“Why?”
“There you go, Harry. Let me finish.”
“Make it quick.”
The sound of Justice Jackson chuckling came over the phone speaker.
Truman glared at the telephone.
“Okay,” Souers began, “I don’t know how much Cronley considered your belief that these people should be tried, and hanged, with as much publicity as possible as common criminals so that the Germans would not regard them as martyrs to Nazism, murdered by the vindictive victors. But every time I decide he’s too young and inexperienced to understand such and such, he’s proved me dead wrong.”
“Go on.”
“Anyway, he concluded that the solution to the problem was to keep the Austrians out of the actual arrest—”
“He decided this on his own?” the President interrupted, his tone again incredulous. “Without checking with his superiors?”
“And there you go again, Harry,” Justice Jackson said, followed by an audible grunt. “Let Sid finish.”
Truman impatiently gestured for Souers to go on.
Souers continued. “That’s why I wrote on the message that there was more. Including that Cronley’s relations with his immediate superior, Colonel Wallace, who sent that SIGABA message to me, are not cordial. Cronley also believes that if you think your superior is going to say no when you ask permission to do something and you know you’re right, don’t ask, just do it.”
“And beg forgiveness afterward,” the President added. “I’m familiar with it.”
“The justification that Cronley offered,” Souers went on, “for arresting Burgdorf and von Dietelburg on his own was that they wouldn’t live long in an Austrian prison—”
Justice Jackson interjected: “And he could then fly them directly to Nuremberg, on illegal airplanes, without the hassle of going through border control authorities.”
“Illegal airplanes?” Truman parroted.
“Two Fieseler Storches,” Jackson answered. “Sort of German Piper Cubs, but much better. Three-place, not just two-place. The Air Force ordered their destruction. Cronley appeared not to know about this order.”
Jackson laughed, then went on. “In his ‘innocence,’ he kept his two in a well-guarded hangar in Nuremberg. The aircraft were thus available to fly to the Compound in Munich, first with one of General Gehlen’s assets in Russia, one Rachel Bischoff—”
“Whom the Austrians wanted very much to interrogate,” Souers interjected.
“—and later Burgdorf and von Dietelburg to the same place,” Jackson finished.
“At this point, the Austrians went ballistic,” Souers said. “They issued arrest warrants. For murder, in the case of Lieutenant Spurgeon, and for various crimes and misdemeanors for Cronley, Winters, and everybody else concerned. OMGUS has issued a ‘detainer’ on everybody for illegally leaving and then entering Germany without passing through an entry point. And the Air Force is demanding that the Army bring charges: one, against Cronley for not destroying the Storches, and, two, against Cronley and Winter for flying them after the Air Force declared them unsafe. And also charges against Cronley for flying at all, because he is neither an Army aviator nor an AAF pilot.”
“Lawyer that I am,” Jackson said, “I’m finding it hard to understand the legal ramifications of a nonpilot illegally flying an ostensibly nonexistent airplane, but that’s where we are, Harry.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” the President said.
“Oscar Schultz,” Souers then said, “on learning what had happened, decided the solution to the problem was to get everybody the hell out of Dodge while he, quote, poured money on the Austrian volcano, unquote. So, everybody went to Argentina just about a month ago. Cletus Frade is hiding them in Mendoza, on one of his estancias.”
After a moment, President Truman, his tone unpleasant, said, “Is that all?”
“More or less,” Souers said. “For now.”
“I was annoyed with this situation when I first got wind of it today,” Truman went on, his voice rising. “Now that I’ve learned all this—and, more important, that both of you bastards kept it from me—I am what is known as royally pissed off.”
“Harry,” Jackson said, “both Sid and I felt that it would die down.”
“But it hasn’t, has it?” Truman snapped. “Even worse, Burgdorf and von Dietelburg, those despicable Nazi bastards, are now on the loose, goddamn it!”
“Harry, Bob and I decided that you had more important things on your plate—”