Cockran nodded. “Frederick Olmsted. He’s done parks in Boston and Philadelphia as well. You really should see it yourself. Montreal is his best work by far. So much of Central Park is artificial. But here he worked with what nature gave him and harmonized it.”
The conversation continued in this vein for ten minutes, Churchill’s mind flitting from one topic to another with Cockran along for the ride, exchanging information about their sons, the weather on Churchill’s ocean voyage, the wonders of Quebec City where Churchill and his party had stayed the night before, the American stock market and how wealthy it was making him, the lucrative writing contracts Churchill had with several London publications, and the sales of The Aftermath, the final installment in Churchill’s history of the Great War.
The reference to The Aftermath prompted a comment from Cockran regarding the three chapters in it on Ireland and Michael Collins. Cockran briefly sketched for Churchill the nature of the book he was writing on his time in 1921 as a go-between and asked whether he could review the correspondence between Collins and Churchill after the war.
Churchill readily agreed and was soon off to other subjects. He abruptly stopped, however, when he reached a description of his plans in California, including a stay at Hearst’s country home, San Simeon and his offer to Churchill of $2,000 an article.
“There’s more than money involved in my visit to Hearst.” Churchill paused, pursing his lips. “It’s bad business, Bourke.” Churchill then proceeded to outline for Cockran all that he had learned from the Prime Minister about the IRA and what he hoped to accomplish in his meeting with President Hoover at San Simeon. “The President is going to be in California to welcome the airship crew which Hearst is sponsoring on their journey around the world. I hope to have a full report for Mr. Hoover by that time.”
While Churchill talked, Cockran’s face conveyed no emotion. His courtroom face. Inside, he was skeptical. It couldn‘t be happening. The sums were staggering. They were talking millions of dollars. Still, what did Churchill want from him?
“We’ve alerted the Free State authorities,” Churchill said. “They are grateful for our concern, but their resources are quite limited, their army almost nonexistent and their intelligence capability even worse. They said they would be grateful for whatever we could do.”
Cockran eyed Churchill warily. “Exactly how do you think I can help, Winston?”
“A team of SIS agents traveling with me,” Churchill replied, “will be conducting a fact-finding mission while I tour Canada. They are to meet me in San Francisco to brief me on what they have found so that I can enlist your President’s aid.”
Churchill had evaded his question but Cockran persisted, “Where do I come in?”
“As you can appreciate, I am not without my own resources in America and I would like to supplement what the SIS are doing. Some of my own people. Ones I can trust.” Churchill paused and lit a cigar. “We were always concerned about the strength of American support for the IRA during the war with Ireland, and it was most gratifying after the Treaty to find most of your countrymen supporting Michael Collins and the Free State. Our people thought there would be bitter division between Irish Americans just as there was between the IRA and the Free State. Collins told me it would never happen. He was right and it made all the difference. The Irregulars were cut off from their major sources of funding. They got no money from America .”
Exactly, Cockran thought, because I killed the three men who had the checkbooks.
Churchill paused again, taking a sip from a very weak whiskey and water.
Cockran took advantage of the pause. Who knew how long the monologue would last otherwise? “Winston, for the third time, what do you want from me?”
“What I want, Bourke, is for you to help us find where the money is coming from. How can the Irish in America be doing this now when seven years ago they wanted no part of the IRA? I know you have contacts in the Irish American community, just as your father did. Possibly even the Clan na Gael. Can you ask around? Make a few inquiries?”
Cockran chose his words carefully. He didn’t want to offend his old friend. “Your intelligence wasn’t that good in the war, Winston, and it’s no better today. The IRA is not and could not be raising money in America. Someone sold your SIS boys a bill of goods.”
“I disagree,” Churchill said quietly. “Your point is well taken about the quality of our intelligence, but we still have some good sources. Michael Collins didn’t kill them all. The information is from one of those sources, and we take it very seriously. Please reconsider.”
Cockran shook his head firmly. “I’m out of that business, Winston. I can’t save the world. I’m thirty-four years old. I have a son and I once promised his mother to turn my Atlantic articles into a book. But that’s all I’ll ever have to do with Ireland. Write a book. I’m not going back. Ever. The memories are too painful. And I’m certainly not going off on a wild goose chase for the SIS.”
“I understand your feelings, and I sympathize with them,” Churchill said, his voice softer. “I did not mean to unduly impose on an old friend whose grief I still share. I feel deeply about the Free State. As one of its founding fathers, I feel the same concern of any parent to see his child grow, prosper and live well in peace and harmony. You have been very kind to come all this way, Bourke, and I appreciate it. Think over what I have said, and if you reconsider, please tell me after lunch. Otherwise, I shan’t bring it up, and perhaps we can begin our talks for your book. I have many stories about Michael Collins I haven‘t told you.”
10.
Blood and Steel
Lake Constance, Germany
Saturday, 10 August 1929
7:30 p.m.
A series of long closed motor cars, Mercedes and Daimlers mostly, began to arrive at a large estate on the shores of Lake Constance. It was a clear, crisp evening and the sound of the tires of the cars crunching the carefully combed stone in the driveway was louder than the silent purring of the engines in the expensive vehicles. Each motor car contained only one passenger. A total of nine vehicles were scheduled to arrive, precisely two minutes apart.
This was a special meeting, the first of four scheduled in the next twelve months to outline and help refine the plans for implementing the Dresden Protocol. The initial arrival, known to the others as Zurich, was greeted warmly by his host, Berlin, who maintained the Lake Constance house as a summer retreat. Zurich watched as each new man was greeted in turn by those who arrived before him. The servants were there to take their outer garments and serve them Pol Roger champagne in tall, crystal flutes. The meeting had been arranged at this location for the convenience of both Zurich and Berlin who would be departing in a few days from nearby Friedrichschafen on the German portion of the Graf Zeppelin’s around-the-world flight. The two would have with them $4 million U.S. in gold bearer bonds for delivery to the Irish terrorists in California, the Geneva Group‘s insurance policy for the success of the invasion of Poland. The only ones missing today were the two men in charge of the IRA arms deal--Geneva’s U.S. member, Manhattan, and its executive director, Kurt von Sturm.
After gathering in the large, octagonal foyer, Berlin directed them into the Great Hall where they continued to converse in small groups. The room had a massive, barrel-vaulted ceiling, two stories high. Paintings and tapestries lined the wood-paneled walls on the first floor. There was a balcony on the second floor on all four sides of the room. The second-floor walls were lined from floor to ceiling with bookcases, indirect lighting casting a warm glow on the figures talking softly below. A fire was blazing in a huge fire place at the end of the room.
Zurich accepted a single malt as more substantial drinks were served. Like all the men, he was in black tie. They varied in age from their mid-forties to late seventies. Together, Zurich knew, they provided the financing, the tooling, the raw materials for the manufacture of armaments. Zurich was the chairman of the largest private bank in Switzerland. Tall and white-haired,
with a trim black moustache, he had served as Chairman of the Geneva Institute for Scientific and Industrial Progress, known internally and informally as the Geneva Group, since shortly after its founding over thirty years earlier.
The Geneva Group had been formed in the early 1890s as a secret society of European financiers and industrialists ostensibly dedicated to scientific research. Initially, and what all conceded by now was merely a nineteenth-century affectation, they had given themselves code names. Nothing complicated nor difficult to penetrate. They merely adopted the names of the great cities from which they came. Amsterdam, Stockholm, Brussels, Milan, Madrid, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, and Zurich. It was a tradition that had been passed down to the current group.
Zurich knew it was fortunate he had assumed his position at such a young age. Unlike his elders and his ill-fated predecessor, he knew what had to be done. Control change. Guide the future. Stabilize profits. Not for them the laissez-faire example pioneered by Great Britain. There were better and, for the men of Geneva, more profitable models.
Business had to form a partnership with government as had happened by the end of the century in both America and Bismarck‘s Germany. An arms build up, even an arms race between countries was an important and profitable part of this program. What were weapons for if not to be used? So, wars were to be encouraged. But only by proxy, through smaller nations who depended upon the “civilized” powers of Europe for their weapons and munitions. Supplies which members of the Geneva Group were happy to provide. For a price. In turn, as government stocks of arms and weapons were depleted in this manner, either in colonies or in small, faraway countries, newer generations of weapons would be created. Profits would continue. Their success, if not quite final, would endure.
Zurich glanced at his watch and signaled a nearby waiter for another single malt. One more wouldn‘t hurt, he thought, and then the meeting could begin. Zurich still felt a pang of regret for 1914. Zurich and the rest of the Geneva Group never saw the war coming. 1914 was a mistake. A profitable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless because the chaos created in the war‘s aftermath threatened to undo all that they had built.
When the carnage was over and the profits had been made, Zurich vowed it would never happen again. He recognized that changes had to be made and he moved swiftly, decisively, brutally. When he was finished, over half the members of Geneva were removed and younger members were chosen. Even an American member to replace the purged French member as well as a ruthless executive director with equally ruthless men at his disposal. And so it started again. The same formula, the same results. The war to end all wars had not and the Geneva Group was back. Small conflicts. Little wars. Controllable. Profitable. The ancient hatreds were still intact; money was still there to be made. The business of the Geneva Group was blood and steel and business was good.
Zurich drained the last of his single malt, placed it on a silver tray held by a hovering servant, and started to move to the large table which dominated the center of the room. He had taken only two steps when he was intercepted by the member known as Munich. Zurich sighed inwardly. He knew what was coming. He had heard it all before. A plea to place on the meeting‘s agenda the issue of financial support for Adolf Hitler‘s National Socialists. After removing the Jew Trotsky from the Ministry of War, Stalin was now a confirmed anti-Semite. Support for Hitler, Munich claimed, would no longer jeopardize the Dresden Protocol.
Zurich feigned attention as Munich babbled on. For four long years, Munich had been regularly raising the tiresome subject of the Austrian corporal. Zurich wondered, not for the first time, if he had made a mistake ten years ago in not purging Munich from the group as he had with the others. Zurich motioned to Vienna to join them and repeated what Munich had said.
“What is your opinion?” he asked.
“With all respect, Munich has been bringing up this topic every year since Hitler was let out of jail in 1925, and we have always given him the same answer,” Vienna replied.
“That doesn‘t mean the answers were correct,” Munich responded. “You‘ve never seen this man handle a crowd. He‘s masterful. A coming force! Herr Hitler is a great leader.”
“Nonsense,” Vienna said. “Austria was happy to see him leave. I mean, what has he done, really? Attempted a coup d’etat in 1923 from a beer hall in Munich, only to have his pitiful band of 3,000 storm troopers routed by a Bavarian police force of a few hundred men? He took a sabbatical in jail and wrote a barely literate book blaming all Germany‘s problems on the Jews. Of course, he does wear decent suits; he‘s learned to use a fork properly; and he speaks well enough to render peasants in Bavaria spellbound.” Vienna took a breath, visibly calming himself. “But he is still a rabble rouser, a small-time politician. Nothing more.”
“Apparently not a very good one either,” Amsterdam added politely, as he joined the group. “The undeniably enthusiastic crowds which greet his speeches apparently do not vote in very large numbers. Only twelve seats in the Reichstag election a year ago last May.”
Zurich had heard enough. “No one agrees with you, Munich. Hitler is all talk, no substance. He has had four years to prove himself since restrictions were lifted on his party and he has done nothing. Such men rarely affect history. They are carried along by the currents of time. So the answer with respect to Herr Hitler is simple. Do nothing. Ignore him if you wish, watch him if you must. He will soon be carried along by the currents, like all politicians.”
Zurich took a puff on his cigar, and exhaled the smoke toward the ceiling. “Perhaps he will bob to the surface from time to time. Perhaps he will drown. But we have far more important matters to attend to than petty German politics. They will sort themselves out in due course. Of that you can be sure.”
Zurich excused himself and took his place at the head of the table. He rapped his heavy fountain pen on its mahogany surface to gain the group‘s attention. The servants withdrew. Social amenities were over. The meeting of the Board of Directors of the Geneva Institute for Scientific and Industrial Progress had begun. There were only two items on the agenda. Both concerned the Dresden Protocol. First was an update on their plans for a coup d’etat in the Irish Free State. Second, and far more important, was Zurich‘s projection for the profits to be made from supplying the weapons and munitions to the Reichswehr and the Red Army as they finalized their secret plans to erase Poland from the map of Europe—the first step in Germany‘s revenge for what had been done to it at Versailles.
11.
A New Request
Montreal
Saturday, 10 August 1929
1:30 p.m.
Cockran and Churchill walked along Rue Sherbrooke over to Rue Ste. Laurent where they turned right and continued down towards the river and their luncheon engagement, Churchill‘s walking stick tapping the pavement in time with his steps. The street was wide, tree-lined and the sun glistened off the pale green copper-peaked roofs of the six story high buildings. Neither noticed the well-dressed man behind them making notations in a small notebook.
Fifteen minutes later, they arrived in front of Auberge Le Vieux Ste.-Gabrielle, which occupied a large building of rough stone, old wood and gabled roofs. Churchill gave his name to the maitre d’ who directed them to a large high-ceilinged room with exposed rough-hewn beams. Along the walls were a collection of snowshoes, a Wurlitzer music machine and carved wood reliefs from St. Jean-Port-Joli. Churchill spoke French to the waiter and, while Cockran didn‘t know French, he could tell from the waiter‘s expression that Churchill was speaking it badly.
Cockran had not changed his mind. He wasn‘t going to get involved. While in Ireland, he had his fill at being a chess piece in someone else’s game, usually a pawn. That was why he had left Hearst and taken the job teaching international law at Columbia. There, it was his game. They were his courses, his students, his research and his articles. He was responsible. He was in control. When things went wrong, he had only himself to blame. He didn‘t depend on others. That was just
how he liked it.
Churchill’s request was innocent enough on its surface but he knew Winston and he knew that, however innocuous it seemed, it was only the thin edge of the wedge. Basically, Churchill’s plan was flawed. Too many others to depend upon. Two weeks was not nearly enough time to do any good if the IRA really were mounting a major arms buying operation.
Cockran touched his still tender ribs to remind himself he might be wrong. It could have been the IRA. But how had they known of Churchill‘s cable? Had the Brits been careless? “Even if your intelligence sources are correct, why do you think the American government will care?” Cockran asked as Churchill took a bite of Galantine of Pheasant Aux Chanterelles.
“This is excellent, really excellent!” Churchill said and took a long sip of champagne. “Why wouldn’t the Americans care? Hasn’t Ireland always been important to them?”
Cockran was becoming impatient. Ireland important? Not really. After all, every U.S. President after Grover Cleveland, his father once told him, had been in bed with big business, the only possible exception being his father‘s Long Island friend and neighbor, Theodore Roosevelt. Cockran, Sr. would have made the point in a more partisan way by simply referring to Republican administrations which had been in power continuously since Cleveland left the White House in 1896. Except for the brief and lamentable eight-year reign of the man H. L. Mencken once labeled the “Archangel Woodrow.” Big business so loved Woodrow Wilson and all he did for them that he might as well have been a Republican for all the good it did the common man. At least that‘s what Cockran‘s father had said. Given the unprecedented prosperity which had prevailed during the 20s, Cockran didn‘t think Hoover cared whether American arms makers reaped whatever profit they could from any new blood that might be shed in Ireland. Catholics in general and Irish Americans in particular simply weren‘t that important politically to Hoover. They had backed the wrong presidential candidate last fall. Why couldn‘t Churchill see that?
The DeValera Deception Page 8