A Covert Affair Read online

  A chance remark over lunch a few weeks later convinced Jane and Betty that they had accidentally hit on their own formula for undermining the Japanese. They had been waiting in line at the OSS cafeteria when Jane, who always kept them amused with tales of her misadventures in Bali, told a funny story about a legendary “love curry” prepared by Indonesian women who wanted to exact revenge on their cheating men. According to Jane, wronged Indonesian women rendered their mouthwatering curries fatal by adding tiny, indissoluble hairs taken from the base of the bamboo plant. Some hours after a hearty meal, the tiny hairs would begin to work their way through the intestinal walls, causing hemorrhage and condemning the faithless lovers to certain death. When she finished describing the poisonous concoction, she grinned and added puckishly, “Why not revive it for MO?”

  Betty agreed it was an ingenious method of dispatching the enemy. Together they spent the next hour plotting a “bamboo death” campaign. The deadly side effects of the curry could be presented to Japanese soldiers in Indonesia, Burma, and Thailand in the form of medical leaflets, purportedly issued by their own military high command. The plan, as outlined by Betty, called for exploiting the Japanese soldier’s doubts about the food with further leaflets, which would “cast suspicion on native eating houses” and describe the symptoms of poisoning “in a general way that would lead him to believe that simple dysentery and indigestion were the beginnings of hemorrhages.” As a crowning touch, Jane would use her artistic talents to do a series of medical drawings demonstrating “simple sabotage of the digestive tract, tracing the course of the deadly splinters into and through the colon walls with fluoroscopic clarity.”

  For the sake of realism, Jane announced they would need to pay a visit to Washington’s Botanic Garden. She needed to get close to some bamboo plants in order to make sketches and take a few samples. While Jane gathered up sketch pads and pencils, Betty borrowed a large kitchen knife from the cafeteria and stowed it uncertainly in her purse. Happily, they discovered that the Botanic Garden was not busy on weekday afternoons, and they found no one in the sultry greenhouse that was home to rows of palms, tree ferns, potted orchids, and bamboo plants. Crawling on all fours, they began searching the base of the bamboo stalks for the tiny deadly barbs, but many of the plants were so old that when they peeled back the brown sheaths they found nothing but dust. Finally, they located a green shoot. Jane passed Betty the knife, and she began to scrape some splinters from the stalk. “We were flat on our stomachs in mulch and dry bamboo leaves,” Betty recalled, “when we heard a distinct cough.”

  “Lost something?” The guard’s steely tone, devoid of inflection, made it more of a statement than a question. Jane met his accusing stare and murmured something about “a school project,” her blue eyes all innocence. It took some fast talking on her part—a barely plausible yarn about their being art students completing an assignment—to secure their freedom. The guard eyed them coldly, confiscated the kitchen knife, and escorted them off the premises. They returned to Q Building and never said a word to anyone about the ignominious end of their first jungle expedition.

  3

  LATE START

  By Christmas 1943, rumors had begun swirling that a number of OSS personnel were headed to overseas posts. There was a buzz of excitement as staffers gathered in the corridors to exchange scraps of information. The word was that they were recruiting people for “five major rear echelon bases”: New Delhi, Calcutta, Colombo, Chungking, and Kunming. The assignments were supposed to be a secret, but that did not keep the rumor mill from providing regular updates. Paul Child got a telephone call Christmas Day telling him to pack up and get himself on a plane to New Delhi, where he was to be the OSS representative on the staff of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. He complained that the call was so sudden, coming just after he had forked up a “stomach-full of turkey,” that it gave him a bad case of indigestion. He was also heard to grumble that because of the lasting influence of the British Raj on India, he was going to have to drop a small fortune at “Brooks Brothers in America” before he left.

  Mountbatten was the name on everyone’s lips. At the Quebec Conference that August, Roosevelt had met with Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill to hammer out the details of their grand strategy against Germany and Japan. After hearing from their war chiefs, the two leaders agreed it was to time to step up operations in the Far East in order to cut Japanese supply lines, destroy their communications, and secure forward bases from which the Japanese mainland could be attacked. Field Marshal Wavell, both leaders agreed, was finished. What was needed was a new commander and a new combined operation. Roosevelt offered to let Churchill name one of his own as head of the new South East Asia Command (SEAC), and after some negotiation Mountbatten was named supreme commander and General Stilwell his deputy. During the meeting, it was also agreed that China would not be part of Mountbatten’s mandate and would remain part of America’s strategic responsibility. To safeguard China’s interests, Stilwell would do double duty as chief of staff to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and commander of Chinese troops in Burma and in Assam, India.

  When Mountbatten visited Washington after the conference, he was greeted by a flurry of fawning press, who described the forty-three-year-old “boy” admiral—the youngest in the history of the Royal Navy—as a handsome, glamorous figure. Not everyone in the War Department was happy about the appointment, however, and P. J. Grigg, the British secretary of state for war, made no secret of the fact that he viewed Mountbatten as a rich playboy and not up to the job. The conservative Patterson newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and Washington Post and Times-Herald, attacked “Dickie” Mountbatten as “a princeling” and were busy propagating alarmist rumors that the selection of the royal over the homegrown hero General MacArthur was another example of how Roosevelt regularly caved in to pressure from the British. The widespread skepticism toward Mountbatten, and his mission to reconquer all of the Crown’s former territories—Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and beyond—in a late-in-the-day effort to shore up the lost empire, led some OSS veterans to joke that SEAC (pronounced “See-Ack”) stood for “Save England’s Asian Colonies.”

  Over the next few months, Betty and Jane made it their business to learn as much as possible about the newly formed Southeast Asia theater, where their MO activities would be targeted. It was a “rather confused situation,” as Jane put it, because while Mountbatten’s SEAC command comprised all the territories that had once been British colonies, the Americans belonged to the CBI (China-Burma-India) theater of operations, informally known as “Confused Bastards in China.” The CBI included China, while Mountbatten’s Southeast Asia command did not. Go figure. Thus far, the CBI had been “the Cinderella of the war,” its orphaned status reflected in the muddled state of affairs there. Militarily speaking, the CBI counted for little in the war. The big guns were Admiral Chester W. Nimitz’s command in the Central Pacific and General Douglas MacArthur’s in the Southwest Pacific. Stilwell’s operation got the short end of the stick when it came to modern weapons and supplies. Stilwell earned plaudits from the press for his “fortitude in the face of adversity” and was routinely ignored by Washington. He was reputed to be a first-rate commander, but he was an aggressive, testy old professional soldier—having more than earned his nickname “Vinegar Joe”—and was consumed with hatred not only for the nation’s enemies but also for some of its imperial allies, namely Britain and China, which he had been appointed to serve. He had nothing but scorn for Chiang Kai-shek, whom he regarded as an arrogant, unteachable Chinese overlord, and had an almost equal aversion for Mountbatten and his greedy colonial ambitions. As a result, Stilwell’s command was riddled with feuds and bitter divides, and he was perennially rumored to be about to be replaced. From a political point of view, though, the CBI was “the most important,” in Jane’s estimation. Certainly it was where the greatest postwar changes would occur, which was the reason Donovan was so determined to establish an OSS foothold in the
region.

  The situation in India was especially complicated for the OSS because of the rivalry between British and American clandestine warfare organizations. Theoretically, they were all part of a unified command, but in the past Stilwell’s and Wavell’s operations had been “suspicious of—in fact, almost hostile to—each other,” in the words of Albert C. Wedemeyer, the American general Mountbatten chose as his deputy chief of staff in New Delhi. It had gotten to the point where British authorities refused to have any working relationship with the OSS. The head of British intelligence there had reportedly told Donovan in no uncertain terms that the “door to India was closed” to the OSS, to which Donovan had replied, in his inimitable fashion, “Then we’ll slip in through the transom.” He got his chance with Mountbatten, who had pledged to foster Anglo-American cooperation and who took an interest in clandestine warfare. Donovan turned his not inconsiderable charm on the new supreme Allied commander and succeeded in getting his foot in the door to India. The story was that Donovan had won favor with Lord Louis by demonstrating his ability “to obtain New York theater tickets, to procure Cadillac automobiles, and/or to provide the services of Hollywood’s John Ford to record SEAC’s anticipated successes on film.” The upshot was that Mountbatten consented to host a new OSS base in his theater. He would retain “full operational control” over the unit, though it would not lose its American organization or be integrated with a British unit. While the details were being negotiated, OSS personnel were marking time in Washington waiting for the “big show” to begin.

  There were “other complications,” as Jane put it, having to do with the growing professional rivalry between generals. The OSS was allowed to operate in Sumatra but not the rest of Indonesia—although it did so surreptitiously—because the bulk of the archipelago was under the command of MacArthur, who loathed Donovan “with a monumental hatred.” The antagonism between the two was so deep that MacArthur had even sworn to court-martial any OSS member caught operating in what he considered his exclusive territory. Rumor had it that the feud had its roots in the fact that Donovan had won the Congressional Medal of Honor during the World War I, for capturing a German machine-gun nest single-handed, while MacArthur had been twice nominated for the award and twice denied, in the early days of World War II, probably because of the lasting controversy caused by his use of excessive force in dispersing the destitute veterans who had gathered for the Bonus March on Washington in the worst days of the Depression. His reputation was not helped any, according to Jane, when he left Corregidor in the Philippines for Australia but insisted on running the battle long distance, which resulted in commander Lieutenant General Jonathan “Skinny” Wainwright and his troops being captured by the Japanese. MacArthur meanwhile landed safely in Melbourne, taking with him on the PT-41 “his wife, his child, two Chinese amahs, and several trunks of personal belongings.” While he eventually got the medal for his defense of the Philippines, it did nothing to lessen his antipathy for the much-decorated Donovan.

  The situation in China, which America jealously guarded in the same way Britain did India, was even more of a tangled mess. The War Department had committed itself to a policy of “keeping China in the War” and providing the Chungking government, with Chiang Kai-shek as its president, with a major portion of lend-lease supplies. The OSS was officially committed to working with Chiang Kai-shek, but it was not clear which enemy the Generalissimo was more committed to fighting—the Japanese invaders who had laid waste to his country for seven years or his Communist compatriots in the north. As a result, the head of the Chinese secret service, General Tai Li—an infamous character who, legend had it, was “a blend of Himmler and the once-popular movie villain, The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu”—was not exactly rolling out the welcome mat. Donovan had given Tai Li pretty much the same warning he had given Mountbatten, to the effect that the OSS would be coming in one way or another. But backing up that bluff was another matter. “We must take orders from the Chinese,” Major Little told Betty, “and they are not too happy to have us snooping around behind the lines, possibly uncovering certain things about Communist and central government relations that would prove embarrassing.” Frustrated by the separate, and at times incompatible, agendas that were holding up OSS operations, the major conceded that the waiting was hard on everyone. All he could do was ask that they “have faith.” Progress was being made, and people would soon be shipping out.

  He told Betty that they planned to send a small unit to Burma, where Colonel Carl F. Eifler had managed to establish an OSS base—Detachment 101—in Assam, on the northern border of the country. Eifler’s outfit had already developed an effective field operation and was producing vital intelligence for Stilwell’s north Burma campaigns. The 101 was also working with the British army staging counterattacks against the Japanese occupying forces, and training a guerilla band, the Kachin Rangers, to sabotage Japanese lines of communication and supply dumps. Major Little would be among the first to go, tasked with trying to smooth the way for MO in China. He was taking their MO colleague Charles Fenn, a thirty-six-year-old former Associated Press war correspondent who had covered the fighting in Burma and who would be sent into French Indochina to launch rumor campaigns against the Japanese. Tokie Slocum was leaving with another group to help organize and train the first contingent of Japanese interpreters, writers, and technicians going to India.

  It was impossible not to be envious of the dear departing. Hungry for any news of MO personnel movement, Betty and Jane took to monitoring two listening posts—the 10:00 a.m. coffee line at the cafeteria and the ladies’ washroom—both of which functioned as gossip clearinghouses in the Washington headquarters. By lingering in either of these two key locations, it was possible to pick up all kinds of extraneous bits of information. Most of the scuttlebutt tended to focus on the latest activities of the Hollywood director John Ford, head of the Field Photographic Unit, as well as other famous personalities who were moonlighting for the OSS. There were regular sightings of the actor Sterling Hayden in the building, usually at lunch with another VIP. And everyone, it seemed, had a Marlene Dietrich story. While gossip was strictly against the rules, it was inevitable, Betty observed, that with so much emphasis on responsibility and security the employees would find some way to release all the pent-up pressure. The occasional shared tidbit was their only vice. Jane put it best when she said that the OSS reminded her of a Quaker meeting she had attended where everyone was “bursting to blab.”

  Of all the chatty young stenographers, secretaries, and file clerks they befriended, their favorite was the immensely tall, exceptionally lively Julia McWilliams, even though she had what Betty termed a “highly developed security sixth sense” and never let anything slip. Julia, they both agreed, was the sort of “sensible, high-minded” woman who could be counted on to keep mum about the reports that crossed her desk. She worked in the Registry, a special office that functioned as the OSS “brain bank,” the repository of all manner of highly classified information. She revealed little about her job, but Betty subsequently discovered that she held the keys to the OSS secrets that enemy spies would most like to get their hands on: “the distilled reports from the Research and Analysis branch; the real names of agents operating behind the lines; itemized amounts of expenditure for agent work, payoffs, and organization of undergrounds; locations of OSS detachments around the world, and implemented plans of operations of all branches bearing the Joint Chiefs of Staff stamp of approval.” Julia always downplayed her position, admitting only that she had developed a “top-secret twitch” from handling so much sensitive material.

  In the coffee line they learned that Julia was equally desperate to go abroad. Unlike Betty and Jane, Julia had never had the chance to travel outside the United States, with the exception of an afternoon jaunt over the border to Tijuana. At thirty-one, she was older than most of the other OSS girls and had been working toward her goal of “high adventure” since the war began. She was from an affluent, conserva
tive California family much like Jane’s, and her life after graduating from Smith in 1934 was filled with that pleasant whirl of social activities—golf outings, ski weekends, country club soirees, and balls—that is supposed to lead to a wedding. Julia, however, obstinately avoided marriage to the boy next door, Harrison Chandler, a wealthy heir to the Times Mirror publishing fortune, who was as handsome and decent as he was boring. She held on to the dream that something bigger lay in store for her, later admitting that her height might have given her an exaggerated sense of her own destiny.

  Dreaming of a glittering literary life as a “lady novelist,” she moved to Manhattan with two fellow Smithies in hopes of getting her start but never managed to interest The New Yorker in any of the reviews or short human-interest pieces she submitted. After a failed romance and faltering resolve, Julia returned to Pasadena and to what she termed her “social butterfly” years. An ill-fated stint as an advertising copywriter at the Beverly Hills branch of W. & J. Sloane—she was fired after only a few months—put paid to her ambitions for a high-flying career. Devastated by her mother’s death at the age of sixty, Julia resigned herself to keeping house for her father and playing the part of dutiful daughter. She still dabbled in writing, penning plays for the Junior League and a monthly fashion column for a small California magazine called Coast, bankrolled by family friends, but it had become an occupation rather than a calling.