The DeValera Deception Read online

  Germany and Russia had shocked the world last April at Rapallo, Italy when they signed the treaty he had helped negotiate. Formal relations restored; no war reparations; most-favored nation status in trade. In a single bold diplomatic stroke, Germany had turned east in an effort to rebuild its shattered economy with new materials from Russia. Was all his work for naught? To be destroyed in the fires of a new war? No, he said to himself. He had to act.

  At a banquet given by the Russians last night, Weidenfeld had been seated next to Trotsky and, at its conclusion, was invited to Trotsky’s private apartments in the Kremlin where they continued, over several bottles of Russian vodka, their dinnertime conversation. A small dark man, like so many of the Bolsheviks, but with incongruously blue eyes, Trotsky talked as if Weidenfeld already knew, had to know. And if Trotsky’s story were true—and why tell it if it were not—there were only two conclusions to draw as to why he was not consulted or even kept informed. Either he and the Foreign Office did not have the full confidence of their superior, Chancellor Gustav Stresemann, or, worse still, the General Staff was conducting its own foreign policy.

  Trotsky had been drunk, uncharacteristically for him in Weidenfeld’s experience, his speech slurred as he recounted the history of the clandestine German military assistance to Russia, a small table lamp and the glowing coals in the hearth providing the room‘s only illumination. It had started in the spring of 1920 when Poland invaded the Ukraine, their troops quickly capturing Kiev and Vilna. German arms makers had promptly filled the Soviet government’s hastily placed orders for 400,000 rifles and 200 million cartridges. Even Zeppelins were used. Zeppelins! On the night of 1 May 1920, six of the giant airships which bombed London and Paris in the Great War had been dispatched to Moscow, carrying arms and ammunition.

  The secret alliance had not ended there. Now, seventy five million gold marks a year were to be paid by Germany to Russia. And for what purpose? German rearmament! Junkers and aeroplane factories! Krupp and artillery! I.G. Farben and poison gas! Training stations for tanks and aeroplanes at the German Army’s disposal in Russia. All weapons forbidden by the hated Versailles Treaty. To what end? And what was Sondergruppe R? And who were the mysterious men of the Geneva Group, the ones Trotsky said made it all possible?

  By the end of the second bottle, Trotsky had dropped all restraint and Weidenfeld learned the secret. “Your generals have too much optimism. Five years is too soon. But ten years is not. Ten years, maybe even eight if Geneva agrees to limit its profits.” Trotsky then lurched to his feet to stir the coals in the fireplace. What Trotsky said next, he muttered into the fire: “Poland, economist. Poland. Kill the Poles. Poland must cease to exist. The Chief of your General Staff agrees with us, I think. Germany and Russia will have their revenge. He said so to our General Uborevich. Here, see for yourself.”

  Trotsky handed him a letter bearing the unmistakable crest of General Hans von Seeckt., the Chief of the German General Staff. Weidenfeld chilled as he read the letter. He wasn’t having a nightmare. Worse, Trotsky wasn’t lying.

  Poland’s existence is intolerable, incompatible with the survival of Germany. It must disappear and it will disappear through its own internal weakness and through Russia—with our assistance.

  Weidenfeld had looked over at Trotsky who was slumped in his chair, eyes closed, his chin resting on his chest, soft snores coming from his open mouth. He slipped silently out of the room. Chancellor Stresemann had to be told. He would know how to stop this insanity.

  Weidenfeld looked at the clock on the mantle over the fireplace. 6:45 a.m. The Chancellor’s secretary, Dieter Bernstein, would be here any moment in response to the cryptic note Weidenfeld had sent less than six hours before. “Grave matters discussed with Trotsky last night. Chancellor must be informed. Come to my suite at 6:50 a.m. Tell no one.”

  There was a knock on the door. Weidenfeld placed his papers on a nearby table and slipped his monocle into his dressing gown’s breast pocket as he walked through the sitting room to the foyer. “Herr Bernstein, welcome”, Weidenfeld said as he opened the door and then blinked in surprise at a tall blond-haired, white-coated waiter.

  “There must be some mistake. I have already had my breakfast.”

  “Excuse me, sir”, responded the waiter in flawless German, “but I was instructed to deliver this to Herr Bernstein at 6:50 a.m. A double order of sausages and French pastry.”

  Weidenfeld looked more closely at the waiter. In his experience, the German spoken by Russian hotel staff was rudimentary and heavily accented. He saw that the waiter’s handsome face bore a two inch scar on his left temple. But he shrugged it off, smiling at the memory of Dieter’s well-known appetite and stood aside. While the waiter prepared the table for breakfast, Oskar returned to his bedroom and again began to review his notes, his back to the door.

  Absorbed in his reading, he did not hear the waiter enter the room. The first sound he heard was a pistol being cocked. Turning, the last sound he heard was the weapon’s discharge as the bullet entered his right eye and exited the back of his head with a spray of blood.

  Kurt von Sturm stepped over the outstretched body and pried loose the blood-spattered papers still clutched in Weidenfeld‘s left hand. He did not take pleasure in killing but no foreign office bureaucrat could be allowed to stand in the way of Germany’s return to greatness and its revenge for the abomination that was the Versailles Treaty. He briefly glanced at the hand-written notes. It wasn’t cast in stone but, on the whole, he agreed with Trotsky. Eight years was about right, seven if fortune were with them. But the Geneva Group cutting its profits? He shook his head. No, some things were cast in stone. Revenge was a complicated business. And expensive.

  Part I

  New York and Montreal, 1929

  How could Great Britain agree to the setting up of a foreign Republic in Ireland? How could anyone suppose that peace could be found along that road? Not peace, but certain war, real war, not mere bushranging, would follow from such a course.

  Winston S. Churchill,

  24 September, 1921.

  From the day that the Versailles Treaty went into effect, it was the Reichswehr’s policy to evade and violate the Treaty’s disarmament provisions, and to continue to develop and produce the whole range of modern weapons....in Russia, from 1921 to 1933... [T]he Versailles Treaty was an inconvenience—but only that. The German weapons developed in the 1920s were roughly equal to the best weaponry developed in the United States, Britain, and France.

  James S. Corum,

  The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans Von Seeckt

  and German Military Reform

  1.

  The Prime Minister

  The Canadian Pacific Railway,

  Quebec City to Montreal

  Friday, 9 August 1929

  The morning sun cast a red glow across the train compartment’s window and the desk beneath it. A weak scotch and water beside him, Winston Churchill unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen and began to write.

  My Darling:

  We had a wonderfully good passage with only one day of unpleasant motion. The ship was comfortable and well found, and we had splendid cabins. It was pleasing to see the green shores of Labrador after six days of grey sky and sea. We passed through the great inland sea between Newfoundland and the mouth of the St. Lawrence. It was calm and bright and steadily getting warmer.

  I regret your illness did not permit your presence at our departure. We could have had our quiet time together and I could have spoken more freely than by the written word of my meeting with the P.M. the day before. He seems to be settling in to his second time around. With any luck, it will not last longer than the first.

  Ramsay was in good spirits and quite pleasant to me on a personal level…

  Churchill had not expected to be summoned to a meeting with the new Prime Minister. He and Ramsay MacDonald were poles apart politically but their personal relations had always been warm and cordial. On some matters when Winston had be
en the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they had even found themselves on the same side of issues.

  MacDonald, a tall, gray-haired, sixty-five year old grandfather, whose dark mustache was flecked with white, greeted Churchill warmly. “Winston! So good to see you again. So very kind of you to come at such short notice. I know how busy you must be preparing for your journey. Here, come this way. Let’s meet in my study where we won‘t be disturbed.”

  MacDonald led Churchill into a small room lined with bookshelves, and containing two comfortable leather chairs with reading lamps behind them. He gestured for Churchill to sit in one of the chairs while he sat in the other, a cup of tea and his reading glasses on the small table beside it. The late morning sun streamed in through several small windows along the top of the bookshelves lining one wall of the room.

  Churchill was smiling to himself as MacDonald again thanked him for coming. He had rarely seen the dour Scot so loquacious. “Always happy to oblige, Prime Minister. I am pleased to see the new government has chosen to seek sound fiscal advice at such an early time. Will the Chancellor be joining us?” Churchill asked.

  MacDonald ignored Churchill‘s mild jibe. “No, no, Winston, only you and me. This has nothing to do with the Treasury. Our prosperity is safe for now,” MacDonald allowed in what was for him a rare attempt at levity. “Ireland. The Free State. Did you have much opportunity to follow events there during your time at Number 11?” asked MacDonald. 11 Downing Street was the townhouse next to the Prime Minister’s own residence, traditionally occupied by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and which Churchill had involuntarily vacated a few months earlier.

  “I‘m afraid not, Prime Minister,” said Churchill who, seizing the opening offered by the questioning, commenced a monologue that lasted for the next ten minutes. Collins’ assassination. The bitter civil war successfully prosecuted by Collins’ successor, William Cosgrave, and his Attorney General Kevin O’Higgins. De Valera‘s arrest in August, 1923. His break with Sinn Fein in 1926 and the founding of his own party, Fianna Fail. De Valera’s election to the Dail in June, 1927. Kevin O’Higgins’ assassination in July, 1927. The rapid demobilization of the Free State Army after the civil war. The poor state of their intelligence efforts, hardly up to the standards established by Collins.

  “Their economy has not fared so well either,” Churchill continued. “Too dependent on agriculture. Just look at the statistics from 1925 through last year.”

  The Prime Minister hastily interrupted, “I don‘t think that will be necessary, Winston. You seem to be quite up to speed on matters Irish. It’s not the Irish economy which I wish to discuss with you this morning. Something far more serious.”

  Stopped in mid-sentence, Churchill looked at the tall Scot. “Pray tell me more.”

  “Our intelligence people have brought us disturbing news. We have advised the Irish government, of course, but there is little they can do. MI-6 thinks we ought to help and I’m inclined to agree. The Irish have been a good member of the Commonwealth. I‘d like your opinion as well. You know the Irish. More importantly, you’ll soon be in America.”

  Churchill paused before answering, focusing his entire concentration on the Prime Minister and softly asked, “And what is the disturbing news, Ramsay?”

  “MI-6 has hard intelligence from more than one reliable informant that the IRA has mounted a new fund-raising and arms purchase program in America.”

  “What kind of weapons? What sums are involved?”

  “The sums are very large, I am afraid. Close to a million pounds. But that’s all we know. MI-6 wants to send a team of their agents to America to find out more.”

  “Why send our people?” asked Churchill. “Why not ask the Americans to help? Their foreign intelligence is non-existent but I understand their internal security is much improved.”

  “There‘s the rub,” the Prime Minister said. He didn’t want to ask the Americans for their assistance. MI-6 would not reveal its sources and, without knowing that, there would be no place for the Americans to begin their investigation. More importantly, MacDonald explained, relations with the Americans were no better now than they were when the Conservatives were in power. The Americans were still bargaining hard over repayment of British war debts and the Hoover Administration hadn’t backed off from its predecessor’s position on naval disarmament. The Americans wanted the size of the British Navy reduced while theirs grew larger.

  “I will visit America myself in the fall,” MacDonald said, “and will personally lead our delegation at the naval negotiations. I do not wish our position at all to be jeopardized by using that occasion to ask the Americans for assistance on an unrelated matter.”

  Churchill understood the Prime Minister’s viewpoint. Bargaining with the Americans over the future of the British Navy was not the time to be asking for a favor, however small, if the price turned out to be the loss of even one British ship of the line.

  “Very wise, Ramsay, very wise. I agree completely. How can I be of assistance?”

  “By any chance, does your itinerary include a visit to Washington, D.C.?”

  “My American itinerary is still unsettled. While I expect to lecture extensively in the United States, nothing yet is firmed up for my trip back east from California,” Churchill responded. “What exactly did you have in mind, Ramsay? Because I may well have the opportunity to meet with the President in California. We are both scheduled to be guests of Mr. Hearst at his ranch. He‘s holding a reception there for that Graf Zeppelin crew.”

  “That would be splendid, Winston,” MacDonald said with a smile. “Can you spare the time to lunch with me? I want you to be my personal emissary to the President and a meeting outside of an official setting would be all the better for what I have in mind.”

  There was a gleam in Churchill‘s eye as he tucked into his turtle soup and then paused for a sip of champagne. MacDonald was a teetotaler but didn‘t begrudge his guests their vices.

  Churchill listened with growing eagerness as the Prime Minister outlined the plan developed by British intelligence. A team of agents, all with experience in Irish matters, would be sent to the United States. Based on the information they already had from their informants, they believed they could quickly run the plot to ground and prepare a comprehensive dossier with names, dates and places for delivery to the American authorities.

  “Your task, Winston, will be to present this dossier to the President and persuade him that continued peace in Ireland is as important to the United States as it is to us.”

  Churchill had been looking forward to his trip to North America. Three months of rest, relaxation, writing and painting, all in the luxurious comfort of private railway cars and four-star hotels. The newspaper articles he would write along the way would not only pay for the journey but generate a tidy profit. Perfect. And now the Prime Minister had made it even better. All this and an adventure to boot. And with an old nemesis Churchill knew well, the IRA. He could hardly believe his good fortune and casually inquired, “Who‘ll be leading the team? I doubtless came across them and their work when I was Colonial Secretary.”

  “I‘m afraid I don‘t know any of the chaps,” said the Prime Minister. “But there will be ten men in all and their leader is a David Brooke-Smythe. I met him yesterday. Seems capable.”

  “I know him,” Churchill replied. “He was one of our agents the Irish feared most.”

  Churchill paused, waiting for the Prime Minister to inquire further. When he did not, Churchill resumed. “So Smythe and his men will be reporting to me?” Churchill probed.

  MacDonald dropped his spoon with a clatter. “Oh, dear me, no. Smythe will be in complete control. He is to keep you informed as his investigation proceeds and, of course, he must compile the dossier for you to deliver to the President.”

  Churchill was visibly deflated. Was he only to be a mere messenger? A protest began to form in his mind but before he could give it voice, the rigid line of MacDonald‘s jaw persuaded him it would be
to no avail. A different tack was in order. “Very well, Prime Minister. But I wonder if I could not be of more service. You remember that my mother was an American?”

  MacDonald nodded and Churchill continued. “I have many acquaintances in America, some of whom may be able to assist us in our inquiries. Surely you would have no objection, Prime Minister, to my calling on these meager resources for whatever benefit they might bring?”

  MacDonald looked skeptical but acquiesced. “I suppose it would do no harm. But remember, Winston, this is a holiday for you and you are entitled to a well-deserved rest.”

  “Not nearly as long a rest, Ramsay, as I am sure you have in mind for me,” Churchill said with a chuckle. “Especially if you persist in your policy on India.”

  “We shall see, Winston,” MacDonald replied. “We shall see.”

  Their luncheon concluded, the Prime Minister and Churchill walked down the stairs. He asked if the Prime Minister could arrange a meeting that evening between Churchill and Smythe to go over the lay of the land together. At the bottom of the stairs, MacDonald reluctantly agreed.

  As a servant handed Churchill his walking stick and hat, he turned back to MacDonald and said, “One more favor, Ramsay. You were so kind to allow my bodyguard from Scotland Yard, Inspector Thompson, to accompany me on my holiday. But, given my new assignment, might it not be prudent for me to bring along an additional man from the Yard?”

  “I don‘t see why not,” MacDonald replied. “I presume you have someone in mind?”

  “Yes,” said Churchill as he took his leave, “yes, I do.”

  I dined with David Smythe that evening after my meeting with Ramsay. He hasn’t changed. He is capable enough but all bluff and bluster. The man still hates the Irish. He showed me a list of the agents he’s taking with him. All of them served under him in Ireland. I suppose we need men like that in our intelligence services. It’s a dirty business. My instinct tells me they aren’t the right men for this work. Still, I think I have improvised quite cleverly. With Hazel, Joe, Robert, Martha and young Bourke Cockran as well, we shall make a good accounting of ourselves.