The Irregulars (18 page)

Stephenson must have congratulated himself on his choice of the enthusiastic young airman, whose entrée with the Roosevelts could not have begun more innocently and who could now be exploited for Stephenson’s own ends. The BSC director belonged to the new school of intelligence chiefs who believed writers and intellectuals often made for the best and subtlest agents, and Dahl was turning out to be something of a find. He was a natural choice for their kind of work. He had a writer’s ear for the telling phrase and a talent for asking questions without appearing overly inquisitive. As a pilot and author, he also had legitimate cover, which was always the best kind. Dahl had maneuvered—or stumbled—into the role expected of him and was perfectly positioned to extend the BSC’s network of well-placed Washington sources.

From Dahl’s perspective, there did not seem to be anything terribly dangerous about what he was doing. It was not as though he was ransacking offices and rifling through diplomatic bags. He was simply a purveyor of information. The stuff he was passing along was useful, important even, but not vital. Whether or not his information would be exploited, or lead to any subsequent “action,” was determined by his masters in New York and in London. He had to watch his step, of course. The Monroe Doctrine made the BSC’s activities unpopular, and a mistake would prompt all sorts of embarrassing public questions, press scrutiny, and political controversy, which was the last thing a furtive organization wanted. Berle, a hard-charging forty-four-year-old Harvard lawyer, was already complaining about “the very considerable espionage” that the British were carrying on within the United States and would seize on any excuse to start another row about why they had been granted “free rein” in the first place. Strictly speaking, however, most of the stuff he was trafficking in was material that he was more or less entitled to know as an embassy attaché. If he was caught with notes—say, a report on the administration’s postwar air policies or even a file on American security arrangements—it would not really prove anything. A lot of what passed for espionage in those days could be described as enterprising reporting. Dahl was assured that he had nothing to worry about. As Stephenson was fond of saying, “That’s why our side has agents; the enemy has spies.”

B
Y THE SUMMER
of 1943, the focus of Dahl’s secret work in Washington consisted of staying close to Marsh and Wallace, and keeping “pretty careful tabs on his [the vice president’s] Communistic leanings and his friends in those quarters,” and reporting back to Stephenson. The official history makes frequent reference to Dahl’s undercover assignment as the “BSC officer in Washington” who was “in frequent consultation with Wallace.” It was not difficult for Dahl to keep track of their movements, as all three men were close friends and saw one another often. The vice president had become rather fond of the long-limbed British airman, in part because of his striking resemblance to his youngest son, Robert, who was in the army. Dahl and Wallace had much in common, sharing a dry sense of humor, a lively curiosity about the world, and a playful eccentricity that occasionally got them into trouble. They were both vigorous men—intellectually and physically—and enjoyed testing each other’s prowess in conversation as much as on the tennis court, where they both excelled. After their morning game, they often walked downtown to work together, their matching long strides perfectly in sync, boisterously debating who had had the better backhand. They were also daily visitors to Marsh’s R Street home, and though Wallace was more stiff-necked than Dahl, both reveled in the rowdy publisher’s high-spirited, profane company. “Henry Wallace was dropping in literally every afternoon for a chat,” recalled Dahl, who became accustomed to finding him with Marsh in the oak-paneled library, club chairs drawn close together. “He was a man without rudder and Charles gave him a lot of rudder. Of course, Marsh loved it because he got a bit of gossip and he felt closer to FDR.”

Meanwhile Dahl, always a quick study, had taken to intelligence work like a duck to water. His natural talents equipped him perfectly for his new profession, and all through the summer months he worked on cultivating sources and applying his skills to further establish himself in the key situation in which he had landed. Marsh had tutored Dahl in the beat reporter’s trick of extracting information, stockpiling titillating gossip items to peddle later, and rewarding reliable informants in whatever currency they valued most. One of Dahl’s best sources of information from inside the White House was Marsh’s old pal Drew Pearson. “He had a direct pipeline to the cabinet,” Dahl recalled. “In fact he had a cabinet minister [member] in the palm of his hand. So after every cabinet meeting of course Drew got a full report.” (The BSC history indicates that Pearson relied on three cabinet members: Ickes, Morgenthau, and Francis Biddle.) In due course they struck a deal. “We became very good friends and we exchanged information openly,” said Dahl. “We told each other that there we were, and that’s what we wanted. He wanted it for his column, and he knew I wanted it for other reasons.”

Pearson kept extensive records of the misdemeanors, both large and small, of administration figures, and according to the BSC history, he “was adroit at hinting that he would not use the information if they made a point of telling him now and again what was going on in their departments”:

He was said to have in his possession an affidavit, signed by someone in a position to vouch for Sumner Welles’s alleged homosexual activities. Whether or not this was true, it seemed strangely inappropriate to observe the suave and snobbish Welles making frequent visits to Pearson’s house, in order to keep him au fait with events.

 

The results of this technique were deemed “highly satisfactory” by Stephenson, who “gave instructions that Pearson should be cultivated as a potential source of important intelligence.” Without identifying Dahl by name, the report goes on to state that “a BSC officer in Washington spent many months gaining Pearson’s confidence, and by the middle of 1943 the acquaintance had begun to produce solid results in the form of reports on,
inter alia
, political changes, the President’s intentions and the views of high naval and military officials. The friendship grew closer until, early in 1944, the BSC officer was ‘regarded as one of the family.’”
*

Dahl’s barter system with Pearson was simple. His BSC contacts would supply him with “good, fairly safe” Whitehall items about the war effort, which, from Pearson’s point of view, was “quite interesting, exciting stuff.” With Stephenson’s blessings, Dahl would swap it for what he thought was far more interesting and exciting stuff in return. “For all I know he may have been [doing] exactly the same thing to me, and was told what he could tell me, and feed to the British,” said Dahl. “But I don’t think so, and I don’t think Bill [Stephenson] thought so either.”

Marsh was of particular value when it came to deconstructing Washington gossip and assessing it in the context of the delicate intricacies of government and press machinery. Time and again, when Dahl’s superiors wanted to sound out Marsh on some new incident, they would dispatch the air attaché to confer privately with his well-informed friend. Dahl, having consulted Marsh, would invariably return with the goods. So when a senior British official became involved in a bizarre melodrama involving a chief administration figure who had become the target of scandalous gossip, Dahl naturally asked Marsh if there was anything that could be done about the rumors, which were given wide publicity.

The trouble started with Harry Hopkins’ marriage to his third wife, Louise Macy, which took place at the White House on July 27, 1942, with the president acting as best man. Hopkins, who was dogged by controversy even in the best of times, returned from his honeymoon to find himself the subject of an outrageous story claiming he had been treated to a two-week holiday aboard the yacht
My Kay IV,
which had been commandeered for naval use but was delayed so that he and his bride could cruise the Great Lakes, all at taxpayer expense. The newlyweds had in fact spent a quiet honeymoon on a Vermont farm, and Hopkins had been back at work exactly eleven days after the wedding. No matter how vehemently the White House denied it, and despite an FBI investigation, the damaging rumor continued to circulate around Washington for many months. Hopkins was still consulting lawyers as to whether he had any legal recourse when he was hit by another smear. The embarrassing item, which first appeared in the
Times-Herald
in January 1943, reported that the vastly wealthy and controversial British press baron Lord Beaverbrook, aka Max Aitken, had presented Hopkins’ bride with “a parure of emeralds” as a wedding gift, creating the appearance that the British had offered a bribe to the wife of the president’s top aide. (Apparently no one knew precisely what a “parure” was, so the gift was alternately described as a necklace, a bracelet, earrings, and a tiara, when in fact it would have been the whole ensemble.) Beaverbrook’s emeralds were said to be a token of appreciation for Hopkins’ role in dispensing the multibillion-dollar Lend-Lease program on which Britain so depended.

The story, following in the wake of the
My Kay IV
rumors, created a sensation. The White House ridiculed the “malicious rumors now being published by certain newspapers hostile to the government” but did not issue a clear denial. Mrs. Hopkins repudiated the idea of a British payoff and told the press, “I don’t even own one emerald. It’s a lie.” Beaverbrook declared, “It’s all nonsense. The story is a fabrication from first to last, but the Germans will like it.” Despite being roundly denied by both parties, the story took on a life of its own and continued to reverberate around Washington. Isaiah Berlin worried in his weekly summary that the story “is still circulating and many old lies are bound to be dragged out once more.” The British wanted to know the identity of the smearer and to put an end to the adverse publicity. The scurrilous story was being revived again, this time in Pearson’s “Merry-Go-Round” column, on the eve of the new Lend-Lease appropriation, at a time when the bill’s American critics were looking for ways to discredit British administrators and their handling of Lend-Lease funds.

As Dahl predicted, Marsh was not only able to identify the likely source of the item but elaborated at length on his ulterior motives in leaking it. It was Marsh’s contention that Pearson’s story—which included such damning details as a description of the Beaverbrook gift (an emerald bracelet) and its value (half a million dollars)—originated with Bernard Baruch because he was “out to get Hopkins and get him fast.” This Marsh had straight from his pal Lyndon Johnson. The tall, white-haired Baruch looked like a pillar of rectitude and liked to pass himself off as a behind-the-scenes player, always willing to remain the adviser and never the administration star. Marsh told Dahl not to believe it. He shared Dorothy Parker’s view to the effect that there were two things one could never figure out—the theory of the zipper and the precise function of Bernard Baruch. Marsh believed “old Barney” lusted for power and probably planted the smear about the priceless bauble in hopes of further tarnishing Hopkins’ reputation and removing him as the leader of Roosevelt’s brain trust.
*

Inasmuch as the president liked to read the “Merry-Go-Round,” one of the best ways to influence FDR’s mind was through the column, and Baruch knew this better than anyone. Furthermore, Marsh had it on good authority that most of the administration scoops in “Merry-Go-Round” came via South Carolina senator Jimmy Byrnes to Barney Baruch to
New York World
editor Herbert Swope to Pearson. Byrnes, according to Marsh, was a “tool” of Baruch’s and knew how he felt about Hopkins. Swope was “crooked” and also planted stories in the press for his buddy Baruch. All this Dahl piped back to the BSC, while noting that Marsh hated Baruch beyond all reason and generally sought to discredit him whenever possible.

For all that Dahl found Marsh useful for practical purposes, Marsh made equal and opposite use of his protégé. As a coconspirator, he expected payment in kind—his intelligence in exchange for British intelligence. At the end of each day, Dahl would stroll into the R Street house loaded for bear, and Marsh would pump him for all the “high-level stuff” from the embassy, as well as everything Pearson had leaked after the cabinet meeting. Similarly, after Dahl’s visits to the White House or Hyde Park, Marsh would bombard him with questions: “What does he [Roosevelt] look like? What did he and so-and-so talk about?…Is his health okay?…Did they bring up the new appointment?” Dahl would supply the salient details, delivering entertaining monologues or humorous typed reports that resembled short stories, complete with characters, scenes, and dialogue. Marsh was never less than a rapt audience. “He would be fascinated,” recalled Dahl. “That was meat and drink to him.”

The Texas publisher marveled at the ease with which the young pilot had landed himself in the catbird seat. He envied Dahl his friendship with the Roosevelts and the weekend forays to Hyde Park, a level of intimacy that Marsh had never managed to achieve. Marsh’s publishing empire had earned him a reputation as a kingmaker in Texas politics, but he had never been able to quite duplicate that role in Washington. A millionaire many times over, Marsh felt a nagging guilt at having been just old enough to avoid military service during World War I, opting instead to stay home and advance his career while other men did their duty. He was determined that in this war, he would repay the debt he felt he owed his country. It was a constant source of frustration to him that despite his many contributions, he had never been able to crack Roosevelt’s inner circle, the vaunted “palace guard.”

What made it all the more galling was that Marsh had been lobbying for a job as far back as the summer of 1932, when he first met FDR’s mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, when Franklin was governor of New York and the Democratic nominee for president. Marsh had been introduced to her by Colonel Edward M. House, an ingratiating, English-educated Texan, who was then among the most influential men in Democratic politics and had served as President Woodrow Wilson’s closest adviser. Marsh looked up to House as a mentor and curried favor with the elder statesman by supplying him with political insights he had gathered from his editors and publishers around the country, which House passed on to Sara Roosevelt, who was intimately involved in her son’s campaign and controlled the purse strings. Shortly before the election, Marsh, taking his cue from House, had written directly to FDR, clearly hoping for some sort of recognition in due course:

Dear Governor:

I have never congratulated an elected candidate because I had no wish to clutter his mail. This is merely to let you know that during the next four years: 1) I shall not recommend any man for your office. 2) I shall attempt to do anything that you may ask me to provided there is no personal publicity involved and no salary.

 

On the morning of March 4, 1933, the day Roosevelt was sworn into office, Marsh penned a laudatory front-page editorial in the
Austin American-Statesman,
an obstinate show of support given the fact that Texas’ press was overwhelmingly united against FDR’s New Deal politics. Marsh wrote:

Men do not make times. Conditions make men. The man who took the oath as president of the United States today has the honesty and clearness of mind which must be the basis—the foundation—of a spirituality that was Wilson’s, of a practical clearness of application that was Lincoln’s.

 

Roosevelt never responded to Marsh’s overtures. Marsh, who eventually became an adviser and friend to Sara Roosevelt and visited her several times at Hyde Park with his daughter, Antoinette, when she was attending college nearby at Vassar, recognized that FDR probably dismissed him and House as belonging to his mother’s generation and the old wing of the party. It was also possible that FDR knew they had served as Sara Roosevelt’s financial advisers and blamed them for his mother’s tightfistedness, and for turning down his request for more funds when he was in need. Early on Marsh had hoped FDR would award him with an official post and lamented that he had been in line for the ambassadorship to Hungary before the Nazi invasion of eastern Europe. Instead, he watched as FDR drafted dozens of industrial executives from the other side of the aisle—many of whom had bitterly opposed his liberal policies—to head up wartime agencies. As the months passed and no appointment materialized, Marsh had to content himself with serving the country the only way he could, by putting his investigative skills to work gathering information on a broad spectrum of economic, industrial, and political fronts and making it available to those in power. “He and Roosevelt did not get along personally, I think their egos clashed,” observed Antoinette. “But Roosevelt used him, and Dad was for him all the way.”