Secret Honor
Page 4
“I can take you off this job, Alex.”
“Yes, you can. Is that what you’re doing?”
“What am I supposed to tell the President? ‘Sorry, Mr. President, Graham won’t tell me who Galahad is’?”
“When all else fails, tell the truth.”
“What if the President asked you—ordered you—to tell him?”
“Same answer.”
“What I should have done was order Frade up here.”
“In the Marine Corps, Bill, they teach us to never give an order that you doubt will be obeyed.”
“You don’t mean he’d refuse to come?”
“That’s a very real possibility.”
“He’s a major in the Marine Corps.”
“And he’s an ace. Who was just awarded the Navy Cross. And is smart enough to understand that court-martialing a hero might pose some public relations problems for you. And for the President. That’s presuming, of course, that he would put himself in a position, coming here, where you could court-martial him.”
“It wouldn’t have to be a court-martial….”
“Saint Elizabeth’s? You’re not thinking clearly, Bill.”
In an opinion furnished privately to the President by the Attorney General, the provisions of the law of habeas corpus were not applicable to a patient confined for psychiatric evaluation in a hospital, such as Saint Elizabeth’s, the Federal mental hospital in the District of Colombia.
“I’m not?”
“Cletus Marcus Howell, who dearly loves his grandson, is a great admirer—and I think a personal friend—of Colonel McCormick.”
Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, made no secret of his loathing for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
“And I suppose I could count on you to be with Howell when he went to see McCormick.”
“That’s a possibility I think you should keep in the back of your mind, Bill.”
“You realize, Alex, that you’re willfully disobeying a direct order? This is tantamount to mutiny.”
“I’ll split that hair with you, Bill. I thought about that on the way up here. You’re not on active duty, Colonel; legally, you’re a dollar-a-year civilian. I don’t think that you have the authority to issue me a military order. But let’s not get into that—unless you’ve already made up your mind to go down that road?”
“What road should we go down?”
“Be grateful for what we have.”
“Which is?”
“Cletus Frade has done more for us than either of us dreamed he could. He earned that Navy Cross by putting his life on the line when he led the submarine Devil Fish into Samborombón Bay to sink the Reine de la Mer. Only a bona fide hero or a fool would have flown that little airplane into the aircraft weaponry on that ship, and whatever Cletus is, he’s no fool.”
“I wasn’t accusing him of being either a fool or a coward,” Donovan said.
“And because of what he did during the coup d’état, he’s President Rawson’s fair-haired boy,” Graham went on. “Do I have to tell you the potential of that?”
“Point granted,” Donovan said.
“Not to mention that his father—who was the likely next president of Argentina—was killed by the Germans during the process.”
Donovan gave a snappish wave of his arm to acknowledge the truth of that.
“Not to mention that he was the one who located the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico,” Graham went on. “Which really deserves mentioning—”
“She’s in the middle of the South Atlantic,” Donovan interrupted. “On a course for Portugal or Spain. There was a report from the Alfred Thomas, who is shadowing her, early this morning.” The USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107, was a destroyer.
“Why don’t we sink her?” Graham asked. “We know what she’s carrying.”
“The President made that decision,” Donovan said. “There are…considerations.”
“Getting back to the Océano Pacífico,” Graham went on. “If he hadn’t flown Ashton and his team, and their radar, into Argentina, we never would have found her. And flew them, let me point out, in an airplane he’d never flown before. We sent him that airplane, Bill. We screwed up big time by sending him the wrong airplane. And he pulled our chestnuts out of the fire by flying it anyway.”
“You sound like the president of the Cletus Frade fan club,” Donovan said, tempering the sarcasm in his voice with a smile.
“Guilty,” Graham said. “And while I run down the list, it was Frade’s man, Frade’s Sergeant Ettinger, who found out about the ransoming of the Jews. And got himself murdered.”
“Can I stipulate to Major Frade’s many virtues?”
“No, I want to remind you of them. Of all of them. And it was Frade who found out about Operation Phoenix.”
“From Galahad. Which brings us back to him,” Donovan said. “The President is very interested in Operation Phoenix. He wants to know—and I want to know, Alex—who Galahad is.”
“In my opinion, and Frade’s, Galahad is a Class I intelligence source whose identity must be kept secret, so that he won’t be lost to us because somebody here does something stupid and the Germans find out about him. Or even have suspicions about him.”
“That’s not good enough, Alex. I want to know who he is. Who all of Frade’s sources are.”
“He’s not going to tell you, and neither am I,” Graham said. “I guess we’re back where we started.”
“And if Frade is taken out—which, after what they did to his father, seems a real possibility—that would leave only you knowing who Galahad is. That’s not acceptable, Alex.”
“There are others who know who Galahad is,” Graham said. “But I won’t tell you who they are, either.”
Donovan looked at Graham, expressionless, for almost a minute before he spoke.
“I’m going to have to think about this, Alex,” he said.
“Think quick, Bill. I want an answer right now, before I leave your office.”
“That sounds like another threat.”
“Either you fire me, which I think would be a mistake, or you tell me I can stay on under the original ground rules. You will not second-guess me. Your choice.”
“That’s not a choice. I can’t do without you, and you know it.”
“I have your word, Bill?”
“I can be overruled by the President,” Donovan said. “He’s not used to having anybody tell him something’s none of his business.”
“Roosevelt can’t do without you, and both of you know it,” Graham said. “What’s it to be, Bill?”
Donovan exhaled audibly. “OK,” he said. “You have my word.”
“Thank you.”
Graham pushed himself off the couch. “I need a long, hot shower and several stiff drinks,” he said. He got as far as the door before Donovan called his name.
“Yes?” Graham asked, turning.
“This is a question, Alex, rather than second-guessing. Did you approve of Frade’s killing those two Nazis—the military attaché and the SS guy—on the beach?”
“Frade didn’t kill them,” Graham said. “They were shot by two retired Argentine army sergeants.”
“How did that happen?”
“I sent the lieutenant from Ashton’s team to the beach to take pictures of the Germans landing the Operation Phoenix money from the Océano Pacífico. I sent the sergeants down to the beach to guard him. That’s all they were supposed to do. But one of the sergeants not only had been el Coronel Frade’s batman for thirty years, but the brother of the woman who was killed when they tried to assassinate young Frade. And they’re Argentines, Latins, like me. Revenge is a part of our culture. The minute they saw who it was…bang! Ashton’s lieutenant was very i
mpressed. It was at least two hundred yards. Two shots only. Both in their heads.”
“You sound as if you approve.”
“I wouldn’t have ordered it,” Graham said. “And Frade didn’t. But was I overwhelmed with remorse? No. You ever hear ‘an eye for an eye’?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that. I’ve also heard ‘the devil you know is better than the one you don’t.’ They’ll send somebody else.”
“Yes, I’m afraid they will. Anything else, Bill?”
Donovan shook his head, “no,” and Graham walked out of the office.
II
[ONE]
The Office of the Reichsführer-SS
Berlin
1430 26 April 1943
“Herr Reichsführer,” Frau Gertrud Hassler’s high-pitched voice announced, “Deputy Minister von Löwzer of the Foreign Ministry, Ribbentrop’s office, asks to see you.”
“Ask the gentleman to wait a minute or two, please,” Himmler said courteously, and returned to reading the teletyped report from Warsaw. It both baffled and infuriated him.
If the report was to be believed, and he had no reason not to believe it, the day before, “a group estimated to number approximately 2,000 Jews” in the Warsaw ghetto had risen up against their captors, protesting a pending “transport” to resettlement in the East. “The East” was a euphemism for the Treblinka concentration camp, but the damned Jews were not supposed to know that.
For one thing, a revolt of Jews against German authority is on its face unthinkable.
For another, these vermin, in their walled ghetto, have obviously somehow managed to obtain a few small arms. Someone will answer for this.
And even if it isn’t “a few small arms,” but many, and every slimy Hebrew in the ghetto has somehow managed to lay his hands on a pistol or a rifle, there is in Warsaw—in addition to the SS personnel—a division of German soldiers, a division of German soldiers!!!; the uprising should have been put down minutes after it became known.
According to the report, the uprising had been going on for twenty-four hours, and there was no estimate of when it would be contained.
The Reichsführer-SS grew aware that his knuckles on the hand pressing down the teletypewriter paper to keep it from curling were white with tension. When he lifted it from his desk, the hand was trembling.
Obviously, I am very angry, and—even though I have every right to be—therefore I should not make decisions that might be influenced by that anger.
One should never discipline children when angry, he continued, musing, his mind taking something of a leap. One should discipline children very carefully, and with love in one’s heart, not anger. And then his focus returned to the matter at hand: My God, that’s incredible!—filthy Jewish swine confined to a ghetto having the effrontery to rise in arms against the German State! Whoever is responsible for this incredible breakdown of order will have to be disciplined. Perhaps sent to a concentration camp, or shot.
But I will make that decision calmly, when I am no longer angry.
The Reichsführer-SS pulled open a narrow drawer in the desk, rolled the teletypewriter print out into a narrow tube, then put it in the drawer and closed it.
Then he went to his private toilet, emptied his bladder, studied himself in the mirror, decided to have his hair cut within the next day or so, adjusted his necktie, and went back to his desk.
He pushed the SPEAK lever on his interoffice communication device. “Would you show the Herr Deputy Foreign Minister in, please?” he asked courteously.
The left of the double doors opened a moment later.
“Deputy Minister von Löwzer, Herr Reichsführer-SS,” Frau Hassler announced.
Georg Friedrich von Löwzer, a plump forty-five-year-old in a too-small black suit, was carrying a leather briefcase. He took two steps inside the office and raised his arm and hand straight out from his shoulder in the Nazi salute.
“Heil Hitler!” he said.
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler stood up and returned a less formal salute: He bent his arm at the elbow and replied, “Heil Hitler!”, then added, with a smile: “My dear von Löwzer, what an unexpected pleasure to see you.”
“I regret, Herr Reichsführer-SS, that I am the bearer of unpleasant news.”
Now what?
He smiled at von Löwzer. “Of such importance that someone of your stature in the Foreign Ministry has to bear it?”
“I believe when the Herr Reichsführer-SS reads the document, he will understand Herr Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop’s concern that it be seen immediately and by no one but yourself,” von Löwzer said. He unlocked the briefcase, took a sealed, yellowish envelope from it, and handed it to Himmler.
“Please, have a chair,” Himmler said graciously. “Can I have Frau Hassler get you a coffee? Something a little stronger?”
“No, thank you, Herr Reichsführer-SS.”
Himmler stood behind his desk and attempted to open the envelope flap with his fingernails. He failed in that attempt and had to reach for his letter opener—a miniature version of the dagger worn by SS officers. It had been a gift to him from one of the graduating classes of the SS Officer Candidate School at Bad Tolz.
When the envelope had been slit, he found that it contained another sheet of teletypewriter paper. He laid it on his desk, then placed a coffee cup at its top and his fingers at the bottom to prevent curling.
* * *
CLASSIFICATION: MOST URGENT
CONFIDENTIALITY: MOST SECRET
DATE: 23 APRIL 1943
FROM: AMBASSADOR, BUENOS AIRES
TO: IMMEDIATE AND PERSONAL ATTENTION OF THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF THE GERMAN REICH
HEIL HITLER!
DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT STANDARTENFÜHRER JOSEF LUTHER GOLTZ AND OBERST KARL-HEINZ GRÜNER WERE KILLED BY GUNFIRE AT APPROXIMATELY 0945 19 APRIL 1943 NEAR PUERTO MAGDALENA, ARGENTINA. MAJOR FREIHERR HANS-PETER VON WACHTSTEIN NARROWLY ESCAPED DEATH IN THE SAME INCIDENT.
INASMUCH AS BRINGING THE MURDERS OF THESE MEN TO THE ATTENTION OF THE ARGENTINE GOVERNMENT WOULD HAVE MADE IT NECESSARY TO EXPLAIN THEIR PRESENCE AT PUERTO MAGDALENA, THE UNDERSIGNED HAS INFORMED THE ARGENTINE GOVERNMENT THAT BOTH OFFICERS, IN COMPLIANCE WITH ORDERS, HAVE RETURNED TO GERMANY, AND HAS ARRANGED FOR THE TRANSPORT OF THEIR REMAINS TO CADIZ, ABOARD THE SPANISH MOTOR VESSEL OCÉANO PACÍFICO, WHICH AS THE RESULT OF UNSUPPORTED CHARGES OF ATTEMPTED SMUGGLING HAS BEEN ORDERED TO LEAVE ARGENTINE WATERS IMMEDIATELY.
CAPTAIN JOSE FRANCISCO DE BANDERANO, MASTER OF THE OCÉANO PACÍFICO, WAS DENIED PERMISSION TO OFF-LOAD ANY OF HER CARGO, AND NONE OF HER CARGO OF ANY KIND WAS UNLOADED IN ARGENTINA.
ABSENT SPECIFIC ORDERS FROM YOUR EXCELLENCY TO THE CONTRARY, THE UNDERSIGNED IS RELUCTANT TO ENTRUST OTHER DETAILS OF THIS TRAGIC INCIDENT TO A RADIO TRANSMISSION. THE UNDERSIGNED SUGGESTS THAT A FULL REPORT OF THIS INCIDENT COULD BEST BE MADE TO YOUR EXCELLENCY AND OTHER OFFICIALS BY SOMEONE PERSONALLY FAMILIAR WITH THE INCIDENT.
IN ADDITION TO THE UNDERSIGNED, LISTED IN ORDER OF THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF THE INCIDENT, THESE ARE:
MAJOR FREIHERR HANS-PETER VON WACHTSTEIN
FIRST SECRETARY ANTON VON GRADNY-SAWZ
STURMBANNFÜHRER WERNER VON TRESMARCK OF THE EMBASSY OF THE GERMAN REICH IN MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY.
THE UNDERSIGNED BEGS TO REMIND YOUR EXCELLENCY THAT A LUFTHANSA CONDOR FLIGHT IS EXPECTED TO REACH BUENOS AIRES IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS, AND RESPECTFULLY SUGGESTS THAT ANY, OR ALL, OF THE ABOVE-NAMED OFFICERS TRAVEL TO GERMANY ON THE RETURN FLIGHT SO THAT YOUR EXCELLENCY MAY BE MADE PRIVY TO THE DETAILS OF THIS UNFORTUNATE INCIDENT, AND OF OTHER RECENT DEVELOPMENTS HERE OF IMPORTANCE TO GERMANY.
THE UNDERSIGNED RESPECTFULLY AWAITS YOUR EXCELLENCY’S ORDERS.
HEIL HITLER!
MANFRED ALOIS GRAF VON LUTZENBERGER
AMBASSADOR OF THE GERMAN REICH TO THE REPUBLIC OF ARGENTINA
* * *
Reichsführer-SS Himmler looked up from the document and fixed his gaze on Deputy Minister von Löwzer, who was now sitting in the center of a small couch, his hands folded on his lap, his briefcase at his feet. “You are aware of the contents of this message?” he asked.
“I am privy to the details of Operation Phoenix, Herr Reichsführer-SS,” von Löwzer replied solemnly.
So von Ribbentrop has told him of Phoenix? Is he smarter than he looks? Obviously, you don’t get to be a deputy foreign minister unless you are bright.
I wonder how many others I don’t know about are privy to Operation Phoenix?
“You may inform the Foreign Minister that I appreciate his entrusting the document only to someone like yourself, and that I will hold myself ready to meet with him at his earliest convenience.”
“I will relay your message, Herr Reichsführer-SS.”
Von Löwzer rose to his feet but made no move to leave the office.
“Something else, von Löwzer?”
“The message, Herr Reichsführer-SS. You still have it.”
“I thought it was for me,” Himmler blurted.
“The Foreign Minister thought that making copies of the document was unwise,” von Löwzer said.
“Yes,” Himmler said, signifying nothing.
“I am under the Foreign Minister’s orders to show it as soon as possible to the others who have an interest,” von Löwzer said.
“Bormann, for example?”
Von Löwzer nodded.
“Bormann hasn’t seen this yet?” Himmler asked.
“You are the first to see it, Herr Reichsführer-SS,” von Löwzer said. “Except, of course, for the Foreign Minister.”
And yourself, of course. I’m going to have to find out about you.
But that’s interesting. Von Ribbentrop sent the message to me first.