The Honor of Spies

"Next, while in Europe, prewar, he made the mistake of accepting an award for his contributions to aviation from fellow aviator--the former commander of the Richthofen Squadron, now commander of the Luftwaffe--Hermann Goring. Lindbergh compounded this grievous error by saying that in his judgment--and he was, after all, an Air Corps reserve colonel--the Luftwaffe was the best air force in the world, and not only because it was the largest.

"Such behavior, such disloyalty, could not be tolerated, of course. The first thing FDR did was tell the Air Corps they were not to call Colonel Lindbergh to active duty under any circumstances. Lindbergh then continued to work for Juan Trippe at Pan American Airways.

"This directed Roosevelt's anger to Trippe. 'How dare someone give employment to a scoundrel like Lucky Lindy?' Trippe was told to fire him. He objected, and I understand there was a nasty scene before Trippe finally gave in to FDR's wrath.

"Lindbergh then went to work for Lockheed.

"But Roosevelt was not finished with Trippe. How to punish the owner of an airline? By starting up another airline to compete with him. Where? What about Argentina? We have--that's the regal 'we,' of course--the OSS down there, right? So FDR summons Wild Bill Donovan and tells him to have the OSS start up an airline; he will see the aircraft are provided.

"Donovan thought the idea was insane. And so did I when I heard about it. But Donovan knew better than to make an issue of it. Both of us are aware of the dangers of arguing with Roosevelt--which, incidentally, since we are making you privy to things you shouldn't know, have grown more dangerous since FDR's health is failing--so we arranged to have airplanes sent to Argentina and told you to set up an airline.

"At that time--as I didn't want what I considered to be the airline nonsense to interfere with the other things you are doing down there--I told you there would be no OSS connection to your airline. But then . . ."

Graham paused and gestured for Dulles to pick up the narrative.

Dulles nodded and said, "Alex and I had rather urgent matters to discuss; we arranged to meet at an airfield in Newfoundland. Alex showed up in a Constellation flown by our mutual friend Howard. I had never seen one, nor knew anything of its capabilities. Once they had been explained to me, we decided that Constellations could be very useful to us."

Graham picked up the narrative again: "If I had gone to General Arnold and asked for Constellations for the OSS, he probably would have laughed at me. But Donovan could see their potential value. So he went to FDR and very skillfully suggested that the way to really stick it to Juan Trippe was to provide the airline we already had in Argentina with aircraft with which they could fly all over South America--Constellations--and possibly even establish service across the Atlantic.

"Roosevelt was enchanted with the idea. So you got your Constellations."

"And what am I supposed to do with them?" Frade asked.

"So far as Donovan and Roosevelt are concerned, all you are doing, so to speak, is rubbing Juan Trippe's nose in the mud. SAA is flying scheduled service between South America and Europe; Pan American is not. When the war is over, SAA will have a tremendous advantage over Pan American."

"And as far as you two are concerned?" Frade asked.

"That's what Colonel Graham has wisely changed his mind about telling you," Dulles said. "Recognizing not only that you do, in fact, have the Need to Know, but that it would not be wise to keep you in the dark."

"About what? You're implying that Donovan doesn't know."

"Unfortunately," Dulles said, "we simply can't take the risk of having what you're going to do get out. And it would get out if Donovan were privy to it."

"Which is?" Frade asked.

"Immediately, what we're going to do . . . ," Graham said, then stopped. "This is the business to which I didn't think you should be privy. It was my intention that you would know nothing about this. But Mr. Dulles disagreed . . ."

Dulles nodded.

". . . and," Graham went on, "I have deferred to what I really hope is his superior wisdom; we are 'agreed' to tell you. The German officer in charge of Abwehr Ost--Russian--intelligence is a lieutenant colonel by the name of Reinhard Gehlen. He is far more powerful than his rank suggests. He is vouched for by Admiral Canaris, and, like Canaris, is involved in Operation Valkyrie."

Frade considered that, then nodded.

"A delegate of Canaris," Dulles carried on, "came to us--right here in this hotel, as a matter of fact--with an interesting offer. Gehlen recognizes the war is lost; that it's just a matter of time. And a relatively short one, if Valkyrie succeeds and Hitler is removed. God only knows how long if Valkyrie fails and Hitler fights to the last member of the Hitler Youth, which he is entirely capable of doing.