Victory and Honor (Honor Bound 6)

President Roosevelt’s reaction was disbelief that our Soviet allies would do something like that.

I’m sure, Milt, that you have heard how ill President Roosevelt was in the last months of his life.

The Director informed President Truman of the strong possibility that the Manhattan Project has been penetrated by the KGB First Directorate immediately after General Groves informed the President of the purpose of the Manhattan Project, that is, the day after President Roosevelt expired. The President responded by saying the Director should confirm what intelligence he has.

Obviously, therefore the Bureau has to determine the source of the intelligence slipped under the door.

One strong possibility is that it came from German sources; Mr. Dulles is strongly suspected to have been in contact with enemy officials and officers before the surrender. If this is true, and if it became known to senior officials of the administration, Secretary Morgenthau in particular, they would have demanded to know the details of the meetings. If Director Donovan was not informed of all, or some of these meetings, he could not answer such questions.

“This guy really does know what he’s talking about,” Clete said as he handed Dorotea that page. He saw that Dorotea had handed what she had read to Siggie Stein, and that Tony Pelosi was anxiously waiting for his turn.

“He usually does,” Leibermann said.

“Why did you say he was a priest?” Clete asked as he took his first look at the next page.

“All adult male saints are priests,” Leibermann said.

Clete nodded, then looked at the next sheet. “And here I am!”

This brings us back to Mr. Dulles and more particularly to Lieutenant Colonel Frade of the OSS. Although OSS Director Donovan has more than once referred to Frade in unofficial conversations with the Director and yours truly as “my loose cannon in Argentina” and other similarly derogatory terms, both the Director and I feel he’s more important than this; that General Donovan may have been indulging in a little disinformation.

“J. Edgar Hoover and your priest buddy,” Clete said, “seem to feel I’m more than a loose cannon. Should I be flattered or worried?”

“Both,” Leibermann said with a chuckle.

The Director and I began to connect the dots. The process intensified when we heard that the President had ordered the sale of a fleet of Constellation aircraft to South American Airways, and that Frade was Managing Director of SAA.

We learned further that the business arrangements for the financing of this sale were handled by the New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, specifically by John Foster Dulles, whose brother is OSS Deputy Director Allen W. Dulles.

The Bureau’s learning that Lieutenant Colonel Frade’s SAA had established commercial air service between Buenos Aires and Lisbon roughly coincided with an informal request by Treasury Secretary Morgenthau that the Director look into what he described as “credible rumors” that large numbers of Nazis were already leaving Germany for sanctuary in Argentina, in some cases with the assistance of the Vatican.

From other sources, the Director has learned that in the last months of the war, a number of officers of Abwehr Ost, the section of German intelligence dealing with the Soviet Union, had mysteriously disappeared from their posts and were rumored to be, together with their families, headed for sanctuary in Argentina. There has been no report—and the Army’s Counter-Intelligence Corps has been on special alert to look for anyone connected with Abwehr Ost—of anyone so connected being taken as a POW or found, including the Abwehr Ost commander General Reinhard Gehlen.

Jesus H. Christ! Frade thought. Has Morgenthau actually sniffed out the Gehlen Op? If so, it’s our worst nightmare come true.

How soon before his sword falls on our necks?

He said, “I wonder who these ‘other sources’ who told him about Abwehr Ost are.”

“Write this down, Clete,” Leibermann said. “Never underestimate the FBI. Where is Gehlen, Clete?”

This is not the time to wonder whose side Leibermann is on.

“I don’t know. I suppose the OSS has him somewhere in Germany. If Dulles knows, he didn’t tell me. I guess I’ll find out when I get to Germany.”

“Which will be when?”

“We leave tomorrow. The Argentine Foreign Ministry has chartered an SAA plane to take a replacement diplomatic crew over there and to bring the diplomats there back. I think that’s bullshit, and there is another purpose, probably including sneaking some more Nazis back here.”

“And what about the rumor that some of this General Gehlen’s people are already here in Argentina?”

“I’ve got about twenty of the Nazi element thereof comfortably locked up at Casa Montagna.”

“And the non-Nazi element?”

“Some of them want to stay; they’re being integrated into Argentine society. The ones that want to go back—or go somewhere else—are in hotels and ski lodges.”

“How do you tell the difference between the Nazis and the others?”