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“Mi Coronel, I present the compliments of the president of the Argentine Republic. He asks that you attend him immediately. And you, too, Don Cletus.”
“Where’s General Martín?” Clete demanded.
“With the president, Don Cletus.”
“Is he all right?”
“He suffered a wound to his left leg.”
“What happened at the airport?”
“Ten minutes after you left, Don Cletus, a battalion of the Patricios arrived and placed the Horse Soldiers in the same hangar where earlier the Horse Soldiers had placed the platoon of Patricios.”
“Did the flight to Berlin get off all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How did you get here?” Clete asked.
“On the regular eight-twenty SAA flight, Don Cletus. It is now being serviced for the return flight to Buenos Aires.”
[TWO]
Headquarters, U.S. European Command
The I.G. Farben Building
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
1115 18 October 1945
Brigadier General H. Paul Greene, chief, Counterintelligence, European Command, waved Mattingly into a chair in his fourth-floor office and got right to the point.
“I’ve always believed, Colonel Mattingly, that the air between myself and my subordinates should be perfectly clear. I’m sure you can understand that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The air between us, as I’m sure you will agree, is anything but clear. The phrase ‘dense fog’ comes to mind.”
Mattingly didn’t reply.
“And you’ll understand why I can’t permit that situation to continue.”
“General, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Indulge me, Colonel, I’m getting to it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know a good deal about you, Colonel. Not as much as I would like to know, but a good deal. I know, for example, that you are—perhaps more accurately, were, now that he has left the European Command—a protégé of Major General I. D. White. Would you say that’s a fair statement?”
The way he said that implied that he believes General White left EUCOM under some sort of cloud. That he was booted out.
That’s the impression Eisenhower wanted the Russians—and the State Department and the handwringers in EUCOM—to have.
But it’s not the real story.
And it’s damn surprising that Greene doesn’t know it.
