Rockefeller nodded, poker-faced, waiting while the servant cleared. “Tell me, what’s Schröder doing? Prescott Bush over at Brown Brothers is jumping up and down, telling me we should be looking for a bank that’ll go both ways.”
“Well, sure,” Allen agreed, warming to his theme. “Nothing new. The big German industrialists started doing it in 1917, the smart ones, August Thyssen among ’em, getting the ownership paperwork into neutral cloaks to beat the Armistice reparations claims. His son Fritz has made an art of it, used the money to put Hitler in power, bought and paid for—thinks he’s entitled to a break on the Nazi tax rates. I hear Fritz got his real profits stashed offshore, well away from the Nazi tax auditors. Someplace convenient, I hear, like Brussels or Amsterdam.”
Rockefeller thumbed through the file again, thinking. “And after a war?”
“The neutral paperwork is your safety valve. When you’re ready, you lift the cloaks and there are the profits, safe and sound, ready to repatriate. And it means you can move oil profits around easily too, from neutral to neutral. Handy if you’ve got patent or dividend outflows in harm’s way.”
Rockefeller held Allen with a steady gaze. “What’s the risk?”
“Waiting. We know a little from the inside about how alien property issues play out, you see. Foster helped run the Alien Property Commissioner’s office in 1917.” Allen shook his head slowly, feeling his belly pressing against his waistband. “And we have Washington wired on cloaking matters, right down to the committee tablings—that’s our bread and butter down there. The existing language is appendix three. If you want a second opinion about the details of moving profits offshore, there’s Fletcher at Polk, Davis.”
“Something this big, count on it. Who else you doing this for?”
“That’s privileged,” Allen murmured, “but run a few big Fortune 100 names past me.”
Rockefeller listed a half dozen household names of American industry and finance. Allen merely smiled.
Then, abruptly, the evening was over. Rockefeller stood, flicking his napkin aside. “Fine. Draw up the papers,” he ordered, “then you walk me through them. You must excuse me, Allen. I’ve got another appointment.” He gestured Allen to the richly polished doors. “Now, why don’t you and the boys move Sullivan and Cromwell uptown to our new center? Give you a hell of a deal on the rent. And your staff’ll love the offices. I helped design ’em myself. Lots of light, lots of space, air conditioning, fast elevators. Won’t find a better office in the city … or the world, for that matter.”
Allen chuckled ruefully. “I’d move in a flash, you know me.”
Nelson laughed and nodded as he walked Allen out. “Well, if you fellows change your mind, you know where to call.” He stopped and patted Allen on the shoulder. “Best to Foster and your wife. See you at the yacht club this weekend?”
“Should do,” Allen said, allowing the butler to help him into his overcoat. “We’re racing, give old Smithson a run for his money if we get the right wind. Remember me to Mary.”
Nelson closed the door as Allen left, turned and opened a side door to a small sitting room with a view of Broadway, bright with lights. There, jammed lankily into an exquisite Hepplewhite chair, Prescott Bush grinned; to his left, bent over the backgammon board, considering his next move, sat the poker-faced Dutch banker Renni Schippers—two moneymen in the anteroom of a prince.
“Whose wife is he after now?” Bush asked, not looking up, a cigarette in his mouth.
“Now, now,” Nelson said, “let’s not give Allen a bad reputation in front of our Dutch guest.”
“I know all about Mr. Dulles, thank you,” Schippers replied.
“That’s good,” said Bush, appraising his position on the board. Schippers rolled poorly yet again. “That’s even better,” Bush said, pleased. “I’m up two-eighty for the night, Nel.”
“For now. I’d watch him, Pres. These Dutchmen are all short arms and deep pockets. Bet you didn’t know our friend here is Fritz Thyssen’s man in Rotterdam.”
“Did so,” Bush countered. “Who else you making money for, Renni?”
Rockefeller settled himself on the chaise longue. “I would’ve thought you’d’ve figured that one out, Pres: me. Let’s hear the latest from Berlin, Renni.”
“It’s about you, Mr. Rockefeller,” Schippers replied, not looking up from the game board.
“Well,” Nelson said, lighting a cigarette, “I guess I better have another drink in me before I hear the news.”
“The rumor is,” Schippers began, “that you and IG Farben are swapping stock, Mr. Rockefeller. To cover the handover of patents and royalties for synthetic oil. Standard and Farben, the two biggest chemical concerns on the globe, married at last.”
“It’s a big big deal,” Bush said, “one for the history books. I could use a piece of it, Nelson.”
Rockefeller ignored Bush, sliding the cigarette lighter over to Schippers, who lit a rough-looking Brazilian cigarillo. “Now the banker’s question,” said Schippers. “We’re speaking about Standard’s oil revenues and royalties. How do you get that kind of money out of Hitler’s Germany, Mr. Rockefeller?”
“Roosevelt’s got all kinds of smart young lawyers,” Rockefeller began, unhurried now, “with nothing better to do than sniff out exactly that, especially if there’s a war on. So that’s where my dinner companion comes in. We’ll get our money out, I guarantee you that.”
“Sure,” said Bush, who, on the wagon or not, looked rather the worse for wear, now Nelson had a good look at him. “That’s what you say today. But what if Hitler doesn’t play ball?”
Rockefeller glanced, very quickly, at both men—he’d heard enough. “Let’s get my table at La Martinique, say hi to the girls, have a few laughs. We’ve been working too damn hard. Hell, it’s almost ten on a Friday night, no wives: what say?”
“There, Mr. Bush,” Schippers said, finishing off the genial Prescott with a great last run. “I do believe you owe me four.”
“Hell’s bells,” Bush said. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Told you, Pres, he’s ruthless,” Rockefeller said. “Or there’s Bob Hope at the Vogue. Or that Jewish kid, Danny Something-or-other. He does this thing with Russian names I hear’s a panic.”
Bush straightened. “Not me, Nelson. I’m tapped out, headache, the works. Good night, Nelson. Renni.”
Schippers said nothing. Bush kept rolling right to the door, with a practiced drinker’s calculated stride. Rockefeller let the door’s closing cue his first question.
“He’s sober these days like I’m Kaiser Bill. First off, Renni, who told you about the stock swap? That’s a family recipe.”
Schippers felt a shard of ice in his rib cage. “You hear things in my line of work, Mr. Rockefeller. Rumors.”
“You’re nursing Thyssen’s bank deal in Holland, right?”
“How? Yes. Yes I am.”
“For Fritz Thyssen.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“Prescott got a piece of that?”
Schippers shrugged. “Not a big piece, Mr. Rockefeller. After, it’s Prescott—Brown Brothers Harriman are the main money. But yes, Prescott’s got a piece of Thyssen’s bank here, Union. Thyssen’s got himself a bank with two front doors—one here, one in Amsterdam.” He shrugged again, wary. “Just in case.”
Rockefeller leant over the table, serious as sin, his face pressed close now to Schippers’s. “You know I don’t want to drag this out of you, Renni—you know I’m an oilman, I like predictability,” he said in a tone that allowed no contradiction. Schippers didn’t utter a syllable. “I don’t want my Standard stock price yanked up and down when there’s a lot going on,” Rockefeller said, his eyes fixed and very very cool. “And there’s always a lot going on, Renni, isn’t there?”
This June 1936 file emerged from the KGB liaison files housed in the East Berlin headquarters of the Stasi. When the East German secret police archives were looted in November 1989
, after the Wall fell, Misha Resnikoff bought it, amongst other classified agent/source files from one of the more entrepreneurial looters: this individual had simply looked Misha up in the phone directory. (Note: SÖHNCHEN was Moscow Center’s cover name for Kim Philby.)
OTTO to file re RUDERER [“the rower”] / RUDI
RUDI is the adopted stepson of a former Nobel Oil agent, a senior manager, Samuel RESNIKOFF, a former Russian citizen, now a Swedish citizen resident in England. RESNIKOFF senior—hereafter KONTO. KONTO is at present director general of the Enskilda Bank in London. KONTO worked in the former Tsarist territories of Abkhazia and Baku as a Nobel oil field manager until the Revolution. KONTO’s Russian connections were extensive, including Grand Duke Michael, brother to the Tsar. KONTO’s family is Armenian on both the maternal and paternal sides; KONTO is talkative, persuasive, even-tempered, and an objective capitalist of the most confident kind. KONTO and RUDI are polite but distant.
RUDI is a rower who has had some success at Cambridge as both a mathematician and an athlete. RUDI is also an amateur musician. He appears to be an overachiever of sorts, denied the kind of paternal praise he seems to need by the premature death of his father and his stepfather’s relationship with RUDI’s natural mother. RUDI is amorous but not overly promiscuous. RUDI has a lover in Stockholm, a Swedish-Polish Jewess named Adela BRAUDEL—hereafter FREUNDIN—who is a Zionist activist. RUDI’s relationship with FREUNDIN is marked by great passion and great ambivalence; RUDI obsesses about his sexual performance, even though of the two he is the more experienced. Again, this would seem to point to a deficiency in praise.
RUDI is an exceptional talent intellectually. Inquiries elsewhere indicate RUDI is one of the few natural mathematicians at Cambridge with languages: he speaks English, Latvian, Polish, German, and some Russian, also Yiddish and Swedish to a degree. His mathematical talents express themselves also musically; RUDI is an amateur cornet player and is fascinated with “the problems,” he says, “of jazz harmony.” The instrument does not really fulfill him, as he has not mastered it.
He is eccentric and does not keep regular hours and has little comprehension of personal budget or the value of money. Despite this, RUDI refuses all offers of money. He came to us via SÖHNCHEN.
RUDI has no known connections to the Zionist underground: he appears to be apolitical as far as a Jewish Palestine is concerned, likely as a means of rebelling against KONTO.
Since the spring of 1934, RUDI has been employed as a foreign exchange clerk at the Enskilda Bank branch in Stockhom [sic]. When approached to pass counterfeit U.S. dollar bills, he refused, because, quite logically, he felt the risk not worth the effort. We did not press the matter: RUDI is too promising a source to imperil his talents on a counterfeiting operation.
This summer, KONTO has obtained a position for RUDI with the Stockholm company and former Nobel Oil subsidiary Beurling-Kryptor, a cipher machine company with clients throughout Europe. As the Beurling machines are vital cryptographic instruments in the capitalist countries, this is a vital connection. For RUDI’s personal history with source SÖHNCHEN, see [REDACTED]. RUDI is competing in the Berlin Olympic Games as a rower. No repeat no contact with RUDI in Berlin is advised.
From Misha Resnikoff’s microfilm archive; translated from the Hebrew by MR
Shiloah to Ben-Gurion by hand
No. 322
July 22 1936
David
Further to your query of the 18th.
Met with young R. at our house in the Galilee. You’ll recall he was active for us at Cambridge and in Germany, as part of David Kauffmann’s TRANSPORT group, moving financial documents and gifted orphans.
R. had just returned from Berlin, where he injured his wrist in a qualifying race at the Olympics. You might have your office send a card.
We spoke over several days. Discussion revealed R. as the ideal candidate, as Kauffmann suggested.
R. has agreed to our project and will proceed via Stockholm to New York.
Shiloah
XXI
EN ROUTE TO CHICAGO
SEPTEMBER 1936
The Twentieth Century Limited thundered along the bank of the Mohawk River west of Albany, a silvered caterpillar leaving a spoor of steam and soot on its way west. Eleanor entered the dining car with her reservation card and came face to face with Allen, at a table for two, a bottle of wine and a newspaper before him. The train barreled straight for the sunset streaking the rough hills on either side of the river valley, framing Allen in a square of rich light.
“Eleanor, small world,” her brother chuckled, folding back his newspaper to make room. “Have a seat. What a surprise. Heading for the Windy City?”
“I’m giving a lecture to the economists at the university, pension planning and investment. You, Allen? You haven’t darkened Chicago’s door … since when?”
“Well, I’m traveling with a client from Rome, Monsignor Sommer, Austrian merchant banker now doing the Pope’s books.” Allen offered her his best smile, easing into his role as host; he might have owned the dining car. “He’s two cars back, reading the fine print on a balance sheet. The Vatican likes its money nice and safe at night. Here, let me get the chair. How’s the lovely Sophie?”
“She’s with her nanny, Charlene. How are Clover and the children?” Eleanor asked, settling herself.
“Fine, fine,” Allen said, waving his hand vaguely. “Waiter, may we have another glass, please?”
“What’s wrong? Now I look at you, you look red in the face.”
“I am red in the face. Letters section. There. Second column.”
Eleanor nodded in agreement. “I saw it too. That’s what he believes, Allen, you know that.”
“Some hashed-up mysticism. That’s all I can get out of him,” Allen said, chewing at his consonants. Allen slapped the newspaper with the flat of his hand. “What’s with our dear brother? Even the housekeeper at the Berlin embassy can see what Foster can’t—Hitler won’t stop. Foster’s gone too far this time.” He flicked the edge of the newspaper page in annoyance. “I’m going to write the Times myself.”
“It can’t be good for your law practice, to see you two going at each other in public, hammer and tongs.”
Allen had gone deaf. He stared out the window at the evergreen gloom of the Finger Lakes hills at sundown. “Worst is, Foster’s driving the other partners to distraction every time he writes the Times. Then I get it. They twist my arm. Seligman, Seabrook—Dean’s ready to throw him out the window.” Allen stopped and rubbed his eyes. “‘Can’t you talk to him?’ they say. ‘Can’t you get him to tone it down a bit?’”
“You’re brothers,” Eleanor reminded him. “You’d both better think about all the Thanksgivings, all the family Christmases, the baptisms and the weddings and the funerals that lie ahead. For all of us. What would Mother say? So public, Allen.”
“I won’t be pushed around like some office boy.” He looked straight at Eleanor for the first time. “How are you, sis? Have the Reds at Social Security made a convert of you yet? Ready for Moscow, commissariat of pensions?”
Eleanor marked Allen’s abrupt changes: they meant fresh weather and stiff crosswinds. “Fine, thanks. It’s mostly econometrics, but I’ve always liked numbers, making sense of them. And I’m doing some good. All in all, a good thing.”
“You like the people?” Allen asked abstractly. “At State, I liked the people. Best thing about the place, really.”
“I do. Yes. All different kinds. We’re a good mix. I’m happy.”
Allen was staring over her shoulder. A woman, Eleanor guessed. She glanced back quickly and saw a sleek, dark-haired woman in a mesh hat and gloves, dining alone.
Eleanor tried a different tack. “I crossed paths with your client the Baron, Kurt von Schröder.”
“Yes,” Allen replied, still staring. “I’m on a board with him and Prescott Bush. A bank. Schröder’s one hard man. Don’t let that title of his fool you.” Eleanor waited him out; he
drew himself back to her. “I was in Rome last month.”
“I see.”
“Yes, meeting with Monsignor Sommer. He’s number three in the Vatican financial operation—he’s good, knows the angles, knows the politics. Outdoorsy kind of fellow, hiker, skier. I like him. Solid businessman.”
Eleanor clinked her glass against his. “Maybe I should ask this monsignor to pray for you and Foster.”
He was staring again. “Pardon? What did you say?”
“Maybe I should ask him to pray for you two. For peace at Sullivan and Cromwell.”
“Save that for Foster,” Allen said, his voice flat. “He’s the one who needs to talk to God.”
“And you a parson’s son. My, my. Times have changed.” He wasn’t there anymore. How quickly he turns it all in, Eleanor marveled. “Allen. It’s me,” she reminded him.
His voice was far away. “You know, I’m supposed to be successful, aren’t I? But whichever way I turn, I’m still eating Foster’s dust. It’s why I travel so much. Gets me away.”
“Allen, you’re doing fine. Foster had a ten-year head start—you went from a diplomat’s desk to Wall Street out of night school law. That’s saying something.”
“The only thing I’ve ever really loved was skulking around Bern. Those two years I really did something useful. Wall Street lawyering isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“We all wanted to be secretary of state, Allie. Not just you.”
“You want a brandy? I could murder a brandy.”
“Lovely. Thanks. Maybe if you took the family to Cuba or Mexico, got some sun together, that’d help. That way you mightn’t need the monsignor’s prayers to keep you on the straight and narrow.”
The Witness Tree Page 17