The DeValera Deception

by Michael McMenamin

  Churchill guided Cockran out to the terrace. “The real celebration is tomorrow‘s luncheon to which Hearst has invited the press and any number of additional guests. More importantly for you and me, President Hoover will arrive today at 4:00 p.m.”

  Churchill had ordered a simple lunch for the two of them, a grilled veal chop, asparagus and a bottle of claret, the latter an indication of the high regard in which Hearst held his English guests, as the house rules, otherwise strictly enforced, prohibited the consumption of alcoholic beverages in rooms or anywhere else except in the Great Hall and Refectory in La Casa Grande.

  “We never had an opportunity in San Francisco to discuss the adventure you and Rankin had this week,” Churchill said. “Give me all the details. Robert can be a little close-mouthed.”

  Churchill‘s eyes sparkled as Cockran told him of the invasion of Wyntoon by San Francisco‘s Chinatown Squad and Cockran as well as the damning records they had secured.

  “Who is this Cromwell fellow?” Churchill asked.

  Cockran explained what Mattie learned about Cromwell and his connections with Hearst. He reminded Churchill of the position Cromwell had when they both worked for the same American agency in the war and its aftermath, careful not to actually name the top-secret Inquiry to a foreign statesman.

  “Ah, yes, your Inquiry,” Churchill said, grinning broadly as he placed his claret glass back on the table. “A spy like you, eh my boy?”

  Cockran shook his head in mock dismay. So much for top-secrets. “You know better, Winston, far more than I, the difference between spies and intelligence.” Cockran rose from his chair, walked over to the center archway and looked into the distance. “I‘m still not persuaded that Hearst has nothing to do with this.” He recounted for Churchill the telegram he had found from Mattie alerting Hearst to their new route of travel and Mattie‘s refusal to tell him where she had gone or what she had done after their arrival.

  “How did they know to be waiting for the train from Spokane if it wasn‘t Hearst?” Cockran asked. “Trains from the east and the north arrive in Oakland. You and I were the only ones to know about our coming from the north and the only ones I told were Rankin and Mattie.”

  Churchill joined Cockran in the archway. “So you continue to suspect Mattie?”

  “Yes and no. I know she had to be the one who tipped Hearst off but I don‘t want to believe she‘s really involved. But it‘s difficult to know what happened at Wyntoon, especially if she won‘t admit to having been there when I know damn well she was.”

  “I think you are making too much out of too little. Hearst has nothing to gain and much to lose being mixed up in a dirty business like this,” Churchill said. “But, in any event, it really doesn‘t matter, does it? You have done a splendid job, Bourke. In a few hours the President will be here and I feel certain he will do the right thing, Hearst or no Hearst.”

  Churchill turned away from the archway, walked back to the table and drained the last of the claret from his glass. “Now, if you‘ll excuse me, Mr. Hearst has invited me to watch a tennis match and I must have my afternoon nap before then.” He pulled a watch from his pocket and opened it. “Please come to my chambers at 6:00 p.m. and we will rehearse our little presentation for the President. Also, bring those Collins journals with you. I‘ll look them over after we‘ve talked to Mr Hoover.”

  55.

  The Great Engineer

  San Simeon

  Wednesday, 21 August 1929

  3:00 p.m.

  “A golden futurelies ahead for America,” Churchill said, as he sat with William Randolph Hearst watching a spirited tennis match between Mattie and Bourke on one team and Hearst‘s mistress, Marion Davies, and Churchill‘s son, Randolph, on the other. Out of deference to their host, others watching kept a distance from Hearst and Churchill as they talked.

  “Your stock market is a marvel. Since I‘ve come to North America, my investments have increased in value by nearly 20 per cent. Everywhere I have been in America, that is all people talk about. It is astonishing. The housemaid who makes your bed is a stockholder on margin. The chauffeur, the train conductor, the waiter, all have their open accounts.”

  Churchill paused and looked at Hearst. “Who is your investment man? A fellow named Cromwell, I believe?”

  “More or less,” Hearst replied. “I don‘t pay that sort of stuff much attention. I never invest on margin. Cromwell is here though and should be joining us for dinner once the airship arrives, maybe earlier if the President is on time.”

  Mattie and Bourke had won the first set and accepted a challenge for a rematch.

  “So tell me, W.R., what are your views on the Young Plan?”

  It‘s better than the Dawes Plan which, in turn, was better than the reparations called for at Versailles. But why do Americans have to keep coming up with ‘plans‘ for reducing German reparations? We had no business getting involved and pulling your bacon from the fire in the first place. If we keep pouring money into Germany, we‘re going to have a stake in their success and our economy will be tied to Europe. I don‘t like that.”

  Hearst paused and shouted, “Well struck!” after Marion had hit a return down the line and beyond Mattie‘s reach. “I tell you what else I don‘t like,” Hearst continued, “are these disarmament treaties. Americans should never allow others to limit their freedom to do what they think necessary. No country should. There can be no peace in Europe unless France and Germany are friends. So long as the United States continues to insist that the Allies, especially Great Britain, repay their loans, France will keep bleeding Germany; America will keep investing in Germany; and the investment bankers will be the only ones making money.”

  “It is a shame, W.R., that more Americans are not as farsighted as you.”

  Hearst laughed. “It‘s easy, Winston, is it not, to find wisdom in those who agree with you? But I‘ll bet there‘s something on which we don‘t agree.”

  “Pray, tell me more. I‘m already in your employ but I shall do my best to be objective.”

  “There will be another European war within ten years. The French population continues to decline while Germany’s increases. Unless France reconciles with Germany, war will come.”

  Churchill took a sip of champagne. “I quite agree, W.R., but where do we disagree?”

  “When, not if, war comes to Europe again and Great Britain takes sides, you will implore America to come to your aid. And I will resist. This time, the American people will be with me.”

  “Why is that?” Churchill inquired.

  “The Merchants of Death. The munitions makers. Americans know about them now and, for those who don‘t, I will tell them. I have more newspapers now than I did then. The circulation for my magazines is four times what it was fifteen years ago. My newsreels are in more theaters. And radio stations, Winston. Radio stations. My goal, in the next five years, is to own a radio station in every city where I have a newspaper.”

  “A five year plan, W.R.? Surely you, of all people, are not imitating the Bolsheviks?”

  Hearst smiled and took a sip from a tall glass of lemonade. “Actually, Winston, my time table is three years, not five. If I had said three, you would have seen through my plan.”

  “Plan?” Churchill said, and then he caught himself. “Oh, I see. The 1932 elections.”

  “I‘m a Democrat, Winston, a free-trader like yourself. It‘s why I didn‘t support Al Smith. 1932 will be my last chance. I‘ll be 69 years old then. But I‘m in excellent health and I‘ll have more money than any other potential candidate.”

  “Interesting,” Churchill said. “So you don‘t think Governor Smith will be a candidate?”

  “Oh, he‘ll be a candidate, all right. But the party will never nominate a Catholic again. Not for a generation. They can‘t afford to lose the South, not if they hope to carry the country.”

  Churchill nodded. “What about the new governor in New York? Roosevelt, I believe his name is. Assistant Secretary of the Navy du
ring the war. Related to the former president?”

  “A different branch of the family but they are cousins. Frank is a nice man but he has to be reelected first. He barely won last year and the Republicans are sure to put up a strong challenger. I‘ll be meeting with Frank next month. I‘ve never thought him a man of strong principle but I need to look him in the eye. Find out what deals he‘s cut with Tammany.”

  The tennis match had ended with Marion and Randolph having avenged their earlier defeat. The four younger people gathered around Hearst and Churchill and a fresh pitcher of lemonade which had appeared moments before the set ended. Churchill had noticed that, their animated conversation notwithstanding, Hearst had been watching the tennis match during their talk, knew the score and had ordered lemonade once Marion’s team was serving for the set.

  Churchill watched as Marion came over, her perspiring face glistening in the sun, and bent over and gave Hearst a hug. “We won, Pops! Did you see us?”

  “Yes, I did, my dear. Your backhand in game seven to Mattie was the turning point.”

  “You were watching!” she squealed. “I love you. You’re the best, Pops,” and gave him another hug. Churchill hoped he was maintaining a benign expression. Hearst had invited Churchill to a large dinner party in New York in late October being given by his wife, Millicent, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to be the guest of Hearst and his mistress here in San Simeon and Hearst and his wife in New York.

  “The President will be here at 4:00 p.m.,” Hearst said, “and tea will be served at 4:30 p.m. in the Great Hall, if you would care to join us, Mattie, Mr. Cockran?” he said, nodding to each in turn. “Dinner will be at 8 o‘clock as usual unless the Graf Zeppelin is delayed.”

  4:30 p.m.

  Herbert Hoover seemed stiff, Cockran thought, as the President picked up his tea cup from the long, low table in front of the chintz-covered sofa on which he sat. He wore a light colored summer suit but the high celluloid collar which encased his thick neck looked decidedly uncomfortable. Cockran had met only two American Presidents. His father had been a close friend and adviser to both. He met Grover Cleveland in 1904 when Cockran, Sr. had returned to Congress after an eight-year hiatus. Theodore Roosevelt had come to dinner at their Sands Point home in 1910. Both men had seemed far more comfortable in their own skins and more self-assured than the prosperous-looking, well-fed man sitting in front of him.

  They were in the eighty-foot long Assembly Room which had an elaborate twenty-foot high coffered ceiling. The sofa faced away from the room‘s dominating element, a sixteen-foot high French Renaissance mantle. Covering the entire wall to the left of the fireplace was a seventeenth-century Brussels tapestry by Rubens. Elaborate oriental rugs were everywhere.

  Ten people were seated in a large semicircle around the sofa, Churchill and Hearst in matching armchairs immediately to the left and right of the President. Philip Cromwell sat next to Hoover on the sofa and was the only person to whom Hoover had shown any sign of animation, grasping Cromwell‘s hand in both of his, thanking him warmly for his support during the last election. Marion Davies and three of her Hollywood friends were in the other chairs, along with a quiet young German businessman, Kurt von Sturm, whose employer, a Cromwell client, was arriving shortly on the Graf Zeppelin. Sturm was almost too good looking, Cockran thought, with piercing blue eyes and longish blond hair for a German, swept back from his forehead. He noticed Sturm occasionally staring at Mattie. To his surprise, it bothered him. There was something in the way he looked at her that he didn‘t like.

  Cockran also had not been surprised at the coolness displayed by Hoover to Hearst. The Hearst papers had all endorsed Hoover in the last election but Hearst had supported Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon for the Republican nomination. He had only supported Hoover in the fall because of his antipathy to Al Smith and Tammany Hall. The Chief himself, however, had written several editorials denouncing the anti-Catholic attacks made by Hoover supporters on Al Smith in the South and Midwest. Hoover, the hypocrite, had piously asserted on one occasion—and one occasion only—that religion should not be an issue in the campaign. He had hoped that no one would vote for him because he was a Quaker and that no one would vote for his opponent because he was a Catholic. Cockran had been disgusted. Pontius Pilate had sounded more sincere in washing his hands of Christ before turning him over to the bloodthirsty mob.

  Mattie had warned Cockran that Hoover would still remember his war-time arrest by Churchill‘s British Naval Intelligence. She had proved to be correct as the President had not greeted Churchill like the close war-time and post-war colleagues Churchill had professed them to be. Hoover limited himself to a curt “Good day to you as well, Mr. Churchill” in response to Winston‘s effusive greetings at how delighted he was to see again his old comrade in arms. The only mistake that Cockran could see that Winston had made then was in not keeping the plump bastard in jail a few more days. Cockran had seen pictures of Hoover during the war and a week of bread and water rations would have done him a world of good, then as now.

  Cockran had noted Cromwell‘s surprise at his and Mattie‘s presence but the man had hidden it well, greeting them both cordially. If he knew anything about Cockran and the raid on Wyntoon, he gave no indication. It gave Cockran pause, seeing Cromwell beside the President, talking as if they were old friends, knowing that he was sufficiently well connected not only to put federal agents on Cockran‘s tail, but to be copied on their reports as well. Hoover had been Secretary of Commerce for eight years. Coincidence? Cockran didn‘t believe in coincidence.

  Hoover‘s voice broke into Cockran‘s thoughts. “I do believe we have the opportunity to secure peace and prosperity for this generation and many generations to come.”

  “What role do you believe the Kellogg-Briand Pact will play in achieving this?” Hearst asked, referring to the treaty negotiated by the Coolidge administration’s Secretary of State, Frank Kellogg where all the major nations had renounced war as an instrument of policy.

  Cockran was impressed. Hearst was sharp. It was a good journalist‘s question.

  Hoover pursed his lips until it looked to Bourke as if he were sucking a lemon, and then carefully responded, “It will be useful in theory, but I am looking for more practical results. Ships not being built by the United States and Japan. Or, in the case of Great Britain,” Hoover said, nodding in Churchill‘s direction, “ships being decommissioned. Practical steps. Judge us by practical steps. Will our country, will the world, be a more peaceful and prosperous place three or seven years from now? I will be content to have my reputation judged by history on the basis of the answer to that question.”

  Mattie‘s friends in the White House press office were right, Cockran thought. Hoover really believed his press clippings. That he was the Great Engineer. Would Churchill allow himself to be provoked? Churchill, however, remained quiet while Hearst continued to probe.

  “Wouldn‘t you think a more logical target for disarmament would be a strict limit on the size of standing armies? Or forbidding the development of long-range bombing aircraft?”

  “Well...,” Hoover said, “that is an admirable goal as well. But everyone knows that the naval arms race between England and Germany was one of the prime causes of the last war.”

  “Oh really?” Hearst said. “And here I thought the causes of the war were the secret treaties which obligated the great powers to come to the aid of lesser nations and the huge standing armies which made it possible for them to do so. Russia and France coming to the aid of Serbia and Germany the same with Austria-Hungary. If millions of men had not been under arms and ready to march, perhaps diplomacy might have had a chance to work.”

  Hearst paused and took a sip of tea, the cup looking small in his large hand. “Perhaps I missed the news. Winston, was there a large naval battle between you and Germany off the coast of Serbia which led to the Great War. You were, as I recall, First Lord of the Admiralty?”

  Cockran kept
his courtroom face on, showing no emotion but, inside, he was having one hell of a good time. Hoover knew he was being made fun of by a man who could buy and sell the self-made millionaire from Palo Alto, California many times over and who would still be the most powerful press baron in America when Herbert Hoover was an ex-president. If Hearst really were funding the IRA arms deal in order to sell newspapers, Cockran thought, he must be confident that he has Hoover in a box from which he can‘t escape.

  Fortunately for Hoover, Marion Davies and her three Hollywood friends didn‘t know much history and so laughter had not greeted Hearst’s question. Cockran assumed their German guest was not that fluent in English. But Cromwell frowned at Churchill‘s straight-faced reply.

  “I most certainly was, W.R. My proudest accomplishment in public life was that when war came, the fleet was ready. But, alas, it was ready in Scotland, at Scapa Flow, and was nowhere near the Balkans. We possibly had a few destroyers nearby in the Mediterranean.”

  Cockran watched with admiration as Marion Davies then smoothly inserted herself into the conversation and steered it away from politics to motion pictures, asking the President about his favorite films and Cockran soon discovered that the German, von Sturm, was quite fluent in English and still stealing covert glances at Mattie. Thirty minutes later, the servants had taken away the tea service and Cockran saw Churchill approach the President and Hearst.

  “W.R., if I might impose on your hospitality. The Prime Minister has given me a private message to deliver to the President and I wonder if, for a few moments before dinner tonight, you could provide us a room where we might talk undisturbed?” Without waiting for a reply, Churchill turned to Hoover. “Would that be convenient, Mr. President?”