Michael Dobbs - Saboteurs

Back at the Governor Clinton, Burger tried on the new sharkskin suit he had bought at Rogers Peet. He had just sat down to read the newspaper when Connelley and several other FBI agents barged in through the open door. The expression on his face was one of immense relief: he told the agents he had been waiting for them to show up ever since Dasch went to Washington. After he was led away, the agents began looking through his belongings. Their meticulous typewritten inventory included the following items:

1 Leica camera #220033 and brown leather case.

1 letter of recommendation of Wisconsin National Guard.

1 lock of blonde hair.

1 photograph of woman with blonde hair.

1 pair light brown shoes 8½C with shoetrees.

1 leather pocket book in the inside of which appeared the following inscription: Bucyrus Erie Company Safety Contest, 1930, “ALWAYS BE CAREFUL.” 4

That evening, the three men were interrogated separately. Burger struck FBI agents as “particularly cooperative,” anxious to show that “he is 100% against Germany.” 5Heinck initially tried to conceal his visit with his friend Hermann Faje three nights earlier, but ended up confessing to everything. Quirin held out the longest, at first insisting he was a Portuguese farmhand named Richard Quintas. But his denials quickly broke down once he realized that the FBI already knew all about Operation Pastorius. When the agents showed him the vest the Coast Guard had found on Amagansett Beach, he admitted it belonged to him.

His interrogators asked if he considered himself a “German agent.” 6

“Well, something like that.”

“When you left Germany wasn’t it your intention to come to the United States and carry out your instructions?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Would you have carried out your instructions in the event you had not been apprehended?”

“I might have.”

Later, when shown the transcript of the interrogation for his signature, he added the words “I am not sure.”

BACK IN Washington, in room 351 of the Mayflower Hotel, Dasch and Traynor had slept in late after their draining, fourteen-hour session of the day before. At 9:20, the inquisitor and the informant ordered breakfast from room service: orange juice, cereal, toast, and coffee. They did not leave the hotel until 11:10, stopping off at Hummel’s Restaurant to allow Dasch to down a quick scotch and soda on the way to FBI headquarters. 7

Traynor’s gentle treatment of his subject was beginning to pay off. After initially refusing to answer certain sensitive questions, Dasch was now providing information on all aspects of Operation Pastorius. He was eager to demonstrate his willingness to cooperate, hoping to be rewarded with an important role in the fight against Hitler. He told his interrogators he would do anything he could to shorten “this lousy war.” If he was allowed to direct propaganda operations against the Third Reich, he would rally millions of Germans to the Allied cause. 8

“Do you think I shall have the opportunity of meeting your superior, Mr. Ladd?” he asked Traynor, referring to the head of the FBI’s internal security division. “And Mr. Hoover perhaps?”

Traynor was noncommittal. Anything was possible, but he would promise nothing.

Dasch persisted. He wanted to meet the people in charge of American propaganda, to point out their errors. “I am sure they are making mistakes. I know this by listening to their propaganda. It’s weak.”

Traynor just nodded.

The more Dasch talked, the more “eloquent and oratorical” he became, FBI agents observed. 9His manners were “very polished, similar to those of a head waiter.” He spoke with a slight German accent, frequently using phrases like “by Christ” and “Christ sakes.” The agents noted the “snappy” way he wore his clothes and his peculiar habit of “placing his index finger along his nose or up the center of forehead while speaking.”

HAVING DEFUSED the threat from the first group of saboteurs, the FBI now needed to focus on the others. Although Dasch obviously knew much less about Kerling’s group than about his own, he did provide some important leads. He had revealed Kerling’s true name on Friday afternoon, and the FBI was able to dig up its old files about his adventures on the yacht Lekala in 1939 when he tried to slip out of the country with several other Hitler supporters. On Saturday afternoon, Dasch gave Traynor a full description of Kerling—blond hair, good dresser, thirty-four or thirtyfive, worked mainly as a chauffeur in the United States, paid-up Bund member—and also revealed the names of Herbie Haupt and Hermann Neubauer.

Haupt, Dasch told Traynor, was “a very shrewd boy,” the type “generally known in the United States as a drugstore cowboy.” 10Dasch had helped Kappe recruit Haupt back in March because he thought he possessed the “necessary qualifications” for a sabotage mission. When Haupt came over from Japan on a German freighter, he had been awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, for spotting a British steamer while at his lookout post. He was strong, street-smart, and could be “very dangerous.” But he also had a “romantic” streak, as demonstrated by his love of adventure and obsession with girls. He was a “clean-cut boy” who liked “flashy things,” such as a big silver ring with Indian signs that he had picked up in Mexico. Both Haupt and Neubauer were likely to go to Chicago, Dasch disclosed.

Dasch was finally willing to reveal the place where he was to meet again with Kerling so they could begin their sabotage campaign. Before doing so, however, he wanted a promise to be allowed to “exercise some of my thoughts” about how to “grab those guys.” 11If the others suspected that he had given them away, not only his life might be in danger, but also the lives of his parents back in Germany. He asked Traynor to seal the understanding with a handshake.

The request seemed fairly innocuous to Traynor, so he gave Dasch his hand. After the handshake, Dasch revealed the time and place of his scheduled meeting with Kerling: the grill of the Hotel Gibson in Cincinnati, between noon and two o’clock on July 4.

The fourth of July was still two weeks away, however, and the FBI wanted to get on with its investigation. As Ladd went through the transcripts of Traynor’s interrogation of Dasch, he decided that Chicago should become the next focus of the FBI manhunt. That evening, he called the head of the Bureau’s Chicago office and ordered twenty-four-hour surveillance on all known relatives of both Haupt and Neubauer.

“Assign your best agents to this case,” Ladd instructed. “This is one of the most important things the Bureau has done for years.” 12

NAZI LEADERS had high hopes for Chicago. America’s second-largest city was one of the great centers of German immigration to the United States and German-American culture. One in five Chicagoans, seven hundred thousand people, could trace their ancestry back to the Fatherland. German journalists returning to Germany after Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States in December 1941 had depicted Chicago as the American city “most tired” of the war, and most receptive to German propaganda.

These hopes were much exaggerated. It was true that prior to Pearl Harbor public opinion in the Midwest was more isolationist than on the East Coast, and less inclined to go to war against Nazi Germany. The Chicago Daily Tribune, which styled itself the “World’s Greatest Newspaper” under the eccentric Colonel Robert McCormick, had excoriated Roosevelt for attempting to involve the United States in yet another European conflict. But now that the nation was actually at war, its editorial policy had undergone a 180-degree turn. On Saturday morning, on Haupt’s first full day back in Chicago, the Tribune ran a front-page cartoon attacking Roosevelt and Churchill for not doing enough to defeat the Axis immediately. The cartoon was captioned “Too Little, Too Late.” 13