“They’re still operating, sir. But it doesn’t look too good. The bullet went through his liver.” Reilly swallowed uncomfortably. “On behalf of the United States Treasury and the Secret Service, I’d like to offer you an apology, Mr. President.”
“Oh, forget it, Mike. Not your fault.”
“And to you, Professor Mayer. You’ve been right about this all along. Ever since the Iowa you’ve been saying that there was an assassin among us.”
“I was only half right. I thought it was Stalin he was after. And half right is as bad as wholly wrong in my book.”
“I think we all owe Professor Mayer our thanks,” said Hopkins. “But for him, Cordell Hull would be facing a firing squad round about now.”
“Yes,” said Roosevelt, pressing his hand to his own stomach. “Thank you, Willard.”
“You don’t look too good sir,” Reilly told the President. “Shall I fetch Admiral McIntire?”
“No, Mike, I’m all right. If I look sick it’s because I’m thinking of all those American boys who are going to lose their lives on the beaches of Normandy next year. To say nothing of Europe’s Jews.” Roosevelt shifted uneasily in his wheelchair. “Do you think he meant it, Harry? Do you really think he means to kill three million Jews?”
Hopkins said nothing.
“Professor?” asked Roosevelt. “Did he mean it?”
“It’s a thought that’s been troubling me a lot, sir. Not least because I’m the man who saved Hitler’s life. I’d hate to spend the rest of my days regretting what happened here this morning. But I’ve a terrible feeling that I might.” I took a cigarette from Chip Bohlen. “As a matter of fact, I’d sincerely prefer it if no one ever mentioned it to me or anyone else again. I’m going to try to forget all about it, if you don’t mind.”
“We’re all of us walking away from here with some dirty secrets,” Roosevelt said. “Me most of all. Can you imagine what people will say about Franklin D. Roosevelt if they ever find out what I’ve done? I’ll tell you what they’ll say. They’ll say it was bad enough he tried to make a peace with a bastard like Hitler, but it was even worse that he fucked it up. Jesus Christ. History is going to piss all over me.”
“No one is going to say anything of the kind, Mr. President,” Bohlen said. “Because none of us is ever going to talk about what happened here. I think we should all agree, on our honor, never to talk about what I for one regard as a brave attempt that almost came off.”
There was a murmur of assent from the others in the room.
“Thank you,” said Roosevelt. “Thank you all, gentlemen.” Roosevelt screwed a cigarette into his holder and took a light from my Dunhill. “But I must confess I still don’t quite understand why he’s gone. Hitler seemed okay about what happened, didn’t he? Grateful, to you, he said. He shook your hand, Professor.”
“Maybe he just lost his nerve,” said Reilly. “Back in his room, Hitler sat down, thought about it some more, and realized just what a narrow escape he’d had. Happens that way sometimes, when someone escapes being shot.”
“I guess so,” said Roosevelt. “But I really thought I could get Hitler. You know? Win him over.”
“Now you have to make sure you get Stalin,” Harry Hopkins said. “We always knew there was a big risk that these secret peace talks might not work out. Hell, that’s why they were secret, right? So now we go back to plan B. The Big Three. The way this conference in Teheran started out in the first place. We have to make sure that we make Stalin appreciate just what’s entailed in a second front across the English Channel, and get him behind our United Nations idea.”
Hopkins was still trying to restore the president’s belief in himself and in his capacity to charm Stalin when, accompanied by Vlasik, Pavlov, and several Georgian NKVD bodyguards, the great man himself appeared in the doorway of the president’s drawing room.
“Jesus Christ, it’s Uncle Joe. He’s here,” muttered Hopkins.
Leaving the bodyguards in the corridor, Stalin edged his way clumsily into the room, his presence most clearly marked by the strong smell of Belomor cigarettes that clung to his marshal’s mustard-colored summer tunic like damp on a wet dog. Pavlov and Vlasik followed as if on an invisible leash. Chip Bohlen was quickly on his feet, bowing curtly to the Soviet leader and acknowledging something Stalin had said with an obsequious “Da vy, da vy.”
Roosevelt maneuvered his wheelchair to face Stalin and held out his hand. “Hello, Marshal Stalin,” he said. “I’m very sorry about what has happened. Very sorry. After all your brave and courageous efforts to secure a peace, that it should come to this is a great shame.” Stalin shook Roosevelt’s hand in silence while Bohlen translated. “And I am deeply ashamed that it should have been one of my own people who tried to kill Hitler.”
Stalin let go of the president’s hand and then shook his head. “But that is not what made him angry,” he said gruffly, taking the Beketovka File from Pavlov, his translator, and placing it gingerly on the president’s lap. “This is what made him abandon the talks.”
“What is it?” asked Roosevelt.
“It’s a dossier prepared by German intelligence for your eyes, Mr. President,” said Stalin. “It purports to provide details of atrocities committed by Red Army soldiers against German prisoners of war. It was given to the Fuhrer by one of your people this morning. The dossier is a forgery, of course, and we believe that it was prepared by die-hard Fascists in Germany with the intention of driving a wedge between the United States and the Soviet Union. Of course Hitler knew nothing about its provenance. Why should he? A commander in chief cannot see every piece of disinformation that emanates from his own counterintelligence department. When he saw the dossier, however, he assumed, incorrectly, that the lies and calumnies it contained regarding the atrocious treatment of German POWs were true, and he reacted as any commander in chief would, by calling off the talks with those he believed carried out these atrocities.”
“You’re saying that this dossier was prepared for my deception?” said Roosevelt. “And handed over to Hitler by one of my people?”
Stalin lit a cigarette, coolly. “That is correct.”
“But I don’t recall ever seeing such a file,” said Roosevelt. “Have I, Harry?”
“I saw it, Mr. President,” said Hopkins. “I decided that it was inappropriate for you to see it in the present circumstances. Certainly until we’d had a chance to evaluate it properly.”
“Then I still don’t understand,” said Roosevelt. “Who gave this dossier to Hitler?”
“Your Jewish doctor of philosophy.”
I felt a chill as Stalin stared balefully at me with his yellow, almost Oriental, eyes.
“Jesus Christ, Professor. Is this true? Did you give this dossier to Hitler?”
I hesitated to call Stalin a liar to his face, but it was clear what the Soviet leader was trying to do. Stalin could hardly explain why Hitler had left without bringing up the Beketovka File. And that risked the possibility that Roosevelt might lay responsibility for the Fuhrer’s departure on the Soviets themselves.
I had to hand it to him: insisting that the file was a forgery was the best way of avoiding any potential embarrassment. And throwing the blame on me put the ball squarely back in the American court.
Believing Roosevelt would never forgive me if I challenged Stalin’s assertion that the file was a forgery, I decided to appeal to the president’s sense of fair play.
“I did give it to him, Mr. President. When I was struggling with Agent Pawlikowski on the conference table, the files got mixed up. When Mr. Hopkins told me to hand our position papers to Hitler, I mistakenly handed over the Beketovka File instead.”
“That’s right, Mr. President,” Hopkins said. “It was an accident. And partly my fault. I was holding on to the position papers when I told Willard to hand them over. I didn’t realize I was holding them. I guess I was kind of shocked myself. Under the circumstances, it could have happened to anyone.”
“Perhaps,” said Stalin.
“I don’t think we should forget that but for Professor Mayer’s presence of mind,” added Hopkins, “the Fuhrer would probably be dead, and our hostages in Berlin, Mr. Hull, and Mr. Mikoyan, would certainly have been executed by now.”
Stalin shrugged. “Speaking for myself, I think I should prefer to have seen Hitler dead on the floor of that conference room than to have him walk out of these peace talks. I cannot speak for Mr. Hull, but I know that Mr. Mikoyan would gladly have gone to the wall if it had meant us being rid of a monster like Hitler.” Stalin sniffed unpleasantly and wiped his mustache with the back of a liver-spotted hand. Waving dismissively in my direction, he said, “It seems to me that, thanks to your translator, we now find ourselves with the worst of all possible
