Donovan

by Richard Dunlop

  For that reason, SHAPE [Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe] has accepted the principle we urged of unblocking the joint control of OSS/SOE in such operations and recognizes that to carry on aggressive subversion behind enemy lines we must vest authority in our forward echelons and there must be freedom of action in our movements. But, with our allies, there must be the fullest exchange of information and the constant coordination of activities.

  In phase two, Donovan said,

  We are inclined to accept the manner of the last war’s ending as the pattern for the finish of the present war. But the circumstances surrounding this war give it a characterization different from the last one. It is unnecessary to spell out the difference. We can have no assurance that one day the sound of guns will end and an armistice begin. If the basic assumption be correct, then there can be no armistice and no surrender and no German government left with which the Allies can deal. Of course, with no central government, there would be confusion, but this confusion would give strength to the organized aggressive underground’s opposition to the decrees of the Allied Control Mission.

  This opposition could take many forms—propaganda, inspiring fear, coercion by passive as well as active means to incite the population against us. We would be obliged to meet it not only with firmness but with skill and ingenuity and comprehension. Countermeasures will need to be employed.

  Donovan decided on September 6 to summon Allen Dulles, who would play a leading role in phase one, to a meeting.

  “Under orders to return to Washington to report on my two years’ stewardship,” said Dulles, “I had joined a group of the French underground in a secret retreat in the Rhone Valley between Geneva and Lyon awaiting a clandestine flight to take me to London. As far as I knew, General Donovan was in Washington, and, as far as I knew, he had not the slightest idea where I was hidden. Weather prevented my plane coming from London for several days, and as I was waiting in my hideout, there was a knock on the door in the middle of the night. It was one of General Donovan’s aides, telling me that the General himself was waiting for me at the nearest available airstrip south of Lyon, which had just been evacuated by the Nazis.”

  Donovan had been touring the secret hideouts of Jedburgh teams throughout France. Dulles joined him at the airstrip, and they flew to London. They talked about the attack on Hitler’s life and Donovan’s plans to penetrate the Reich.

  The two men were in London at the Savoy Hotel bar when the first V-2 rockets landed on the city. Donovan had intended to give David Bruce, his London man, another assignment, but talking to Dulles, he realized that Dulles would much prefer to be his man in London and head of the entire European OSS operations. He wanted to keep Dulles in Bern.

  “I didn’t want anyone to be unhappy over David’s replacement,” he said to Dulles. “There are lots of guys shooting for the job, good guys with marvelous records—the best men we’ve got. But they can’t see that it isn’t the sort of job they’re suited for. Just because they’re brilliant station chiefs doesn’t mean they can handle London—all that administration. Nearly all of them are lousy administrators. They could foul things up at a vital stage in the war.

  “So I’m ordering David to stay on, just as I’m asking you to do the same. God knows what would happen if we had a change in Bern at this juncture. We just can’t afford to lose you.”

  Hubert Will flew with Donovan and Dulles across the Atlantic, and he remembered the two men chatting affably and playing not-so-friendly games of bridge. “Donovan bluffed terribly at cards,” said Will. “He was my partner, and it was disastrous.”

  Donovan sent more than 200 agents into Germany between September 1944 and VE Day. Among them were Germans with Social Democrat and labor backgrounds chosen by Arthur Goldberg from among captured German soldiers. Although patriotic Germans, they were anti-Hitler and were anxious to destroy the Nazis so the German nation could be rebuilt on democratic foundations. Other agents were German-Americans. All of them had to be given credible papers and cover stories and dressed in clothing purchased from refugees who had fled the Reich. They contacted the German underground, and gathered information not only about Hitler’s faltering war machine, but also about social and economic conditions that would indicate in which direction Germany would go once the war was over.

  One agent, Jack Taylor, a California orthodontist turned OSS man, jumped into Austria with three Austrians. He was captured, sentenced to death, and imprisoned at Mauthausen, an extermination camp. A friendly German burned his execution order, and Taylor stayed on in the camp as one of the few Americans to witness the Nazis’ savage genocide of Jews. He later assisted Donovan when the OSS chief was called upon to help prosecute Nazi leaders at Nuremberg.

  OSS men were everywhere in Europe that autumn of 1944. They were with the Greek underground, with both Tito and Mihajlović in Yugoslavia, and penetrating Romania and Bulgaria. Some agents were among the Polish and French slave laborers in Germany or were passing themselves off as mechanics or salesmen. One agent, Bernard Yarrow, lunched with President Eduard Beneš of Czechoslovakia. Beneš explained that a Danubian confederation would not work out because the Soviet Union opposed it. Beneš believed that the way to stabilize Central Europe was to reach an agreement and a military alliance among Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Soviet Russia. On every question that came up, the Czech president evidenced a pro-Soviet attitude. He reported on his long talks with Stalin and Foreign Minister Molotov in Moscow on the Polish question, which he believed could best be solved by a military alliance with the Soviet Union.

  “President Beneš, throughout the whole conversation,” Donovan told Roosevelt, “again and again referred to the fact that he is not a communist and never will be, but that his whole pro-Soviet political orientation is motivated by fear and a hope not ever to be faced by another Munich.”

  It was in Greece and Yugoslavia that Donovan saw most clearly the portents of postwar Soviet policies in Europe. Rivalry between the communist guerrillas and the Greek democrats and royalists burst into civil war as the Germans began to withdraw. The Reds, responding to orders from Moscow, seized whole Greek villages and held men, women, and children hostage, threatening to execute them if the opposing guerrillas or the British moved against them. If there had been Russian troops in Greece instead of British, the country might well have been forced into the Soviet camp, but as it was, the British and the anticommunists soon made it obvious to even the most fanatic Reds that they could not win.

  As the German Army withdrew from Greece into Yugoslavia, it found that the Yugoslavs were just as adept as the Greeks at ambushing military columns and demolishing bridges to hamper their retreat. There was the same combination of British SOE and American OSS agents and either communist or anticommunist resistance fighters.

  Donovan wished to keep OSS men with both Mihajlović and Tito, but on September 1 Churchill objected. “We are endeavoring to give Tito the support and, of course, if the United States backed Mihajlović complete chaos will ensue. I was rather hoping things were going to get a bit smoother in these parts, but if we each back different sides we lay the scene for a fine civil war. General Donovan is running a strong Mihajlović lobby just when we have persuaded King Peter to break decisively with him and when many of the Chetniks are being rallied under Tito’s National Army of Liberation. The only chance of saving the King is the unity between the Prime Minister, the Ban [governor] of Croatia, and Tito.”

  Roosevelt replied on September 3, “The mission of OSS is my mistake. I did not check my previous action of last April 8. I am directing Donovan to withdraw his mission.”

  Donovan responded to Roosevelt’s orders with a long and intemperate argument against turning Yugoslavia completely over to Tito and his Soviet friends, and he kept his men with Mihajlović until November 1, when he had no choice but to withdraw them. When in September, acting upon Moscow’s orders, both Tito and the pro-Soviet Bulgarian guerrillas forced British and American agents to leave, Do
novan complained to Lieutenant General Fitin of the NKVD as one intelligence chief to another. OSS agents in Bulgaria had provided a valuable flow of intelligence for Allied use in defeating the Nazis and had rescued more than 300 airmen whose planes had crashed in that country after raids on Romania’s Ploesti oil fields. The OSS chief reminded Fitin that the United States and the Soviet Union were supposed to be allies. Fitin withdrew the order requiring the OSS team to leave Bulgaria.

  “In order to prevent future misunderstandings, I am sending General Fitin lists of OSS personnel in Bulgaria and Romania as requested by him,” Donovan informed Roosevelt on September 29.

  “This incident, together with the demonstrated attitude of Tito, shows that the Russians intend to dominate this area and, as Subasić indicates, propose going to the Adriatic. It is apparent that the Russians are going to demand that other governments concerned recognize their primary interest in this area.”

  Because of his global responsibilities, Donovan could not concentrate on the Balkans, critical as events there might be. There had been an upheaval in China. During the summer the Japanese had overrun U.S. air bases in eastern China. The Joint Chiefs of Staff blamed the disaster on the inferior Chinese troops, and wanted General Stilwell put in command of all Chinese forces. Chiang Kai-shek refused because he blamed Stilwell for the defeats. The Chinese general demanded that Roosevelt recall Stilwell, and in October the salty old officer left China for good. The OSS in China was confronted with a crisis, and Donovan left for the Far East.

  Harry Little and Guy Martin were among the OSS men who accompanied Donovan. The party went to London and then flew to Marseilles. While the other OSS men went directly from the airport to their hotel, Donovan stayed behind to follow later in another car.

  “Arriving at the hotel,” Little said, “we demanded a table for General Donovan and were given the best table in the dining room. We were finishing a splendid meal when Donovan, whose car had broken down, arrived late.

  “The headwaiter led him to an obscure table in the corner while we enjoyed what by rights should have been his table. It didn’t bother him at all.”

  Donovan and his party left the next day for Cairo.

  “At Cairo we were to leave at 6:00 A.M. the next morning to fly to New Delhi where we were to meet the British viceroy,” continued Little. “This ruled out the chance for us young fellows to go nightclubbing in Cairo. We tossed a coin to see who should persuade the General to delay the departure until 2:30 P.M., an hour that would allow for visiting a few hot spots and some sleep besides.”

  “If we leave at 6:00 A.M. and go straight through,” the OSS man who had lost the toss argued, “we’ll arrive in Delhi about midnight, a bad time for the viceroy. If we leave here at 2:30 in the afternoon, we’ll arrive in Delhi about ten o’clock in the morning, a good time for the viceroy.”

  Donovan nodded his head in sage agreement, but his eyes twinkled. “Okay, if you fellows want to go nightclubbing, we’ll wait until 2:30,” he agreed.

  Donovan met the viceroy and continued on to Colombo, where he made a surprise inspection of Detachment 404. There he found Erik Lindgren, a Swede who had fought the Soviets when they invaded Finland and now was training jungle fighters to be set ashore in southern Burma and Malaya.

  “What are you, a man accustomed to Finnish forests, doing training men for the jungle?” demanded Donovan.

  “Jungles are just another forest,” replied Lindgren.

  “How do you find your way in the jungle?” asked Donovan.

  “General, when you step into a jungle, it’s like stepping into a closet,” said Lindgren, “unless you know how to use a compass.”

  Lindgren complained that other officers were training their men on a compass course that ran for 3 miles. They always used the same route. “You don’t need a compass on that well-worn trail,” he said, “and I don’t call that training.”

  Donovan whispered to an aide, and OSS compass training was revolutionized overnight. He went on to inspect the Morale Operations (MO).

  “I told him about some of our MO projects: a subversive radio newscast in Thai to Thailand, printing Japanese surrender leaflets, etc.,” said Alec MacDonald, who directed the MO team at Colombo.

  Donovan opened a door and found Jane Foster and other women on MacDonald’s staff blowing up condoms. For once he was disconcerted and irately demanded to know what was going on. MacDonald explained that MO had printed Malay-language leaflets that were to be stuffed into the condoms and then released from a submarine so that they would drift ashore onto the coasts of Indonesia.

  “In theory they would be picked up by Indonesian fishermen and villagers and read and circulated,” said MacDonald.

  The future of the operation hung in the balance while Donovan stared with disbelief. Then he laughed.

  “He approved, even applauded Jane’s ingenuity, and the team went on with their rather bizarre operation,” according to MacDonald.

  As for Donovan, he went to Kandy, Ceylon, to see Lord Mountbatten and then toured other OSS operations in Southeast Asia. In Calcutta he met with 101 leaders at the OSS bungalow off Chowringhee Road to talk about the Kachins and their increasingly successful war with the Japanese in Burma.

  In Calcutta Donovan sent Guy Martin to scout the city’s bookstores for reading material. When he boarded a plane to fly over the Hump to China, he carried four books in each hand so he would have some reading handy. In Chungking he dined with Foreign Minister T. V. Soong, whose relations with Chiang Kai-shek had been strained since June. Chiang had accused the minister of attempting to replace him as the president of China. Donovan’s real problems, however, were with the situation of the OSS after Stilwell’s departure. In China he checked on the work that the OSS was doing with the 14th Air Force and on the increasing success of other OSS officers in the country.

  “We are now collecting a large proportion of all intelligence produced through American sources in the China theater,” Donovan told Roosevelt with some satisfaction upon his return to Washington. Donovan was now confident that Detachment 202 in China would be able “to collect information necessary for the defeat of the Japanese enemy and for the making of informed decisions on the ultimate peace settlement in the Far East.”

  Roosevelt found Donovan’s report on the Far East highly significant. Combined with his communications from the Balkans on Soviet activities, it made clear that the United States could not enter the postwar world without a strategic intelligence organization. On October 31 he asked Donovan to draft a plan for a peacetime OSS. Donovan went to work with enthusiasm and submitted his proposal on November 18.

  In his memorandum Donovan pointed out that “in the early days of the war, when the demands upon intelligence services were mainly in and for military operations, the OSS was placed under the direction of the JCS.

  “Once our enemies are defeated, the demand will be equally pressing for information that will aid us in solving the problems of peace.”

  To Donovan this meant two things: “that intelligence control be returned to the supervision of the President” and that there was a need for “the establishment of a central authority reporting directly to you, with responsibility to frame intelligence objectives and to collect and coordinate the intelligence material required by the Executive Branch in planning and carrying out national policy and strategy.”

  Donovan placed coordination and centralization of the proposed authority at the policy level but operational intelligence with the existing agencies. His proposed organization would have no police or subpoena powers and would not operate in the United States. “The creation of a central authority thus would not conflict with or limit necessary intelligence functions within the Army, Navy, Department of State and other agencies.”

  Donovan felt that Roosevelt should examine whether congressional action would be necessary and urged him to make an “immediate revision and coordination of our present intelligence system.

  [This] would effec
t substantial economies and aid in the more efficient and speedy termination of the war. Information important to the national defense, being gathered now by certain departments and agencies, is not being used to full advantage in the war. Coordination at the strategy level would prevent waste and avoid the present confusion that leads to waste and unnecessary duplication.

  Though in the midst of war, we are also in a period of transition, which before we are aware, will take us into the tumult of rehabilitation. An adequate and orderly intelligence system will contribute to informed decisions.

  Roosevelt was greatly impressed but submitted the proposal to the JCS for study. The military examined Donovan’s plan with a jaundiced eye. Donovan was caught up in a new round of his ongoing bout with the military intelligence services and J. Edgar Hoover. Nevertheless, he went ahead with his plans for the OSS in the last phase of the war and the winning of the peace to come.

  “In late 1944 he sent a man to Cairo to take over the direction of activities at that post,” said Allen Dulles, “and gave him oral instructions to the effect that the main target for intelligence operations should now become discovering what the Soviets were doing in the Balkans rather than German activities in the Middle East. The German threat was receding. The Soviet danger was already looming. He realized this but, for obvious reasons, he could not put such instructions in an official dispatch.”

  35

  End of an Experiment

  EARLY IN DECEMBER 1944, OSS agents in Germany began to report that the supposedly beaten Germans were grouping for a counteroffensive. Hitler himself was said to have taken command of what was to be a last-ditch attack to defeat the Allies.

  “The agents came back and said it would happen,” remembered OSS man Vance Vogel, who was stationed with the U.S. Ninth Army, “but General Hodges literally said, ‘You’re crazy.’”