1 January 1943
Subject: Letter Orders To: Colonel A.F.
Graham, USMCR Office of Strategic
Services Washington, D.C.
[ THREE ]
Biscayne Bay
Miami, Florida
2215 23 April 1943
After a very long flight at 160 miles per hour from Caracas,
Venezuela, the four-engined Sikorsky Flying Boat of Pan American Grace Airways splashed down into the calm waters of Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida. Among its thirty-four passengers was a tanned, balding man of forty eight who wore a trim, pencil-line mustache. The name on his passport read Alejandro Federico Graham, ^and his occupation was given as "Business Executive." In the breast pocket of his splendidly tailored suit was another document:
1. You will proceed to such destinations as your duties require by U.S. Government or civilian motor, rail, sea or air transportation as is most expedient. JCS Travel Priority
AAAAAA-1 is assigned. The wearing of civilian attire is authorized.
2. United States Military or Naval commands are authorized and directed to provide you with whatever assistance of any kind you may require to accomplish your mission(s).
By Order of The Chairman, The Joint Chiefs of Staff:
Officiaclass="underline"
Matthew "j, Markham Lieutenant
General, USAAC J-3, JCS
[FOUR]
The Office of the Director
The Office of Strategic Services
National Institutes of Health Building
Washington. B.C.
1045 24 April 1943
Colonel William J. Donovan, the stocky, gray-haired, sixty year-old Director of the Office of Strategic Services, rose from his desk and walked to the door when his secretary announced Colonel Graham's arrival. When Colonel Alejan dro Federico Graham, USMCR, passed through the door,
Colonel Donovan cordially offered his hand. "Welcome home, Alex," he said. "How was the flight?"
"From Buenos Aires to Miami, it was slow but very com fortable. Cold champagne, hot towels; Panagra does it right.
From Miami to here it was very fast and very uncomfortable.
That was my first ride in a B-26. What was that all about?"
"I'm going to have dinner tonight with the President. I really had to talk to you before I did."
Donovan had been a Columbia University School of Law classmate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; he and the President remained close personal friends. In the First World War, he had won the Medal of Honor as a colonel, commanding the famous "Fighting Sixty-Ninth" Infantry in France. After the war, he had become a very successful Wall Street lawyer.
At the request of President Roosevelt, he had become the
Director of the OSS at an annual salary of one dollar.
Graham grunted.
"Can I get you anything? Coffee?" Donovan asked.
"Coffee would be nice, thank you," Graham said.
Graham, who was now the Deputy Director of the OSS for
Western Hemisphere Operations, had served as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps in France in World War I.
After the war he had been active in the Marine Corps
Reserve, eventually rising to Colonel, USMCR.
An engineer by training, he had become president of the nation's second- or third-largest railroad (depending on whether the criterion was income or tonnage moved annu ally). He had made, additionally, a considerable fortune building railroads all over Central and South America.
A political conservative, he had made substantial financial contributions to the presidential campaign of his close friend,
Wendell L. Willkie, who had been defeated in a landslide by
Roosevelt in the 1940 election.
When called to active Marine Corps service, he had expected to be given command of a regiment; but Donovan- along with the Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps, an old friend-had convinced him that his intimate knowledge of South America and its leaders made him more valuable to the OSS than he would be to the Marine Corps, and he had reluctantly given up his dream of commanding a Marine regiment.
"Sit down, Alex," Donovan said, and went to his office door and ordered coffee.
Graham lowered himself onto a green leather couch, took a long, thin black cigar case from the pocket of his well tailored suit, extracted a cigar, and, after biting its end off, lit it with a gold Dunhill lighter.
"Nice-looking cigar," Donovan said. "Argentine?" Graham started to take the cigar case from his jacket again. Donovan signaled he didn't want one. Graham shrugged. "Brazilian," he said.
"That's right," Donovan said. "There's a layover in Rio de
Janeiro, isn't there?"
"And in Caracas," Graham said. "It took me four days to get here from Buenos Aires." "Shall I get right to the point?"
Donovan asked. "That's often a good idea."
"I need to know the name of your intelligence source in
Argentina," Donovan said, "the one who helped us with
Operation Phoenix. I want to know who Galahad is." "We've been over this, Bill," Graham said. "That was an order,
Colonel."
"Well, we are getting right to the point, aren't we? Sorry, I'm not in a position to tell you." Donovan glared coldly at him.
"Bill," Graham said. "When I took this job, I had your word that you wouldn't try to second-guess my decisions." "I can take you off this job, Alex." "Yes, you can. Is that what you're doing?" "What am I supposed to tell the President? 'Sorry,
Mr. President, Graham won't tell me who Galahad is'?"
"When all else fails, tell the truth." "What if the President asked you-ordered you-to tell him?"
"Same answer."
"What I should have done was order Frade up here." "In the
Marine Corps, Bill, they teach us to never give an order that you doubt will be obeyed." "You don't mean he'd refuse to come?" "That's a very real possibility." "He's a major in the
Marine Corps." "And he's an ace. Who was just awarded the
Navy Cross. And is smart enough to understand that court martialing a hero might pose some public relations problems for you. And for the President. That's presuming, of course, that he would put himself in a position, coming here, where you could court-martial him."
"It wouldn't have to be a court-martial…" "Saint
Elizabeth's? You're not thinking clearly, Bill." In an opinion furnished privately to the President by the Attorney General, the provisions of the law of habeas cor pus were not applicable to a patient confined for psychiatric evaluation in a hospital, such as Saint Elizabeth's, the Federal mental hospital in the District of Colombia.
"I'm not?"
"Cletus Marcus Howell, who dearly loves his grandson, is a great admirer-and I think a personal friend-of Colonel
McCormick."
Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick, publisher of the
Chicago Tribune, made no secret of his loathing for President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
"And I suppose I could count on you to be with Howell when he went to see McCormick."
"That's a possibility I think you should keep in the back of your mind, Bill."
"You realize, Alex, that you're willfully disobeying a direct order? This is tantamount to mutiny."
"I'll split that hair with you, Bill. I thought about that on the way up here. You're not on active duty, Colonel; legally, you're a dollar-a-year civilian. I don't think that you have the authority to issue me a military order. But let's not get into that-unless you've already made up your mind to go down that road?"
"What road should we go down?"
"Be grateful for what we have."
"Which is?"
"Cletus Frade has done more for us than either of us dreamed he could. He earned that Navy Cross by putting his life on the line when he led the submarine Devil Fish into
Samborombon Bay to sink the Reine de la Mer. Only a bona fide hero or a fool would have flown that little airplane into the aircraft weaponry on that ship, and whatever Cletus is, he's no fool."
"I wasn't accusing him of being either a fool or a coward,"