“You’re a clever man, Canaris,” Bormann said, smiling. “You know where I’m going, don’t you?”
“I’m not clever enough to understand where you’re going, Herr Reichsleiter. ”
“And a cautious man, too,” Bormann said, approvingly. “All right, let me give you another hint or two. Colonel Perón is ambitious. He sees himself as a future leader of Argentina, perhaps even as a future leader of more than just Argentina. ”
“That is a weakness of many South American officers,” Canaris said. “They dream of glory.”
“And wealth. Their officer corps does not come from the aristocracy, the landed gentry, so to speak. They have to live on what they’re paid.”
“Excuse me, Herr Reichsleiter, but that’s not always the case,” Canaris said. “The late Oberst Frade came from the landed gentry.”
“Indeed?”
“Oberst Grüner told me that he had—in addition to other business interests—farmlands in excess of eighty-four thousand hectares.”
“I wasn’t aware of that,” Bormann said.
“He was also a close friend of your Colonel Perón,” Canaris said. “I wondered then, and wonder now, if eliminating Frade was really a wise thing to do. The message it was supposed to have sent to the Argentine officer corps— if the deaths of Grüner and Goltz were in fact an act of revenge—seems to have backfired.”
“Perhaps,” Bormann said somewhat impatiently. “But you will of course agree that we no longer have to worry about having a president of Argentina whose son is an American OSS agent.”
“That’s inarguable, Herr Reichsleiter.”
“What we need is a president of Argentina who admires the Führer, National Socialism, believes in the final victory, and is interested in both his political future and feathering his own nest, wouldn’t you agree?”
“And, ideally, who could be trusted with the Phoenix secret,” Canaris said. “And you think Colonel Perón would fit the bill?”
“I’ve thought so for some time, actually. Which brings us to the point of this very private conversation.”
Canaris didn’t reply.
“I’ve actually taken some steps to recruit Colonel Perón’s cooperation in this enterprise,” Bormann said. “Are you familiar with Anton von Gradny-Sawz, Herr Vizeadmiral?”
“The first secretary of the Buenos Aires embassy,” Canaris said. “When the question of a traitor in the embassy came up, I collected and read his dossiers.”
“ ‘Collected and read his dossiers’?” Bormann parroted. “Plural?”
“We had one—just the basic facts—and the Sicherheitsdienst had a somewhat more comprehensive one, and then after the Anschluss, I took over the personnel records of the former Austrian government.”
“And the party had one. Did you ask for that?
”
“No. I presumed you had one, and that if there was anything in it that would be of interest to me, you would have passed that on.”
“And what is your opinion of the Herr Baron?”
“Are you asking if I think he may be our traitor?”
“That would be included in your opinion, wouldn’t it? What I was asking was what you think of him.”
“He is a dedicated National Socialist who early on decided that it was his patriotic duty to bring Austria into Greater Germany, and was very helpful in doing so.”
“And for being helpful was rewarded when Austria became Ostmark?”
“Yes.”
“In other words, he was an opportunist?”