“I generally don’t trust people who find it easy to change sides.”
“How do you feel about Putzi Hanfstaengl?”
“Putzi didn’t become anti-Nazi until Adolf Hitler decided to eliminate him, now did he?”
“The President trusts him.”
“FDR also trusts Henry Wallace, and I know J. Edgar has told the President that he knows Wallace is at the very least a Communist sympathizer.”
“How do you know that?”
“What? That Henry Wallace is somewhat to the left of Joe Stalin, or that J. Edgar told Roosevelt that he is?”
“Either, both.”
“Hoover told me. In the strictest confidence, of course.”
“Not to leave this room, of course, but J. Edgar told me the same thing, in the strictest confidence, of course. And I confided—in the strictest confidence, of course—in J. Edgar that I had told Roosevelt precisely that when he picked Henry Wallace for his Vice President.”
They shook their heads and smiled at one another.
“We seem to have digressed,” Donovan said. “So what does this Afrikakorps lieutenant colonel’s classification as a Three suggest to you that you should do?”
“You’re sitting down; I can tell you,” Graham said, and paused. “I’m going to bring Frade up here to see if he can enlist Colonel Frogger in our noble cause.”
“Which noble cause would that be?”
“Giving his father some backbone. A conservative estimate of what’s in those special shipment crates is a hundred million dollars. I suspect it’s more than that. I don’t want to lose track of it. And more will be coming. The key to keeping track of it is Frogger’s knowledge of who the German embassy has in its pocket.”
“Backbone?”
“His wife is the real Nazi in the family.”
“This woman?” Donovan asked incredulously, pointing to a photo of Frau Frogger standing beside Len Fischer.
Graham nodded. “And she’s been working on him to go back. I don’t know whether she thinks all will be forgiven, or whether she’ll denounce her husband.”
“Frade’s not going to let her go, is he?”
“Absolutely not. And Frogger’s too smart, too scared, to think all would be forgiven.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“He’s a bureaucrat. He’s going to take the middle ground. Tell us just enough to keep us hoping for more, but not everything he knows. We need his full cooperation; he has to be really turned. And the way to do that is through the son.”
“And what makes you think the son will go along with this? You said he’s been classified as apolitical.”
“I don’t know if he will or not. But I think we have to try.”
“Alex, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“That makes it two to one, Bill. You lose.”
“Meaning what?”
“Allen thinks it’s worth a shot.”
“You talked to Dulles about this?”