Target (50 page)

Bazata began the diaries when he first returned to the U.S. in the early 1970s. By the early 1980s, when President Reagan came to power, he went to work for Reagan’s secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, whom he had met and impressed at parties held by former OSSers. Lehman told the FBI when they investigated Bazata for the government job
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that he had first heard of Bazata from his cousin, Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco, who, because of his painting, talked about Bazata a lot. (Bazata had served under a
“Col. John Lehman” in American intelligence in the immediate post-war period, according to his letters, but it is not clear if the former secretary of the navy was related.) In a 1981 letter to Lyn Nofziger, assistant to President Reagan for White House Political Affairs, Lehman wrote, “During the course of the Reagan-Bush campaign [Bazata] was of invaluable assistance to the Reagan Defense and Foreign Policy Task Force.” In effect, he became a close aide to Lehman, advising on anti-terrorism measures long before such U.S. activities became center stage following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Bazata had urged the formation of an aggressive anti-terrorist force. Unfortunately, he had little success. Also, because of his experience with the VA, he worked on Veterans Affairs issues under Lehman. Following his time with the Navy secretary, he served at the Department of Energy until his resignation in 1989 when the first Bush administration came in with new appointments.

If there is a chink in Bazata’s story, it is the claim that he snuck up on the Cadillac while Patton and the others were examining the Roman ruins and inserted something in the mechanism of the Cadillac’s back window to jam it so it would remain open for a shot when the accident was staged. If he had been tailing Patton, possibly even knew of Patton’s intention to view the ruins, as General Gay’s aide, Lieutenant Hadden, apparently did, he could have approached the car. But was the car unoccupied and did it continue on from the ruins with the window at least partially open in cold weather? These are hard questions to answer in favor of Bazata’s account. General Gay probably walked up the snow-covered mountain with Patton to see the ruins, but Woodring, as most general’s drivers would, most likely stayed in the car, which, in fact, is what Woodring told author D. A. Lande.
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But did he stay in the car the whole time? For instance, might he have stepped
out to relieve himself or wandered away somewhat just to break the monotony as he waited? If, in fact, he did not go with them to the ruins, how long did he have to wait? (Gay, in his memoir, says “some forty minutes.”) They had to hike up a mountain and then inspect the castle, which probably was a lengthy trek. The entire trip from Bad Nauheim to Mannheim was approximately sixtyfive miles—probably a little over an hour, assuming they drove straight through and with Woodring’s and Patton’s propensity for speed.
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Since the accident happened at 11:45 a.m., and they left between 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m., they could have been at the ruins for an hour or two. That is a long time to just sit and wait, even if it is cold. And since Lande’s book was published in 2002, Woodring’s recollection of not accompanying them was decades, if not half a century, removed. As Lieutenant Hadden’s recollections prove, it is impossible to know for sure what happened there.

Patton, according to most accounts,
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got in the front seat of the car for the next leg of the journey when they returned from the ruins. His boots were wet and the heater was up front. But maybe he did so because the back window was down, whether fully or partially.
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Pictures of the car at the accident scene and after do not show the back window on the right side where Patton was sitting. It is impossible to tell whether the window was closed, open, or even partially open. When the Cadillac reached the outskirts of Mannheim, most accounts say they met Scruce at a checkpoint, and because Scruce’s dog was cold, Patton got back in the right rear seat so the dog could be near the heater. If Scruce was part of a plot, one of his assignments might have been to get Patton to move to the rear because of the dog and thus be vulnerable to a shot.

But Bazata said he tampered with the window. And before talking with me, he told the
Spotlight
that the shooter—not then identified as himself—had done the same. Given the now mounting indications of foul play and the varying accounts of what happened, who is to say he did not? That Bazata could make a shot into the car through an open window is not that hard to believe, given Bazata’s world-class marksmanship. President Kennedy was a moving target at much greater range. With the way it is described, a professional shooter could have made the shot—with luck. And luck is part of any clandestine plot. If Patton was looking out even a half open window, a non-penetrating projectile such as Bazata describes could have caused the V-shaped injury to Patton’s face and scalp, broken his neck, and pushed him onto Gay.

Other theories are just that—speculation. Nobody saw what actually happened. Patton himself, in the confusion of the accident, could have thought the injury was from something he hit in the car. He did not remember even whether he had been knocked unconscious or not, the shock of what had happened had been so great. And even if, for the sake of argument, we assume Bazata was lying, or confusing facts—at least in his talks to me because of his strokes—there is evidence enough to warrant a re-examination of what happened on that fateful December 9.

That evidence includes the credible witness of American CIC agent, Stephen J. Skubik, whose job it was to use Eastern European sources. He claimed that he uncovered an OSS-NKVD plot to assassinate Patton, and his efforts to stop the plot were thwarted by OSS officers, especially William Donovan, head of the OSS. Under Donovan’s leadership, the OSS was documented to have been colluding with the NKVD. Not once, not twice, but three times, Skubik says he was warned by Ukrainians, who had spies in the NKVD, that Patton was marked for death by its assassins.
These were no ordinary Ukrainians, but leaders of the Ukrainian resistance to communism. Stepan Bandera, for example, was deemed an asset, along with those he led, and, by 1946, he became an accepted part of the United States’ spy network trying to penetrate the Soviet Union. Skubik was trained in and charged with evaluating such claims—and he believed them.

Second, there are too many missing documents. All pertinent records regarding Patton’s strange auto accident on December 9, 1945 cannot be found and were most probably purged from U.S. files. At least five crucial records, including the official accident report, along with witness interrogations and follow-up investigations which were known to have existed, have disappeared.

Third, there is substantial evidence of malicious intent in what we do know of Patton’s accident. Woodring repeatedly gave witness that, as he left the railroad tracks just prior to the accident, he saw the truck driven by Thompson waiting on the side of the road up ahead of him. It did not pull out and begin its journey toward him until he was in sight. And its trajectory ended, without signal, in the sudden swerve which caused the accident. His description indicates that the truck may have been lying in wait for Patton’s car.

Fourth, the car alleged to be the one Patton was riding in when injured, which is at the Patton museum in Kentucky, has been proven to be a disguised and rebuilt replica by no less than Cadillac’s vintage model expert. The museum purchased the car on the understanding that it was Patton’s. What they did not know was that its identifying numbers were scratched out and misleading labels attached, which give rise to the suspicion that the fake was created to eliminate physical evidence.

Fifth, crucial witnesses and principals in the accident were allowed to disappear without adequate investigation. Those who
were never sufficiently interrogated include Robert L. Thompson, driver of the truck which caused the crash, one or two passengers reported to have been with him in the truck in violation of army regulations, and Sergeant Joseph L. Scruce, an elusive member of the hunting party. As witnesses, all subsequently vanished—as did several military officials, like Lieutenant Vanlandingham, who, after he was mysteriously mentioned as being at the accident, never again surfaced, even in death.

Sixth, Patton had escaped injury in no less than three earlier accidents in the months prior to the one that claimed his life. All three occurred under suspicious circumstances. They began as he became increasingly more belligerent to the Soviets and attacked or undercut by his own press and superiors. The most suspicious “accident” occurred April 20, 1945, when the small Piper Cub aircraft Patton was traveling in was attacked by a supposedly rookie Polish Spitfire pilot, who mistook the clearly-marked Piper Cub for a Nazi warplane. He made repeated attacks as other Spitfires circled ominously. At that time, Poland was under Soviet domination. As the Soviets were known to use local assassins in their plots, and official records are missing, it seems likely that this was a failed assassination attempt that was foiled only by the quick action of Patton’s pilot. The other two near-accidents occurred as Patton was driving—just as he was on December 9. Records on all three are missing.

There was a definite “Stop Patton” effort, tactics in which ranged from actually withholding his gas during his march toward Germany to attempting to have him surreptitiously observed in order to declare him insane. This effort could have been driven in large part by the personal ambitions of individuals—such as Eisenhower—or anyone else who stood to suffer from the revelation of any of the many secrets Patton undoubtedly knew from his
wartime experience and high position. And he certainly did not hesitate to speak his mind or act on his own personal convictions—consequences be damned. That tendency invoked anger from the Soviets to their allies, the American hierarchy, who would eventually appease their way into the Cold War. It also marked him as a dangerous renegade who would not hesitate to use former Nazi troops in an attack on Russia.

Least speculative of all is the witness of recorded former OSS assassin Douglas Bazata. His claim to have been given the order to assassinate Patton, while currently unable to be proven, held up under a lie-detector test and is not contradicted by records of Patton’s accident or subsequent death.

The evidence that something sinister happened multiplies.

The final days of the
OSS were chaotic but lingering. While the intelligence organization was officially disbanded by President Truman in October 1945,
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it continued to unofficially function in various places like Germany almost through the rest of the year as members transitioned to the official replacement organization, the Strategic Services Unit (SSU), and other government groups, such as the State Department’s Research and Intelligence service. That transition did not happen overnight. In the midst of the slow death was Donovan, still exerting influence and power, desperate to revive his hopes of heading the eventual intelligence agency which he knew would emerge, which eventually became the CIA several years later. In that regard, he was keeping ties with agents, like Bazata and others, many of whom would be in the CIA, making secret deals to advise, help, and hopefully eventually lead those who would transition to the larger organization.

Among Donovan’s last official war-connected efforts were those made in Germany while he helped with the preparation for war crimes trials at Nuremberg. He arrived at OSS headquarters near Berlin on October 2
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and stayed in Germany at least through November.
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His FBI report lists him arriving back in New York from Nuremberg on December 17, a week after Patton’s accident.
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He had flown to London prior to arriving in Berlin with British spy William Stephenson, according to National Archives documents.
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So he was in a position to have met with Bazata in both London and Germany, as Bazata claims, although it has never been clear about exactly when the meetings took place. By the time he returned from Germany, after quitting the Nuremberg prosecution team over policy differences, Donovan was being “attacked from almost every quarter,” according to historian E. H. Cookridge, and despite support from his friend Dwight Eisenhower (who, by then, had succeeded General Marshall as U.S. military chief of staff), “went into retirement, a bitterly disappointed man.”
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Exactly what transpired in the furtive dealings of this covert man is one of the most hidden secrets of World War II and its immediate aftermath. It would be a monumental task, if it is even possible, to track his moves through extant records. Only vague references, events peripheral to his activities which can be dated, and various arrivals and departures from of his registered travel arrangements, are available. He kept his movements intentionally undisclosed. When the demise of the OSS was certain, Donovan and his personal administrative aide, young Lieutenant Edwin Putzell, a member of Donovan’s law firm before the war, spent three nights frantically microfilming files and burning others outright. A National Archives publication about the purge says, “So
hastily did they work that their palm and finger prints appear on many of the [microfilm] frames.” Persico wrote that Putzell was Donovan’s trusted courier to President Roosevelt. Putzell said he would deliver Donovan’s messages to FDR in a “locked leather briefcase with a strap that I wound around my wrist.”
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But FDR never gave Putzell messages to take back.