Wild Bill Donovan Read online

  Edmond Taylor and Richard Heppner met Donovan when his plane landed in New Delhi shortly before 11:30, Thursday night, December 9. They thought he would want to head straight to bed after his exhausting flight, but Donovan was charged up and eager to go to Faridkot House to regale Mountbatten with his stories from Burma and China. Lord Louis stood with his back to the fireplace in his drawing room sipping a highball with his senior aides as Donovan launched into the tale of how he confronted Tai Li. The Chinese general had been told he had six months to produce worthwhile intelligence for the OSS, Donovan recounted to Mountbatten, after that no more “wampum”—tommy guns, radio sets, and other toys from the OSS. Donovan bragged how he had threatened to secretly infiltrate his agents into China behind Tai Li’s back if that was the only way they could get into the country.

  Mountbatten chuckled, but only lightly. Donovan had an ulterior motive for sharing the gossip with the Southeast Asia commander. If his OSS agents weren’t allowed to enter a war theater “through the front door,” recalled Taylor, who sipped his cocktail quietly in the drawing room, they would “slip in through the transom.” That rule applied to the British as well as to the Chinese. “There was no doubt that Lord Louis got the point,” said Taylor, “but he seemed amused rather than offended by his guest’s colossal cheek.”

  Donovan’s next stop: Moscow.

  Chapter 22

  The Russians

  TWO DAYS BEFORE Christmas 1943, a brutal winter blanketed Russia as Donovan’s aircraft struggled to stay just above the treetops on its approach to Moscow. Ice caked on the wings dragged down the plane’s lifting power. A Russian navigator and radio operator had come aboard during a stopover in Tehran. The Soviets required that every foreign plane entering their airspace have the two Russian airmen aboard to guide it, which made Donovan’s aircrew even more nervous. The navigator and radio operator were both armed with revolvers and proved to be little help for the tense flying. The crew, nevertheless, made a perfect landing at a Moscow military airport and Donovan climbed out carrying a case of Scotch for the U.S. embassy. The Christmas gift brightened the eyes of John Deane, the American general greeting him. Before taking over the U.S. military mission in Moscow, Deane had been secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a Donovan friend during his bureaucratic battles. Donovan needed Deane’s help once more—to establish a working relationship between the OSS and Russia’s intelligence service.

  Within months after the Pearl Harbor attack, Donovan had begun probing for ways to slip his spies into the Soviet Union. It would not be easy, he realized; Russia was a closed society with foreigners’ movements severely restricted and closely monitored by “the best counter-espionage system in the world,” one secret memo warned him. A clandestine infiltration would likely fail and when the agents were inevitably caught it would disrupt an already strained alliance between Roosevelt and Stalin. Donovan hunted for a State Department officer seasoned in Russian affairs to be posted in Moscow as his spy. He inquired about placing one of his agents there as a Lend-Lease representative and even considered having an OSS man sneaked in with Britain’s embassy, which already had four special operations officers in its Moscow delegation. The ideas were all dropped by Donovan or rejected by the State Department as too risky. By October 1943, Donovan decided on the direct approach: flying to Russia and offering a deal to the People’s Commissariat for State Security, the Soviet secret service that went by the initials NKGB. The two sides would share intelligence. An OSS officer would be posted in Moscow in exchange for an NKGB officer in Washington. The Joint Chiefs, who suspected that Stalin already had a robust covert operation to steal military secrets from the Allies, slapped tight restrictions on the intelligence to be shared with the Russians. Roosevelt approved Donovan’s Russia mission before he flew to Tehran.

  From what little he knew of Russia’s covert force, Donovan was impressed. The NKGB had planted an extensive espionage network in Germany before the war and organized hundreds of thousands of partisan guerrillas who harassed Wehrmacht occupation forces and cut rail lines supplying them on the Eastern Front. Soviet psychological warriors showered enemy territory with propaganda and aggressively indoctrinated POWs to defect. “The Russians never miss an opportunity to undermine the morale of the German people and of the German Army,” an August OSS memo to Donovan concluded, which he passed on to Deane.

  Donovan flew to Moscow with his eyes wide open, however. He knew the Soviet alliance was critical to winning the war and had ordered William Langer’s research analysts to study intensely how the Red Army matched up with the Wehrmacht. Donovan also knew the Russians could play hardball with their allies. One of his OSS men had already been targeted by the Daily Worker, the Communist Party USA propaganda organ, which accused him of being anti-Soviet. Another adviser sent him an intercepted report from the Comintern, the international communist organization Moscow sponsored, boasting that after the war the Soviets planned to “let loose a Communist revolution on Germany in order to neutralize the effect of a victory by the Allies.” Though he came to Moscow with an offer for an open exchange of intelligence officers, Donovan did not intend to miss any opportunity to spy behind the NKGB’s back. In September he secretly arranged for four American engineers traveling to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease to feed him any intelligence they picked up helping the Russians build oil refineries.

  Christmas Day, Averell Harriman escorted Donovan into the Kremlin office of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Stalin’s loyal foreign minister. The son of a railroad baron and a banking scion in his own right, the courtly Harriman had become Roosevelt’s ambassador in Moscow three months earlier. At first, he had been wary of Donovan’s men barging in; coordination of American and Russian military operations had been nil so far. The Soviets always were wary of any foreign government’s motives. The introduction of an American spy service would elevate suspicions even more, which Harriman did not need as he tried to build trust early in his ambassadorship. But Harriman mellowed and even became impressed by the operations Donovan had carried out, such as the capture of Corsica and Sardinia. Intelligence collaboration might be a helpful icebreaker, he decided.

  It was seven o’clock in the evening, the sky black outside, when Donovan and Harriman settled into their chairs in Molotov’s dimly lit office. Donovan’s analysts believed Molotov was the most Westernized of Stalin’s inner circle, a teetotaler like him and perhaps a vegetarian, who had a reputation as a tough but reliable negotiator. The NKGB had given the foreign minister a full dossier on the American spy chief. Molotov now used it to compliment Donovan on his military record in World War I and his career in New York politics. Pretending to be flattered, Donovan outlined in broad strokes how the Office of Strategic Services was set up and the secret operations it was conducting in Balkan nations, such as Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The OSS, he told Molotov, was prepared to give Russia’s intelligence agency “full details” on its covert missions. He hoped the two services could operate together “inside Germany.” Harriman then chimed in with the exchange offer: Donovan was also prepared to send an OSS officer to work with the Russian secret service. “A Soviet representative” was welcome in Washington.

  Stalin unfortunately had left that day for the front, Molotov told the Americans, so he could not “consult” with him, but he promised to take the matter up with “the Soviet military authorities.” Harriman thought that meant Donovan would have to cool his heels for a while, but to his surprise Molotov sent a message after they left that a meeting had been arranged two days later with two top officers in the NKGB. Stalin must have already been consulted and approved the intelligence collaboration, because Harriman knew that decisions in Moscow never were made with this blinding speed.

  Monday night, December 27, Donovan, Deane, and Charles “Chip” Bohlen, who came along to act as an interpreter, walked into the front entrance of the NKGB’s grim-looking headquarters on Lubyanka Square. Guards whisked the three to an upstairs conference room where two R
ussians, who introduced themselves as Lieutenant General Pavel Fitin and Colonel Alexandr Ossipov, sat alone. Fitin, who headed the foreign intelligence department that spied overseas, seemed to Deane to be in his late thirties, with long blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a pleasant smile that made him look more like a cruise director than a spy chief. Only the blue piping on his army uniform gave away that he belonged to the secret police. Ossipov wore a civilian suit and had brown eyes, wavy brown hair, and a sallow complexion that made him look like a ringer for Boris Karloff. Ossipov, however, spoke fluent English with no trace of an accent, which would not have been a surprise if Donovan had known why—a subversive warfare expert, Ossipov’s real name was Gaik Ovakimyan, a former New York station chief and veteran of spying in North America.

  A lamp beamed a harsh light on an empty chair at the conference table as if it were the seat for an interrogation victim. Donovan walked around the long table and sat in the chair. “I’m ready for the third degree,” he announced, squinting his eyes. The Russians smiled and turned off the lamp. Donovan again described his organization and offered to deliver intelligence on the Germans that he knew would interest Fitin. The Soviets likewise had information that “would be of great value to the United States,” Donovan said. Fitin paid close attention. Could the OSS help drop Soviet agents into western Germany or France, he asked? “That would be entirely possible,” Donovan replied. Donovan also dangled as bait the gadgets the OSS might be able to offer the NKGB if the services cooperated, such as suitcase radios and plastic explosives. Ossipov suddenly showed interest.

  Are you here just to offer cooperation or have you come “with some other intentions?” Fitin asked, his voice dripping with suspicion.

  “No other intentions!” Donovan answered indignantly, although he was lying and both men knew it. Donovan fully intended to milk the Russians for as much information as he could and to spy on them every chance he had. Fitin planned the same, which was why one of the NKGB’s best American penetration agents sat in the room with him.

  Donovan and Fitin let the brief moment of tension pass. They quickly agreed to an exchange. Donovan would send a small OSS team headed by Colonel John Haskell, a former vice president of the New York Stock Exchange and the son of one of Donovan’s World War I comrades. Haskell had flown to Moscow with him. Fitin’s Washington team would be led by Colonel A. G. Grauer.

  Donovan did not leave Moscow until January 6. Soviet bureaucratic hurdles flying out of Russia turned out to be far more maddening than flying in. But he left confident he had achieved a major intelligence breakthrough. He decided to remain in the Middle East and send Haskell to Washington to explain the logic behind it. The OSS would have access to Soviet intelligence from German-occupied countries in which Donovan had agents, such as the Balkans, and from countries where he had no agents at the moment, such as Japan. Donovan’s propagandists could learn a lot from Moscow’s psychological experts. As for exchanging intelligence officers, England had such an agreement with the Russians the past two years and British counterespionage agents had little difficulty keeping watch on the three NKGB officers roaming London. Most importantly, the deal finally put OSS officers into Russia with the opportunity to spy. Harriman thought the arrangement made good sense. After hearing Donovan’s arguments, the Joint Chiefs were inclined to agree as well.

  Not J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI director protested loudly when he learned of Donovan’s deal. Hoover’s men had their hands full tracking NKGB operatives already in the United States who were “attempting to obtain highly confidential information concerning War Department secrets,” he wrote Francis Biddle, Roosevelt’s aristocratic attorney general who sported a thin mustache, wore spats to work, and liked Hoover. The FBI did not need Donovan adding more Soviet agents to that list. Frenchy Grombach, who ran Strong’s secret spy unit, also believed the Soviets would end up infiltrating the OSS as much as the British had. Hoover lobbied the White House, warning in a strongly worded letter “it will be highly dangerous to our government operations to have an agency such as the NKGB officially authorized to operate in the United States.” Hoover also paid Roosevelt a visit and told him point-blank he would be opening the door to Russian spies. Biddle worried that in an election year the political fallout would be toxic if conservative Republicans discovered the administration had allowed communist espionage agents to enter the United States. So did Harry Hopkins and Admiral William Leahy, FDR’s chief of staff. Roosevelt also knew that the man most likely to leak the arrangement to the Republicans was Hoover.

  Donovan could barely contain his outrage over what he considered baseless paranoia. When he returned from overseas the next month he fired off angry memos to the White House and marched into a meeting of the Joint Chiefs on Tuesday afternoon February 22 to argue his case. The Russians already had spies in the United States working undercover in their embassy and in the many trade delegations they have sent here. Donovan didn’t know that Moscow, in fact, had begun aggressive clandestine operations in both the United States and Great Britain to steal atomic secrets. But he did know that Roosevelt wanted the Soviets treated as allies, which they were, and that senior administration officials, Hopkins included, had traded secrets with Russia. It was ludicrous to contend “that the addition of four or five other representatives on an open basis to work with the OSS on matters concerning our joint operations against a common enemy would provide any greater facilities for undercover activities than are already in existence,” he wrote Leahy. “For the first time, we have an opportunity to find out just how our strongest ally carries on important agencies in its war effort.” It is just as critical “to know how your allies conduct their subversive work as to know how your enemy does it.” To hell with politics, “this is entirely a matter of prosecuting the war,” Donovan maintained. Collaborating with the Russians “in the fields of intelligence and subversion is as essential as collaborating in other types of military and naval operations against the enemy.” Reject this exchange and the U.S. military “would be the only loser.”

  Roosevelt killed the exchange, and Hoover bragged to aides that he deserved the credit for its death. Leahy cabled the decision to a dismayed Harriman on March 15. The ambassador dispatched Deane to break the news to Fitin. Meeting in a seedy Moscow apartment late at night, Deane told Fitin and Ossipov that trading intelligence missions had to be postponed, most likely until after the November elections. Fitin did not appear to be all that bothered, perhaps because he knew he already had enough spies in the United States, including moles in the OSS, while Donovan had virtually no assets in the Soviet Union. The canceled exchange meant his counterintelligence agents did not have to worry about following a few OSS officers in his country.

  Deane, however, assured Fitin and Ossipov that Donovan still wanted to swap intelligence with them—which happened over the next year and a half with Washington’s approval. Donovan delivered more than he received from Fitin; he sent the Russian reports on oil terminals in Romania, the location of German spare parts depots, Abwehr spying on the Soviets in Turkey, gossip Dulles picked up on Hitler and Göring, along with a sampling of OSS toys, such as the suitcase radio, pistol silencers, pocket incendiaries, and a portable microfilm set with miniature camera for agents photographing documents in the field. For his part, Fitin responded to long lists of questions Donovan had on German industrial plans. He provided reports on Bulgarian raw material production, on Nazi torpedo and chemical plants in occupied territories that Donovan passed along to General Hap Arnold for his Air Force to bomb. He also alerted Donovan to agents the OSS had recruited in Switzerland and the Balkans, whom his NKGB men considered unreliable. Even the questions Fitin sent gave OSS analysts important insights into “the things the Russians look for” and “the way they work,” Donovan told Roosevelt.

  THE DAY AFTER finally escaping Moscow on January 6, Donovan’s plane stopped in Cairo. He ordered Rolfe Kingsley and several other men from the OSS station to meet him at the airport. Donovan had earli
er sent a stuffed-shirt admiral the Pentagon had foisted on him to the Middle East for an inspection tour. The admiral had reported back that the Cairo station had the finest group of officers he had ever met. “I want to know what you did to him?” Donovan asked suspiciously. The admiral had been terrorizing stations all over the theater, Kingsley explained, so when he arrived in Cairo they convinced him to go with them to a nightclub, where they tanked him up with martinis and had a belly dancer escort him back to their quarters. The admiral woke up the next morning stretched out on a dining room table, his head throbbing, with no memory of his night with the belly dancer. He was no trouble after that. Donovan roared with laughter.

  While Washington churned over his Soviet mission, Donovan spent much of January country hopping in the Mediterranean. By the second week of January, however, the grueling pace of Donovan’s trip finally caught up with him. He arrived at Mark Clark’s 5th Army headquarters in Caserta just north of Naples with a raging case of the flu. Clark’s army had settled into a slow, grinding war of attrition against nearly two dozen Wehrmacht divisions, eight of which General Albert Kesselring had deployed in three fortified lines across Italy’s narrowest point south of Rome. In addition to coastal attacks by Donovan’s Operational Group commandos from Corsica, Italian agents were sent across enemy lines along the 5th Army front or infiltrated deeper into Rome and northern Italy, where a resistance movement began to blossom by the fall of 1943. After Clark captured Caserta he planted his headquarters in the city’s Royal Palace, a majestic eighteenth-century compound with more than a thousand rooms, which the OSS also used as the headquarters for its detachment assigned to Clark’s army. Donovan now lay writhing in a bed in one of the palace’s rooms, delirious with a high fever from the potent virus. He refused to go to the hospital or bother with doctors, insisting he could ride out the bug. David Crockett, a Harvard man and Boston department store owner who now managed OSS finances at the Caserta station, sat up with the spy chief for two nights terrified he would blurt out secrets in his crazed state of mind.