The Winds of War

“Right here, Mr. President.”

“Well, let’s get at it. I want to have a snack, and then try to sleep a little. How do you sleep on trains, Pug?”

“Fine, sir, if I can just get the heat right. Usually I roast or freeze.”

The President threw his head back. “Ha, ha! By George, I’ll tell you a state secret — the President of the United States has the same trouble! They’re building a special armored car for me now. I told them, I said, I don’t care about anything else, but that heating system had better work! Harry, let’s get in our order for a snack.” He glanced at his watch. “Are you hungry, Pug? I am. I’ll tell you another state secret. The food at the White House leaves something to be desired. Tell them I want sturgeon and eggs, Harry. I’ve been thinking of sturgeon and eggs for days.”

Hopkins went forward.

The President’s car, so far as Pug could tell, was a regular Pullman lounge car, rearranged to look like a living room. He had expected something more imposing. Roosevelt leaned one elbow on the chair arm, and rested a hand on his knee, looking out of the window in a calm majestic manner. “I really am feeling better by the minute. I can’t tell you how I love being away from the telephone. How are your boys? The naval aviator, and that young submariner?”

Victor Henry knew that Roosevelt liked to display his memory, but it still surprised and impressed him. “They’re fine, sir, but how do you remember?”

The President said with almost boyish gratification, “Oh, a politician has to borrow the virtues of the elephant, Pug. The memory, the thick hide, and of course that long inquisitive nose! Ha ha ha!”

Hopkins returned to the sofa, stooping with fatigue, zipped open his portfolio, and handed Captain Henry a document three pages long with one dark facsimile page attached. “Take a look at this.”

Pug read the first page with skepticism that shifted to amazement while the train wheels gently clack- clacked. He leafed through the sheets and looked from Hopkins to the President, not inclined to speak first. What he held in his hands was a summary from Army intelligence sources of a startling German operation order, purportedly slipped to a civilian in the American embassy in Berlin by anti-Nazi Wehrmacht officers. Pug knew the man well, but his intelligence function was a complete surprise.

Franklin Roosevelt said. “Think it’s genuine?”

“Well, sir, that photostat of the first page does look like the German military documents I’ve seen. The headings are right, the look of the typeface, the paragraphing, and so forth.”

“What about the content?”

“Well, if that’s genuine, Mr. President, it’s one incredible intelligence break.”

The President smiled, with fatigued tolerance for a minor person’s naivete. “If is the longest two-letter word in the language.”

Hopkins said hoarsely, “Do the contents seem authentic to you?”

“I can’t say, sir. I don’t know Russian geography that well, to begin with.

“Our Army people find it plausible,” Hopkins said.

“Why would anybody fake a staggering document like that, Captain? A complete operation order for the invasion of the Soviet Union, in such massive detail?”

Pug thought it over, and spoke carefully. “Well, sir, for one thing, they might be hoping to prod the Soviet Union to mobilize, and so kick off a two-front war. In that case, the army might depose or kill Hitler. Then again, it could be a plant by German intelligence, to see how much we pass on to the Russians. The possibilities are many.”

“That’s the trouble,” said the President, yawning. “Our ambassador in Russia has begged us not to transmit this thing. He says Moscow is flooded with such stuff. The Russians assume it all emanates from British intelligence to start trouble between Stalin and Hitler, so as to get the Germans off England’s back.” The President coughed heavily for almost a minute. He sat back in his chair, catching his breath, looking out at streetlamps of a small town sliding past. He suddenly appeared very bored.

Harry Hopkins leaned forward, balancing the drink in both hands. “There’s a question about giving this document to the Russian ambassador here in Washington, Pug. Any comment?”

Pug hesitated; a political problem like this was not in his reach. President Roosevelt said, with a trace of annoyance, “Come on, Pug.”

“I’m for doing it.”

“Why?” said Hopkins.

“What’s there to lose, sir? If this thing turns out to be the McCoy, we’ll have scored a big point with the Russkis. If it’s a phony, well, so what? They can’t be any more suspicious of us than they are.”

The weary tension of Harry Hopkins’s face dissolved in a warm, gentle smile. “I think that’s a remarkable astute answer,” he said, “since it’s what I said myself.” He took the document from Pug and zipped it into the briefcase.

“I’m more than ready to eat that sturgeon and eggs,” said Franklin Roosevelt, “if it’s cooked.”

“Let me go and check, Mr. President.” Hopkins jumped to his feet.

Tossing on the narrow bunk, Pug sweated and froze in the compartment for an hour or so, fiddling with the heat controls in vain. He settled down to freeze, since he slept better in cold air. The slow, even motion of the train began to lull him.

Rap, rap. “Suh? The President like to speak to you. You want a robe, suh? The President say not to bother dressing. Just come to his room.”

“Thanks, I have one.”

Pug passed shivering from his cold compartment to the President’s bedroom, which was far too hot. The famous big-chinned face of Franklin Roosevelt, with the pince-nez glasses and jaunty cigarette holder, looked very strange on a slumped large body in blue pajamas and coffee-stained gray sweater. The President’s thin hair was rumpled, his eyes bleary. He looked like so many old men look in bed: defenseless, shabby, and sad, his personality and dignity stripped from him. There was a smell of medicine in the room. The picture disturbed Victor Henry because the President appeared so vulnerable, unwell, and unimportant; and also because he was only seven or eight years older than Pug, yet seemed decrepit. The blue blanket was piled with papers. He was making pencil notes on a sheaf in his hand.

“Pug, did I break in on your beauty rest?”

“Not at all, sir.”

“Sit down for a moment, old top.” The President removed his glasses with a pinch of two fingers, and vigorously massaged his eyes. On the bedside table several medicine bottles tinkled as the train clacked over a bumpy rail. “Lord, how my eyes itch,” he said. “Do yours? Nothing seems to help. And it’s always worse when I get these sinus attacks.” He clipped papers and dropped them in the blanket. “Something I’ve promised myself to do — if I ever find the time, Pug, — is to write out a memorandum of the things that come to me in just one day. Any day at random, any twenty-four-hour period. You’d be amazed.” He slapped at the papers. “It would be a valuable sidelight on history, wouldn’t it? For instance. Just take tonight’s laundry that I’ve been doing. Vichy France seems about to sign a full alliance with Hitler. Threaten to cut off their food and starve them out? That’s what the British advise. Give them even more food, bribe them to hold out against Hitler? Our ambassador’s idea. But when we send the French more food, the Germans simply swallow up more of what the French produce. So where are you? — Now. Here.” He picked up a clipped document. “The Japanese foreign minister is meeting with Hitler. You’ve read about that. What are they up to? Shall we move the Asiatic fleet from Manila to Singapore, to make them think twice about jumping on the French and Dutch East Indies? That’s the British idea. Or shall we pull everything in the Pacific all the way back to the west coast, for prudence’s sake? That what my Chief of Naval Operations wants. I’d like your opinion on that, by the way. Here’s another touchy item — the Azores. Grab them before Hitler invades Portugal and takes them himself? Or if we grab them, will that make him invade Portugal?”

The President flipped through more papers as though they were butcher and grocer bills. “Oh yes, Selective Service. This is bad. From Stimson. The authorizing bill will run out in a few months. We have to start new legislation rolling now. But after the Lend-Lease battle, Congress will be in no mood to extend the draft. And if they don’t we’ll be militarily helpless. –Morgenthau. Treasury is bedeviling me to freeze all the funds of Germany and Italy here, but State says no, we’ve got four times as much invested in those countries as they’ve got