Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line

by James V Milano

  "There's going to be real trouble unless we can get hold of Patsy and Pete before anyone else does and keep them out of harm's way," he said. "If the regular police, or the MPs or anyone get hold of them, it'll be horrendously difficult to get them back again. We need to grab them the moment they step off the boat. So I raised the subject, all most delicately, with our friend Mario. He thinks they can be gotten out of the hands of the Genoa police-but it will be expensive."

  The group contemplated the further drain on their budget with equanimity. This was an emergency.

  "What he needs is a formal, written request from the U.S. Army for these characters. The local police would be delighted to get rid of them, and the embassy has been sniffing around already, so they won't be surprised if we pick them up off the boat. But it has to be a formal document, with plenty of rubber stamps and some impressive signature. The police chief will swallow it whole, and then we can grab those two idiots and have them out of the way before anyone else comes looking."

  All eyes turned to Dominic Del Greco. None of them needed to ask how they would get hold of a formal request from the American High Command for the release of two prisoners. They would forge it. Del Greco was the facilitator, the man who organized such things. He could always lay his hands on a general officer's stationery, he could produce official-looking rubber stamps at a moment's notice, and he had some of the best forgers in the business on his staff.

  Milano ruled that the signature should be that of the commander of American forces in Austria, Major General Paul Kendall. The intelligence operation was outside his jurisdiction, and he knew little or nothing about it. They did not want to take the name of any of their own superior officers in vain, even though it would probably be easier to do. Milano wanted to keep this matter at several removes from his own place of work. Del Greco was instructed to set to work acquiring a sample of General Kendall's signature and letterhead and then to set his forgers to work. He cheerfully promised that the letter would be ready in two days.

  Then Milano turned to the next problem: how to get the letter back again. The Genoa police would certainly agree to a request from an American general for the two prisoners, but they would then file the letter away in their safest archives, ready to produce if anyone came asking questions. It was only too probable that someone would indeed check. The embassy in Rome, or the army command, would eventually discover that Patsy and Pete had disappeared before they could be interrogated and would want to know why. When they were told that a senior American general had made the request formally, in writing, they would demand to see the document-and would immediately discover that it was a fake. Milano had no intention of leaving such an incriminating document anywhere it might be found. Paul Lyon was instructed to return to Genoa for further words with Major Anselmo.

  Then they had to decide what to do with the two miscreants. The first step was easy: they would be lodged in a safe house in the countryside, well clear of the Genoa police. But Milano wanted them out of the way as quickly as possible, and most certainly he never wanted them back in Austria. He was lucky. Another pair of Soviet deserters, code-named Isaac and Dieter, had been prepared and trained, this time as mechanics, and given documents and visas to get them to Argentina. Their ship was due to leave a few days after the freighter from Chile returned to port, and the Americans decided on the spot to swap them with Patsy and Pete. Isaac and Dieter would be disappointed: they would have to wait-in a new safe house, as their present landlady, who had been told that the two were due to sail immediately, might get suspicious if they did not leave. Del Greco's team was given another rush job, preparing a new set of papers for Patsy and Pete in the names that had been chosen for their compatriots. They would barely have time to learn their second false identities before they were once again on the seas, heading for South America-this time to the opposite side of the continent from the SS man in Valparaiso. One of the team's best Russian specialists would be sent down to Genoa to explain these matters to Patsy and Pete-and also to grill them thoroughly on every detail of their Chilean adventure. Milano needed to know as precisely as possible just what they had told the police in Valparaiso.

  Paul Lyon returned to Genoa, prepared to immerse himself in the complexities of the rival Italian police forces. His contact, Major Anselmo, was head of the security branch in the region. He was the essential link in the chain that ran from Salzburg to the ships sailing from the harbor, but he depended on the head of the Genoa police. Nothing was possible unless these two agreed. On the other hand, if both could be persuaded, the Americans could do anything in Genoa, anything at all.

  One of the joys of working in postwar Italy (and things did not change, in this respect, over the next fifty years) was that everyone understood the rules. A certain subtlety was required in the matter of offering bribes or exerting influence, but Paul was very good at that. When he arrived, he found that Major Anselmo had arranged a discreet dinner for three in a quiet but excellent fish restaurant on the port. The third guest was Inspector Giuseppe Salvatore of the Genoa police.

  The meal was a great success, the food and wine excellent, the conversation flowing expansively as the three men exchanged war stories, none of them finding it in the least odd that Inspector Salvatore had been working for Benito Mussolini until the end, while Anselmo, who had changed sides with most of Italy in 1943, and Lyon, who had been in the U.S. Army, had tried their best to kill him. By the time the three reached the brandy and cigars, they were the best of friends and could comfortably broach the subject that concerned them.

  Lyon explained to Salvatore that the Americans were particularly interested in two refugees who had been sent, mistakenly, to Chile. They had encountered some little trouble there and were about to return to Genoa. Captain Lyon would account it a supreme favor if Inspector Salvatore would hand them over to him upon their arrival. This was a matter wholly official and aboveboard: he would have a formal request, signed by the senior American general in Austria, that the prisoners should be delivered to him.

  Salvatore saw no objection. The request was purely routine, though no doubt Captain Lyon would require him to show unusual discretion in the operation.

  "There is one further detail," said Major Anselmo. "It would be best if the letter from the American general could be returned to Captain Lyon afterward. If the Signor Inspector could see his way to retrieving the letter from his own office files, perhaps a few days after the two men have been delivered to the Americans, I would take it upon myself to ensure that it was returned to our American friend."

  It became apparent to Lyon that this was not the first Salvatore had heard of the proposal. The way had been prepared, the inspector had indicated that he might be willing to oblige, and the question of price had been delicately hinted at. The inspector did not reply directly but started talking about his plans for the future. He was to retire in a year from the Carabinieri and devote himself to cultivating his family's vineyard in the hills above Genoa. There was a little house there, out in the country, where he planned to live. It sounded like an idyllic existence. The three men talked about wine, grape growing, and the difficulties of getting modern equipment in these difficult times. "I was particularly impressed," said Inspector Salvatore, turning to Anselmo, "by your jeep. You are indeed a fortunate man to have been allocated such a marvelous vehicle for your personal use."

  The jeep was, in fact, the price Lyon had paid for Anselmo's cooperation when he had first organized the Rat Line through northern Italy. Jeeps were the legendary vehicles on which the U.S. Army had ridden to victory, and every Italian coveted one. A number of fortunate or well-placed Italian civilians had acquired jeeps quite legitimately, buying them as U.S. Army surplus. Others had been sold as scrap to Italian dealers, who had then rehabilitated them and sold them for exorbitant prices. They were therefore important status symbols in Italy, where there were few cars and fewer reliable ones. For a while the three men discussed the merits of four-wheel-drive vehicles and th
e difficulties of obtaining such things in postwar Europe.

  The conversation returned to the question of retrieving the general's letter. The inspector waxed philosophical. "One hand washes the other," he remarked. In this particular case, perhaps, the washing needed to be particularly thorough. It was rather unusual, he observed, for the Americans to submit a formal request and then to require the letter to be returned. Lyon, of course, had been prepared for this. He made the decision on the spot, on the assumption that Milano would back him up and provide the jeep. It was clear that this was Salvatore's price and that if Lyon did not accept the offer immediately, the two refugees would fall into the hands of the police as soon as they arrived and never be recovered. He remembered Milano's guiding principle: "Make the damn decision. Success comes from the intelligent manipulation of risk and not from avoiding risk. If you make a good decision, you get a pat on the back. If you make a bad decision, you get your ass chewed out. In all cases, make the damn decision."

  "I think," said Captain Lyon, "that if the Signor Inspector were to be cooperative in the little matter of the two refugees and the general's letter, that I could promise some very thorough hand washing. Indeed, I am quite sure that I could find a jeep, brand-new and with its papers in order, which I could turn over to a friend, someone who had made an appropriate contribution to the well-being of the American army."

  That was all that needed to be said. The meal ended as happily as it had begun, with many a toast to Italian-American harmony, with warm handshakes and sincere professions of friendship. A few days later, Dominic Del Greco delivered a very impressive official letter, to all appearances signed by General Kendall and countersigned by his chief of staff, requesting the Italian authorities to deliver Patsy and Pete to his representatives. When the ship docked, Milano's men, led by Paul Lyon, in full uniform for once, marched on board accompanied by Inspector Salvatore and hustled the two worried Russians ashore. They were driven twenty miles out of town to a safe house prepared for the occasion, an inn where they were the only guests. They were kept under lock and key until it was time to ship them back through Genoa again with different passports, visas, and identities and a different destination.

  They were examined most thoroughly by the Russian expert, John Ustas. They insisted that they had stuck by their story in Chile. They had told the police there that they were Russian refugees who had been fighting in the Resistance behind German lines when they were arrested by the Germans near Leningrad in 1943 and shipped to a labor camp in Germany. That explained Patsy's animosity to the former SS man. They claimed that they had then been sent to a DP camp and that an American church group had provided them with visas and other documents, as well as tickets to start a new life in South America.

  All this was part of the cover story they had been given before leaving Austria. They had been told to say nothing about being sol diers in the Red Army or deserters. It was not so much a question of the Chileans believing them completely. What mattered was that there should be no suspicion that the two had been in the hands of a U.S. Intelligence operation and were traveling on a well-established rat line. Naturally, the two men had been told that they were the only deserters the Americans had ever seen and that passage to the far Pacific had been arranged just for them.

  Then they were briefed on their new identities and the quite different country to which they were being sent. The Americans made it clear, just in case there was any doubt, that Patsy and Pete had no choice in the matter. They were to become Argentines whether they liked it or not. When their new ship was ready, they were sent on their way with the pressing advice that they be nice to customs officials. They were put aboard at night, just in case anyone was watching. Major Anselmo and Inspector Salvatore were on hand to supervise matters, and the two were sent below and told to stay there until twenty-four hours after the ship sailed.

  A few days later, once again dining at the same waterfront restaurant, Inspector Salvatore discreetly slipped Major Anselmo an envelope containing the incriminating letter. If ever the Americans, or anyone else, came looking for it, they would look in vain. It had vanished from the files, and the file clerk would have to explain that he had no idea what had become of it. Inspector Salvatore could swear, with perfect sincerity, that there had been a formal request and that he had of course acceded to it. The letter's disappearance was probably yet another case of Italian inefficiency, a matter for regret, but what could he say more? Alas, he could not remember the name of the general who had signed the letter. These American names were so difficult.

  Major Anselmo kept his side of the bargain and returned the missive to Paul Lyon. It was taken back to Salzburg and solemnly burned, with appropriate ceremony, in Milano's office.

  A year later, the day after Giuseppe Salvatore retired from the police, he found a fine new jeep outside his apartment. As for Patsy and Pete, as far as anyone knows, they are in Argentina still, elderly men living in peaceful retirement who could tell some interesting stories if they wished.

  The saga of Patsy and Pete did not end there. Less than a week after the second ship had sailed from Genoa, bearing them to safety, and while Milano's group was in the midst of arranging transportation for Isaac and Dieter, the other pair of refugees who had been summarily bounced from their own ship to make way for the fugitives, Milano was abruptly called by headquarters in Vienna. The chief of staff, U.S. Forces in Austria, Major General Thomas Hickey, was on the line. Milano was to stand by for a coded message coming over the secure line and was to execute the order immediately. This circuitous route was needed because all telephone lines between Vienna and Salzburg went through the Soviet zone and were certainly tapped. Milano went to the code room, watched the message come over the telex, and waited for it to be decoded. It read:

  OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE STOP STATE DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, DC STOP MAJOR JAMES MILANO STOP YOUR COMMAND WILL REPEAT WILL BE PUT ON THE FIRST AVAILABLE AIRCRAFT TO REPORT TO THE STATE DEPARTMENT IN WASHINGTON DC STOP PASSENGER PRIORITY ONE STOP ENDIT

  The telegram was signed by an assistant secretary of state, and evidently the department had got wind of Milano and his operations. The Pentagon might have been willing to turn a blind eye to the occasional flagrant illegalities and repeated corner cutting that allowed Milano to produce a steady stream of first-rate intelligence, but the State Department was likely to take a far less benign view. It was quite capable of closing everything down.

  General Hickey saw all Milano's reports and forwarded them to the director of intelligence of the Army Staff, General Alexander Bolling, in the Pentagon. Hickey was the man who signed the vouchers allowing Milano to draw on U.S. Army funds for his operations: he never questioned any of the claims. He knew how valuable Milano's reports were and how difficult it would be to replace them if his operations were suspended. Hickey therefore gave him supplementary orders, appended to the message from Washington. He was to set out for Washington immediately, but when he got there he was to present himself first to General Bolling, in the Pentagon, and make a full report. Hickey would inform Bolling that Milano was on his way, and why.

  The next day, before dawn, Milano set out on the long drive to the nearest U.S. airbase, at Erding, near Munich. There he picked up a small Army plane to take him to Rhine-Main, at Frankfurt, the main U.S. Air Force base in Germany. He had about an hour to spare. The Air Transport Office was expecting him: he was to report at six in the evening for the flight to the United States. He was in the hands of the great, impersonal machinery of the U.S. Army and had nothing to do but go along with it.

  The C-54 left on time, and after a stop to refuel in the Azores it reached Westover Field in Massachusetts in the morning. There was a lieutenant there to meet Milano. He was allowed time to wash up in the officers' mess and have breakfast, and was then flown to Washington in an army C-47. He was the only passenger: evidently something special was being prepared for him. There was a car waiting for him at the Military Terminal at National Airport in Washingto
n, and late in the morning, less than thirty-six hours after getting that ominous telegram in Salzburg, he was ushered into General Bolling's office.

  Jim Milano knew nothing of the ways of Washington. He was an intelligence officer whose business was to spy on the Russians, and he only vaguely understood the bureaucratic infighting that made politics in the nation's capital so interesting. He had assumed that because the Pentagon and State Department worked for the same president and the same country, they would cooperate in everything and that he was due for the same frosty reception from Bolling that he expected to get over at State. So he was surprised and delighted when the general welcomed him warmly. Bolling praised his work, assured him that his intelligence reports were the best he knew, and told him that the work he was doing was of vital importance and should be continued and expanded. He could be sure of the general's full support.

  Then he asked Milano about Patsy and Pete and what they had been doing in Chile. Though they had stuck rigorously to their cover story when they were interrogated, they had clearly not fooled the Chilean authorities, who had passed their suspicions on to Washington. Milano took a deep breath and began his tale.

  He explained who the two men were, what intelligence they had provided, how dangerous it would have been to leave them in Europe. He told the general about the problem of disposing of Soviet defectors in Europe and about the Rat Line. He described the difficulty of obtaining visas and other documents and how he resolved those difficulties: his people forged the documents and bought the visas from a Fascist Yugoslav priest in the Vatican, a war criminal who was certainly providing the same service to other, far less salubrious, clients at the same time.

  Milano told the general about Patsy's experiences as a prisoner of war, the death of his brother, and his encounter with the murderer in Valparaiso. He described how the two had been returned to Genoa and the steps that had been taken to spirit them away from the Italian police. He told everything: Bolling was his superior officer, and he would need his full support to escape from his present difficulties. Taking a deep breath he confessed that he had forged the signature of a senior U.S. general and then bribed the Italian chief of police with a stolen jeep to get the incriminating letter back.