The Accidental Agent

by Andrew Rosenheim

  Guttman wished he could have got a better feel for what Fermi’s scientists were doing. Groves had cut short Fermi’s scientific explanations of atoms and energy, and focused on logistics – how many employees, where did they live, how many knew the true import of their work, and how many were immigrants (especially from Germany)? That was the way Groves’s mind worked. Learn what the problem was, allocate resources, drive your staff hard, and see the job home. Simple as that. It made him simultaneously insufferable and impressive, and it was how the Pentagon had got built.

  But unless it was a construction project you were running, life tended to be more complicated when people were involved. Fermi’s reactions had been hard to read, but Guttman had watched Nessheim’s aversion for Groves grow from the moment they met. Groves was too imperious and offhand; for all his easy-going manner, Nessheim had never been one to be pushed around.

  He worried about which way Nessheim would jump, and deep down doubted the agent would agree to help. But was he really going to hide himself in Contracts and Jurisprudence while the world was at battle? In fairness, the guy had been through the wars before the rest of America had even heard a shot fired in anger. Guttman wished he’d seen Nessheim alone. Groves wouldn’t have a clue how to find a spy.

  If there were a spy. He thought of the meeting that had triggered his trip to Chicago. Marie had taken the call. ‘It’s Justice Frankfurter’s office.’ Guttman had been asked by the clerk to meet the Justice at his home, an elegant Georgian-style house on Dumbarton Avenue. Guttman’s neighbour Annie Ryerson worked half-days as the Justice’s secretary for non-judicial business, but fortunately she hadn’t been there on the day of Guttman’s visit – it was nice having her as a neighbour, but it would have been awkward to find her at work, steno pad in hand.

  Guttman had climbed the stairs up to the main floor of the house, where the maid had answered the door and led him to the small study where Frankfurter worked at home. It was furnished by Frankfurter’s favourite interior decorator – his wife – with oriental rugs on the buff-coloured carpet, a small French walnut writing desk, and hand-coloured lithographs of nineteenth-century Washington. Behind the desk hung a photograph of Roosevelt shaking Frankfurter’s hand two years before, after Congress had reluctantly approved his nomination to the Supreme Court.

  Guttman wondered why the judge wanted to see him. It sounded important; on the phone his secretary at the Court had been insistent on an early date. Though Frankfurter was physically unprepossessing – almost tiny, with a friendly rather than handsome face – Guttman was always impressed by him, sometimes uneasily so. The Justice cut an elegant figure with his sleek white hair combed straight back. He wore beautifully tailored three-piece suits, bespoke shirts, an old-fashioned tie pin, and handmade shoes always buffed to a high shine. These vanities were nonetheless belied by an unaffected manner, which suggested that he would leave other people to take him seriously. Though he also seemed to assume they would.

  Their relationship originated in a common concern for the plight of Jews in Europe. They had met through charity dinners, which provided a useful cover for their further dealings: as a Supreme Court Justice, Frankfurter had no business pursuing what critics would see as a partisan effort to bring yet more immigrants to America; similarly, Guttman was proscribed by his post at the Bureau from activities that could be construed as ‘political’. But they did what they could – Frankfurter through his closeness with the President, who had a famous soft spot for the Jews; Guttman by gathering information from contacts in British intelligence and from Switzerland, about the only European country left where intelligence was not Gestapo-controlled or suborned. Not that the Swiss were naturally disposed to help; they were simply neutral businessmen, happy to reward the occasional ‘donation’ from a Jewish welfare organisation located safely in the country’s cantons with information that no Jewish (or come to that, Allied) institution could amass on its own.

  That morning Frankfurter greeted Guttman with a brisk handshake and ushered him to one of the pair of green-and-white damask armchairs positioned by the small fireplace. Above its mantelpiece hung a lovely pen-and-ink drawing of Mrs Frankfurter as a young woman. ‘My family didn’t have their portrait painted,’ the Justice had once complained tartly. Like Guttman, he had married outside the faith, though there the resemblance ended: Frankfurter’s wife was from an ancient Yankee family; Guttman’s Isabel the daughter of Polish Catholic immigrants.

  As they sat down Guttman saw a tiny wooden rocking horse in a corner of the room. Noticing him looking, Frankfurter laughed. ‘One of the Gates girls’.’ Guttman nodded, remembering that three English children had stayed with the Frankfurters for several months during the Blitz, until their mother had come over to reclaim them. Frankfurter’s associations were so often with the great and the good that there was something touching about this personal philanthropy.

  Frankfurter got down to business right away. ‘Thank you for seeing the fellow in Berkeley. The President and Vannevar Bush are both very grateful.’

  ‘He’s a remarkable man.’ Guttman had been impressed by Robert Oppenheimer.

  ‘He is. From what Bush tells me, he’s not at Einstein’s level as a scientist, but that’s like saying DiMaggio’s not the equal of Babe Ruth. He’s won the Nobel Prize after all, so any other scientist will have to respect him.’

  Guttman said, ‘You told me there had been doubts raised about his politics. I looked into that, and I have to tell you that he’s had some iffy acquaintances. But there’s no evidence he would ever be disloyal.’

  ‘You sure of that?’

  ‘As much as you can ever be.’ Hoover saw Reds under almost every bed, but Guttman’s inquiries suggested Oppenheimer’s problems were in the bed itself. He had an exotic love life, and some of his paramours (not to mention his wife) had strong connections with Communist Party members. But the two hours he’d spent with Oppenheimer had convinced Guttman that the man’s worst political sin was naivety.

  Frankfurter said calmly, ‘The military people don’t agree with you.’

  ‘I know that. And I’m giving you my own opinion, not the official one of the Bureau. The Director might not share my view.’

  ‘He probably wouldn’t, but it’s not his opinion the White House wanted,’ Frankfurter said with a touch of acerbity. ‘You mentioned last time that you were worried security had been compromised at the Bureau.’

  ‘I think it may still be a problem.’

  ‘Another Nazi effort?’

  ‘No, it’s not the Nazis who are doing the infiltrating.’

  ‘I don’t think you mean the Japanese.’ Frankfurter’s eyes widened. ‘If I understand what you are suggesting, I doubt that very much. Those people are our allies now. They wouldn’t dare threaten the relationship.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ He found the man’s innocence startling.

  ‘My view isn’t important,’ said Frankfurter with deceptive mildness, since he added more sharply, ‘but the President’s is. He wants everyone focused on fighting the Nazis and the Japs, not investigating our allies. Why, just the other day he had somebody tell him that one of my former clerks – he’s in the State Department now – was a Russian agent. The President sent him packing with a flea in his ear. Worth remembering that.’

  Guttman accepted the rebuff in silence. He had hoped to take things further with Frankfurter, feeling that if he could enlist the Justice and perhaps even the President on this issue, he’d have a useful ally should Hoover ever discover his own suspicions. Now this prospect had evaporated. So what did Frankfurter want from him?

  ‘Your opinion of Oppenheimer is important because he’s being given a big job. Technically, you’re not supposed to know anything about it. Hoover doesn’t, and I don’t want that to change.’ It was said amiably enough, but there was a warning in his voice.

  Guttman was intrigued now. ‘I’ll keep shtum,’ he said. Frankfurter chuckled. ‘You can take the boy out of the L
ower East Side, but not the Lower East Side out of the boy.’

  Guttman smiled politely. Frankfurter had grown up near Delancey Street, a few blocks from Guttman’s own childhood home, and both of them had attended the local grade school, P.S. 25. Each had left that world far behind, though Guttman’s progress in life was unremarkable compared to Frankfurter’s star-like ascension.

  ‘Let’s have some coffee,’ said Frankfurter, ‘and then I’ll tell you why I asked you here.’ He picked up a small silver bell with a bone handle and gave it a shake. ‘I never used one of these on Hester Street,’ he said.

  The maid came in with a tray, and then while Guttman munched a dainty biscuit and juggled his cup and saucer on one knee, Frankfurter briefed him.

  Three years earlier a letter had arrived at the White House, delivered by an acquaintance of the President’s named Alexander Sachs. ‘A landsman,’ Frankfurter acknowledged, ‘and a good enough fellow, if a bit of an operator.’ Guttman almost choked on his biscuit; Frankfurter was the operator par excellence: countless numbers of Washington bureaucrats owed their jobs to him.

  Frankfurter explained that the letter was written by Albert Einstein, who wanted to alert the President to a matter of national importance. Recent scientific advances had suggested that it could be possible to set up a controlled nuclear reaction, using large quantities of the element uranium, which would release vast amounts of energy. This in turn would allow the construction of a bomb larger than anything previously thought possible. It would have the destructive power of 20,000 tons of TNT and be capable of wiping out a major city.

  Frankfurter said, ‘I don’t think we have to concern ourselves with the scientific details.’ He paused and smiled. ‘Mainly because I don’t understand them.’

  ‘Was Einstein saying we should build such a weapon?’

  ‘Yes, but not because he thought it was a good thing to do. I think Einstein felt we had to follow this up, simply because if we didn’t the Germans would get there first.’

  ‘Have we done that?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ And Frankfurter explained that a project of unprecedented size was under way, at locations all over the United States. ‘Though the advisers are starting to think we should centralise our efforts in one location. They are waiting for the results of a particular experiment going on in Chicago – it’s being directed by an Italian physicist named Enrico Fermi. If it’s successful, then we’ll know this can be done. We’ll be able to build a bomb. An atomic bomb.’

  ‘Just how far along are the Germans?’ Guttman asked. Frankfurter explained that nobody knew for sure. The Nazis had lost a tremendous amount of expertise when Jewish scientists fled, but considerable talent remained, as well as a dedication to destruction which the West so far didn’t share. Until recently, many scientists in the United States had been acting as if there wasn’t a war going on – the scientific community was used to being an open book and had a long tradition of transparency. It was only now that they were managing to keep scientists from publishing papers about their work on the project. ‘God knows what secrets their colleagues in Germany have gleaned just by reading the journals.’ He shook his head wearily.

  ‘Enough to catch up with us?’

  ‘Let’s hope not,’ said Frankfurter. ‘But that’s where our problems begin.’

  The scientists at work on this new project were a tremendously mixed bag. Many were refugees from Europe, and the impetus for the whole shebang, as Frankfurter called it with obvious relish, had come from America’s most famous immigrant, Einstein, and another eminent scientist, a Hungarian Jew named Leo Szilard. If you counted the heads at the various labs already engaged with the project – in Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, and soon Tennessee – there were hundreds of people involved. Security was tight, and everyone involved seemed to understand the need to keep the project secret. ‘People aren’t even telling their wives,’ said Frankfurter in wonder.

  ‘Have they all been checked out?’

  ‘Yes – by the Military Intelligence Division.’

  ‘That sounds okay.’

  ‘Does it now?’ Frankfurter asked. ‘The MID concluded this man Fermi was a fascist.’

  ‘Is he?’

  Frankfurter snorted. ‘He had to leave Italy because his wife is Jewish, so I doubt he thinks a lot of Mussolini. MID claimed Szilard was a fascist too. A somewhat extreme judgement, in my view, since Szilard got Einstein to write the letter in the first place. Why would a Nazi want to do that?’ He added acidly, ‘Especially a Jewish one.’

  ‘Why wasn’t the FBI involved?’

  ‘It was. The MID findings were so patently absurd that we asked the Bureau to do its own checks. But Hoover merely confirmed what Military Intelligence had to say. I suppose he didn’t want a ruckus with the MID.’

  Guttman wasn’t surprised; Hoover didn’t like fighting battles he might lose. But then who did? The Justice continued. ‘Anyway, this project has the code name Manhattan, but the problem’s said to be in Chicago, where work is going on at the university. The worry is that there may be a Nazi agent who’s been infiltrated into the team there.’

  ‘How did we find this out?’

  ‘I don’t know precisely. This all comes from Harry Hopkins, so that’s the horse’s mouth as far as I’m concerned. Hopkins said the President was absolutely insistent that this be followed up. So I asked you to come and see me.’

  Did the President really believe the Nazis had a spy in Chicago? It seemed improbable to Guttman. But he didn’t press this – Frankfurter could be quick to take offence, as prickly if challenged as he was emollient when making the effort to charm. And the Justice’s belief in Roosevelt was unshakeable, outdone only by his belief in himself.

  Frankfurter scratched one cheek thoughtfully. ‘The White House has appointed a man named Groves to run this entire project. He understands the seriousness of this information, and accepts that MID are the last people we want traipsing around the scientists. Yet we do need someone to look into the operation in Chicago.’

  ‘So you want the Bureau to do it?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ He turned his hazel eyes on Guttman. ‘When Director Hoover ran security checks on the scientists, he wasn’t told what the scientists were working on.’ When Guttman looked surprised, Frankfurter added, ‘You said yourself security may have been compromised at the Bureau.’

  Guttman wondered where this was leading. ‘If you don’t want military security and you don’t want the Bureau, what’s left?’ The Chicago Police Department, he was tempted to say, but he knew the Justice liked to make the jokes.

  ‘I was thinking of another alternative. The President knows you’ve played an important role in … certain matters in the past, and he knows you’re someone he can trust.’

  Flattery will get you everywhere, thought Guttman, determined to resist it nonetheless. ‘I can’t exactly up stakes and move to Chicago,’ he said.

  Frankfurter gave an understanding smile. ‘No one’s expecting you to. But the last time we met, you mentioned that young agent who was involved before.’

  ‘Nessheim?’

  ‘That’s the one. Miss Ryerson knew him, I believe.’ Frankfurter’s face showed the hint of a smile. ‘I have the feeling she was sweet on him – or maybe he was sweet on her.’

  Guttman merely nodded.

  ‘You said he was in Chicago, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Guttman.

  ‘Annie said he’d left the Bureau to go to law school.’

  ‘That’s what he thinks,’ said Guttman.

  There was a sudden sound of a chime scale coming from the corridor, and Guttman’s reverie was broken. ‘Second sitting for dinner,’ the dining-car waiter called out.

  Guttman got up and went into the compartment’s tiny bathroom, where he washed his hands and face, then looked in the mirror. He hadn’t shaved very well that morning, but then his five o’clock shadow started to show by lunchtime whatever he did. He straightened his tie as
best he could, brushed dandruff off his shoulder that turned out to be chalk. As he went out into the corridor, he heard the Pullman porter say clearly from one end, ‘He’s in Room D.’

  Guttman was in D. But when he walked down the corridor whoever had been asking was gone. Maybe they had meant the next car.

  The dining car was filling up but the steward found him a seat at a table for four that was occupied only by an elderly lady, sitting rigidly upright by the window. She was dressed for dinner, in a simple black wool dress and a solitary cameo pin for jewellery. When Guttman sat down across from her she gave a curt nod.

  Guttman said, ‘Evening. I hope you don’t mind my joining you.’

  ‘I can’t expect a table all to myself,’ she said, with the clipped tones of the New Englander. Guttman could see it: Vermont bred and born, a Congregationalist churchgoer with a life of few fripperies and fewer words, sustained by $1 million in government bonds held in an old shoebox, tucked away under the back stairs of her large Federalist house.

  The waiter, in a spotless white jacket and black bow tie, came and handed him the menu, then asked if he’d like a cocktail. ‘Only got rye if you’d like a highball, sir,’ the waiter said. ‘There’s gin as well.’

  ‘Give me a beer,’ said Guttman, ignoring his table companion’s small frown. When the waiter went away he examined the menu. Dinner cost $2.00, though service personnel got 10 per cent off and parents could share their portions with children. He was told to Eat Fast and to Buy Victory Bonds and Stamps. For the entrée, there was a choice of Spring Lamb Steak Sautéed, Fried Spring Chicken Maryland, Boston Pot Roast, or Creamed Fresh Shrimp. Guttman had hoped for Prime Rib, but beef rationing was making choice cuts scarce.

  He decided on Hot Clam Bouillon to start, followed by Pot Roast. He picked up the pad and pencil by his plate and wrote down his order. It was an old-fashioned system to keep waiters from stealing – otherwise a customer would ask for the T-bone steak, the waiter would write down the order as a salad bowl, charge the customer for the steak, pay the railroad for the salad bowl, and pocket the difference.