Stained Glass (25 page)

“Count Wintergrin, the French Chamber of Deputies voted on Friday, by a count of three hundred and forty-one to eighty-two, its disapproval of your program.”

“Of course. That will take a moment or two to analyze. In the first place, it is altogether natural that Frenchmen should be less anxious than Germans to reunify Germany. I don't think it's reasonable to expect that other countries will be willing to face sacrifice on the same scale as the beneficiary country seeking to recover its own nationhood, and the freedom of its own countrymen. On the other hand, I could not in good conscience ask my fellow Germans to make sacrifices that exceeded those made by so many Frenchmen to liberate their own country during the past war. General de Gaulle said while in London that if Frenchmen had to fight for a century to free their country, they would be prepared to do so. Unlike those great French leaders who summoned the French to war for the liberation of their country,
I
am not summoning anyone to war, inasmuch as I do not believe war necessary merely to assert a right so universally respected. I do say that we must be prepared to fight
if necessary:
but that is in no sense new. Under the NATO agreement, practically all the nations of western Europe are pledged to fight if necessary to preserve their freedom and indeed each other's. It is only distinctive about my platform that I believe that our brothers in East Germany should enjoy the same rights and protections we enjoy in West Germany and others enjoy in Italy, France, Scandinavia, the Low Countries, and Great Britain. I am quite certain that when reunification comes, the French Chamber will rejoice in the same spirit as freedom-loving people throughout the world rejoiced when Frenchmen were liberated.”

“Jesus Christ!” Blackford said to Overstreet. “Good God almighty! How're they going to stop that guy! He just managed to make the frogs look good while disemboweling them!” The Germans in the saloon were cheering.

In the press room Grossmann once again turned quickly to the next questioner, who stood by a television crew.

“Count Wintergrin, how do you account for the five million East German signatures urging us to vote against you and your party?”

“You are perhaps familiar, Herr Klaus, with the threat made to ex-President Theodore Roosevelt during the period of American neutrality in the First World War. The German ambassador advised the former President that if America joined the war on the side of the Allied powers, one million German Americans would rise up against their government. Mr. Roosevelt observed that in America there were more than one million lampposts. By the same token, there are five million lampposts in East Germany, with which to intimidate the population. I do not doubt that a totalitarian government can deliver signatures behind any petition whatever. What is perhaps remarkable is that only five million signatures were presented. As you know, the Soviet Union has a great penchant for unanimity. East Germans went to the polls only one year ago, and delivered ninety-nine point four per cent of the vote for Herr Ulbricht.”

There was a rustle of papers, and then the Reuters man was recognized.

“Count Wintergrin, the Norwegian Trygve Amundsen last Wednesday revealed … perhaps I should say, alleged … that during the time you were in the resistance in Norway you were in fact working secretly for the Nazis. He produced a document which purports to describe a meeting between you and”—the Reuters man was examining his notes—“a Captain Hessler, on July 4, 1944, at which you advised Captain Hessler of the date of a bombing run planned by the British against the heavy-water installation at Vemork, on July 7. The records indeed show that the British initiated such a raid on that day and that the surprising intensity of antiaircraft fire resulted in the devastation of the British squadron.”

The reporters stirred. Wintergrin paused for a moment. Then he reached into his pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper which he placed on the podium.

“I was of course aware the matter would be brought up, and am glad that the matter can be clarified.

“One: I have never laid eyes on Trygve Amundsen, though I acknowledge that he was a member of the resistance.

“Two: I never met, heard of, or was interrogated by, Captain Hessler. He was not one of the Gestapo officials who tortured me at Oslo during the spring of that year.

“Three: As we meet here, Mr. Amundsen is meeting with members of the press in Norway. He is issuing the following statement and will answer questions about it put to him by the press. I shall read it, if I may:

“‘On October 30, I received a telephone call in my office from a stranger. He advised me that unless I cooperated with him in a certain matter, either my son, or my wife, would be slaughtered. My wife is very ill and in a tuberculosis sanatorium. My six-year-old son is with his grandparents. He told me that if any report were made to the police, my wife or my son would similarly be executed. He then told me that I must be prepared to testify that Count Axel Wintergrin was a double agent during the period of the resistance, and that when I took part in the final raid on the Gestapo headquarters in Oslo I retrieved a memorandum documenting a conversation between Captain Hessler and Count Wintergrin in which Wintergrin betrayed the British Air Force. I received in the morning mail the next day the page from the Nazi journal. I proceeded to make the public accusation.

“‘Since doing so, members of the resistance—my former colleagues—who fought alongside Count Wintergrin and were personal witnesses to his bravery, approached me and promised to supply protection against the threatener. Measures were taken over the weekend that succeeded in tracing the telephone caller—who narrowly escaped the country. The Norwegian police and Interpol have been notified and are on the alert to arrest him for the crime of threatened murder and extortion. I heartily apologize of course to Count Wintergrin, but also to the German people. Signed, Tryve Amundsen.'”

Blackford signaled the waiter, and ordered a drink. “Poor mixed-up guy,” he thought. “So. Work your way out of every trap, and what do you do? You commit suicide.”

Everyone now was ordering beer. And, at the press hall, the applause was spontaneous, even heartfelt. The press manifestly felt dirty at having been so easily led to the diffusion of a sordid and apparently baseless accusation. Rather than let the applause continue, Wintergrin signaled quickly to Grossmann to recognize the next questioner, but the Reuters man insisted on a follow-up question.

“Have you speculated, Count Wintergrin, on who is the probable client of the man on the telephone?”

“Yes,” Wintergrin said, “yes, I have.”

There was silence.

The Reuters man said, “Well?”

Everyone laughed. Wintergrin looked uncomfortable.

“I should think it most probable,” he said, “that the enterprise, clearly motivated to discredit me, was the handiwork of the same party or parties who produced five million votes alleging that East Germans prefer servitude to liberty. The two libels are cognate—”

“What does ‘cognate' mean?” Overstreet whispered to Blackford.

Blackford interrupted his own running translation.

“Related, sort of. Shhh.”

“But,” the Reuters correspondent persevered, “it isn't only the Communists who seek to discredit you, is it? The majority of the French Parliament, for instance, are not Communists.”

“Of course not. And although I would hope for encouragement by every German, I can hardly expect the vote of every German, and would never for a moment suggest that those who oppose me are in any sense sympathetic to Communism. What I am saying is that the Norwegian enterprise is typically totalitarian in its total disregard of truth, fair play, and the appropriate sense of restraint. It is for that reason that I have speculated—
your
word—on the probable sponsor of the project.”

Grossmann now interrupted: “Next question?”

The next questioner was Erik von Königsberg, the grand old man of German journalism, imprisoned throughout the Nazi years.

“Count Wintergrin, on Thursday the Russians announced a general mobilization. It would appear that they are preparing for the contingency of a victory by you, in which case they would use all their armed might to crush you, your party, West Germany, and conceivably the rest of Europe while they are at it. May I have your comments on that?”

“Yes, of course, Herr Königsberg.

“In Heidelberg, on September 28, I said in my address: ‘Inevitably the Russians will threaten to block with their whole military might any move to liberate East Germany.' In Cologne on October 4, I said: ‘The Soviet Union will make great objections, no doubt including ostentatious mobilization of its forces.' In Stuttgart on October 11, I said: ‘Germans must not permit themselves to falter under threats of force from the Soviet Union, precisely calculated to deter us from our path.'

“Now, I am aware that to predict that something will happen, which I did, does not make its happening any the less significant.

“But bear in mind the following. In the present situation, the Soviet Union theoretically does not need to mobilize in order for its armies to reach the English Channel. It has one hundred and seventy-five divisions along the eastern front, five times the number of NATO'S, and a similarly disproportionate number of tanks and support aircraft.

“The Soviet Union is kept at bay by a combination of factors, among them the atomic deterrent, postwar economic exhaustion, and the difficulty the Soviet Union would have in administering conquered territories of people who are enjoying their freedoms after the long nightmare of Nazi rule and Nazi occupation.

“Now, here is a concrete piece of intelligence: Since the Soviets' theatrical summons to mobilization: one,
no reserves have in fact been called up;
two,
no fresh orders have been issued to the reserves;
three,
no administrative centers have been established for the processing of recruits
. In other words, save for the announcement itself, exactly nothing has happened. The Soviet Union is not satisfied to coerce the East Germans. It desires to influence the election in West Germany.”

The press began talking all at once, and Grossmann gaveled for silence.

“You will want to know how I have that information. I cannot tell you. I can tell you this, however, that on investigating it, to the extent that you have your own sources, you will find it to be true.

“Now”—Wintergrin did not want to slow the momentum and wait for what he knew would be the next question—“on the matter of an atomic defense, since the topic is raised over and over again. I am aware that Dr. Oppenheimer has said that it is a ‘scientific impossibility' for me to have come up with the bomb. I wish to repeat here: I do not threaten the bomb except against anyone who is prepared to annihilate Germans seeking their own freedom. I have no intention of inflicting violence on, or making war against, the Soviet Union. I am simply advising the German people that I am a practical man, with no taste for windmills. Although I believe in the end in the supremacy of the spirit—witness the valiant struggle of the Israelis to survive against such heavy odds—I also believe in the necessity of making only
credible
assertions. In economic strength this country is already third in the world, so soon after our devastation. We are a nation of fifty million people. Our factories can give us the conventional tools of war. And the bomb—should it come to that? I am free to say only this, that it is true—Dr. Oppenheimer is correct—as of now it is scientifically impossible for Germans to have developed an atom bomb. But it does not follow that we cannot have
acquired
an atom bomb. That is my answer to Dr. Oppenheimer. And”—now he was clearly addressing the television audience—“my message to the German people is: Don't let any of the distractions with which you have been assaulted during the last week deter you from what is your clear resolve.
Until we free our brothers we are continuing victims of an ignoble past
.”

There was a cacophony of sounds. Commotion, reporters struggling to get out, applause, here and there a whistle: the sounds of excitement. Wintergrin raised his hand deferentially, turned, and walked out of the room. The camera went back to the network host.

In Washington the same two men sat wearily by the same kitchen table in the same empty house in Georgetown where, a month earlier, they had set into motion the plan to neutralize Count Wintergrin. It was six twenty-five in the morning.

The Director rose and turned off the impressive shortwave speaker that had brought in the press conference, simultaneously translated exclusively for this audience of two men by an intercepting technician in an electronic warren a mile away.

There was a long silence.

“Pelzerhaken. So that's where the warheads ended up,” the Director sighed. “Well, at least it's no longer a mystery. And thank God the Soviets have never got on to it. Though, come to think of it, if we hadn't already decided on the other … plan, it mightn't have been a bad idea to let 'em know Wintergrin's people had got hold of those bombs.”

The reference was to the B-36 bomber which, with its four atom bombs, went down on maneuvers eighteen months earlier close by the East German border, near the mouth of the Lübeck estuary off Pelzerhaken in North Germany. CIA divers with the latest equipment had got there in three days. But when, on the tenth day, they came finally on the carcass of the plane, the bombs were gone. Not a word about the missing aircraft, let alone about the missing bombs, had leaked. It was the most heavily guarded secret of the season. It was assumed by the Pentagon and CIA that the Soviets had got there first with one of their omnipresent patrol boats out of nearby Rostock and spirited away the vicious, precious cargo; but the President decided against accosting them with it. And decided also against advising the NATO powers about the incident for fear of a sundering scandal. In Soviet hands the bombs were merely redundant. In the hands of Wintergrin they were something else.