In FDR’s mind, this of course would be just as Donovan had done since FDR, as assistant secretary of the Navy, had sent him around the world to serve as his eyes and ears.
The heads of the various intelligence agencies, however, were of a different mind. Put mildly, they were less than pleased. Turf battles reached a fevered pitch. And Donovan found his COI more or less shunned.
After almost a year, FDR relented to the argument of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that highly sensitive military intelligence should not be evaluated by an organization outside the military. The President ordered that the COI become the Office of Strategic Services, complete with the ability to collect its own intel, and that Donovan report to General George Catlett Marshall, chairman of the JCS.
Now it was Wild Bill Donovan who made the expected noises to demonstrate his displeasure. But no more than necessary. Because, being a tough, intelligent, shrewd sonofabitch, he was well aware that his relationship with another tough, intelligent, shrewd sonofabitch really had not changed.
He would always have direct access to the President.
[FOUR]
Roosevelt watched as the tip of Donovan’s bamboo fishing rod flexed once more, then the line began screaming off its bulky reel.
Donovan quickly put his cocktail glass on the teak deck and pulled the rod butt from its holder.
“Told you,” FDR said with a chuckle, then in a mischievous tone added: “You never listen to me, Bill.”
“Please accept my sincere apology, Mr. President, sir,” Donovan said drily.
As he raised his rod, both men looked out behind the boat. Some fifty yards back they saw a silver flash at the end of the line—and a large fish broke the surface of the Potomac.
“Looks like it might be the nicest striper yet,” the President said with a smile, then bit down on the cigarette holder at the corner of his mouth and began reeling in his line to keep it from getting tangled with Donovan’s.
They had been trolling for almost two hours, and in that time both had hooked plenty of fish. Iced down in the cooler that had been hauled below to the galley, where the chef was preparing dinner, were eight nice-sized striped bass, each weighing between fifteen and twenty pounds. FDR had caught five, Donovan three.
Donovan, however, had hooked two other fish. Both had broken off—one in a spectacular display of defiance complete with great leaps and shakes of its head to throw the lure free—and the President was not going to let it be forgotten.
FDR glanced over, and needled him: “Seeing how big it is, if you can actually boat it, I’ll allow it to count as two—”
Just as he said that, the huge fish shook its head and threw the lure.
Donovan sighed. He looked at FDR, shrugged, then leaned back in his mahogany fishing chair. He returned the rod butt to its holder, retrieved his cocktail, and took a healthy sip.
Roosevelt, letting line on his reel unspool in order to reposition his lure, then casually said, “Any further word about your loose cannon’s actions in Sicily?”
Donovan knew that he was referring to Dick Canidy, and was about to snap: We’ve had this conversation, Frank, and he’s not a loose cannon!
But then he saw out of the corner of his eye that Roosevelt, watching his lure get smaller in the distance, was smiling. And he remembered that, when Donovan had defended Canidy as someone who more times than not got things done no matter the obstacles, FDR had replied that he’d heard others call Donovan his loose cannon, and felt the name was as unfair to Donovan as it was to Canidy.
Donovan believed that the OSS’s successes came from what he called a “calculated recklessness.” He preached—and personally practiced—not being afraid to make mistakes, because the OSS had to be unafraid of trying things that had not been tried before.
And Donovan believed that what Canidy had done on the Nazi-occupied island was a perfect example of what defined an OSS operator—secretly going behind enemy lines to smuggle out a Sicilian scientist, then finding that the Nazis had chemical and biological weapons of warfare there, and more or less single-handedly destroying them. All without feeling obligated to go up the chain of command, asking permission to do so—permission that, if not immediately denied, would be delayed for future (fill in the blank) “discussion,” “research,” et cetera, et cetera, until the window of opportunity to act was slammed shut.
“What happened with the nerve gas?” FDR pursued.
“I talked with Canidy in London,” Donovan began, ignoring the loose cannon comment. “This gets a little complicated—”
“Then talk slowly,” FDR interrupted. “I’ll try to keep up when I’m not catching your fish.”
Donovan couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Thank you, Mr. President. I do appreciate your magnanimity.”
He paused to gather his thoughts, then went on: “Okay, let me back up and bring in Allen Dulles. Among his many sources in Switzerland is a vice counsel of the German consulate in Zurich. That’s his cover—he’s actually working for Admiral Canaris in the Abwehr.”
“He’s a German intelligence officer posing as a diplomat?”
“Yes, at least as far as they want the Gestapo—and anyone else paying attention—to believe. What they don’t want anyone to discover is what Tiny really is—”
“Tiny?” Roosevelt interrupted again.
“That’s what Dulles calls Canaris’s agent behind his back, which apparently is enormous. Tiny is a giant of a man.”
“Does he have a real name?”
Donovan pretended not to hear the question, and instead said: “What Tiny really is, is a pipeline to those in Hitler’s High Command who believe the war is all but lost. Wilhelm Canaris is one, and posted him in Switzerland to reach out to the Allies. He went first to the Brits, but they dismissed him as untrustworthy, mostly due to him having been in the Gestapo. Then he approached Dulles, who cautiously took a chance. And it’s paid off. He fed us intel on von Braun. . . .”
He paused to see if Roosevelt recognized the name.
“The scientist who Hitler has building those self-powered bombs,” FDR said.
“. . . Wernher Magnus Maximilian von Braun,” Donovan confirmed. “Baron von Braun is brilliant. He’s building what they’re calling ‘aerial torpedoes’—flying bombs with pulse-jet engines and rockets fueled by alcohol and liquid oxygen—the ones that Goebbels is screaming will wipe out London as soon as this December. The intel says that von Braun also is a major player on the team that is developing jet engines for the Luftwaffe’s fighters. And because of the von Braun connection, we have been told that both projects are being carried out at the same site. That may or may not be the case, but regardless, we have yet to pinpoint any facility.”
Roosevelt puffed on his cigarette, exhaled, then said, “Churchill, while he’d never admit to it, is practically soiling his tartan shorts over London being attacked. If it’s only propaganda, then it’s damn effective.”
“I’m afraid it’s more than propaganda. Hitler is mad as hell and wants nothing more than to do to London what our bombs are doing to German cities. Especially if that can lead to the breaking of the Brits.”
FDR grunted. “A flying bomb suddenly blowing up in London—”
“Bombs plural, Frank,” Donovan interrupted. “Potentially hundreds at once. We know that these new aerial torpedoes are being tested. And, if the numbers are accurate, then they are capable of covering two hundred miles in under fifteen minutes. Which means they could launch from France and strike Big Ben—or anywhere in London; Canidy suggested Number Ten as a target—before anyone could begin to respond. And even if there was time, it’s practically impossible to intercept something going more than three thousand miles an hour.”
Roosevelt, ignoring the informality, nodded and said, “Three thousand miles an hour? Is that credible?”
“Call it half that, a third that. The fact is the self-propelled bombs—whatever their speed—are being developed. And each one is said to be able
to carry a ton of TNT.”
“Now, that would indeed strike terror,” FDR said, then was quiet as he pulled on his fishing pole, seemingly checking his lure.
Donovan went on: “There is another possibility with these aerial torpedoes that hasn’t been mentioned.”
“Another?” FDR turned. “What?”
“Canidy found in Sicily, you’ll recall, that one method of delivering the Tabun was with a howitzer round—”
“You’re suggesting,” FDR interrupted, “that that bastard Hitler now plans to put nerve gas in those flying torpedoes?”
When Donovan reported to Roosevelt that Canidy had discovered not only that the Germans had the capability to fire Tabun in 105mm shells from light field howitzers, causing death on a massive scale, but also that the SS continued a germ warfare experiment with yellow fever that had begun in the Dachau concentration camp, FDR had been furious.
Roosevelt adamantly did not want to fight a war using such cruel weapons. But he was prepared, as he’d threatened the Axis, “to retaliate in kind” should the enemy violate the Geneva Protocol that prohibited their use. To that end the President had ordered the U.S. Army to secretly produce tons of chemical warfare munitions at arsenals in Colorado and Arkansas, then stockpile them in secret locations.
“What I’m saying,” Donovan went on, “is that Canidy brought that up as a ‘what if’ when we spoke in London. As he said, ‘It’s possible, but is it probable?’”
Roosevelt took a long puff on his cigarette, then exhaled audibly.
“And that really would scare hell out of Churchill. And everyone else. But especially Winston. You know what he said . . .”
He met Donovan’s eyes.
Donovan said: “That if the Germans use it he would ‘in a moment float Berlin away on a cloud of mustard gas.’”
“And we’d have a helluva time stopping him from doing so,” FDR said.
“I’m not sure he’d have the opportunity to do so,” Donovan said bluntly, “not if London suddenly is leveled and its population dying from nerve gas.”
Roosevelt raised his right eyebrow, then said, “Good point. I’m surprised this was not discussed more during Churchill’s visit.” He paused, then added, his tone thickly sarcastic, “You don’t think that that was intentional on the Honorable Prime Minister’s part—that he didn’t want us to know what he might be doing about it?”
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had left Washington two days earlier, after having met with FDR for the Trident planning conference that covered the next strategic moves against Italy and Germany. Churchill now was en route to Algiers to meet with General Eisenhower.
“That certainly cannot be dismissed,” Donovan said. “Our cousins, while professing to be our equals in this war, conveniently keep a lot of things to themselves.”
“I’ve noticed,” FDR said drily.
“Whatever the case, it has to do with ‘the Prof.’ He has told Churchill that ‘it’s absolutely utterly impossible’ for anyone—and certainly not the Germans—to have developed such bombs. And because Churchill knows Professor Lindemann’s almost maniacal hatred of Hitler is unmatched, and that he would not underestimate the Nazis, Churchill believes him unquestionably. Therefore he doesn’t address it.”
The fifty-seven-year-old Frederick Lindemann, First Viscount Cherwell, was personal assistant to the prime minister. The highly opinionated physicist wielded an extraordinary influence as the chief adviser on all matters scientific.
“What I do know,” Donovan went on, “is that when David Bruce and I spoke with Ike in London, he shared his fear that if any of these new bombs hit there we can forget about any chance of staging the cross-channel invasion. Ike tried to go into France with Operation Roundup, but Churchill would have nothing to do with it because of War One—specifically the memory of sixty thousand Brits dead on the first day of the Somme Offensive still painfully fresh. I know that you are aware that that’s why Churchill pushed instead for this Italian Campaign, for the ‘soft underbelly.’ . . .”
Donovan looked for a long moment at FDR, until the President met his eyes and nodded.
“Frank, without Normandy we very likely could be facing the turning point in the war. Especially if Hitler bombs London and—”
“Damn it, Bill!” FDR interrupted, poking at him with his cigarette holder. “Don’t you go and start sounding like Joe Kennedy, too! This is not what I wanted to hear. . . .”
“You know that I’m not a goddamn defeatist, Frank. I agree with Ike; I know we can win this war. We have to win this war. And I’m telling you the truth about what you need to know, not what I think you want to hear. You’ll recall that that was why you said you put me in this job.”
FDR, silently staring off into the distance, puffed on his cigarette until it burned down to the holder. He turned back to Donovan and met his eyes.
“Do whatever necessary to stop those flying bombs, Bill. Keep Canidy on it—sounds like the perfect job for a loose cannon—and anyone else . . . everyone else.”
Donovan nodded. “As to the rockets, we’ve already been in contact with Professor Goddard—”
“The famous physicist? That Goddard?” He gestured toward the east. “Isn’t he over in Annapolis?”
“That’s the one. Robert H. Goddard. He has a lab in Annapolis, where he’s doing research for the Navy. Before the war, von Braun contacted Goddard, whose scientific papers he admired, to discuss the concepts of the building of rockets. Goddard has nothing but praise for von Braun—for his great ability as a scientist, that is.”
The President grunted, then took a sip of his cocktail.
“I started by asking about Sicily,” the President said. “Get back to that.”
Donovan said: “I know I’m probably repeating myself here, but in short, after Canidy blew up the yellow fever lab, he made sure that the cargo ship transporting the Tabun was destroyed. Specifically, it was sunk by torpedo.”
FDR nodded.
Donovan added: “There has been no known fallout from either event.”
“What I really want to know,” Roosevelt then said, gesturing give me more with his hand, “is what do we know about why the Tabun was in Sicily?”
Donovan said: “What we know comes from two sources. One, from Canidy, whose connections in Palermo had access to the SS office there. And, two, from the Abwehr, from Admiral Canaris’s agent Tiny, who told us that SS-Obersturmbannführer Oskar Kappler, the number two SS man in Messina, knew about all the SS operations on Sicily, including the secret plans for chemical and biological weapons. Their information was the same: that the gas was never meant to be used offensively. It was staged only for insurance.”
“Who exactly is this Kappler? Can his word be trusted?”
Donovan nodded again.
“We have no reason to doubt it. Kappler comes from a wealthy Ruhr Valley family with a lot to lose. Among other companies they own, Kappler Industrie GmbH is the chief provider of coke and other key engine-building materials to Mann and Daimler-Benz. His father, Wolfgang, was a business associate of Fritz Thyssen—”
“I know Thyssen,” Roosevelt interrupted. “He’s the steel industrialist.”
“Right.”
“Years ago he approached my cousin Teddy with a business deal in South America—you know how much time Teddy spent in that part of the world. Thyssen had—still has—companies all over, which turned out to be smart planning considering that Hitler nationalized his German companies, especially his steel plants in Ruhr. That was after Thyssen soured on Hitler’s vision of a Thousand-Year Reich and fled the country with his family. Teddy said that, despite the mistake of supporting Hitler early on, he was a decent man.”
“Well, it all ties in,” Donovan went on, “because Canaris also is tight with Wolffy Kappler. I would say that Kappler wants his businesses operating again during peacetime—as well as ending the destruction of the Fatherland—and would be willing to help Canaris and his group take out H
itler to accomplish that. And, failing that, to help Canaris land on his feet after the Thousand-Year Reich collapses. Before the war, Thyssen had been seen with Wolffy Kappler inspecting the industrial docks at Buenos Aires.”
“Is that so? Now, that’s interesting. Argentina was one of the countries Teddy said was involved in Thyssen’s business offer.”
“That would not surprise me; there is a lot of interest in quote neutral unquote Argentina. But getting back to the Tabun. SS-Obersturmbannführer Kappler had no intention of allowing the gas munitions to be used—and hid them—because, we believe, he doesn’t want the war to become any worse—he, too, believes it’s all but over—and because he’s making plans to get the hell out of Dodge.”
“Explaining his father being sighted in Argentina.”
“Exactly.”
“Let’s just hope that’s the case with all the other stockpiles of Tabun.”
“We can try and find out,” Donovan said.
“Do it. You’re one of the few I can tell, Bill, that that gas scares the hell out of me. Even the gas we’re stockpiling. One mistake and . . .”
Donovan nodded solemnly.
“We’re already working on it, Mr. President.”
“Okay, now what is it you said you wanted to tell me about Poland?”
Donovan reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out two folded sheets. He unfolded them, then handed them to FDR.
“You can see for yourself.”
The President looked at it and began reading:
* * *
TOP SECRET
30MAY43 1000
FOR OSS WASHINGTON
EYES ONLY GEN DONOVAN
FROM OSS LONDON
BEGIN QUOTE
OUR SOURCE SAYS SAUSAGEMAKER AND TEAM SPENT FOUR DAYS RECONNING AREA AND FACILITY NEAR BLIZNA. CONSTRUCTION OF CONCENTRATION CAMP -- WHICH APPEARS ALMOST HALF COMPLETE -- IS OVERSEEN BY ELEMENTS OF SS USING FORCED LABOR. THESE PRISONERS, DIVERTED FROM SS-RUN CONCENTRATION CAMPS, ARE STARVED AND WORKED TO THEIR DEATH. BOXCARS BRING NEW PRISONERS EVERY OTHER DAY.
The Spymasters: A Men at War Novel Page 8