Eventually, the FBI interviewed senior company executives in their IBM offices, including the executive secretary, sales manager, education department director, and even Executive Vice President and General Manager Frederick Nichol. The field investigations soon came to the door of several IBM clients. Customers were asked about any pro-Nazi remarks overheard from at least one suspect IBM salesman in Milwaukee. The postmaster in Darien, Connecticut, was asked about rumors involving a leading IBM technical editor, a German national working in New York who was said to be part of an anti-Jewish society and expressing pro-Reich feelings.66
As soon as Watson learned of the FBI’s interest, indeed even before the agency could organize its investigations, he went into action. Watson and Nichol visited Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles on June 6 to volunteer personal details about potentially suspect IBM employees in the U.S. and Latin America. Watson made it clear he would cooperate in any way, and take immediate steps to sever corporate relations with any individual the government thought questionable, including several specifically discussed in the Colombia and Mexico City offices. Welles referred the information Watson proffered to Berle, who in turn forwarded it on to J. Edgar Hoover. Ironically, when Watson and Nichol met with Welles at the State Department on June 6, the two IBM executives forgot to mention one particular salesman by the name of Karl Georg Ruthe.67
The FBI soon took an intense interest in German-born Ruthe for the many reports of his rabidly pro-Hitler statements while in IBM offices and even at customer sites. One widely distributed FBI file memo related the comments of an auditor at Blatz Brewery in Milwaukee, one of the IBM customers Ruthe had visited. A Blatz auditor passed on Ruthe’s remarks reportedly expressing “strong sympathies for Germany and [the] thought that Hitler was justified in everything he did, inasmuch as Germany was given a very unfair deal in the last World War.”68
Another FBI report quoted IBM’s Milwaukee manager reporting that Ruthe “was quite boastful and would predict the outcome of the battles that are taking place in Europe, and that he kept the office force in a general turmoil with his constant talk about Hitler and what he [Hitler] was going to do to the European nations.” Ruthe was also rumored in FBI files to be a member of the Bund, an association of German-American Nazis.69
Few could understand Ruthe’s continuing position in the company since he was hired in 1936. He did not fit the IBM mold. Reported in FBI files as a “drunk” and “a poor salesman,” Ruthe was said to have seriously under-performed at the Endicott sales training school. Indeed, when Ruthe was transferred from the New York office to IBM Milwaukee, his superiors were asked to keep tabs on him.70
Although Watson and Nichol forgot to mention Ruthe during their June 6 discussion, they did remember several days later, when Nichol sent a letter to Welles marked “Strictly Confidential.” Nichol wrote, “In the discussion which Mr. Watson and I had with you on Thursday June 6, we overlooked mentioning the name of Mr. Karl Georg Ruthe. The facts concerning him are as follows.” Nichol then listed in a column Ruthe’s date and place of birth in Germany, graduating school in Germany, the four languages he spoke, home address, and citizen status—which was “American Citizen.”71
Nichol added some other background: “Mr. Ruthe was first employed by us on December 1, 1936, in New York in a sales capacity. He spent three months at our school at Endicott, N.Y., from July to October 1937, when he was assigned to Milwaukee, still in a sales capacity. Prior to working for us, Mr. Ruthe was a tutor of modern languages in New York City; had his own school in Schenectady (the Schenectady School of Languages) and was an instructor of German at Union College in Schenectady. We understand him to be an American citizen, and believe that his parents reside in Germany. It so happens that we saw fit to ask for this man’s resignation last week, based solely, however, on his inability to produce a record as a salesman in this business.” Nichol included nothing more on Ruthe.72
Ironically, when the FBI inquired as to how a person such as Ruthe could remain at IBM so long, they discovered that Watson had omitted some pertinent details. The FBI file cited observations received from IBM Sales Manager Fred Farwelclass="underline" “Subject’s work was so poor,” an FBI report recorded, “that he would have never been allowed to finish the IBM School and go out into the Field as a salesman had it not been for his close relationship to Mr. Watson, President of IBM; that as a matter of fact, Subject had been a constant source of trouble to all men in administrative positions who came in contact with Subject. And that Subject was only kept as an employee for the length of time, in view of his relationship to the President of the Company.” Farwell added that Ruthe had married Watson’s niece.73
The first week of June was a tense one for Watson. On June 3, 200 German planes dropped 1,060 explosive bombs and 61 incendiaries on Paris itself. More than 97 buildings were struck, including two hospitals and ten schools, killing 45. Ten children died at one demolished school alone. U.S. Ambassador to France William Bullitt himself narrowly missed death. While he was lunching with the French Air Minister, a bomb crashed through the roof and into the dining room, showering everyone with glass shards, but the device failed to explode.74
The public mood was reflected in a page one story in the New York Times, June 4, reporting a mere off-hand comment to an elevator boy by a German diplomat arriving in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The diplomat asked if the young man could speak German. When the youth replied that he could not, the diplomat shot back, “Well, you’d better learn it, you are going to need it.”75
On June 6, newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, reliably reported that the Gestapo was scouring Amsterdam armed with special lists of the “enemies of Germany.” Those rounded up were “liquidated…. Nearly all have faced firing squads,” the syndicated articles reported. Rumors that the names and addresses of all Jews living in Holland had already been turned over to Nazi agents were also circulating in both German and American papers. That same day, some 2,000 German tanks began rolling toward Paris for what was being called the “Battle of France.” Reich bombers hit the British coastline. All this was happening on the very day Watson was in Washington, D.C., assuring Undersecretary of State Welles that IBM would rid itself of Nazi sympathizers.76
The long delayed moment had come. That day, June 6, Watson wrote a reluctant letter to Adolf Hitler. This one would not be misaddressed or undelivered. This one would be sent by registered mail and released to the newspapers. Watson returned the medal Hitler had personally granted—and he chose to return it publicly via the media. The letter declared: “the present policies of your government are contrary to the causes for which I have been working and for which I received the decoration.”77
In Germany, Watson’s action would be considered the highest form of insult to der Fuhrer at a moment of German glory. The public manner of Watson’s rejection only heightened the affront. This would change everything.