“Don’t worry,” Clete said, “with a little practice—four, five hours shooting touch-and-gos, you’ll eventually get the hang of it. I’ll show you the tricks.”
It went right over von Wachtstein’s head.
His face showed he thought he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Just kidding, Hansel.”
“Alicia and I are going to Doña Claudia’s,” von Wachtstein then said. “What about Karl and Beth?”
“That depends on where Beth’s mother is,” Clete said. “That’s where they’ll go.”
One of the drivers of the cars waiting for them told them that “las señoras” were all at Estancia Santa Catalina.
“Karl,” Frade said, “your call. When we get there, you and Beth can try to look innocent, or hang your heads in shame. Doesn’t matter. Martha Howell will see through it and make you both pay for your lewd and lascivious behavior.”
“Screw you!” Beth said.
There was a 1942 Chevrolet Master Deluxe sedan with diplomatic license plates parked in front of the Big House when Clete and Siggie Stein rolled up in one of the estancia’s station wagons.
Probably Tony Pelosi and/or Max Ashton, Clete decided, just before he decided, I guess Doña Alicia has been dropped from the roll of las señoras.
His wife was sitting on the side verandah with the U.S. Embassy “military attachés” Pelosi and Ashton, and someone he was surprised to see—Milton Leibermann, the “legal attaché” of the embassy. Their children were nowhere in sight.
“I thought you’d be with las señoras,” Clete said to his wife when all the handshaking and kissing were done.
“I didn’t think Milt came all the way out here from Buenos Aires just for the hell of it,” Dorotea said matter-of-factly.
Leibermann laughed.
“She’s good, Clete,” he said. “I didn’t. And neither did these two.”
“Excuse me?”
“When I asked Tony if I could borrow his embassy car to come out here, he said he’d drive me. And then Max sniffed something was up and found the time in his busy schedule to join us.”
“So, what’s up, Milt?”
“I got a letter from an old pal, a fellow Gangbuster, that I thought might be of interest to you.”
“A fellow Gangbuster?” Clete asked.
“That’s what we called ourselves when we were going through the FBI Academy,” Leibermann said. “There was a radio program at the time called Gangbusters. Allegedly based on the exploits of the New Jersey State Police under Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf.”
“I don’t understand,” Clete confessed.
“Read this,” Leibermann said, handing Frade a sheaf of typewriter paper. “I will then entertain questions.”
Dear Milt:
For reasons which will become apparent as you read this, I really wish that instead of writing this in some haste, we were sitting—two old friends—across a table from one another. But that’s simply not possible under the circumstances.
Let me start with the good news: You will shortly learn through normal channels that the Bureau’s Operation in Buenos Aires has been upgraded by Director Hoover from Foreign Station to Overseas Division, and that the Director has named you Chief thereof.
That appointment comes with a substantial pay increase, of course, but this has all happened so suddenly that I just don’t know the details. When I have them, I will get them to you as soon as I can.
The appointment also carries with it both much greater responsibility and authority than you were charged with as Special Agent in Charge Buenos Aires Station. The Section Chief, South America, is being informed today that effective immediately, Overseas Division, Argentina, will report directly to the Assistant Director for South America. Who just happens to be yours truly.
While your outstanding performance of your duties certainly merits a promotion like this for you, I must in candor tell you that another reason for it was the Director’s realization that for you to be able to deal with the responsibilities you will now have you will require both more authority than you had as Special Agent in Charge and the appropriate senior title to go with them.
“Well, congratulations, Chief Leibermann,” Clete said when he had read the first page. “Who’s this from?”
“Clyde Holmes, the deputy director of FBI Operations,” Leibermann answered. “He’s probably number four in the Bureau hierarchy.”
“I’m impressed, and I think I may say, without fear of objection, that your promotion merits a celebratory libation. What would please you in that connection, Chief Leibermann?”
“A Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks, thank you, Colonel. But you better hold off on the congratulations until you have read the whole thing.”
Clete signaled for a maid and ordered her to bring the rolling bar onto the verandah.
“I presume, Chief, that I have your permission to share this bulletin of good fortune with my wife?”
“I think you all better read it,” Leibermann said matter-of-factly.
Clete handed the page he had read to Dorotea and started on the second page:In the conversation with the Director that set all this in motion, he said, “The end of the war in Germany means not that our work will be lessened, but rather increased, especially with regard to Soviet espionage in the United States.” Or words to that effect.
Much of this centers around the past, present, and future operations of the Office of Strategic Services, which, the Director feels, will shortly be disbanded.
The Director also stated that when the OSS is disbanded, he feels there will be an attempt by the Army, the Navy, and the State Department to absorb the OSS and its assets, and that doing so would be inimical to the Bureau’s ability to carry out its responsibilities, especially with regard to Soviet espionage.
If you’ll give this a moment’s thought, Milt, you will see that the Director is again right on the money. The Army and the Navy are rightly concentrated on taking the war to Japan. In that connection, the Soviets are regarded as our allies. The State Department is trying very hard to get the Soviets to declare war on the Japanese.
But the Director understands that the Bureau, in the discharge of its responsibilities, must look beyond the obvious and consider the realities.
The Director feels that the most unpleasant of these realities is that the most dangerous enemy the United States is facing is the Soviet Union, closely followed by very senior officers in the government who are unable, or unwilling, to face this fact and act accordingly.
The Bureau knows that our “Soviet allies” have been conducting intensive espionage activities with regard to the Manhattan Project. The reason we know is twofold. First, we have of course for some time been conducting our own counterintelligence efforts. Secondly, parties unknown passed to us, quite literally under the door, an envelope containing the names of Soviet agents within the Manhattan Project.
Some of these spies and traitors were already known to us, but six others were not. Further investigation by the Bureau revealed the six others are in fact Soviet espionage agents.
Who slipped the envelope under the door?
The Director believes the envelope came from Allen W. Dulles, the Assistant Director of the OSS for European Operations. Why the anonymous, surreptitious delivery?
“This guy seems to know what he’s talking about,” Clete said as he handed the second page to Dorotea.
“He generally does,” Leibermann said. “He’s a Mormon.”
“Excuse me?”
“A priest of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Leibermann explained. “They don’t drink or smoke, and while they bend the truth sometimes, they never lie. There’s a lot of them around J. Edgar Hoover.”
“I never heard that,” Clete said, and resumed reading the third page:The Director’s—and my—scenario here is that if Dulles had followed normal channels for the dissemination of intelligence such as this—in other words, if it had gone
to OSS Director Donovan, who would then have made President Roosevelt privy to it—the results would have almost certainly been disastrous.
It is impossible to say exactly what President Roosevelt would have done with the intelligence, or what President Truman would do with it now, except that once either had become privy to it, word would certainly have immediately reached the KGB First Directorate, via one or more of their subordinates, in a matter of days, even hours, and the Soviets would learn we were aware of their espionage activities and take the appropriate steps.
Director Donovan would have been fully aware of this, but would have been duty bound to pass this intelligence to the President.
It is entirely possible that Dulles decided that since passing the intelligence to Donovan would result in Donovan’s passing it to the President, the thing for him to do was simply not pass it to Donovan.
But what to do with it?
Slip it under the FBI’s door and place the burden of deciding whether or not to pass it to the President on the Director’s shoulders.
This brings us to the point of this.
The Director is not about to pass to the President any intelligence as significant as this without knowing both how accurate it is and where it came from. What he has done is to go unofficially to President Roosevelt and, now, President Truman and tell them he has unconfirmed intelligence he believes is accurate that the KGB First Directorate has successfully penetrated the Manhattan Project.
President Roosevelt’s reaction was disbelief that our Soviet allies would do something like that.
I’m sure, Milt, that you have heard how ill President Roosevelt was in the last months of his life.
The Director informed President Truman of the strong possibility that the Manhattan Project has been penetrated by the KGB First Directorate immediately after General Groves informed the President of the purpose of the Manhattan Project, that is, the day after President Roosevelt expired. The President responded by saying the Director should confirm what intelligence he has.
Obviously, therefore the Bureau has to determine the source of the intelligence slipped under the door.
One strong possibility is that it came from German sources; Mr. Dulles is strongly suspected to have been in contact with enemy officials and officers before the surrender. If this is true, and if it became known to senior officials of the administration, Secretary Morgenthau in particular, they would have demanded to know the details of the meetings. If Director Donovan was not informed of all, or some of these meetings, he could not answer such questions.
“This guy really does know what he’s talking about,” Clete said as he handed Dorotea that page. He saw that Dorotea had handed what she had read to Siggie Stein, and that Tony Pelosi was anxiously waiting for his turn.
“He usually does,” Leibermann said.
“Why did you say he was a priest?” Clete asked as he took his first look at the next page.
“All adult male saints are priests,” Leibermann said.
Clete nodded, then looked at the next sheet. “And here I am!”
This brings us back to Mr. Dulles and more particularly to Lieutenant Colonel Frade of the OSS. Although OSS Director Donovan has more than once referred to Frade in unofficial conversations with the Director and yours truly as “my loose cannon in Argentina” and other similarly derogatory terms, both the Director and I feel he’s more important than this; that General Donovan may have been indulging in a little disinformation.
“J. Edgar Hoover and your priest buddy,” Clete said, “seem to feel I’m more than a loose cannon. Should I be flattered or worried?”
“Both,” Leibermann said with a chuckle.
The Director and I began to connect the dots. The process intensified when we heard that the President had ordered the sale of a fleet of Constellation aircraft to South American Airways, and that Frade was Managing Director of SAA.
We learned further that the business arrangements for the financing of this sale were handled by the New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, specifically by John Foster Dulles, whose brother is OSS Deputy Director Allen W. Dulles.
The Bureau’s learning that Lieutenant Colonel Frade’s SAA had established commercial air service between Buenos Aires and Lisbon roughly coincided with an informal request by Treasury Secretary Morgenthau that the Director look into what he described as “credible rumors” that large numbers of Nazis were already leaving Germany for sanctuary in Argentina, in some cases with the assistance of the Vatican.
From other sources, the Director has learned that in the last months of the war, a number of officers of Abwehr Ost, the section of German intelligence dealing with the Soviet Union, had mysteriously disappeared from their posts and were rumored to be, together with their families, headed for sanctuary in Argentina. There has been no report—and the Army’s Counter-Intelligence Corps has been on special alert to look for anyone connected with Abwehr Ost—of anyone so connected being taken as a POW or found, including the Abwehr Ost commander General Reinhard Gehlen.
Jesus H. Christ! Frade thought. Has Morgenthau actually sniffed out the Gehlen Op? If so, it’s our worst nightmare come true.
How soon before his sword falls on our necks?
He said, “I wonder who these ‘other sources’ who told him about Abwehr Ost are.”
“Write this down, Clete,” Leibermann said. “Never underestimate the FBI. Where is Gehlen, Clete?”
This is not the time to wonder whose side Leibermann is on.
“I don’t know. I suppose the OSS has him somewhere in Germany. If Dulles knows, he didn’t tell me. I guess I’ll find out when I get to Germany.”
“Which will be when?”
“We leave tomorrow. The Argentine Foreign Ministry has chartered an SAA plane to take a replacement diplomatic crew over there and to bring the diplomats there back. I think that’s bullshit, and there is another purpose, probably including sneaking some more Nazis back here.”
“And what about the rumor that some of this General Gehlen’s people are already here in Argentina?”
“I’ve got about twenty of the Nazi element thereof comfortably locked up at Casa Montagna.”
“And the non-Nazi element?”
“Some of them want to stay; they’re being integrated into Argentine society. The ones that want to go back—or go somewhere else—are in hotels and ski lodges.”
“How do you tell the difference between the Nazis and the others?”
“The good Gehlen Germans shoot the Nazis on sight.”
“Is that what happened to von Deitzberg?”
Clete nodded. Niedermeyer, carrying an identity document in the name of Otto Körtig, had shot SS-Brigadeführer von Deitzberg in the men’s room of the Edelweiss Hotel in San Carlos de Bariloche—an act that both removed a severe threat to the OSS and proved whose side Niedermeyer/Körtig was on.
Leibermann said: “I was about to ask why the OSS is being so good to General Gehlen, but why don’t I hold off until you’ve read some more?”
Clete’s eyes went back to the message:And finally there is the May tenth “escape” from the Fort Hunt Senior POW Interrogation Center of two German officers who had been attached to the German embassy in Buenos Aires. When informally approached by the Director, who had learned that the two had been taken from the facility by a Marine Lieutenant Colonel named Frade, General Donovan replied that while the OSS had nothing to do with it, he was not surprised or even especially upset by what had happened. He said that both officers had not only been “turned” by Frade, but that both had been closely associated with the bomb plot to kill Hitler. He said that the father of one of them, a German general, had been hung with piano wire from a butcher’s hook for his role in the failed assassination plot.
General Donovan also told the Director that he doubted Colonel Frade would obey an order to come to the United States to answer for his actions. Donovan told the Director that Frade has had some “unfortunate experiences,” w
hich he did specify, with officers of the OSS and trusts “only Colonel Graham.” Donovan said, “It is much harder to get a young bull back into the barn than it is a cow.”
Donovan says Frade enjoys dual citizenship, and under Argentine law, its citizens may not be extradited. And General Donovan suggested there would probably be reluctance to court-martial Frade on any charge but murder, as he’s been awarded the Navy Cross and became an ace on Guadalcanal.
The Director found it interesting that Donovan included neither Mr. Dulles nor himself with regard to those whom Frade trusts, and feels this suggests Donovan is not aware of the close relationship between Mr. Dulles and Frade.
General Donovan also told the Director he knows of no OSS activities by anyone involving the Gehlen organization. The Director often says that while he and General Donovan often disagree, they never lie to one another.
“Your Gangbuster pal is right about that, too, Milt. Donovan does not know about the deal Dulles struck with Gehlen,” Clete said.
“Which is?”
“Gehlen turns over everything Abwehr Ost has—including agents in place in the Kremlin—to the OSS in exchange for keeping his people, and their families, out of the hands of the Russians.”
“Read on, Clete,” Leibermann said, and nodded once at the sheets of paper.
I’m sure I don’t have to connect the dots for you, Milt, but let me tell you the scenario the Director has reached, with these very important caveats. First, the patriotism of Mr. Dulles and Lieutenant Colonel Frade is beyond question. Second, the interest of the Bureau is solely to protect the United States from Soviet espionage, with the emphasis here on absolutely ensuring the Soviets do not gain access to the secrets of the Manhattan Project.
The Director believes we can proceed on the following premises:
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