Michael Dobbs - Saboteurs

A couple of days earlier, Traynor had attended a meeting at FBI headquarters at which his boss recounted a strange story about the landing of German agents on Long Island. Although the details were sketchy, Assistant FBI Director D. M. “Mickey” Ladd had mentioned a man with a streak of gray running through the middle of his hair threatening a Coast Guard patrol on the beach at Amagansett, and trying to bribe him to go away. The Coast Guard had later retrieved a trove of sabotage equipment apparently buried by the Germans. As one of the few FBI agents who knew about the Amagansett incident, Traynor was on the alert for saboteurs, real or imaginary.

When Dasch phoned to say he had just arrived from Germany with an important story to tell, Traynor was skeptical, but at least he was willing to listen. “Did New York tell you I was on my way?” Dasch wanted to know. No, Traynor replied, but he could meet with Dasch anyway. It was already 10 a.m. Would eleven be convenient? When Dasch said he would prefer to come a little earlier, Traynor suggested 10:30. Since it might be difficult for Dasch to find his way to the right office, Traynor said he would send a car to pick him up at the hotel.

The phone rang in Dasch’s room almost as soon as he got off the line with Traynor. It was Colonel Kramer of the War Department returning his call. Dasch told the colonel that the FBI had already sent a car to fetch him, but he would keep in touch. He then quickly finished dressing, and scribbled out a note for Burger, which he handed to a room service waiter with the breakfast dishes, for mailing to New York. He began the letter with the greeting “My dear Friend Pete,” an agreed-upon signal to reassure Burger that he was not writing under duress.

Got savely into town last night and contacted the responsibly parties. At present I’m waiting to be brought over to the right man by one of his agent.

I had a good night rest, feel fine physical as well as mentally and believe that I will accomplish the part of our participation. It will take lots of time and talking but please don’t worry, have faith and courage. I try hard to do the right thing. In the meantime take good care of yourself and of the boys. Please don’t go all over town. Keep silent to everybody. I promise you, to keep you postered on the future developments.

Before I left you, I begged the mgr. of your hotel, Mr. Weil, to take good care of you, for you are a jewish refugee, so please act accordingly.

PS I’ll forward to you my address where you reach me, via mail or phone, soon. 11

Dasch was standing in the doorway of his room, fully clothed, when the agents arrived. He put on his hat, and accompanied them downstairs to the waiting Bureau car. On the five-minute drive to the Justice Department, down Pennsylvania Avenue, he struck his escorts as being “very highly-strung and anxious to relieve himself of some burden.” 12He said he had arrived in the country the previous weekend from Germany, but dodged a question about whether he had come in a U-boat.

“If the S.S. know what I am about to do, they will bump me off.”

The agents escorted Dasch to the second floor of the Justice Department, through a rectangular archway emblazoned with the words JUSTICE IS THE GREAT INTEREST OF MAN ON EARTH. Built during the New Deal, the Justice Department was a mixture of neoclassical, Bauhaus, and Art Deco styles, with square pillars, a square courtyard, and wall murals depicting victories in the fight against organized crime. Everything seemed to be made out of aluminum, marble, and glass. The FBI occupied two floors of the seven-story building, which it shared with the rest of the Justice Department. The agents took Dasch through a wide, echoing corridor to room 2248, on the Tenth Street side of the building, near the Mall.

As Dasch entered his office, the first thing Traynor noticed was the streak of gray running through his otherwise dark hair. 13He suddenly became extremely interested in this seemingly implausible visitor. He dismissed the escorts, and offered the man a chair opposite his desk.

“I have a long story to tell, but I want to tell it in my own way,” Dasch began. 14

AS DASCH was baring his soul to Traynor, Attorney General Francis Biddle was preparing a memorandum for President Roosevelt noting the “first discovery of definite evidence” of a sabotage plot by Nazi Germany against the United States. 15All coastal commands were on the alert for landings similar to the one that had already taken place on Long Island. In the meantime, Biddle told the president, it was essential to keep news of the landing out of the papers in order to allow the FBI to track the saboteurs without alerting their prey. The president totally agreed.

When he heard about the sabotage plot, Roosevelt was at his family home in Hyde Park in upstate New York, his lifelong refuge from the cares of the world. He had a lot on his mind, including a visit from Winston Churchill. The British prime minister had arrived in Washington on Thursday evening, after a twenty-seven-hour flight across the Atlantic by seaplane. He would spend Friday and Saturday as Roosevelt’s personal guest at Hyde Park, and the two leaders would then travel back to Washington together.

After watching Churchill’s plane make a spectacularly bumpy landing on a makeshift airstrip around noon, Roosevelt took the prime minister on a tour of his estate. The polio-stricken president insisted on driving the Ford Phaeton convertible himself, using an ingenious system of hand levers to replace the foot pedals he was unable to operate. Churchill had some anxious moments as Roosevelt jerked the car around the bluffs overlooking the Hudson River, in between talking business and urging his guest to admire the magnificent view. Churchill was more concerned that all the mechanical devices were working properly, without defects. To reassure his guest, Roosevelt invited him to feel his biceps, “which were amazingly strong and muscular.” 16

After lunch, the two leaders retired to FDR’s “snuggery,” a small room off the portico where he liked to swap gossip with his political cronies behind a green velvet curtain. Here the president showed the prime minister the latest American gadget, an RCA television set with a magnifying glass over the screen to enlarge the tiny picture. 17After fiddling with the knobs for a while, and receiving some flickering images beamed from New York, the two politicians lost interest in the new invention and turned to matters of state.

Their discussions were dominated by three subjects. Roosevelt wanted to open a “second front” in France as soon as possible to relieve pressure on the Russians; Churchill was strongly opposed, believing that neither the British nor the American armies were ready to mount a cross-Channel invasion. They also discussed a plan to pool their scientific resources to build a devastating new weapon based on atomic fusion. Finally, they were both preoccupied by the war in the Atlantic. In Churchill’s view, the heavy losses inflicted by German U-boats constituted “our greatest and most immediate danger.” 18

Charts prepared for the president by the Joint Chiefs of Staff underscored the prime minister’s concern. Over the last three months alone, nearly four million tons of Allied shipping had been lost to submarine attacks and disasters at sea. 19In the same period, the Allies had succeeded in building just over two million tons of new shipping. If the U-boats were able to continue causing such destruction, the war might be lost by default.

TWO OF the saboteurs from U-584 had left Jacksonville by train for Cincinnati on Thursday. Haupt traveled on to Chicago; Thiel stayed the night in Cincinnati. Their two colleagues, Kerling and Neubauer, remained in Jacksonville until Friday morning, when they boarded the 8:30 a.m. train for Cincinnati. From Cincinnati, Kerling planned to travel to New York with Thiel, while Neubauer joined Haupt in Chicago.