Death and Honor

[ONE]

Office of the Director Office of Strategic Services National Institutes of Health Building Washington, D.C. 1425 1 August 1943

“Waiting to see me, Alex?” the director of the Office of Strategic Services inquired of the OSS deputy director for Western Hemisphere operations, who was sitting in an upholstered chair in Donovan’s outer office, holding a copy of The Saturday Evening Post.

“Oh, you are a clever fellow, aren’t you? You take one look at someone and you can tell just what they’re up to.”

“I asked him if he wanted to go in, General Donovan,” Donovan’s secretary said, just a touch self-righteously.

Donovan signaled for Graham to go into his office, then turned to his secretary. “Bring me and the Latin Bob Hope here some coffee, will you, please, Margaret?”

“I’ve never been called that before,” Graham said.

“And I’m sorry I did,” Donovan said. “I hope Hope doesn’t hear about it. I really like him.”

Graham waited until Donovan took his seat behind his desk, then handed him a manila folder stamped TOP SECRET in red.

“I hope this is good news,” Donovan said.

“As far as I’m concerned, it is,” Graham said, and sat in one of the two leather armchairs facing Donovan’s desk.

Donovan opened the folder and read the message.

URGENT

TOP SECRET LINDBERGH

DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

2100 LOCAL 30 JULY 1943

FROM TEX

TO AGGIE

SEGURO COMERCIAL IS ABOUT TO INFORM SOUTH AMERICAN AIRWAYS THAT SINCE LLOYD’S OF LONDON HAS REFUSED TO REINSURE SAA THEY ARE FORCED TO CANCEL OUR INSURANCE.

LLOYD’S REASON FOR REFUSING TO REINSURE IS THAT OUR PILOTS DO NOT HOLD US AIR TRANSPORT RATINGS. STRONGLY SUSPECT THAT LLOYD’S GOT THEIR INFORMATION ABOUT OUR PILOTS FROM CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS AT VARIG WHO THINK THAT SAA’S LODESTARS SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THEM, AND WHO NOW ARE TRYING TO CUT OFF COMPETITION. IT IS EQUALLY PROBABLE THAT PAN AMERICAN, EITHER INDEPENDENTLY OR WORKING WITH THOSE AT VARIG, HAS ALSO MENTIONED OUR NON-ATR-RATED PILOTS TO LLOYD’S BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT ANY COMPETITION EITHER.

TIO JUAN THINKS THAT THE BRITISH ARE INVOLVED IN THE CANCELLATION, EITHER ALONE OR IN CONJUCTION WITH VARIG AND/OR TRIPPE, BECAUSE THEY PLAN TO RUN ARGENTINA’S AVIATION AFTER THE WAR THE WAY THEY RUN THE ARGENTINE RAILROADS AND WANT TO NIP COMPETITION IN THE BUD.

WHILE IT SEEMS PRETTY CLEAR TO ME THAT OUR FRIEND IN SWITZERLAND PROBABLY COULD FIX THINGS WITH LLOYD’S, AND THE MAN WHOSE AIRLINE IDEA THIS WAS CERTAINLY COULD DO SO, HAVE THEM BUTT OUT REPEAT HAVE THEM BUTT OUT UNTIL I HAVE A CHANCE TO TRY TO FIX THIS MYSELF.

FORCING LLOYD’S TO REVERSE ITSELF WOULD NOT ONLY ANNOY THEM, WORD ALSO WOULD GET OUT ABOUT IT AND THEN QUESTIONS ASKED ABOUT WHO IT IS THAT’S LEANING ON THEM. NO DOUBT VARIG AND PAN AMERICAN WOULD BE ANNOYED AND PROBABLY WOULD START ASKING THE SAME QUESTION. THAT WOULD CERTAINLY SCREW UP THINGS FOR ME AND SAA BOTH IMMEDIATELY AND IN THE FUTURE.

UNLESS I AM GIVEN SOME GOOD REASON NOT TO DO SO, I INTEND TO FLY FOURTEEN (14) SAA PILOTS TO BURBANK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, PROBABLY WITHIN THIRTY-SIX (36) HOURS, AND GET THE PILOTS THEIR ATRS. AS I DOUBT THIS WILL SATISFY LLOYD’S OR SEGURO COMERCIAL FOR REASONS STATED ABOVE, I WILL HAVE TO GET SOME U.S. INSURANCE COMPANY TO INSURE SAA. ANY IDEAS?

TEX

“Two questions,” Donovan said when he had finished reading. “Why do you think this is good news? FDR will have a fit when he hears about it.”

“You said two questions?”

“This is dated two days ago. You just got it?”

“I got it two days ago. I was waiting for the second message I just gave you”—he gestured toward the manila folder—“the one you chose to ignore.”

“I didn’t see the second message,” Donovan said as he went back into the manila folder, found the message, took it out, and began to read it:

URGENT

TOP SECRET LINDBERGH

DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

1000 LOCAL 1 AUGUST 1943

FROM COWGIRL

TO AGGIE

TEX AND FRIENDS LEFT FOR BURBANK 0645 TODAY

TEX BRINGING WITH HIM PHOTOS OF TWO VERY INTERESTING MAPS OF THIS AREA

EL JEFE AND I HOLDING THE FORT AND CARING FOR TOURISTS

COWGIRL

Donovan looked up from the sheet. “ ‘Cowgirl’?”

“The feminine of ‘cowboy.’ Taking a wild guess, Señora Dorotea Mallín de Frade.”

“She knows too much, period.”

“They’re newlyweds; he tells her everything. And beneath her really extraordinary beauty there is a highly intelligent and very, very tough young woman.”

Donovan looked past Graham a long moment as he considered that. “Okay. I’ll take your word for it. Now, tell me why you think this is good news. The maps?”

“I have no idea what they are.”

“Then what, Alex?”

“You think Juan Trippe is capable of going to Lloyd’s?”

Donovan thought about that for perhaps two seconds, then nodded. “Yeah, Juan’s capable of that. Especially if he heard, and I’m sure he has, that the airline in Argentina is Roosevelt’s idea.”

“You think he’s heard?”

Donovan nodded again. “He’s heard that an Argentine airline is starting up. Hell, that was in the newspapers down there. And then he wondered where they were getting their airplanes. And then he wondered how neutral Argentina was getting Lodestars that allies—for example, Canada and Mexico—would love to have. Who would have the authority to order that besides FDR? Sure, he knows.”

“What about Varig going to Lloyd’s?”

“Same story. They wanted the Lodestars. Argentina got them. ‘Let’s knock off the competition before it gets off the ground.’ ” He paused. “I heard the pun. Unintentional. It just came out that way.”

“And the Brits? Do you think somebody there, wanting to make sure nobody else starts an airline in Argentina before they get around to it, went to Lloyd’s?”

“Why not? All of the above.”

“What about Allen Dulles? Do you think he might have gone to Lloyd’s?”

“Why would Allen want to do . . . ? Alex!”

Graham nodded, then explained: “As part of the Air Transport Rating examination, there is a cross-country flight. Frade will be one of the first pilots to take the check-ride. His flight will take him to Jackson, Mississippi, which is a half-hour’s car ride from Camp Clinton.”

“You’ve got the whole damn thing set up.”

“I did the setup. But it was Allen’s idea. He really wants to turn Colonel Frogger—”

“All this to track the Operation Phoenix money in Argentina?” Donovan interrupted.

“I suspect there probably is more, but Allen didn’t say anything.”

“And you didn’t ask him?”

“Allen does things one step at a time. If Frade can turn Frogger, and there is more, I suspect Allen will tell me.”

“Why not now?”

Graham shrugged. “Of the three of us, who would you say really knows what he’s doing?”

Donovan could have taken offense, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Point taken.” After a moment’s silence, he asked, “When does this happen?”

“Sometime in the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours they’ll have to land in Mexico to get permission to enter the United States. Probably Nogales, maybe Sonora.”

“You don’t know?”

Graham shook his head.

“Allen’s idea. Frade believes everything he sent in that message. If he doesn’t know anything, he can’t let anything slip. Anyway, the Air Force’s North American Air Defense Command, which issues the clearance to enter U.S. airspace— and normally would issue it to an airliner of a neutral country in maybe an hour—has been told to wait five hours. That’ll do several things. It will almost certainly give the pilots with him—at least one of whom is an Argentine intelligence officer taking notes—a chance to witness Frade showing genuine frustration and maybe even losing his temper.”

Graham took a sip of his coffee, then added, “And it will give me a little time to get out to Burbank.”

He drank again from the cup, then said, “The permission will finally come, and they’ll fly to the Lockheed plant in Burbank, where they will not be expected, and will be met by indignant and curious immigration officers and by curious Lockheed officials who more than likely will be annoyed. Frade and his group won’t be arrested, but they will be escorted to their hotel by an immigration officer and told not to leave it until everything is cleared up.

“Sooner or later, somebody at Lockheed is going to call the War Production Board and ask what to do with the SAA pilots who have just dropped in on them unexpected and uninvited—”

“How do you know they’ll do that?” Donovan interrupted.

“Because, if they don’t, Howard Hughes will tell them to do so.”

“Howard Hughes is in on this?”

Graham nodded. “But only him.”

“How much did you have to tell him?”

“Only that I needed a favor. He knows Frade, you know.”

“You told me that.”

“Anyway, when somebody at Lockheed calls the War Production Board, there will be a couple of hours’ delay and then someone will tell Lockheed to do whatever South American Airways wants done.”

“And how do you know that will happen?”

“Julius Krug, the chief of the War Production Board, knows that the airline is Roosevelt’s idea.”

“There’s a long list of things that could go wrong in that scenario, Alex.”

"O ye of little faith!”

“But even if nothing goes wrong, what if Frade can’t turn the Afrikakorps colonel—?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Frogger,” Graham furnished. “If Frade and Fischer—and of course me—can’t turn him, then because he will have heard too much to be allowed to go back in the POW cage, I’ll have to decide what to do with him.”

“I don’t like the sound of that. He’s entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention.”

“If that gets to be a real problem—which means if he does—we’ll talk again about his having an accident. But right now I’m thinking of sending him to the Aleutian Islands, where he can sit out the war with our homegrown Communists. ”

“You’re serious?”

“There would be a certain poetic justice in that, don’t you think? A devout Nazi being guarded by American Communists?”

“Before you do that, Alex, I’ll want to talk about it again.”

Graham shrugged, then drained his coffee cup.