From the Ashes (27 page)

“If they would just use their brains—”

“They’re too hungry to use their brains, John. They’re focused on just one thing: results. They don’t care about the long-term sustainability of a system if they don’t think they’ll be alive to see the long-term. They don’t give a rat’s ass for ideology if they don’t see jobs, progress, and food. And yes, the magical results of Communism in Russia are probably completely illusory, but these are desperate times with desperate men, John. To millions of jobless, homeless, hopeless Americans, they are lost in a desert of desperation. Pretty soon, even the mirage the Soviets are shoveling will look pretty tantalizing to massive numbers of our own people.”

“It’s like the Red Scare all over again.” Rockefeller looked genuinely concerned, realizing that the situation must be grave indeed to warrant this visit from the Secretary of State of the United States.

“Only without the ‘scare’ part,” Stimson continued. “Japan’s invasion of Manchuria is a problem, to be sure, but the real issue we need to be worried about is communist subversion, both in Europe and – God forbid – here in America. This could genuinely be a mass movement long before people have a chance to realize its inherent danger for the nation, both to our eventual economic revival and to the very ideals we stand for, and have stood for one-hundred-and-fifty years. And, by God, that we’ll stand for one-hundred-and-fifty years from now, if I have anything to say about it.”

“So what do we do, Henry?” Rockefeller sat forward in his seat, leaning toward the Secretary with genuine worry and rapt anticipation. “I’m assuming you’ve got a plan or something, am I right? Otherwise you would have called at the office to set up a proper meeting...” The oil baron’s voice trailed off, ceding the conversation to Stimson as it began to dawn on him that, whatever purpose the politician had for coming here, it was probably something that he wouldn’t want in the papers with the golden “Rockefeller” name on it. But he wasn’t able to delve too deeply into these reflections and speculations before his guest began speaking again.

“Germany.” He stopped, allowing the word to linger in the air, the name of the fiercely divided and volatile nation, the central European country that was once an industrial giant, that was a capitalist buffer between long-time American allies Britain and France in western Europe, and the Soviet colossus looming in the east. The country whose instability and frivolous lending and spending during much of the 1920s, mirroring the United States’s own irresponsible business practices during the same period, was a crucial domino whose fall exacerbated the Great Depression’s worldwide effects; in America, in Great Britain, in France.

“Germany?” Rockefeller inquired after a brief moment of silence. Stimson allowed this voicing of the country’s name to resound a moment as well, sinking into the flame-hardened leather, the rich-stained wood, the age-musted books that surrounded them, the only witnesses to their late-night conversation, before continuing his carefully choreographed speech.

“Yes, Germany. Germany, as I’m sure you know, is on the cusp of civil war. The Depression may be ravaging us in the States pretty hard, but over there, it’s absolutely appalling.” Stimson stabbed his finger toward the window, his voice growing louder. “Those ‘Hoovervillites’ would count their lucky stars if they realized what the Germans are going through. Largely due to the same unscrupulous bankers who caused this debacle over here. That Treaty of Versailles...” He shook his head as he spoke through clenched teeth. “Goddamn Frenchies just had to have their reparations from a country that couldn’t even afford to...” He stopped, blinked, and looked up at Rockefeller. “I’m sorry, just entertaining a little bit of ‘if we only knew then what we know now...’”

He grew quiet, staring at his hands in his lap, illuminated by the soft lamplight, the cigarette’s smoldering end flickering in shadow, a trickle of smoke trailing into nothingness. Whether or not this moment was orchestrated by Stimson in his meticulously planned proposal, the statesman’s posture, expression, and demeanor appeared quite genuine. Slowly, he raised his head again and looked Rockefeller in the eye, his gaze solemn but passionate, pleading but firm.

“John, I don’t want that to be us in five years; looking back on this moment in time and
wishing
that we had done something about this impending crisis. Wishing won’t get anything done, and you and I both know that we are men of action. Hell, this nation is a
country
of action. We’ve always made the hard choices, the tough decisions, the risky moves that looked crazy to our contemporaries but paid off enormous dividends in the end.” He looked past the desk, to the wall with the window looking out on the wintry night, the night where thousands upon thousands of families were shivering themselves to sleep with empty stomachs and desperate hearts. The wall on which a placard hung, displaying Thomas Jefferson’s famous opening lines from the Declaration of Independence, the natural rights of man inherent in democracy, capitalism, and freedom. “The writing’s on the wall, John, and it’s moments like this that history will remember as the moments that changed the world, for good or for ill, by bold action or by cowardly inaction.”

“Alright, Henry, I get it. You know me; if it’s the best decision for our nation, I’ll take it. Especially if things are as dire as you seem to think they are.”

Stimson pressed his lips together, gazing briefly at the lamp, seemingly lost in its glow, before looking back to Rockefeller to drop the bomb he had come to deliver.

“Germany is a battleground, John.
The
battleground, perhaps, where the future of our nation – indeed, of the entire capitalist way of life – may be decided.” He paused briefly, both for effect and to study Rockefeller’s eyes. They were filled with concern and intent interest.

“The Weimar Republic is as good as dead,” Stimson continued. “As it’s gasping out its last, two factions are vying for power. Two radical political parties that are increasingly popular in this unstable climate. One of which will likely come away with the proverbial brass ring. One of the parties is the Communist Party. The other party is our salvation: the National Socialist German Workers Party.”

Rockefeller snorted a laugh. “The ‘Nazis’? With that Hitler joker, the one with the Charlie Chaplin mustache who shouts about purifying the fatherland or some such nationalistic rubbish?”

“That’s the one, John.” Stimson’s demeanor was just as solemn as ever. Apparently, he saw nothing funny here. “They are the only party with enough popularity and staying power to beat out the Communists. But make no mistake, the Germans want, no,
need
change. Radical change. And they will find it in one of two places: the Communists or the Nazis. It’s up to us to ensure that they
don’t
find it in the Communists.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Rockefeller asked, all too sure that Stimson had come here tonight to give him the answer to that very question, and equally sure that he wouldn’t like the answer.

“Technically, the Weimar Republic is still a democracy. Since the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch the Nazis tried to pull in ‘23, Hitler has vowed that there will be no more attempts to overthrow the government by force. So they’ve been running in elections, winning seats in the Reichstag, in local offices, that sort of thing. Did quite well year-before-last. The crash helped bolster their support, but it also helped the Communists. Now we can assume that the Communist Party has Soviet money backing it for the elections this year. And as we’re increasingly learning here in our own country, money can win or lose an election. Britain and France are strapped for cash, still trying to rebuild their infrastructures from the War and to climb up out of the financial mess they’re in. That leaves us, the United States, the last bastion of freedom and democracy, of capitalism and the American way, that the world has to offer. Of course, we can’t do anything official. The public is so isolationist right now, and if it were to get out that the government was handing out money to German politicians while our people are waiting half the day to get a lump of stale bread and some watered-down soup – well, you can imagine how that would go over.”

“And so you want
my
money for your under-the-table political gamble an ocean away?” Rockefeller demanded. “Is that where all of this is going?”

Stimson took a deep breath, almost a sigh. He had been deprived of his punch line, and the exasperated tone in which Rockefeller delivered it worried him about the fruitfulness of his visit.

“Yes,” Stimson said. “In a nutshell, yes. We need–”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“‘We’ is me and some very close colleagues of mine who would be doing the fieldwork. For all intents and purposes, though, John, ‘we’ could just as well stand for the entire Western world.
We
need to stop this Communist threat before it’s too late. And to do that, we need to feed money to the NSDAP. Without this money, they might not stand a chance, especially compared to the Bolshevik-supported Communist Party. Hitler’s an incredible orator, if a bit repetitive and base in his messages, and his publicity man, one Joseph Goebbels, is a master propagandist. With the right money, they can make things happen.”

“Let’s cut to the chase here, Henry. Bottom line: how much are we talking about?”

Stimson took a deep breath, exhaled, stared at his hands, took a deep drag off the cigarette, exhaled through his nose, and stabbed the cigarette out in the silver ashtray on the nearby table. Finally, he looked back at Rockefeller and answered.

“Thirty million.”

“Thirty
million
? For crying out loud, Henry, I know I’m rich, but for Pete’s–”

“How much good do you think that fortune will do you when the Communists take over, John? Huh? How much of this life do you think you’ll recognize when your assets are seized, your companies nationalized, your ass sent out to the soup line with the rest of the poor bastards? The Bolshies win Germany, then the rest of Europe falls like a house of cards. And when that happens, it’s only a matter of time before they get us, and then every one of our founding fathers, national heroes, and veterans who gave their lives for this country and what it stands for will be rolling in their graves.”

“Good Lord, Henry...” Rockefeller got up and slowly walked around the room. He ran his fingers over the time-worn leather spines of his copious volumes of the wisdom and entertainment of the ages, over the books and books of ledgers, each representing investments paying off, risks taken returning high dividends, capitalism
working.
He continued his little jaunt over to the window, stopping at the placard with the immortal words of one of fifty-six men who decided that the necessity of standing up for what they knew was right outweighed the risk of taking that step of faith into the unknown. Hell, that was what he did on a daily basis anyway, wasn’t it? A businessman takes risks all the time. Sometimes they succeed tremendously, sometimes they fail miserably. But that was just the way of things.

But was this the same as a business transaction? There were people involved, people’s ways of life at stake. Lives in America and abroad alike. And yet, Rockefeller reasoned, there were lives at stake whenever a business deal succeeded or went sour: the livelihoods of employees and investors and the families who depended on them held in the balance.

He finally made it to the window, the dark winter night as bleak as the hearts of the countless destitute who inhabited it. He put his palm to the glass, feeling the cold seeping through the pane and into his very blood. Rockefeller didn’t want to be out there with the rest of the shivering poor, but at the same time, he wanted a better life for them as well. And God only knew how much things would get worse for him, for them, for everyone, if the Communists should take over.

“I want it in writing.”

Stimson started in his seat, his host’s voice coming so unexpectedly that it took him a moment to register what he had said.

“In writing? Why?”

“I’m a businessman, Henry.” Rockefeller walked to his desk, setting it between himself and Stimson, and placed both hands firmly on the back of the desk chair. “You don’t ask a man to make a thirty-million-dollar investment without signing some documents. You know that. You guys throw around enough paperwork in your Washington bureaucracies, making things official and covering your butts. I want it in writing. The whole thing. How and where the money’s going to be used, and why.”

A brief pause. The silence hung thick in the air, a Mexican standoff between two powerful men deciding the fate of the world on formalities.

“All right,” Stimson finally broke the silence, pushing himself from his seat with hands on knees and walking over to Rockefeller’s desk. “One week from tonight? Same place, same time?”

Rockefeller glanced at the pocketwatch that rested in its stand on the desk, noting the time and subtracting the approximately twenty minutes that had passed since Stimson had first arrived.

“Done. Bring the documents for us to sign, and I’ll move around some of the assets within my companies. It’s winter, so heating costs are up and business is relatively booming. I should be able to hide the expense without a huge slump in profits.” Rockefeller looked at something just beyond the walls of the room, briefly lost in thought. “I think this could work, Henry. By God, this could be even more a legacy moment than the building of my Rockefeller Center.”

“Perhaps your Center will be a monument to this moment, to the world you created anew in this bold, history-making moment.”

“To the world that
we
created, Henry.”

“Yes indeed, my friend. Yes indeed.”

The two men shook hands, effectively sealing their deal save for the formality of signing the contract, the Dossiers officially commissioning the Operation. And with that handshake and the subsequent signing of the secret contract between the two parties – the vast Rockefeller business empire and the Office of the Secretary of State of the United States of America – both men had made a decision that they would soon come to regret for the rest of their lives. A mistake whose ramifications would haunt them to their graves.