Glenn Beck - Miracles and Massacres - True and Untold Stories of the Making of America

“I have a lot to talk to you about,” George said. It was, by any measure, an understatement.

“I know what you are going to tell me,” said Pete. “I am quite sure that our intentions are very similar.”

George looked around. He badly wanted to talk with Peter now—but there were too many people sitting around them, too many prying ears. George knew that he’d been sloppy up until this point—he was an untrained, unmotivated, unsympathetic German. His carelessness and erratic nature were among the reasons he’d failed in most of his professional pursuits, none of which—from waiting tables, to clerking at a soda fountain, to managing a brothel—had prepared him for international espionage.

But he would not be sloppy anymore. He didn’t care about his mission, but he had no idea if the Nazis had sent others to watch him and his team. Be patient , George told himself.

“In the morning,” he said.

New York City

Sunday, June 14, 1942

8:30 A.M.

“I want the truth, nothing else—regardless of what it is,” George said. Looking Pete in the eye, pointing to the window across the hotel room, he added, “If we can’t agree, either I go out the window or you do.”

“There is no need for that. I think we feel very much the same,” Pete replied. “Let’s get on with it.”

But George was in no hurry. Instead of getting right to the reason the two of them were there, he instead started telling Pete about his life.

He explained how he’d left Germany in 1922 at age nineteen for America. That another nineteen years later he’d retreated back to his home country, looking for a new start.

He knew almost instantly that it had been a mistake. It was 1941 and, as George explained, “There was too much terror and too much want, not enough food and not enough fun.”

His next stop was the Farm—and then right back here, to America.

Pete told a story not altogether different: a childhood in Germany, an emigration to America, and a return home that he quickly regretted. “I never intended to carry out the orders,” he said, beginning to cry. “And when I got to the beach yesterday, I started sabotaging the mission right away.”

“When you were talking with the Coast Guardsman, I dropped a pack of German cigarettes,” Pete continued, “and a vest. And some socks and swimming trunks. Then I dragged the crates of TNT along the beach. I could have carried them. They were light enough. But I knew dragging them would leave marks leading right to where we buried them. The fog obscured what I was doing from the others—they had no idea.”

Smiling, and sure he’d found an ally, George gripped Pete’s shoulder with his trembling hand. “Kid, I think God brought us together. We are going to make a great team.”

New York City

Sunday, June 14, 1942

7:51 P.M.

The FBI received a lot of phone calls. Some of them were taken seriously, and the rest were routed to an agent who sat at a “nutter’s desk.”

“Can you spell that, sir?” asked the agent who was, at the moment, listening to a caller who claimed to have arrived from Germany the prior morning.

“Franz. F-R-A-N-Z. Daniel. D-A-N-I-E-L. Pastorius. P-A-S-T-O-R-I-U-S.”

The agent wrote down “Postorius.”

“And what type of information do you want to give?”

He told the agent that he would be traveling to Washington to report something “big.” Once there, he wanted to speak directly to J. Edgar Hoover. “He is the person who should hear it first.”

“Mr. Hoover is a busy man—”

“Take down this message,” the caller demanded. “I, Franz Daniel Pastorius, shall try to get in touch with your Washington office this coming week, either Thursday or Friday, and you should notify the Washington office of this fact.”

Before hanging up, George added, “Tell them I am about forty years old, and have a streak of silver in my hair.”

From the nutter’s desk, the FBI agent typed a memo for the file. Neither it, nor George’s message, ever left New York.

Washington, D.C.

Friday, June 19, to Wednesday, June 24, 1942

It was Friday morning when George dialed the operator at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. His message to the FBI may not have made it to the capital, but he had. “Room service, please.”

Peter Burger knew that George was in D.C. to turn himself in to the FBI and expose the entire operation, but the other two team members had no idea. Peter had told them that George was leaving New York for a few days to get in touch with some Nazi sympathizers living in America, hopeful that they could help with logistics.

George was finally beginning to feel like himself again. It had been a long time. But now, between the great food, seeing old friends, and playing marathon games of pinochle, he was starting to realize that his future was bright. His next step, which would be to explain the entire German plot to the American government, would finally set him free.

George had spent a lot of time over the past few days thinking about what he’d do with his life once the Americans had labeled him a hero. Maybe he could help the U.S. war effort by improving their propaganda. Or maybe the government would have its own ideas. Whatever the case, as long as he was helping to bring down the Nazis, he’d be happy.

Picking up the phone to call the FBI, George had a moment of doubt—not about whether to call, but about whom to call. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe the Secret Service was the proper agency. Unsure, he dialed the U.S. Government Information Service and told the woman who answered that he had “a statement of military as well as political value.” She suggested trying the colonel in charge of Military Intelligence at the War Department. George hung up, called the colonel, and left a message.

Undeterred, and in something of a hurry for a change, George reverted to his original plan: He called the FBI and asked to speak to J. Edgar Hoover.

The operator transferred him to a second office; which sent him to a third office. That office connected him to Duane Traynor, the agent in charge of the FBI’s anti-sabotage unit.

If George couldn’t talk directly to Hoover, he figured Traynor would have to do. “Did New York tell you I was on my way?”

Of course, New York had not told him anything. But, intrigued, Traynor sent a car to the Mayflower to pick George up and bring him in. While he waited, George wrote a letter to Pete:

Got safely into town last night and contacted the responsible parties. At present I’m waiting to be brought over to the right man by one of his agents. I had a good night’s rest, feel fine physically 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.

After arriving at the Justice Department, George sat down with Agent Traynor. “I have a long story to tell,” he said, “but I want to tell it my own way.”

For twelve hours, George told Traynor about the Farm and the U-boats, about the second team sent to Florida and about the targets they were ordered to hit. Of course, he also treated Traynor to a healthy dose of his life story as a team of six stenographers worked in one-hour shifts to record every word that came out of his mouth. Finally, perhaps for the first time in his life, George had a receptive audience willing to sit and listen to anything that popped into his head.

As midnight approached, George was beginning to lose his voice. Accompanied by Traynor, he returned to the Mayflower, where the FBI agent slept in a spare bed. It was all going according to plan, George thought. It was exciting. And even though it was exhausting, and a little scary, he was having fun. It felt good to be a hero.