pepper. After feverish hours of brainstorming, they were no closer to an operational plan. The Vichy embassy, they forlornly agreed, was impregnable. The only hope, and a depressingly small one, would be if the agent code-named Cynthia could use her hold on Brousse to get into the cipher room. But even if Brousse and she were willing, they still didn’t have any idea of how the mission would proceed. The best they could come up with was London’s ploy: simply announce to Betty that they wished to obtain the cipher, then stand back and let her sink or swim.

  In the second week of March 1942, Betty opened the door of her room at the Manhattan Ritz-Carlton to a visibly tense Pepper. He hurried through the standard questions, and after making sure that Betty felt she was in no immediate danger, that no one had followed her from Washington, he put it to her without further preliminaries: the naval attaché at the Vichy embassy in Washington had the code books used for communicating with the entire French fleet. “Well, Betty,” he asked abruptly, his usual English courtesy abandoned, “can you get hold of them for us?”

  Betty had no idea if she could. She knew nothing about a possible invasion of North Africa, nor did she need to know. All she knew was that it seemed like an impossible mission—and that was enough. A great challenge was all the motivation she required.

  “Yes, I can. And I will,” she promised.

  “YOU SHOULD CALL ME MORE often in the afternoon,” Brousse said mischievously after greeting Betty with a long, tender kiss. She had telephoned as soon as her plane from New York landed in Washington, and Brousse, tingling with amorous anticipation, had hurried over.