Presidential Mission

by Upton Sinclair

  The car was brought to the door, and Lanny packed a bag and took his warm overcoat, prepared for an October evening in the Catoctin Mountains. He drove the familiar hundred miles on crowded Highway Number 1, and then the same distance through the lovely farmlands of Maryland, where all the trees by the roadside and along the hill-slopes had put on their brightest autumn colors, which were really a burial shroud for that year’s departing glory. Sudden gusts of wind brought the leaves down upon the car and over the roadway. “O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being”!

  Toward sundown, approaching the little town of Thurmont, Lanny stopped and got supper, then drove into the town, parked and locked his car, and was picked up by Baker in the usual way. They had come to be friends in the course of the years, and winding up the mountain road with the car lights wandering here and there over vistas of trees, they talked about the war, the past, not the future. They agreed that the Russians were fighting like tigers, and the Americans were holding on marvelously in the Solomons. “How they can hit a ship ten miles away in darkness is certainly a miracle,” said Baker, and Lanny contented himself with commenting: “It must be a new invention.” Maybe the President’s man had heard the magic word radar and maybe he hadn’t; in any case, Lanny wouldn’t speak it.

  Some of the “brass” had been consulting with the President, and they had stayed for dinner, so Lanny had to wait. He sat in the entrance hall and chatted with a young lieutenant; neither of them said what he was there for, but they talked about the war in the quiet professional way of men who were taking part in a job and neither hated nor loved it, but did their duty as a matter of course. Nobody would show fear, nobody would show horror, and grief only in extreme cases, and for a few moments. Millions of men were trying to live up to those standards, and most of them succeeded; the few who couldn’t were no longer called white-livered cowards, but were spoken of professionally as “shock” cases.

  II

  F.D.R. was sitting in an easy chair in front of a log fire, welcome in this mountain climate. His wheel chair had been placed out of sight, and when he desired to move he pressed a button attached to a cord and hung on the arm of his chair; the attendant would bring up the wheel chair, and the President with his powerful arms and shoulders would lift himself from one to the other. That was the way he got about, except when he wore the steel leg braces, which were heavy and which hurt. With such a handicap, he carried the burden of a nation’s destiny—indeed it would not be too much to say the destiny of the democratic world.

  His face never failed to light up when he saw a friend; he made every friend feel, just as Lanny felt, that it was a special happiness. Few men gave themselves more freely to friends, or got so much from them. “Welcome, world traveler!” he exclaimed, and with his large hand outstretched he shook Lanny’s hand and then sort of guided him to a chair alongside. “I received all your reports, and read them, and they helped me.”

  “That’s what a P.A. lives by,” returned Lanny. “I had an easy time. I took your advice and kept out of danger. My conscience troubles me, Governor.”

  “Don’t let it. You are under orders, and that is enough for you.”

  “‘Theirs not to reason why!’” quoted the agent.

  “You are to do but not to die,” retorted the Boss, who was quick on the uptake. “Now tell me, what is going to happen to our forces when they come ashore?”

  “They will get a mixed reception, Governor, different in different places, depending on the commanding officer, and on subordinates who may or may not obey completely. Some will join us, others will wait to see what happens; some will fight, at least until their sense of honor is satisfied. That means a great deal to a Frenchman, you know.”

  “How many of their men have to be killed before their honor feels satisfied?”

  “There seems to be no schedule set. General Noguès, in Morocco, is more determined on resistance than any of the officers in Algiers, many of whom have been deprived of command and are out of uniform. You understand, there are such things as salaries and pensions, and army officers have to eat like all other men.”

  “That is why we are sending seven divisions, Lanny.”

  “If you send that many, and if the officers know it for sure, their honor will be satisfied more quickly. I might add that the Navy will fight harder than the Army. You know that their officers are as a rule much more conservative; they have their own little world, and they rule it by divine authority.”

  “Indeed I know it, Lanny. I have some Navy officers of my own, and you should hear the ideas they put before me!”

  III

  The confidential agent was subjected to a long inquisition as to Vichy and Toulon, Switzerland and Germany. There were many things that Lanny hadn’t been willing to put on paper, and now he told them. In general he had only good things to report about American officials abroad, and an overworked administrator was glad to hear that; he received mostly complaints, he said, and it was so hard to find competent men for unfamiliar jobs. So many thousands of things to be administered and to think about and try to understand! The lines of care showed in the once-so-jovial face; his hair was growing thinner, and age was creeping on him noticeably. But the smile came back when he told a story, or heard one, such as that about the stage queen of Germany manifesting her tender sympathy for a Jew in distress.

  Lanny had not written an account of his interview with Hess, for there was no war information in it. But it was the kind of story that gave Roosevelt delight, and Lanny had a purpose in telling it fully. He showed the ring and the scrap of paper, which he had unsewed from his coat for this occasion. He left it for the other to ask: “What do you expect to do with that?”

  “I am hoping, Governor, that I can persuade you to let me go into Germany. If I should write Hitler from Switzerland that I have had an interview with his most trusted friend, he would surely invite me to come and would probably send a plane to Friedrichshafen or some other place at the Swiss border to take me.”

  The President’s face became suddenly grave. “What would you expect to get out of such a venture, Lanny?”

  “It’s hard to know in advance. I have a feeling that I can tell a lot by looking at Hitler, listening to his voice, and watching his manner. He is a reckless talker, and when he gets going, nobody can predict what he will say. He will ask me what I have been doing to help him bring peace to Europe, and I will tell him, and he will tell me what proposals he wants me to take to the Wickthorpe set and to Henry Ford and Mr. Hearst and the others he believes are his friends here.”

  “But we don’t care a damn about any of that, Lanny. We are going to knock him out and not argue with him.”

  “Yes, Governor, but you say you want to save lives; and if you know what is in your opponent’s mind, it is easier to figure out how to break him. I have never met Hitler that I didn’t come away with valuable information, and I think that will be truer than ever now when we no longer have any contacts with him and hardly know what anybody in Germany is thinking.”

  “But they would watch you like a skyful of buzzards. Nobody would talk frankly to you on peril of his life. Do you imagine for a moment that you could go about in Germany as you used to do? What’s in the back of your mind, to make contact with some atomic physicist?”

  “I just can’t be sure, Governor. I would have to watch for my chances and take them.”

  “And walk into some trap they had set for you! If any person came to you, even an old friend, pretending to be a sympathizer, that would certainly be a plant.” There was a moment’s pause, and then the President burst out: “I don’t want you to do it, Lanny! I need your services too much to risk them in harebrained adventures. And besides, I have something else for you to do. I had made up my mind to get into touch with your father and have him cable you to return.”

  “Well, of course, Governor, if that’s the situation, there’s nothing for me to do but forget my little scheme.”

  “Our North Afric
a expedition is all but ready. I don’t know the exact date—it depends upon winds and other factors—but our armada should be at sea in a fortnight or so.”

  “That’s big news indeed, Governor!”

  “You bet your life! And behind it is the biggest story of human labor in all this world, I believe. Some day when we have more time, remind me and I’ll tell you what was going on the last time you were in this building. Winston had just told me the terrible news that Rommel had succeeded in trapping and destroying the greater part of the British tank forces at El Alamein, and the British were almost helpless to defend Alexandria and Cairo. It was just a question of days before Rommel would realize the situation and begin an advance. Winston asked: ‘What could we do?’”

  “What did we do?” Lanny knew this overworked great man, who was still part boy; he wanted to tell a story, even though there wasn’t time.

  “We had just got our new tank-killer in production, a 105 mm. gun, self-propelled, mounted on an M-3 tank chassis; it can do thirty-five miles an hour and hit a target at seven miles. We sent out telegrams to plants all over this land where guns and carriages and engines and parts were being made, and men and women gave up their Fourth of July week end and worked ten-hour shifts, two a day, and foremen and superintendents worked eighteen-hour shifts, living on sandwiches and soda pop and sleeping in the plants. Believe it or not, in nine days we had enough destroyers and tanks at the docks to fill a whole convoy, and the stevedores worked day and night to load them. Those vessels sailed around South Africa and the subs got only one of them. Since that happened to be the most important of all, we sent more telegrams and the factories duplicated their feat; we put the stuff on a fast vessel that traveled alone and reached the convoy before it got round the Cape of Good Hope. General Alexander has everything he needs now, and if you’re watching the news you know that Rommel is a cooked goose.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say it, Governor. Remember, I’ve been getting mostly Axis news.”

  “People for the most part judge military situations by advances and retreats. But in that Egyptian desert there has been desperate fighting for weeks, and we are satisfied with the fact that Rommel has been nailed down. We are pouring more stuff to the Eighth Army all the time, and we don’t know when Alexander will be ready for his push, but I’ll bet on his not waiting after we land in the west.”

  IV

  Lanny had come to understand this genial man well after five years of service. It was possible to divert him and to have a good time at his expense. Lanny might have heard a collection of inside stories, just by dropping hints; for example, by saying a word or two in praise of American labor. F.D.R., an aristocrat by upbringing and temperament, loved labor, and it wasn’t just politics; he idealized labor, imagined the best about it, called for the best from it, and got that. Lanny had the same attitude, and would have enjoyed an evening hearing about miracles being wrought by miners and steelworkers, builders of ships and guns and planes and every one of the quarter-million items which were on the purchasing lists of the U.S.A., the U.S.N., and the U.S.M.C.

  But one of the ways by which the son of Budd-Erling had kept his favor at this court was by being considerate and never wearing out his welcome. So now he said: “Governor, I have no right to keep you from your job. Tell me what mine is.”

  “We are going to send out the greatest flotilla of ships in all history. It will be something close to one thousand of all kinds, some of them never seen in the world before, built especially for this occasion. We are going to take Casablanca on the Atlantic coast and Oran and Algiers on the Mediterranean. We would like to take Tunis, but we are afraid to come that close to Italy and the German airfleets. Our ships of all sorts will have to lie off the ports for several days while men and cargo are being put ashore; and we won’t have any land-based aviation, with the single exception of one base at Gibraltar which the enemy could knock out in an hour if they knew what we were doing. It’s a tough situation, and I lie awake nights thinking about the German U-boats. You know how they will gather, a hundred of them at least, and with all the defenses we can muster we shan’t be able to keep them from getting at our ships.”

  “I’m afraid not, Governor.”

  “A horrible thing to think of those loaded transports being torpedoed, and its being impossible to save more than a small part of the troops. My heart aches for those boys, Lanny, and I have racked my brains trying to figure out a way to protect them. I have discussed it with everybody who might have suggestions, and it comes down to this: we have to find a way to make the enemy think we are coming to Dakar. That is the one port we are not coming to, because it is too far away from the Mediterranean; but it should be easy to make the Germans think its our objective because it’s nearest to us and would be impossible for them to reinforce. They are very contemptuous of us and would expect us to distrust our own powers.”

  “Yes, Governor. I have heard much talk of Dakar among the French and reports of it among the Germans.”

  “All right. We want to have their wolfpacks gathering off the peanut coast, while our armada is a couple of thousand miles to the north. I won’t be satisfied with planting rumors; we have to fix a definite certainty in the minds of the German command that Dakar is our goal. I’ve tried to recall all the spy stories I’ve ever read, and I’ve invented some new ones, but none is good enough. Somebody will have to get some German drunk—what’s the fellow’s name, their head diplomatic agent?”

  “Theodor Auer.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “I have seen him. He’s somewhat halfhearted about the Nazis, I’m told. He not only gets drunk, but he’s a homo.”

  “Well, some American might get drunk with him and spill the secret. Somebody might be selling out, or some document might be stolen; somehow or other Herr Auer must be convinced that he has the inside dope, that Dakar is the goal. Of course the Germans know that we are preparing a fleet, and we can hardly hope to keep their spies from finding out that it is sailing and then their getting a wireless message across.”

  “You are right in that,” opined Lanny. There was quailing in his heart, but he wouldn’t for the whole world have let any sign of it appear. Keep a stiff upper lip!

  “I discussed the matter with Alston a few days ago, and he suggested it might be a job for you. I don’t mean that you personally should do it, but find the right man and work out the right device. You know the Germans better than we do, and you know the ground.”

  Lanny was thinking hard. “Listen, Governor,” he said; “why cannot your plan be dovetailed into mine? What’s the matter with my going into Germany right quick and telling Adi himself what I have learned?”

  “Would he believe you?”

  “I can’t be sure, but I have managed to make him believe everything I have told him so far.”

  F.D.R. knitted his brows over that one. “I thought you told me he was bound to have heard about your interview with Stalin?”

  “That is true. But after my talk with Hess I believe I could get away with anything. I could tell the Führer that I talked with Stalin in order to come and report to him what Stalin said. Hitler has known for many years that I have an uncle who is a Communist, and it would be a conceivable thing for me to use that Red connection as a part of my service to the Nazi cause. He knows who my father is, too, but that has not kept him from believing that I am a Nazi devotee.”

  “And how would you get out of Germany?”

  “I would get out the same way I had got in; Hitler would send me, with important messages for this one and that.”

  “But suppose he had his doubts, and suppose he were to offer some polite pretext for keeping you in Germany until after the landings in North Africa had taken place?”

  “That would be awkward, I admit.”

  “You would die by torture.”

  “Well, I could have one of those tiny glass capsules which Professor Alston gave me the last time he ordered me into Germany. It would be o
ne life for many thousands, and, as wars go, that’s a good bargain.”

  “It just so happens that I want to keep you, Lanny. I need you in North Africa after the invasion, to watch how things are going and give me the straight dope. Later on, perhaps, I’ll be willing to consider your idea, but now I want you to return, as fast as you can, to Casablanca, or to Algiers as you think best. And I want you to find some way to get this job done without risking your life. There are plenty of men to do the fighting and dying; when I have one whom I have tried and tested, who has special knowledge and whose judgment I trust, such a man is not expendable. Your orders are to take care of your life and your health, and come back here every two or three months for consultation.”

  “O.K., Governor,” said the P.A., “and thanks for the compliment. My wife will appreciate it even more than I do!”

  V

  Lanny drove to Washington that night, and when he tried to find a hotel he was told that people were sleeping in the chairs of the lobbies, and he could see it. Simpler to him appeared to be a parking lot for his car; he locked himself in and slept fairly well. The war was doing a lot of things to America. Families by the million were being uprooted or lured away to new places—the shipyards, the airplane plants, the factories where the war goods were being made and the big wages paid. People were living in their cars, in trailers, in made-over sheds and chickenhouses, anything that would keep off the rain. They were eating whatever they could find. Meats and fats, canned goods and sugar, were rationed. You went shopping with little books, one for each member of the family; you paid little square stamps and got change in the form of tiny red and blue disks.