A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) (12 page)

For a second Catesby thought it was a joke. But the smile faded from Bone’s face and he remained with his clenched fist against his temple. Finally, Catesby realised what was expected of him. He raised his own clenched fist. ‘
¡No pasarán!
’

Washington:
February, 1953

Eisenhower had been elected President the previous November. As a result, Allen Dulles and his brother Foster were appointed to two of the highest offices in the new administration. But in the end, Allen Dulles’s promotion to Director of Central Intelligence had left him with a mouth full of ashes. His only son, Allen Macy Dulles, had been seriously wounded by a mortar fragment ten days after the Eisenhower landslide. The shell fragment had penetrated the right side of his son’s head and it seemed likely that Allen Macy would be permanently brain damaged.

Dulles had just returned from visiting his son at Bethesda Naval Hospital. When he looked into the young man’s eyes he could see that his former son was no longer there. Life had played a dirty trick on him – and, as often happens to people, grief made the new DCI harder and more ruthless than before.

The top item on the agenda was Guatemala – followed, as always, by keeping Britain under Washington’s thumb. The code name of the operation to overthrow Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz was PB/SUCCESS. Dulles had chosen the code name himself and it was going to be nothing less than that. No quibble about Árbenz being elected by a landslide even larger than Eisenhower’s, he had to go. Dulles opened the Director’s Log to see the latest horror from Central America.

OSO Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción to DCI. Árbenz (ST/ANDEL) is determined to carry out his program of land reform. He refers to the peasants as ‘victims of debt-slavery’ – obviously parroting the language of Marxism. Árbenz’s latest policy is to expropriate large tracts of un-farmed private land and redistribute it to landless laborers. Just to
show you how stupid he is, Árbenz himself has given up a large portion of his own land-holdings! This proposed land redistribution policy is greatly resented by UFCO (United Fruit Company), who had benefited greatly from Árbenz’s predecessor. UFCO has lobbied us to topple Árbenz – and pointed out that their investment in the entire region might be in danger if we do not act.

Dulles lit his pipe to calm his nerves, then picked up his pen:
Is this the beginning of Soviet expansion in the Americas? One battalion of US Marines should be enough.
The DCI went on to the next item in the log.

OSO London to DCI. The annoying thing about the Brits is that they always want to do things their own way – even when they’re on our side. The British equivalent of Operation Mockingbird is the IRD, Information Research Department, which is run by the FO. Do we need both? We could end up leaking information and payments to the same journalists.

But in the film industry, we certainly outsmarted the Brits in their own backyard. George Orwell’s
Animal Farm
is set for release next year. There is not a single fingerprint pointing at CIA funding. We’ve used go-betweens all the way and it looks like an authentic all-British production. Orwell, of course, was a socialist who was damning capitalism as well as Stalinism, so we’ve had to alter the script accordingly – and great credit to OSO operative E. Howard Hunt for masterminding the scripting. It’s going to be an outstanding example of anti-Communist PSYOP.

More good news: SM/REVEAL of the
Daily Express
remains firmly in our camp.

The new DCI had mixed feelings about the situation in Britain. British newspapers and British politicians could prove fickle. Dulles hoped that the US would never have to launch a PB/SUCCESS in the United Kingdom – and the best way of avoiding that was influencing the press, the politicians and even the trade
union movement. Dulles went to the next log entry. It was from HICOG, High Commission Germany, and highlighted more Brit awkwardness.

OPC Pullach (POB) reports that WILLIAM CATESBY, the British rep at the BND negotiations, continues to be a ‘pain in the ass’. CATESBY has always been a ZIPPER (Gehlen Org) skeptic and opposes ZIPPER officially becoming the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst, Federal Intelligence Agency.) CATESBY maintains that ZIPPER intelligence on Fremde Herr Ost (Foreign Armies East) is often out-of-date, easily acquired from open sources and sometimes wildly inaccurate. CATESBY’S own intelligence assessments are, we must reluctantly admit, often accurate and detailed (perhaps suspiciously so). When asked to share the personality data on his agents, CATESBY always replies that the files are held in London and he does not have access to them. When we request them through our London station, there are always delays and non-compliance.

On occasion CATESBY has had hot-headed arguments with members of Gehlen Org and General Gehlen himself in which CATESBY has insinuated that they have falsified their personal histories and war records.

Dulles put the log down and rubbed his forehead. There were skeletons to rattle in his own cupboard – few people at his level didn’t have them. And OPERATION PAPERCLIP was the biggest set of bones. After the war, Dulles had served as station chief in Berlin. In retrospect, he was given too much latitude on which Nazi scientists and intelligence officers should be helped to escape to the West. The biggest PAPERCLIP star was the rocket scientist Dr Wernher von Braun. Dulles knew that slave labour had been used in the rocket factories where von Braun had developed the V-2 rocket – and that as many as 20,000 of the slave labourers may have died from illness, harsh working conditions and executions. In an ideal world, von Braun should have been tried at Nuremberg. But they didn’t live in an ideal world and America
needed rocket scientists. What concerned Dulles was that President Truman’s instructions about Nazi war criminals had been ignored by PAPERCLIP. And a lot of the Brits hadn’t been happy either. One British officer, normally a staunch US ally, had been furious because his wife and daughter had been killed by one of von Braun’s V-2 rockets. Dulles smiled grimly when he remembered the Scott quote that his father had so loved:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practise to deceive

Allen Dulles wrote an action note in the right column.
ZIPPER
will
become the BND. The Catesby situation suggests that the Burgess and Maclean defections may just be the tip of the iceberg. We all know that Philby is a Soviet spy, but for some asinine reason the Brits won’t do anything about it. It’s the ‘old boy’ network.
Dulles paused and gave a wry smile. He wasn’t unaware of the irony of a Dulles complaining about an ‘old boy’ network.

Dulles continued to the next log entry. It bore an OD/ACID cryptonym, which indicated it was from the State Department and not CIA. OD/SONOF, the new labor attaché in London was hot stuff. The McCarthyite witch-hunters wrongly regarded him with suspicion because he had been a Marxist in his youth, but this background gave him the cover he needed to infiltrate the British trade union movement and the Labour Party. OD/SONOF was a gem.

OD/SONOF London to DCI. The continued rise of the Bevanite socialist wing of the Labor Party should be a source of serious concern for Washington. We should do everything possible to support Hugh Gaitskell as next leader of the Labor Party. Gaitskell is NOT a socialist and would be a reliable US ally. It was Gaitskell as Chancellor who introduced prescription charges to divert money to UK defense spending. The key dangers of the Bevanites to US interests are:

1 Nuclear disarmament.

2 The possibility of Britain’s future withdrawal from NATO.

3 A British foreign policy that would be at best skeptical of Washington; at worst, hostile.

4 Decolonisation despite the threat of Communist encroachment.

5 The Bevanites believe in state control of what they call ‘the commanding heights of the economy’ including nationalization of steel.

If Hugh Gaitskell becomes leader of the Labour Party all this will be avoided. In many ways, a right-wing Labour prime minister would be preferable to a Conservative one.

The most likely Bevanite challenger to Gaitskell is SM/OATSHEAF. Everything must be done to undermine OATSHEAF – and elements of the UK Security Service may be complicit in this.

Dulles wasn’t surprised about the dangers of Britain stepping out of line with US policy, but thought that OD/SONOF might be advised to lower his profile. He had been sent a clipping from the
Daily Mirror
describing OD/SONOF’s Kensington flat as a ‘salon for Gaitskellites’. He picked up his pen.
Excellent work, but beware of being regarded as a spy from the US embassy. Try to keep a more low-key and covert profile. But, by all means, liaise with members of the British Security Service who are sympathetic to undermining SM/OATSHEAF and British socialism in general. We must keep US fingerprints off the weapons involved. The trick is to influence British behavior in ways in which that influence cannot be linked to the USA.

Would, thought Dulles sitting back and pulling on his pipe, a PB/SUCCESS operation ever have to be mounted in Britain?

Bonn:
March, 1953

Catesby was proud of what he had done. Getting an agent to whistle another tune wasn’t easy – and it had taken months of repetition and hard work. Some sceptics might say that the agent concerned neither believed nor understood the words he was parroting, but when Catesby looked into one of his eyes – it wasn’t possible to look into both at the same time – he was certain that the agent concerned had true conviction and was a true fan. Catesby had finally worked out why Black Hermann had stopped croaking
Deutschland Kaputt
. It was because, after 1945, the bird no longer heard his owner – now long dead – muttering those words as he washed glasses behind the bar while artillery shells detonated in the near distance. But Hermann still squawked
Scheisse
, because he still heard people in the office – both Brits and Germans – using the word every time they mistyped a word or misplaced a file.

It isn’t easy to teach a mynah bird to say
Ipswich Town
. The
psw
is difficult for a bird, but
ich
– a bit Germanic in any case – and
Town
were easy. It took a long time, but Hermann finally started gurgling ‘Ipswich Town’ and then shouting it. The problem was it often came out followed by the only other word that Hermann could squawk – and ‘Ipswich Town
Scheisse
’ wasn’t what Catesby wanted to hear. He was certain there was a saboteur in the office, but he wasn’t going accuse Gerald directly. Catesby soon realised that a mynah bird’s brain doesn’t differentiate between words. As far as the bird was concerned, the three words were just a single sound – and it was sabotage. The trick was to say all the words you wanted at once and eventually the bird would repeat them. It took a few weeks, but soon Hermann was regularly squawking ‘Ipswich Town
Wunderbar
’. Catesby soon learned that he only had to whisper the phrase to get Hermann going – and Town needed a lot of cheering as they had just lost their fourth match in a row, a humiliating 1–6 defeat to Millwall at home. Catesby was musing how to smuggle Hermann into the North Stand at Portman Road, when he saw Gerald looming above his desk with
a loop of key tape from a 5-UCO cipher machine hanging from his forearm.

‘That looks important,’ said Catesby. The ponderous 5-UCOs, which consumed lorry loads of key tape, were only used for secret communication.

‘I don’t know, sir, I haven’t read it.’

‘Thanks.’ Catesby unhooked the tape from Gerald’s arm. It was from DIR/W.EUR/SOVBLOC, but as was the protocol never mentioned the holder’s name. The message was brief for the amount of tape consumed. RETURN TO LONDON IMMEDIATELY FOR CONSULTATIONS. Catesby balled up the key tape and stuffed it in the burn bag. Henry Bone never wasted a word or let on to anything even when using the most secure communications. He knew there were eyes everywhere.

‘I bet,’ said Gerald, ‘it’s about Stalin’s death and the Sov succession.’

Catesby nodded. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

The Soviet ruler had died a fortnight before, but nothing was coming out of Moscow. Catesby’s intuition told him that Bone wanted to talk about something else and that Stalin’s death was convenient cover for his recall.

Green Park, London:
26 March 1953

The earliest daffodils had already started to shrivel into yellow parchment – and Ipswich had just lost their fifth match in a row. Things weren’t going well with Catesby’s love life either. Frances was polite and friendly, but she wouldn’t let him stay the night. ‘I don’t want to confuse the twins,’ she said. ‘But what about me?’ said Catesby. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she replied, ‘you’re always confused.’

It didn’t look like it was a going to be a good spring for Catesby. The daffodils, he thought, said it all: so bright, so early, so full of promise and the first to fade – like a seventeen-year-old turning ninety overnight.

‘I wanted fresh air,’ said Bone. ‘And I love spring in London.’

Catesby nodded and stared at the Georgian terraces that overlooked the park from the east. There were so many windows, so many prying eyes. He wondered why Bone always brought him to Green Park for confidential talks. They must look so conspicuous. Two bowler-hatted civil servants strolling along with perfectly rolled umbrellas, so obviously having a chat about the budget or foreign policy – or espionage – certainly something they couldn’t talk about in front of colleagues in Whitehall. ‘Have you brought me here,’ said Catesby thinking aloud, ‘because you think your office is bugged?’

‘My office is not bugged – and no one would dare.’

‘How can you be sure?’