The Hess Cross Page 5

  "That's what the Germans were told. What does Hitler actually believe?" Crown asked.

  "We don't know that, either. But three days after the flight, Hitler called in Nazi leaders and gave them a pep talk. Hess's journey apparently shocked and demoralized the Nazi party."

  "Imagine how sorry I am to hear that," Crown said.

  Sackville-West laughed softly and went on, "The popular belief in England and the U.S. is that Hess wanted to contact Tory appeasers who might consider a bargain with Germany whereby Hitler would attack the Soviet Union if Great Britain made peace with Germany. With a nonaggression pact with England, Hitler could concentrate his forces on Stalin. Hitler has been lusting after Russia's natural resources for a decade."

  "Could Hess have had Hitler's secret approval for the flight?"

  "Perhaps. But Hess didn't have concrete proposals for peace or suggestions for further contact. In addition, such intercountry contacts can be made through Switzerland or Spain. It wasn't necessary to forfeit the third most important man in Germany to do so. No, the embarrassment of Hess's flight more than outweighed any benefit he could have supplied as a courier of a peace feeler."

  Smithson swiveled his bulk to Crown and said, "Hess was thrown into an English prison soon after he arrived. And then he started to crack up."

  "Well, Everette," Sackville-West said as he continued to look at Crown, intending to keep this a two-way conversation, "that's only partly correct. In the year after his flight, Hess was given the most intensive psychological tests ever conducted on a human being. The foremost psychiatrists in England spent months with him. I have their reports here." He lifted a bulky loose-leaf volume off the desk. "It's dry reading, so let me summarize. Hess began showing a breakdown of his thought processes several weeks after his flight. These were characterized by rambling speech and lapses in memory. At times he said he couldn't remember his wife's name or the names of his close associates in the Nazi party. He also developed an increased psychological dependence on homeopathic drugs, which are regarded by doctors as useless. But if they are taken away from Hess, he assumes an infantile behavior pattern. He won't eat, he won't participate in interviews with the psychiatrists, and on and on."

  "Why don't they just let him starve?" Crown asked. "It's a rare man who can starve long enough to do himself any damage."

  "Because Hess has become an invaluable source of information, and we don't want to stop the flow of facts and figures by angering him. Have you ever heard of the European Documentation Center?"

  "No. It sounds like a purposefully vague title."

  "It is. The EDC is associated with Oxford University and is officially in charge of cataloging information about Nazi Germany gleaned from German newspapers. It does some of this to maintain its front. Actually, the EDC is the British government's organization to interrogate Nazi defectors."

  "Does 'interrogate' mean polite questions or something harsher?" asked Crown. In many countries the gentle questions are routinely followed by brutal and usually effective methods of eliciting information. In Spain he had once been on the painful receiving end during such a question-and-answer session conducted by the infamous Dr. Bull, as the torturer liked to call himself. Dr. Bull was dead. Miguel Maura had seen to that.

  "Merely questions, of course. The British don't engage in other types of activity," Sackville-West answered as he smiled thinly. When pressed hard enough, all countries resort to torture. "Seriously, EDC questions only defectors who voluntarily give information. This requires specialists, though, because most enemy soldiers who cross want to give only enough information to prove the sincerity of their defection. Other information can be pried from them after meticulous questioning, always with the understanding the defector will be sent back to his homeland if he withholds facts."

  "Cross" referred to crossing the English Channel. England's topography dictates that an enemy who defects must cross the channel. In the intelligence world, "cross" had come to mean a defector who was in his heart a defector, a genuine article ready to provide information. Crossers are distinguished from enemy plants, who are ordered to act as if they have defected to give false information.

  Sackville-West carefully opened his attaché case on the end of the desk. He was the only person alive who knew how to open it without being injured. He took out a thin manila folder and leaned over the desk to hand it to Crown. Crown saw three green stripes across the top of the folder. These indicated a 3A security clearance, the only clearance he did not have. He was forbidden to look at the contents unless directed to do so by one who had a 3A. There was no English or American clearance Sackville-West did not have, and he instructed, "Please review the first page."

  There were several onionskin pages in the folder, each with three green stripes. The first page read:

  EUROPEAN DOCUMENTATION CENTER PERSONNEL

  Josef Ludendorf, chief, born 1883, Munich, Germany. Parents: Karl Ludendorf, central-post-office official, and Gerda Botsch Ludendorf, housewife. Middle-income. Owned a small home.

  Josef Ludendorf educated in Munich public schools. Excellent marks. Entered University of Munich in 1901. Studied romantic languages and history. From studies and travels after graduation in 1905 learned French, Spanish, English, and Italian.

  Offered post at University of Munich in languages department. Taught at university for next thirty years. No reports of early political activity.

  Ludendorf appointed chairman of University of Munich student newspaper in 1928. Guided editorial policy of the newspaper. In 1933 newspaper began publishing editorials critical of new National Socialist German Workers' party and its leader, Adolf Hitler. Editorials continued until 1934, when Ludendorf fled Germany after threatened with indefinite sentence in concentration camp for political prisoners.

  Ludendorf joined Oxford University faculty in 1935. Taught graduate-level languages and German history. Made a full professor in 1938, a remarkable achievement.

  In 1939 Ludendorf asked by British government to form European Documentation Center. Reduced his classwork at Oxford and assumed EDC responsibilities. In March 1940, at urging of the British government, requested leave of absence from Oxford to assume full-time work at EDC. Headed EDC since that time.

  Never married. Both parents died 1918 of flu. One brother has managerial position with small foundry near Munich.

  When Crown looked up from the file, Sackville-West continued, "What that doesn't tell you is how successful the EDC has been. Since 1939 they have questioned over seventy Germans. Some, of course, don't give much information, but others have been invaluable sources of not only general knowledge about the German economy and government, but often of specific military information."

  Again Sackville-West reached into his attaché case and opened a folder. He laid it on the desk in front of him and leafed through several pages. Each had green stripes. Crown glanced at Smithson, whose substantial bulk was perched anxiously on the edge of the metal chair. Different grades of security clearances between the three men and different needs to know were the reasons for the paper shuffling. Sackville-West had not read the Ludendorf biography aloud because in the agency one was told only what he needed to know. Apparently Crown needed to know about Ludendorf. Smithson did not.

  After arranging the papers, Sackville-West produced a pipe from the case and tapped various pockets of his suit to find his tobacco. "Are you familiar with the Libyan campaign?" he asked.

  "No, other than it was a tremendous British success in late 1940," Crown answered, wanting to suggest that the tobacco might also be in the briefcase.

  "Well, in the fall of 1940, General Wavell was in command of the British expedition in Africa. He had only fifty-one thousand troops, a partly equipped tank brigade, and an air force that was laughable."

  Sackville-West paused to reach into the case to find the tobacco. He put a pinch in the pipe and tamped on it with his index finger and said, "This crippled British force was facing two-hundred-fifteen thousand Italian
s in Libya and another two-hundred thousand in Italian East Africa. Wavell was ordered to avoid skirmishes because of the predictable result of such a manpower imbalance. In July the Italians invaded Sudan, Kenya, and Gallabat, forcing Wavell to evacuate. It looked grim for the British. Wavell, by the way"—he paused to puff several times—"is a personal friend of mine."

  No surprise here. In Sackville-West's Washington office, only one picture sits on the mahogany desk. It shows Winston Churchill and Sackville-West dining together and obviously enjoying each other's company.

  Through billowing smoke the Priest continued, "Because of the unhealthy odds against the British if a full-scale battle began, Wavell was ordered to make one man look like ten, make one tank look like ten, and to build airplanes out of wooden boxes so Italian flybys would report exaggerated figures of British strength. Things were that bad. The Italians leisurely built a string of seven heavily armed fortresses north to south across the front.

  "Then Wavell received two incredible pieces of information. First, there was a gap between two of the Italian forts, Sofafi East and Sofafi Southwest, which was difficult to defend because of the topography. And second, for some reason, the Italians weren't even trying to defend the gap at all.

  "Wavell assigned Major General R. N. O'Connor to take his thirty-one thousand men through the virtually undefended space. To make it short, O'Connor dashed five hundred miles across Cirenaica and destroyed the Italian army. It was a military feat unparalleled in the desert war."

  "And the European Documentation Center's role?" Crown asked.

  "A big one," Smithson volunteered uncertainly.

  "Precisely," Sackville-West went on as he relit the pipe. "A week before O'Connor began his offensive, a Major Johann Wesel crossed to England. He was interrogated by the EDC, and they discovered that Wesel had been assigned to the German Army's Italian liaison office. Because of his position, Wesel knew in detail the strengths and weaknesses of the Italian army in Africa, including the gap between the forts. The EDC immediately gave Wesel's information to the British High Command, which passed it on to Wavell.

  "In other words, Wavell and O'Connor had the exact details of the Italian positions. As a result, the greater parts of five Italian divisions were destroyed. Thirty-eight thousand prisoners, four hundred heavy guns, and fifty tanks were taken. O'Connor's sprint turned into a major British campaign which drastically weakened the Italian hold on Africa."

  "I hope the men at the EDC are being paid salaries commensurate with their work," Crown said at his boss's pause.

  "That would be impossible. The Sofafi gap is only one example, albeit the most dramatic. There are several other instances where information gleaned from crossed Germans has saved British lives and has cost the Germans dearly." Sackville-West stood from his chair, his pipe gripped firmly in his teeth. He looked through the window curtains at the Chicago weather. New lines around the Priest's eyes were visible in the window light. Sackville-West had told Crown as early as 1938 that the United States would fight Hitler. The wrinkles were manifestations of the work and worry of the secret war that began years before most Americans had heard of the Nazi party.

  "I tell you all this, John, so you'll realize the importance and effectiveness of the European Documentation Center. Now, let me mention several other classified items, and then I'll try to draw them together. The reason you are in Chicago will become clear as I do."

  Crown noted the smirk that crossed Smithson's face, a reflection of the power the Chicago man felt because he possessed information Crown as yet did not. Sackville-West was lecturing Crown, not him. It equalized the conversation.

  "Does the name Otto Hahn mean anything to you?" Sackville-West's questions interrupted Crown's thoughts.

  "No, it doesn't."

  "Professor Hahn is a German chemist presently involved in weapons experiments that we know extremely little about. In fact, what I'm told, I don't understand, but let me tell you anyway.

  "You know that some atoms are radioactive—uranium, for example. Professor Hahn and his colleagues in Germany are experimenting with ways of splitting the atom, causing particles to break off and shoot away from the atom. Their hope is to start a chain reaction, one atom hitting another, and it hitting another, and on and on. This is nuclear fission."

  "Where are you when you have nuclear fission?" Crown asked, sorry to see the conversation take a scientific turn.

  "London and Washington speculate that the chain reaction could balloon violently, causing a massive explosion. The German research is designed to produce a bomb."

  "That's just what the goddamn Germans need, another bomb."

  "This one is different. Our scientists believe that, just like a conventional explosion, when an atom bomb is detonated, there will be an extremely rapid rise in temperature, which will result in the complete vaporization, or gasification, of the products of the explosion and also of the container. These very hot gases produced in the restricted space will start to move outward immediately following the detonation. But there are several ways an atom bomb will differ from TNT. First, the amount of energy released will be a thousand or more times that of our largest current weapons. The scientists figure that the wind velocity a quarter-mile from the explosion site will reach eight-hundred miles per hour, and that all structures within two miles will be flattened."

  Sackville-West looked up from the ominous statistics, and a shadow of fear crossed his face, something Crown had never seen before.

  "Second," the Priest continued, "the explosion will be accompanied by a highly penetrating and deadly invisible ray. The scientists are only beginning to guess the effects of this ray, but they suspect it will have the effect of a massive overdose of X ray, that is, sickness and deterioration of the body parts. And third, radioactive particles will remain in the air and on the ground after an explosion. The particles will sicken or kill people coming in contact with them."

  Sackville-West raised his hand to prevent an expression of disbelief, and said, "We know the Germans are spending millions on atom research right now. We also know that the Reich Ministry of Economics has forbidden the exportation of radioactive materials. The location of German stockpiles of uranium has become a German state secret of the highest priority. Even more frightening is that the Germans first produced heavy water in 1937 and split a uranium atom in 1938."

  Sackville-West anticipated the question and went on, "Heavy water is water that has been made fractionally more dense by passing electricity through it. It's used to slow down the neutrons and divert them back into the reaction, thus allowing the reaction to build. The fact the Germans first produced it five years ago indicates they are far ahead of us in nuclear-bomb research."

  The Priest was warming to his subject. His usually conservative gestures were now more animated, and his voice lost its hard, articulated edge. He was the United States government's premier operative. His agency was given information and told to act. Act secretly, swiftly, and surely. It was inconceivable that his data had not been analyzed and sifted by the best minds in the country, who had been trained to look for weak spots, inconsistencies, and planted information. That Sackville-West had been ordered to act made it clear that the United States was deeply concerned about this German research. Crown's doubt of the unbelievable tale of a city-destroying bomb the size of a basketball disappeared.

  "Now, to Hess's role in this affair. Rudolf Hess has always been viewed by us as Hitler's faithful, do-anything dog. Our studies on him done before his flight to Scotland showed him to be of medium intelligence with a rather shallow personality. We believed he rose to his powerful position in the Third Reich simply because of his unquestioned, blind obedience to Hitler. Hitler spoke, Hess jumped. Take a look at excerpts from some of Hess's speeches made before his crossing." Sackville-West produced another manila folder and passed it to Crown.

  The thin sheets in the folder had only one green stripe. The first page was entitled, "EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES BY RUDOLF HESS
SHOWING HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD ADOLF HITLER." Crown glanced down the sheet. Each quotation was preceded by a date, a place, the name of the audience, and the purpose of the speech. The quotations were thickly obsequious:

  Hitler is simply reason incarnate.

  One must want the Führer.

  With pride we see that one man remains beyond criticism, that is the Führer. This is because everyone feels and knows: he is always right, and he will always be right. The National Socialism of all of us is anchored in uncritical loyalty, in the surrender to the Führer that does not ask for the why in individual cases, in the silent execution of his orders. We believe that the Führer is obeying a higher call to fashion German history. There can be no criticism of this belief.

  "This is sickening," Crown said as he handed the folder back. "Hess can fawn like no one I've ever heard of before."

  "My thoughts, too. So the psychiatrists in England began their studies of Hess almost with their tongues in their cheeks. They had Hess figured out before he landed. He was a slobbering puppet.

  "His mind seemed to deteriorate in his cell. As I mentioned earlier, he would at times completely withdraw from human contact, refusing to talk or to listen to the doctors. He suffered hallucinations and short spells of complete amnesia. He would spend hours staring at a blank wall."

  Everette Smithson raised his hand slightly, as if he were asking a teacher for permission to speak. "It sounds like he may have been crazy all along. What's more crazy—saying idiot things about Hitler or staring at a wall?"