“Okay, that’s your position, Cronley, but I haven’t heard from either of them.”
Serov said, “Colonel, if Captain Cronley wants me to stay, I will stay
.”
“Ditto,” Janice said.
Waldron nodded. “Very well, then, so be it. We now turn to the subject of Captain Cronley’s relationship with Bruce J. Moriarty III, the orphan infant son of the late Virginia Calhoun Moriarty and the late Lieutenant Bruce J. Moriarty Jr. . . .”
Waldron paused, frowned, and twice shook his head in what could have signified frustration.
“I had hoped to avoid this, but obviously that’s not going to be possible. I’m going to have to start at the beginning. And since this meeting never took place, which means that nothing said today in here will ever leave this room, and, further, that the normal protocols about classified material do not apply, I can speak freely.”
“Speak,” Cronley said, impatiently.
“Okay, starting with the announcement that the villain, so to speak, in all of this is Harry S (no period) Truman.
“I had enough service so as to be released within days of the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay. I returned to the practice of corporate law in Washington. One of the firm’s major clients was Midwest Insurance, whose prewar CEO was one Sidney W. Souers.
“My friend Bob Jackson came to me the day that Truman named him chief prosecutor for the Nuremberg Tribunal and told me the reason Truman wanted the Nazis properly tried, then hanged, was to avoid making them martyrs. He asked me what I thought and I told him I thought it was a stroke of genius. History would show that Truman was much smarter than many thought. I also said that if there was anything I could do to help, et cetera.
“Two days later, Bob was back. This time he had Eisenhower, then chief of staff of the Army, with him. They had been talking. What Bob needed in Germany was a high-placed friend no one knew about who would protect Bob not only from the Nazis still running loose, including but not limited to those in Odessa, who obviously would try to harm him, both physically and politically, but also from certain personnel in the Army and Military Government and from the sometimes rash ideas and actions of the commander in chief.
“The only person in Germany who would know of my role in this was General Clay. Later, High Commissioner McCloy was brought into the loop. In Washington, of course, the only cognoscenti were Admiral Souers, Oscar Schultz, and Cletus Frade. And, of course, Dwight Eisenhower.
“The wisdom of the plan became almost immediately apparent when the President had two ideas, one immediately following the other.
“Idea one was that Bob was actually in physical danger and needed protection, especially since Truman—idea two—had decided that Jackson was going to have enough idle time on his hands to run to earth the large number of senior Nazis who we had so far been unable to locate.
“To protect Bob, Truman didn’t want to use the military police or the Counterintelligence Corps or the FBI. That would be too visible and those agents would immediately report to their respective superiors anything they learned about Justice Jackson in which they thought their superiors would be interested. This was especially true of the FBI. Admiral Souers once told me with a straight face that he wasn’t sure whom the President loathed more, Joseph Stalin or John Edgar Hoover.”
Cronley and Serov both grunted simultaneously.
“Can I quote you on that, Colonel?” Janice said.
“Absolutely not,” Waldron said, making a thin smile. “And if you do, I’ll deny it. Anyway, the President said he knew of a young officer who could fill the roll. He had met Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr. and promoted him to captain and pinned the Distinguished Service Medal on him for his role in shooting the captain of the German submarine U-590 in Patagonia as he prepared to sell five hundred and sixty kilograms of Nazi uranium-235 to the Soviets.”
“I didn’t know until this moment that that was you, James,” Serov blurted.
“For obvious reasons, General,” Waldron said, drily, “there followed no press conference call to trumpet Cronley’s exploits.”
Serov’s face showed his obvious displeasure.
“Truman got on the SIGABA,” Waldron went on, “and told Jackson he was getting a DCI protection detail headed by Captain Cronley, whom he knew personally and who would also be useful in helping Jackson track down the at-large Nazis who Truman wanted in the cells of the Tribunal Prison awaiting trial.
“The next thing the President heard was, things had gone better than he had hoped. He was told that Cronley had captured von Dietelburg and Burgdorf in Vienna.”
“You know that didn’t come without a steep price,” Cronley said.
Waldron nodded. “About forty-five minutes after the President was told the good news, General Clay came into my office and announced that the Austrian government had issued a warrant for the arrest of one of Cronley’s men on a charge of murder and one for Cronley himself on a charge of being an accessory before and after the fact. They also charged him and his people with violating Austrian airspace and customs regulations by flying unmarked aircraft across the border on several occasions.”
“Nice work, Jimmy,” Janice said.
“I feel obligated to state that this is all off the record, Miss Johansen.”
“Worry not, Colonel,” Cronley said. “We have an understanding.”
Waldron looked at him. “Right. Anyway, there was a long list of other charges, including from the U.S. Army Air Force and the Office of Military Government. Cronley, surprising no one, had an explanation for his actions. When planning the capture of von Dietelburg and Burgdorf with Austrian authorities, he had decided that the Austrians’ true intention was to incarcerate the two Nazis in an Austrian prison for trial by the Austrian government at a later date.