The Irregulars

by Jennet Conant

  According to Bryce, after looking over his sketches, it occurred to Stephenson to try to pull a fast one and plant a fake map in a known German safe house on the southern coast of Cuba, where Nazi agents stored radio equipment used for signaling U-boats in the area. Stephenson then planned to tip the FBI, which would promptly raid the Nazi outpost and fall upon “a monster prize.” Bryce could only speculate on the immense value of such a find, especially when it came to sounding the alarm in America, which still felt safely removed from the Nazi threat: “Were a German map of this kind to be discovered or captured from enemy hands and publicized among the good neighbors themselves, and above all among the ‘America Firsters’ with their belief that America could get along with Hitler, what a commotion would be caused.”

  One of Bryce’s trial maps was immediately given over to Station M, the BSC’s technical facilities in Canada, where Eric Maschwitz ran a chemical laboratory and photograph studio, and had the ability to fabricate images, such as atrocity pictures, and to “reprint faultlessly the imprint of any typewriter on earth.” Forty-eight hours later Maschwitz and his team of experts had created an authentic-looking German map, slightly worn and discolored from frequent use, which, Bryce marveled, even “the Reich’s chief mapmakers for the German High Command would be prepared to swear was made by them.”

  On this occasion, Stephenson may have outdone himself, passing the forgery on to Donovan, who gave it to Roosevelt. On March 11, 1941, the president made a dramatic announcement during his Navy Day radio address, revealing that he had proof that Hitler’s plans for conquest extended across the Atlantic Ocean. “I have in my possession a secret map,” he solemnly intoned, “made in Germany by Hitler’s government—by the planners of the new world. It is a map of South America and a part of Central America as Hitler proposes to reorganize it.” Roosevelt went on to describe the principal features of the map, including the Panama Canal, “our great life line,” and Germany’s plan to carve the region up into five vassal states. “That map, my friends, makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States as well.” Bryce’s map, which had been produced rather than procured by the BSC, was held up to the nation as one of the “grim truths” of Hitler’s future plans and demanded a response. Americans, Roosevelt declared, were “pledged to pull our oar in the destruction of Hitlerism.”

  From the BSC’s point of view, the map was a daring gambit that resulted in a propaganda coup. As expected, the German government responded to Roosevelt’s radio broadcast by angrily denouncing the document as a fraud. The Italian government immediately demanded that unless the president published the map within twenty-four hours, Roosevelt would acquire “a sky-high reputation as a forger.” Their furious protests only served to make the phony document appear more real. At a press conference the following day, FDR declined to make his “secret map” available, assuring reporters that it came from “a source that is undoubtedly reliable.” Bryce, who was sure the president’s speech was inspired by his invention, was amazed by the impact of the broadcast. “The item was made full use of by the media,” he recalled, “and gave distasteful but unanswerable food for thought to the many who believed that European wars could have no influence on the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere.”

  While the map’s true origin was not discovered at the time, Adolf Berle strongly suspected that Stephenson and his boys were behind it. Another document cited by Roosevelt in the same speech, supposedly detailing a Nazi plan to abolish all the world’s religions, seemed equally spurious. Berle knew that the BSC specialized in manufacturing fake documents, and the written proof outlining German plans for world domination struck Berle as a bit too convenient. In a memorandum forwarded to Cordell Hull, Berle warned that Americans should be “on our guard” against these “false scares” concocted by the British. Only a month earlier, Berle had written a detailed memorandum enumerating the potential dangers of the British operation being run by the “security co-ordinator” Mr. William S. Stephenson, arguing that it was developing into “a full size secret police and intelligence service” and was supported by shadow force of “regularly employed secret agents and a much larger number of informers, etc.”

  Looking ahead, Berle worried that in any number of conceivable wartime scenarios—if Britain fell to the Germans, and they were faced with a new hostile occupation government; or some mission went wrong and their activities were exposed—this unofficial band of spies could prove a real liability. “I have good reason to believe that a good many things done are probably in violation of the espionage acts,” he warned, adding with lawyerly caution, “We should be on very dubious grounds if we have not taken appropriate steps.” When he learned that Stephenson had succeeded in having his position in the United States formalized as director of security coordination, Berle was not pleased: “It’s a bad title—& worse to talk about. I would shut up and watch it.” In the months that followed, Berle grew increasingly hostile toward the BSC’s interference on American soil and began leading the effort, with Hoover’s quiet encouragement, to discontinue the British spy unit.

  Despite these turf battles with American authorities, the BSC continued its special operations. Over the spring and summer of 1941, Fleming was afforded a rare glimpse into the hidden workings of the organization, with Stephenson acting as his personal tour guide in its subterranean labyrinths. Before returning to London, Fleming was permitted to observe an active operation and was a spectator at a BSC-staged break-in at the Japanese consul general’s office, conveniently located on the thirty-fourth floor in Rockefeller Center. In the course of a single night, Stephenson’s men gained entry with the help of the janitor and managed to crack the safe and make microfilm copies of the codebooks, which contained ciphers the Japanese had been using to transmit messages to Tokyo by short-wave radio. Before morning, everything in the safe was returned to its exact place, and there was no sign they had ever been there. Fleming would never forget the episode, filing it away as one of the more thrilling adventures of his wartime service, though he knew full well that Stephenson considered it strictly routine.*

  Stephenson allowed Fleming privileges far above his rank. He invited him to his penthouse, which for all practical purposes was a safe house, where he held court in an elegant two-storied drawing room with an enormous fireplace and regularly gathered the grand and near-grand of the British High Command. Among those who could be found there, at various times, were General Lord Ismay, the prime minister’s defense chief of staff; Major General Sir Colin Gubbins, chief of the Special Operations Executive; Lord Beaverbrook; and many others. It was there that he introduced Fleming to the handful of figures in his inner circle, including Ernest Cuneo, Donovan’s personal liaison between British intelligence, the White House, and the FBI. It was at a party at Stephenson’s that Cuneo observed the young naval attaché’s “all but blind adoration” for the quiet Canadian, noting that it was evident even then that “William was one of the very few firm and brilliant stars in the heavens of Ian Fleming.”

  Fleming immediately engaged Cuneo in a typical Anglo-American exchange, characterized by a spirited verbal sparring that gave the British an opportunity to test the ground and take the measure of their opposite numbers. According to Cuneo, most of their wartime conversations, even on the gravest matters, were carried on in this manner, with a combination of sporty bravado and slightly patronizing maliciousness, “all against an atmosphere of merriest and warmest friendship.” There, in the soft gloom wreathed with the smoke of their cigarettes, they traded secrets vital to the security of their agents, operations, and troops on land and sea. It was a game, but there was a war on, and as played by these calculating men, it was for keeps. To Cuneo, who negotiated Stephenson’s Dorset drawing room as gingerly as a debutante at a spring ball, it all went to prove the old Shaw adage that America and England were two countries “separated by a common language.”

  A latecomer to the club, Dahl, like Fleming and Bryce,
was destined to become another of Stephenson’s trusted subordinates—one of his “special boys”—held in reserve and carefully groomed until needed. They were the BSC’s blue-eyed social butterflies, meant to use their charm and guile to feel out what the other side was thinking, convey messages between principals without creating any unnecessary awkwardness, and in general help smooth the way. In the ancient art of diplomacy, the go-between always played an important role. “Bill knew this very well,” said Dahl. “That’s why he planted fellows like me.”

  SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS

  He’s a killer with women.

  —PATRICIA NEAL

  DAHL WAS MAKING A name for himself as a writer, enjoying an eventful and productive war, and having by his own account “a roaring time.” Washington’s bustling, affluent society seemed largely unaffected by wartime restrictions, and he happily drank, dined, and hobnobbed away his evenings. All the luxuries that had long since disappeared from shelves back home were easily procurable. There was fresh fruit and steaks, and champagne was plentiful. He was untroubled by the inconveniences that irked local residents, whether it was the overcrowding caused by the influx of government workers, the shortage of accommodations, or the long lines at the lunchrooms and cafeterias. The complainants did not have his memories of RAF canteens, horrendous chow, and hard bunks. They could not share his simple pleasure, after finally gaining a counter stool, of digging into a plate of bacon and eggs. Even when beer was rationed, he was perfectly content to roam from bar to bar in the quaint cobblestoned district, wandering home late at night under the dimmed streetlights—one of the few visible signs of belt-tightening in the capital—that gave off the faint amber glow of a flashlight with a dying battery.

  He was comfortably ensconced in a small Georgetown house at 1610 34th Street, which was sandwiched in a row of faded-brick Federal-style buildings on a narrow tree-lined street. The two-story building, which had three separate though otherwise identical entrances, had seen better days, and he shared his sliver with a Lieutenant Richard Miles, an assistant naval attaché at the embassy. Miles had been sent to Washington by the British Information Service and was a delegate to the International Student Service Assembly. He had been badly wounded in action and had required surgery to have one ear reattached. The operation had left him with a long scar, though it did not make him any less attractive—or appealing to the ladies. In a town woefully short of men since the war began, the two eligible young officers were in great demand and never lacked for invitations. “They were having a ball,” recalled Antoinette. “They were big British war heroes, you know, the toast of town. And Roald was a very good flirt. Girls were crazy about him. He had all the hostesses eating out of his hand. The ambassador sent him to the parties to see how things were going, and sound people out.”

  With the playgrounds of Europe closed to tourists, moneyed society was forced to stay home, and Washington was brimming with wealthy dowagers and their bored, unmarried daughters. They took houses in Georgetown or large estates in Bethesda, hired social secretaries and huge staffs, and devoted themselves to throwing what the Washington Post’s gossip columnist Hope Ridings Miller dubbed “parties for a purpose”—for they also serve who only stand and pass the punch. Socialites, busy planning their wardrobes and weekly soirées, frantically sent messengers around town with their calling cards and complained of the agonizing pressures of aiding the war effort. Capital society was the American court, complete with its own courtiers, pretenders to the throne, and inevitable hangers-on. In a city where position mattered more than personality, even the most soporific government official counted as “somebody,” and the humblest embassy attaché—such as Dahl himself, who at home might be considered only marginally acceptable—rated a mention in the Social Register. Guest lists centered on the White House, Congress, the State Department, and foreign embassies, and a surprising amount of business, along with more intimate transactions, was negotiated across the dinner table.

  Washington was still a small, provincial southern town in many respects, and the men who ran the government moved with ease and confidence from the capital’s conference rooms to the drawing rooms of prominent figures who lived nearby. From the start of the war, the city’s leading social powers had been uncorking champagne and spooning caviar in an effort to lure the eminent men from finance, industry, science, and academe who had descended on Washington to take up government posts. These “dollar-a-year men” ran virtually every wartime agency and were highly desirable game in a town populated with determined climbers of one kind of another. Potomac matrons, old and new money alike, competed to see who could corner more of these important targets, and there were all sorts of stories about the lobbying and scheming that went on to secure the most coveted RSVPs. Marsh considered some of these high-profile ladies to be little more than low-grade “racketeers.” After a weekend in New York, where he kept an apartment in the Hotel St. Moritz, he came back ranting about Elsa Maxwell, the original “hostess with the mostest,” and told Dahl she was in fact “paid to throw parties” and took a 10 percent commission. La Maxwell was a successful former actress, composer, and syndicated columnist who hosted a weekly radio show called, of all things, Party Line, in which she dispensed quantities of mindless fluff along with the occasional political insight. Based on her dubious claim to fame, she had become a preeminent Republican party-giver and had staged two well-attended events in honor of Wendell Willkie, with the bills reportedly footed by wealthy New York backers. Marsh was fit to be tied.

  To these patriotic ladies, Dahl, with his conspicuous charm and reputation as a rising literary star, was a much sought-after guest. They commented on his lanky good looks, comparing him flatteringly to Henry Fonda and Gary Cooper. Dahl basked in their fawning attentions. He played the innocent abroad, allowing himself to be courted by rich older women, and did his best to keep them entertained with tales of his escapades in Hollywood. A gifted conversationalist, he related to everyone he talked to in a direct, personal way, remembering names and special interests. As Susan Mary (Mrs. William) Patten drily observed in a letter to her friend* Joseph Alsop, the New York Herald Tribune columnist who had enlisted in the navy and was stationed in China, “Dahl, an R.A.F. man whom you may have met here—is a dark broody creature who invented the gremlims [sic] and has done some other writing and is much loved by the ladies….”

  In his brief time at the British Embassy, Dahl had managed to become a favorite with the hard-partying Washington press corps, a development that seemed to please both sets of bosses—official and unofficial. From the embassy’s point of view, the newspaper publishers, along with the editors and journalists in their employ, had unparalleled power to mobilize public opinion, and it was useful to gauge their sympathies and, whenever possible, influence them toward support of Britain and the war.

  Dahl’s BSC contact shared this view but indicated that any insight that could be gleaned from prominent members of the press about internal American politics—especially the privately expressed views of the president, say, or any of his cabinet members or close advisers—would be of great value in certain high offices in London.

  Newspapermen generally know much more than they print, and the BSC regarded them as a prolific source of intelligence: “The truth is that the majority of American politicians, not excluding Cabinet ministers, are willing to supply influential members of the press with ‘inside’ information in return for favorable publicity,” the official history states. “Such information is, of course, usually handed out under pledge of secrecy—to be used as ‘background material’ and not for publication. But it is given out nonetheless,” and, as the BSC had discovered, it contained “much material of political interest” as well as “secrets of vital importance.”

  All Dahl had to do was keep up a cheerful front and eavesdrop his way though the yawning Sunday breakfasts, hunt breakfasts, luncheons, teas, tea dances, innumerable drinks parties, banquets, and not infrequent balls. Incredibly, Washington
ians could squeeze three or more of these events into a single day. He was to listen to what was being said, chat up the politicians and policy makers he met along the way, and obtain as much firsthand information as possible on their attitude toward Britain and U.S. participation in the war. He was to be as engaging as possible, a bright and breezy presence at table, and encourage confidences from those in the know. An attentive dinner partner could always pluck, from among all the war talk and congressional scuttlebutt, the occasional pearl.

  As far as doing any actual work along the lines of counterespionage, all that it actually entailed was keeping a watchful eye on Britain’s enemies in the capital, principally the leading isolationists, who agitated against the crumbling empire, funded influential pro-German organizations such as the America First Committee and the German American Bund, and in some cases continued to do business with Germany on the basis that the Third Reich would soon dominate all of Europe. Dahl was to keep track of various conservative politicians and journalists who sympathized with these front groups and the lunatic isolationist fringe, monitor where they went and who their friends were, and ponder ways they might be publicly embarrassed and discredited. There were a variety of ways of attacking isolationists and Nazi sympathizers. If, for example, their unsavory past were to come to light or salacious rumors of an affair wound up in the gossip columns, that might serve to undermine an individual’s prestige and influence. He was also expected to help spread disinformation, a nifty wartime euphemism for deliberately supplying false statements in aid of a higher truth. These might be pure invention or based an half-truths culled from intercepted letters and secretly opened diplomatic mail. The British had found that their efforts at disinformation were often most effective when promulgated on the cocktail circuit. A lie repeated often enough by important public people soon took on the ring of truth.