“Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Ambassador,” said Bobby after we had already shaken hands and introduced ourselves.
I translated. “Vous remercie de votre hospitalité, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur.”
“De rien, Bobby,” said the ambassador. “S’il vous plaît appelez-moi Robert.”
I translated. “He says you’re welcome, Bobby. And he says to please call him Robert.”
Bobby nodded and smiled.
“I don’t want to waste any of your precious time,” said Ambassador Coulondre in French. “I just want to look you in the eye and tell you that not a day goes by when our country takes for granted its special relationship with America.”
I translated.
“The feeling is certainly mutual,” said Bobby.
I translated.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” said Coulondre, “I have changed my mind. I was expecting heavy snow today, but it is clear out. I shall have my chauffer drive us to the Tiergarten and the three of us can enjoy some cold, fresh air. I would much prefer a walk through the beautiful, tree-lined garden today, even if we have to see and listen to the Nazi soldiers marching all over the damn place.”
I translated and Bobby agreed.
Minutes later we found ourselves strolling along the eastern portion of the massive park, myself in the middle, the ambassador to my left, snow having been recently shoveled off of the sidewalks.
“I feel,” said Coulondre, “it must be made clear, once again, that we intend to back Poland if Germany attacks her. Prime Minister Chamberlain agrees with us on the matter. We understand that President Roosevelt will not be joining us in this pact, but, nevertheless, want to reiterate how welcome he is to change his mind. The French, British, and American friendship is everything to us. And speaking of attacks, we both know it is only a matter of days before Hitler moves on Czechoslovakia. He was certainly shameless in violating the Treaty of Versailles last year by annexing Austria.”
I translated.
“President Roosevelt,” said Bobby, “respects yours and Britain’s position here. For God’s sake, if it were Mexico and Canada being threatened today, we’d be forced, like you, to consider force, based on their simple proximity to us. We understand how you and Britain feel squeezed. But, as you are fully aware, Congress has already spoken. America’s Neutrality Act remains in place. Besides, our economic situation all but demands that we not get embroiled in a second world war unless the sovereignty of our nation is under direct threat.”
I translated, and I also thought about what Bobby had told me privately, that Roosevelt actually wanted like hell to get Congress to repeal the Neutrality Act passed in 1937. He wanted at least to send military aid to European countries that were likely to be attacked in the near future by the Nazis. With each step we took, I couldn’t help but see the desperate look in the French ambassador’s eyes. All of us here in Berlin could feel the strength of Hitler growing daily. And if I wasn’t walking around scared to death about what might be happening to my family back in Stalin’s hell, I’d certainly be more worried about walking the streets of Berlin.
“What’s happening here is insane,” said Coulondre. “The walls of Berlin are closing in on us all. I will be leaving for France sooner than later. I assume all of the embassies will be closing within months. Acts of aggression by the various players have already occurred. But a global war is inevitable. And we may soon find ourselves trapped in Hitler’s inferno.”
I translated.
“I would like to think,” said Bobby, “that we are here to try to stop that kind of war from breaking out.”
“We can’t stop it,” said Coulondre, responding to my French. “And here, our families are no longer safe. Is your wife here, Mr. Ellington?”
Bobby waited for me and answered, “Yes… and my children.”
I translated and Coulondre said, “You can’t feel that they are safe. If you don’t leave soon, there will be no way to get out. Think about it. Communicate this to President Roosevelt.”
Bobby listened to me and responded with, “Perhaps if Hitler attacks Poland we will be recalled. But with each day that passes, I grow more concerned, more fearful. It is much worse than any of us could have imagined. Everyone is walking around in total fear. And my God, to be Jewish! The Night of Broken Glass was likely just the tip of the iceberg.”
Coulondre watched my lips and then nodded. “If I may, Mr. Ellington, I must ask our interpreter friend here if he knows what Hitler is doing to the local blacks, most of them of mixed race. He calls them ‘Rhineland Bastards.’ They are mainly the children of white German women and African soldiers who fought alongside the French when they controlled the Rhineland area during the Great War. These black children are being subjected to Hitler’s mandatory sterilization process. They’ll never be able to have children of their own. Adolf Hitler doesn’t want them mixing with the Aryans. Sick, sick man!”
24
Riga, Latvia
April 9, 1939
On a Sunday, some two months after I’d met Dallas in Belgium, I found myself sitting in a two-bedroom Riga apartment accompanied by two of Dallas’s men. The train ride from Berlin had taken me two days.
Dallas had finally sent his positive cable to Bobby on Friday, March 24, but I hadn’t been able to leave straightaway because my next briefcase exchange had been just ten days away on April 3. But now that I was here on the 9th, I had at least two and a half weeks to accomplish what I needed to before heading back to Berlin in time to make my fourth exchange on Monday, May 1.
The second exchange had gone smoothly, the briefcase filled with false information about U.S. submarine technology. I had typed up several reports using strictly physics and mathematics terminology—reports that partially detailed new types of S-boats called X-boats that America was on the cusp of introducing. Of course there were no renderings included, no actual math equations or physics specifics. It was strictly conceptual, my best attempt at theorizing. What I’d articulated could only describe a submarine that might be able to exist in the distant future, not 1940.
The size, speed, range, and depth of these futuristic sounding war machines would leave the Soviets scratching their heads and wanting to know more details. But in the end, I was certain Stalin could only worry at best, for he knew my access was limited and that I was merely relaying a small piece of a much larger and more complex mechanical breakthrough. That’s what he’d think at least.
I’d explained to the Kremlin that I’d accessed portions of a broader set of documents from the suitcase of a visiting Department of War official named Bob Wilmoth. Of course, there was no Bob Wilmoth. Still, it had been fun using my engineering skills to dream up something that didn’t exist.
The briefcase Dieter had given me during the second exchange included confirmation that the Kremlin was going to make sure Lovett was transferred from Magadan to MR4. They had confirmed that he was alive but said he wouldn’t be transferred until May, when a large group of free hires were set to ship home. I was just happy he wasn’t dead.
The third briefcase I’d delivered had information in it involving the same X-boats, but focused on who was involved. I’d reported that two men were responsible for aiding the U.S. in this engineering breakthrough, both with code names. I’d reported that the code names were probably being used so that various U.S. officials could comfortably correspond with one another about their two well-compensated, secret geniuses. One was a fictitious Australian mathematician being referred to as Warren Press Lord. The other was an engineer from Singapore I’d codenamed Lee Rodgers Lincoln.