This was before Senator Joseph McCarthy got up at a meeting in Wheeling, West Virginia, in February 1950 and waved a piece of paper in the air, announcing "I have in my hand a list of two hundred and five men and women known to the secretary of state, Dean Acheson, to be card-carrying members of the Communist Party who are still employed in the State Department." It was one of the most audacious lies in history: the piece of paper was not a list. It bore no names, let alone the names of State Department officials. It was some scrap of paper the senator had found in his pocket. McCarthy had no information at all on Communists in the government. The number he offered was derived from a note by a previous secretary of state, James F. Byrnes, in 1946 and referred to "dubious cases" then under scrutiny. McCarthy produced different numbers on subsequent occasions. Under McCarthy's urgings, the witch-hunt spread through the American government, universities, and even Hollywood. It was at last brought under control when McCarthy attacked the Army and was condemned (not censored) by the Senate in 1954. By then, however, most of the damage had been done.
The intelligence community in Austria was a potential victim of the ever-increasing paranoia in Washington. Milano received repeated queries from the Pentagon on the backgrounds of his staff and colleagues, to the extent that, at one of his staff meetings, Jack Whitmore remarked that the Red Menace situation was becoming so ridiculous that it was becoming dangerous to use tomato ketchup on a hamburger. One man, for example, was under intense scrutiny because his sister's name had appeared on a list of members of a left-wing organization in the 1930s. The inquisitors wanted to know whether the man had ever discussed his sister's allegedly Communist activities and whether he was ever in touch with her. The wife of one of the interrogators was suspected of having been a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, the "Wobblies," in the 1930s. That was a militant union that had arisen during the Depression, and the idea that an intelligence officer's career might be ended because his wife had been a member ten years before was deeply troubling. Milano himself had a lucky escape. When he was a junior in college, a classmate had asked him, as an Italian American, whether he would like to join the college's Dante Alighieri Society. It was, he said, a national organization devoted to studying the arts, culture, and history of Italy. Milano had declined: he was a chemistry student and lacked the time for such things.
A decade later, he saw the society in a list of subversive organizations put out by the Justice Department. It had been a Fascist front, and although by 1949 a past association with it would have been much less serious than belonging to a Communist front organization, he was very glad he had never joined. He could easily have signed up. The narrow escape demonstrated how his colleagues' careers might be blighted by a thoughtless signature on some liberal petition at the age of eighteen. The suggestions of persecution and paranoia emanating from Washington contributed heavily to Milano's decision to decline the offer to join the CIA. He remained in the Army.
Then word came that the Army chief of intelligence, General Alexander Bolling, was coming to Vienna during a tour of the European Command. Milano and his superior, Colonel Oscar Koch, chief of intelligence staff for the U.S. Forces in Austria, were ordered to meet him. General Bolling was not merely conducting a tour of inspection: he was supervising the transfer of intelligence operations from the Army to the CIA. The conference he held in USFA headquarters in Vienna, therefore, marked a turning point in the history of American intelligence and the evolution of the cold war. It was the occasion for Milano to pass the torch to the head of the CIA in Vienna, John Ritter.
Bolling was the general who had summoned Milano to Washington a year earlier, when Patsy and Pete had nearly brought the Rat Line to ruin by shooting a Nazi war criminal they had recognized in Chile. He greeted Milano warmly.
"Well, Jim, it's good to see you again. Last time we met, I had you in my office explaining how one of your clients had been misbehaving, shooting a customs officer in Chile."
"Yes, General, I remember it well. I spent three days in a plane and two hours in the Pentagon. You told me you'd square all my problems with the State Department, and I'm very grateful. I never heard from them again.
"But I've always been curious how you did it. Now it's all water under the bridge, can you tell me how you managed to persuade State to forget the whole thing? It was quite a problem for us-and then it just disappeared."
Bolling laughed. "Jim, I told you it was a problem I would handle, and you didn't need to know how I was going to do it. I'm still of the opinion it's much the best for all concerned to leave what I said just between me and State. Also, I don't want you to sit in judgment on my abilities as a storyteller."
Milano could recognize a brick wall when he met one, particularly when it was built by a general. "I'm sure you're right, General," he said. "I certainly don't need to know. I was just curious."
"That's okay, Jim. You're meant to be curious. That's your job. But now we've got serious business to discuss."
The general then turned the proceedings over to John Ritter, the CIA station chief in Vienna, who had received some precise, and surprising, instructions from Washington.
"What we want to do, Jim," he said, "is to put one of our men into your operation undercover, with a secretary, to check things out. They could come in at different times, perhaps a week apart, so that it wasn't evident they were working together. We think it would be best if your people don't realize that the Agency is evaluating their operations, so we suggest our man be sent in as an analyst from the Pentagon. You could say he was reviewing your operations to use them as case studies for teaching purposes at the various Army Intelligence schools. He would be formalizing the documentation and writing them up, all very straightforward. You must have plenty of Department of the Army employees passing through.
"Then he would review all your files and operations, discreetly, of course. He would have to interact very closely with your staff and with the CIC and MIS agents who are actually conducting the operations. He's called Bill Johnson, and I think you'll find he will be very discreet. How do you react to the idea?"
Milano was astonished. It seemed to him quite absurd that the CIA should want to spy on the Army in this heavy-handed way. Why not come in openly and examine the files and talk to the agents and officers? It looked as though the CIA did not trust the U.S. Army, which he had served for eight years, or Army Intelligence, of which he was now a senior officer. It was all very odd, but clearly the matter had been approved by General Bolling and Colonel Koch, so Milano held his peace.
Instead of denouncing the whole scheme as nonsense, he merely observed, "I'm not sure reviewing operations on an undercover basis will work. This gang of mine is a savvy bunch of intelligence operators, and it won't take them long to see through the cover story."
No one responded to the warning, so Milano played the good soldier and acquiesced. If this was the way the CIA and the Pentagon wanted to play it, that was their affair. He was going home. There was, however, one piece of serious business left.
"What about the Rat Line?" The question was put to Ritter. "I realize you don't know all the details of the operation, but you know the general outline. Do you plan to handle it like the other operations?"
Ritter and his superiors had clearly given thought to the matter and had consulted Bolling and Koch. His reply was emphatic and not at all spontaneous.
"First of all, the Agency has no interest whatsoever in getting involved in the Rat Line. That's an Army show, and it's up to the Army to bring down the curtain. Our man need not be given any information at all on the matter. Secondly, we definitely want him to operate undercover."
So much for the Rat Line, thought Milano, and so much for an amicable transfer of duties. He was more certain than ever that he had chosen well in refusing to join the Agency. It evidently did not think much of Army Intelligence, its accomplishments, or its operations-or, probably, of its agents.
Years later, skeptics looking into the Barbie
affair suspected that the CIA had in fact wanted to keep the Rat Line in existence, though there is no evidence it did so. However, Ritter was quite explicit in disclaiming all interest when Jim Milano offered to turn the operation over to him.
The meeting broke up amiably enough. Milano promised to provide every help to the undercover CIA man, Bill Johnson, and his secretary. He was given a desk in the room occupied by the regular analysts and was soon hard at work examining all the operations, past and present, and discreetly cross-examining the various case officers and field agents. He was the very model of a clandestine operative, and within a week Captain T. J. Strucker, one of the analysts who worked with Dominic Del Greco, put his head around Milano's door and said, "Come on, Jim, who do you think you're kidding? Bill Johnson and that secretary of his even smell like Agency employees. What are they doing here?"
Milano was secretly delighted. This was exactly what he had expected and what he had warned Ritter would happen. He kept a straight face, however, and told his visitor, "T.J., I didn't realize you were an expert at solving mysteries. I'll have to see if there's an opening for you with Bill Waggoner's code breakers."
Strucker just laughed. He was merely the first to let Milano know that Johnson's cover was blown. The secret was out. Everyone in the building knew it, and the embarrassed CIA man was forced to admit that he had been sent from Washington to evaluate the CIC and the MIS and all their works. The attempted, and failed, deception did not make his task any easier.
Milano followed instructions and kept Johnson well away from the Rat Line. He was informed that there would be a month's interval between his own departure and his successor's arrival, during which Dominic Del Greco would be left in charge. Milano wanted to send the last visitors down the Rat Line before he left Salzburg and then close down the line altogether. There were men on the waiting list, and he summoned the Rat Line support group to his office to examine their cases.
Paul Lyon was still the officer in day-to-day charge of the Rat Line, and he proceeded in his usual methodical way to brief the group on his clients.
"Major, we've got four candidates on the books now. There's Gimpy, who is in Steyr; Silas, in Gmunden; Tomahawk, in Zell am See; and Buster, in Sankt Wolfgang.
"Gimpy is a middle-aged former sergeant from Lithuania. He was drafted into the Russian army and was wounded in the leg during the war. He's got a permanent limp. He has been living with other Baltic refugees in Steyr and sometimes works for the CIC in Linz. They're always interested in what the refugees are up to, particularly in case the KGB tries to infiltrate them. He has been doing pretty well for himself. He's been here since the war, and we never had to put him into one of our training programs. He's got a job and has found himself a twenty-year-old live-in housekeeper to take care of him. Now he's got himself involved with other Lithuanians in working on the structure and problems of the government in exile. They want to be ready for the day when the Russian occupation collapses and they can return home. He is perfectly content to stay where he is: he has no wish to leave Austria until he can go home to Lithuania. I think he's in for a long wait, but I don't think we need to be concerned about Gimpy. I recommend that we stay in touch with him but don't try-to relocate him.
"As for Silas, he also has been doing well in the private economy. He was a printer before he was drafted. He got to be a captain in the infantry and showed up at the Military Government Headquarters in Linz last year. We were able to arrange a job for him at a print works in Gmunden, where he has done extremely well. His boss wants to sell him a share in the business sometime in the future. He's trying to stay in Austria as a refugee and eventually apply for citizenship. He knows that could be dangerous but seems ready to take his chance. I wouldn't recommend it, but we can't force him to go to South America. I think we should leave him where he is and see what happens.
"As for brother Tomahawk, he's in a CIC house in Zell am See. He was a corporal in a Russian motor pool who turned himself over to our MPs in Vienna. He had an advanced case of gonorrhea, and I believe he deserted to escape being court-martialed. Besides, he probably guessed he'd get better medical treatment with us. Anyway, a course of penicillin has worked wonders and now he's as good as new. We put him to work with a motor mechanic, who rates his abilities not very high. He'll never be a master mechanic. He wasn't much of an intelligence source, and now he's mostly a liability. I suggest we ship him out on the next consignment, if there is one.
"As for Buster, he's a much more valuable catch. He's the artillery captain who was stationed with a unit near the Hungarian border. The Pentagon is still sending questions for him to answer, so we have to keep him here for the moment.
"That means we have just one candidate for the Rat Line immediately and one more farther down the road."
The group concluded that Tomahawk would have to wait at least until Buster was ready to go to South America. The two would be the last candidates for the Rat Line, but it was too early to make detailed plans for their future. In the event, Milano left the two men to his successor, Lieutenant Colonel J. W. Dobson, who eventually shipped them safely to South America, the last regular clients sent down the Rat Line. The other two remained in Austria.
The same evening as Milano held his last meeting on the Rat Line, he had dinner with an old friend, Maria Torkey. She had returned to Austria from her new home in Arkansas, to sell her villa near Bad Aussee, the house she had lent to Milano two years earlier. She invited him out to the house for a last dinner together and described her new life in the backwoods selling cured hams. She told him she had found a purchaser for the villa, a businessman who had contrived to transfer most of his fortune to Switzerland when the Nazis occupied Austria in 1938. He was therefore able to pay for the house by depositing Swiss francs into a Zurich account, an arrangement Maria found most useful.
She had another tale to tell: this was not just a social occasion.
"I've been in the house for the past week, making the last arrangements for the sale. I've spent a lot of time in the village, and I've come across some really interesting things. Perhaps you could explain them to me.
"First of all, that Nazi composer, Herr Dustoff, who was given the house by Goebbels and lived upstairs with his wife and his exwife: now he's disappeared. The wife and the ex-wife are still sharing the apartment with their children, but he vanished about two months ago.
"I took some goodies for the children, and while I was having tea with the wife, she confided that her husband was in Buenos Aires. He's written to her. He told her that when things returned to normal, he would send for her and the children. She said she was absolutely astonished to get the letter. She had no idea where her husband had gone and couldn't imagine why he had gone to South America. The only thing was that for months he had been vanishing in the evenings to attend meetings in the village. He wouldn't tell her what these meetings were all about, except that they were special and important. Then one day, without warning, he packed his bags, gave her some money to live on, kissed her good-bye, and vanished. He said that he would write to her in due course, and she wasn't to worry.
Now, I found this most suspicious. Do you suppose some Nazi group is smuggling people out of the country? I don't suppose Herr Dustoff was any sort of a major war criminal. So far as I know, he was just a composer. But he certainly had lots of friends in the Party and the SS. I've known the chief of police here for thirty years, so I paid him a visit and asked if he had any idea what had happened to Herr Dustoff. He said he had heard informally that our famous composer had left the area. He also said that various other residents had vanished lately, including two former SS officers, and no one knows where they have gone. At least that's what their wives told their neighbors. I got their names for you, in case you're interested. He said that none of the wives of the missing men had reported them gone or started any inquiries into their disappearances. He had concluded that this was probably not a police matter-which means he thinks they've left the country. I didn'
t tell him Frau Dustoff had gotten a letter from her husband in Buenos Aires.
"I guess the composer went to Argentina because there's a Fascist government there. That's one reason I'm concerned that my son Johnnie is living and working with my relatives there. I'm not sure that it's very safe. Do you know anything about this? And is there any chance that any of these people could get into the United States?"
Milano had not at all expected to be questioned about anything so sensitive, let alone to hear from Maria of the possibility that the Nazis, too, were running a rat line out of Austria under his very nose. He was about to leave the country and she was in town for a few days only, so he was judiciously indiscreet. He wanted to calm her fears, and the best way to do that was to reassure her about some American security procedures.
"You're quite right to tell me about all this, Maria," he told her. "It could be a serious problem if the Nazis are smuggling themselves into the United States. But I don't know if they are. My section is concerned with all intelligence and security questions, and I'm not certain whether the disappearance of these people is a security question. I'll look into it. But you can be sure that we keep as close an eye as we can on these characters.
"So there's nothing much I can tell you about what may have happened to Mr. Dustoff or the other two. But if I hear anything, I'll let you know. Of course, if there was any sign of Johnnie getting into any sort of danger, I'd tell you at once." He did not tell her that he had a particular interest in rat lines.
Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line Page 29