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“I’ve learned that’s the way you stay ahead of the pack,” Howell said.
“And I’ve learned over the years that there are some men who don’t take orders, or even suggestions, from anyone.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“That puts me on the spot,” Truman said. “I realize I can’t keep you from going down there to see your grandson.”
“No, you can’t.”
“So I have no choice but to tell you something—what your grandson is doing down there—that is absolutely none of your business, and then rely on your good judgment—and, okay, your patriotism—that what you do with that information won’t hurt the United States and a good number of other people.”
“You can tell me, or not tell me, anything you want, Mr. President. But if it’s your intention to tell me something and then imply that I am now silenced by patriotism, that, I’m sorry, just won’t work. The war is over.”
“No, Mr. Howell, the war just started.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s so. And Cletus is right now up to his ears in that war.”
“I’m listening, Mr. President. As long as you understand what I just said.”
“I understand. Cletus was in Berlin the day I told Joe Stalin we had the atom bomb, and the day I told George Marshall I wanted all aid to the Soviet Union shut
off immediately. Were you aware of that?”
Howell nodded.
“Do you know why he was there?”
Howell shook his head and said, “No.”
“Shortly before the Germans surrendered, a German general named Gehlen, who was in charge of German intelligence vis-à-vis the Soviets, met and struck a deal with Allen Dulles, the OSS man in charge of Europe . . .”
[THREE]
Edificio Libertador
Avenida Paseo Colón
Buenos Aires, Argentina
0900 6 October 1945
There were two armed soldiers in field uniforms virtually indistinguishable from that of the defeated Wehrmacht—their helmets and leather accoutrements were German, and their rifles Mausers from the Waffenfabrik in Berlin—standing at what an American soldier would call Parade Rest before the heavy iron gate at the Edificio Libertador when the Mercedes-Benz turned off Avenida Paseo Colón.
The soldiers popped to Present Arms as the Mercedes approached and then was passed inside the gate. The Mercedes was an Ejército Argentino vehicle, a convertible sedan painted olive drab. A sergeant was driving and a corporal sat beside him.
In the rear seat was General de Brigada (Brigadier General) Eduardo Ramos, commandant of Campo de Mayo, the huge army base and site of the Military Academy north of Buenos Aires. Ramos was a tall, trim, and erect officer with a full, neatly trimmed mustache beneath a rather prominent nose. Beside Ramos was his aide-de-camp, Capitán Ricardo Montenegro, who looked like a younger version of General Ramos.
The Mercedes rolled up to the main entrance and stopped. The corporal in the front seat jumped out and opened the rear door, and then stood at attention as General Ramos and Capitán Montenegro got out. The two officers climbed a wide, shallow flight of stairs to the huge double doors to the building.
Two more soldiers stood on either side of the doors. They were dressed in uniforms of the late eighteenth century, closely patterned on those of Hungarian Hussars, except for their headgear, silk top hats with a large black plume rising from them. They were members of the Húsares de Pueyrredón, Argentina’s oldest and most prestigious regiment.
When the British occupied Buenos Aires in 1810, Juan Martín de Pueyrredón, a large estancia owner, recruited a cavalry force from the gauchos—cowboys—on his estancia and marched on Buenos Aires. They had no uniforms. Pueyrredón seized a British merchantman in the harbor, found in its cargo a large supply of silk top hats, and issued them to his men, whom he then somewhat immodestly decreed to be the Húsares de Pueyrredón.
The Húsares saluted with their drawn sabers as Ramos and Montenegro passed them and entered the long, wide, high-ceilinged foyer and marched toward the bank of elevators.
A flag officer of the Argentine navy, trailed by his aide, came down the foyer toward the door.
