The Assassination Option (Clandestine Operations 2)

“Okay. Let’s say General Eisenhower in Frankfurt wants to send a secret message to General Clay in Berlin. He doesn’t want anybody else to see it, so he makes it ‘Eyes Only, General Clay.’”

“Which means only General Clay gets to see it,” Ashley said. “What’s funny about that?”

“I’ll tell you. Eisenhower doesn’t write, or type, the message himself. He dictates it to his secretary or whatever. He or she thus gets to see the message. Then it goes to the message center, where the message center sergeant gets to read it. Then it goes to the ASA for encryption, and the encryption officer and encryption sergeant get to read it. Then it’s transmitted to Berlin, where the ASA people get it and read it, and decrypt it, then it goes to the message center, where they read it, and finally it goes to General Clay’s office, where his secretary or his aide reads it, and then says, ‘General, sir, there is an Eyes Only for you from General Eisenhower. He wants to know . . .’ So how many pairs of eyes is that, six, eight, ten?”

“You have a point, Cronley,” Colonel Parsons said. “Frankly, I never thought about that. But that obviously can’t be helped. The typists, cryptographers, et cetera, are an integral part of the message transmission process. All you can do is make sure that all of them have the appropriate security clearances.”

“That’s it. But why ‘Eyes only’?”

“I have no answer for that,” Parsons said. “But how do you feel about someone, say, the cryptographer, sharing what he—or she—has read in an Eyes Only, or any classified message, with someone not in the transmission process?”

“Do you remember, Colonel, what Secretary of State Henry Stimson said when he shut down the State Department’s cryptanalytic office?”

“Yes, I do. ‘Gentlemen don’t read other gentlemen’s mail.’ I think that was a bit naïve.”

“You know what I thought when I heard that?” Cronley asked rhetorically. “And I think it applies here.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Major Ashley said.

“I wondered, ‘How can I be sure you’re a gentleman whose mail I shouldn’t read unless I read your mail?’”

“How does this apply here?” Ashley asked sarcastically.

“Hypothetically?”

“Hypothetically or any other way.”

“Okay. Let’s say, hypothetically, that when Miss Colbert here was in charge of encrypting one of your messages to the Pentagon, and had to read it in the proper discharge of her duties, she reads ‘If things go well, the bomb I placed in the Pentagon PX will go off at 1330. Signature Ashley.’”

“This is ridiculous!” Ashley snapped.

“You asked how it applies,” Cronley said. “Let me finish.”

Ashley didn’t reply.

“What is she supposed to do? Pretend she hasn’t read it? Decide on her own that it’s some sort of sick joke and can be safely ignored? Decide that it’s real, but she can’t say anything because she’s not supposed to read what she’s encrypting? In which case the bomb will go off as scheduled. Or go to a superior officer—one with all the proper security clearances—and tell him?”

“This is absurd,” Ashley said.

“It’s thought-provoking,” Colonel Parsons said, and then turned to Colbert.

“See anything you like on the menu, Miss Colbert?”

“My problem, Colonel, is that I don’t see anything on the menu I don’t like.”

“Shall we have a little wine with our dinner?” Colonel Parsons asked. “Where’s the wine list?”

[FOUR]

Suite 527

Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten

Maximilianstrasse 178

Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

2105 16 January 1946