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Another probable NKVD execution—this one by exit from a skyscraper window—but “officially” listed as suicide,bg was the death of Laurence Duggan in 1948. Duggan was one of the most ideologically-motivated of the war-time American traitors. Head of State’s South American desk, he had worked for the Soviets since the mid-1930s and provided Moscow mostly with classified diplomatic cables, including those about Argentina, which supported the Axis. But he experienced an ideological crisis over Stalin’s terror purges and signing of the non-aggression pact with Hitler. He could not understand why either occurred. He quit spying for awhile but resumed after being soothed by his Soviet handlers. Code-named “Frank,” “Prince,” and “19,” he and Hiss worked together, although it is not clear either knew about the other being a communist spy. As a close adviser to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Duggan had top-level influence. Overall, according to The Haunted Wood, he passed hundreds of classified documents, including secret transmissions sent to Washington from the U.S. embassy in Moscow.43
There were many more: Michael Straight, a personal friend of the Roosevelt’s whose parents founded the liberal New Republic magazine. He became a communist at Oxford in England in the 1930s. British universities were an incubator for Soviet spies in that period. Mrs. Roosevelt got him a job at State. He provided the NKVD with armaments reports and potential spy recruits.44 Samuel Dickstein was a New York congressman, code-named “Crook.” The Soviets knew his bottom line. He demanded increasing amounts of money for his treason while the quality of his product correspondingly dropped. Still, it included providing Moscow with information on American fascist groups unearthed by his Congressional un-American activities committee. At the same time he steered Congress away from investigating communists. 45 More appreciated by the Soviets was Harold Glasser, another of Morganthau’s Treasury staff. His code-name was “Ruble,” as in money—which he was to the Soviets. The son of Lithuanian immigrants, he joined the communist party in 1933. With the help of Harry Dexter White in Treasury he survived an FBI background probe that could have ousted him. He provided intelligence from the War Department and the White House which was deemed so important by the NKVD that seventy-four reports generated from the material went directly to Stalin.46 General Fitin, Donovan’s counterpart and close associate in the OSSNKVD cooperation—to whom all the U.S. espionage was funneled—was so pleased with Glasser that he recommended the Treasury officer be awarded the “Order of the Red Star,” a Soviet medal given usually to soldiers for “exceptional service in the cause of the defense of the Soviet Union.”
These spies, plus the hundreds in other U.S. agencies at the time, including the military and OSS,47 permeated the administration in Washington, and, ultimately, the White House, surrounding FDR. He was basically in the Soviet’s pocket. He admired Stalin, sought his favor. Right or wrong, he thought the Soviet Union indispensable in the war, crucial to bringing world peace after it, and he wanted the Soviets handled with kid gloves. FDR was star struck. The Russians hardly could have done better if he was a Soviet spy.
According to one of the few comprehensive books about the secretive Counter Intelligence Corps—the same organization Patton-plot investigator Stephen Skubik belonged to—Roosevelt ordered in 1943 that the CIC “cease any investigations of known or suspected communists and destroy all files on such persons immediately.” 48 The order, according to the books’ authors, was the result of an investigation of a “leftist” friend of the Roosevelt’s that went wrong and made the president angry.bhAnd the order was not confined only to the CIC. Patton’s nephew, FBI agent Fred Ayer, Jr., wrote, “intelligence personnel in Europe [where he was stationed] were officially forbidden to report, much less investigate, anything that our Red Allies were up to,” making their jobs, he added, “frustrating and ulcer-causing.”49
Similarly, General Albert C. Wedemeyer, aid to War Department head Gen. Marshall and among the planners of several major Allied campaigns, including D-Day, wrote that he learned early in the war it was “taboo for any American in an official position to expose, denounce, or openly oppose Stalin’s aggressive action and sinister aims.” It was “positively unpatriotic... to voice dislike and distrust of our ‘gallant ally,’ the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or to denounce the tyranny of ‘good old Uncle Joe’.... Naturally, the press [generally supporting Russia and Stalin] affected Washington’s political judgments.” From higher-ups like Marshall and Hopkins, writes Wedemeyer, he constantly experienced “admonitions not to refer to the Russians in a critical sense or to the dangerous implications of communism.”50
Just how insidiously powerful Moscow had become in war-time Washington is illustrated by the facts concerning Henry Wallace, Roosevelt’s vice president and icon of the Left who ran for president as a socialist in 1948.bi As Roosevelt’s early secretary of agriculture, the farm-born Wallace instituted the then-radical idea of farm subsidies as a way of raising prices for American farmers. It was one of the beginnings of public-trough welfare still existing today. Elevated to vice president in 1940, Wallace became a vocal champion of the Soviet Union, an example, he believed, of what society should be in the modern world. In 1944, he visited Russia and returned with glowing accounts—not realizing he had been duped with lies, phony statistics and shows, and a brutal gulag dressed up to look like a summer camp.51 Privately, in late October 1945, as Truman’s secretary of commerce (and only a little more than a month before Patton died), he met with Anatoly Gorsky, the NKVD station chief in Washington, to urge that Stalin help him combat U.S. “fascists,” one of whom, he said, was his own country’s new secretary of state, James F. Byrnes.52
Luckily, Roosevelt, feeling pressure from Democrats who believed Wallace’s far-left pronouncements might cost the party the 1944 election, decided to replace him with the less radical Democrat Sen. Harry Truman. Wallace was then given the commerce position as a consolation prize. But had Wallace been kept on the ticket, the White House, upon FDR’s death only months later, literally, would have been all but run from Moscow. Wallace is said to have stated that had he succeeded FDR, he intended to make Laurence Duggan and Harry Dexter White his Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury respectively.53
This was the administration Patton, a severe Soviet critic, was subject to as he continued his bumpy rise and outspokenness.
The Allied Sicilian campaign of July 1943 was a hard-fought victory, highlighting Patton’s bold, aggressive generaling but also revealing traits which would further alarm his superiors. The British, because of the defeat at Kasserine, regarded U.S. troops as unreliable. They therefore commandeered the planning, with Patton’s British counterpart Montgomery taking the lead. To Patton’s chagrin, it was with Eisenhower’s blessing. Patton, heading U.S. forces, was relegated to a support role. It angered him. “Ike is more British than the British and is putty in their hands,” he wrote in his diary.54 Once the battle started, and without informing Eisenhower, he jumped in a B-25 and flew to General Sir Harold Alexander, theater invasion commander, to argue that Americans, without whom there would be no invasion, should be given a larger role. It was unfair and tactically unsound for Montgomery to get all the glory. He pointed out that Washington, upon whom the British counted so much for aid and support, would not take kindly to learning that its army was being relegated to such a minor role. Patton knew his stuff. Alexander had no rebuttal and granted Patton permission to do more than had originally been planned. Without informing Eisenhower again, Patton took advantage of the opportunity to break out from solely supporting Montgomery’s flank, performed a tough, quick movement of his troops northwest and then east over rough and heavily defended terrain and, after taking Palermo, beat Montgomery, who was bogged down with German resistance, to the coastal city of Messina where the bulk of the Germans had been pushed. Messina was supposed to have been Montgomery’s prize. Tainting the victory somewhat was the fact that most of the enemy, rather than surrender, escaped across the narrow straits to nearby Italy, meaning they would be able to fight again. Regardless, American morale “soared,” as did Patton’s image. He “had effectively exorcised the Kasserine Pass demons,” wrote Eric Ethier in American History magazine. The press, as it had in North Africa, made him a hero.55
But the celebration was short-lived. General Omar Bradley, serving under Patton at the time, had not liked the dash to Messina. He thought it unnecessary and basically ego-driven. The move distanced him from Patton. Similarly, Eisenhower, who had not been happy with Patton’s independence in Morroco, had now seen it in battle. Patton had gone against plan and should have informed him. Basically, in Eisenhower’s eyes, he was deemed untrustworthy.
Then came the slapping incidents.
In a fit of temper, Patton cursed and struck two soldiers at different times while visiting Sicilian hospitals. He viewed the two soldiers, suffering from shell-shock, as cowards, not worthy of being amongst wounded heroes. Because one of the soldiers was rumored to be Jewish, there were also whispers of anti-Semitism. Patton, historians point out, may have been suffering shell-shock himself.56 But when Eisenhower first learned of the incidents he was incensed. “No letter that I have been called upon to write in my military career has caused me the mental anguish of this one,” he wrote in reprimand. “I assure you that conduct such as described in the accompanying report will not be tolerated.”57 He demanded Patton apologize to the two soldiers, show contrition to him personally, and cease such “brutality” forever. But knowing he would need Patton for future fighting, he stopped short of any official action for fear of ending Patton’s career and thus losing his service. Nevertheless, on August 24, he wrote General Marshall in Washington, “George Patton continues to exhibit some of those unfortunate personal traits of which you and I have always known and which during this campaign caused me some most uncomfortable days . . . . I have had to take the most drastic steps; and if he is not cured now, there is no hope for him.”58
Obviously, they had talked derisively about Patton before. Marshall himself had witnessed a Patton outburst at his men while the troops had practiced the Sicilian invasion in North Africa. Farago describes the scene thusly: “Patton went out of control” as “Marshall . . . Eisenhower and a bunch of generals nearby observed . . . in embarrassed silence.”59 But Eisenhower’s private action regarding the slappings should have been the end of it. However, rumors eventually reached correspondents covering the war. At least one of them, John Charles Daly, a CBS radio reporter who would later become an early television star, believed Patton had temporarily gone crazy at the hospital.60 The implication was not lost on Eisenhower but he talked the correspondents out of reporting the story. They agreed on the need for Patton in future fighting. The situation again seemed solved—at least from Eisenhower’s perspective. Then, three months later, Drew Pearson, a Leftist, pro-Soviet broadcaster and “muckraker,” (as Carlo D’Este calls him), learned of the incident while touring Sicily and reported it with great sensation on his syndicated radio show. A public uproar ensued. The hero of only a few months prior was now characterized by most of the press as an out-of-control Nazi preying on the sick.61 Congressmen demanded Patton’s resignation. As in Casablanca, the controversy quickly entwined Eisenhower. He was accused of a cover-up. Why did he not fire Patton? How could he tolerate such fascist behavior? Eisenhower was straightforward in his answers. He had dealt with the matter in the strongest terms but he needed Patton, who was a great battle commander. A surprising number in the country came to Patton’s defense. War was not pretty. They understood the need for discipline and that sometimes the lines of appropriate action were blurred. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson was forced to defend both Patton and Eisenhower in a letter to the Senate. While Patton’s action was “indefensible,” he wrote, winning the war was top priority. “Off the record,” wrote D’Este, the secretary “rebuked Patton, writing of ‘his disappointment that so brilliant an officer should so far have offended against his own traditions.’”62
The controversy subsided. But Patton was deep in his superiors’ doghouse and, as a consequence, on their punitive radar, his career hanging on by a thread only because he was desperately needed. And that is key. Any other general would have been long gone. But he was basically, at that point, irreplaceable. One has to think that if Douglas Bazata is telling the truth, this was probably the time—late 1943—when the “Stop Patton” plot which he says arose and could have eventually evolved into an assassination order was born. They knew they had to use him later. How would they control him? It was a problem that needed answers. For his part, Patton was contrite in letters to Eisenhower and Stimson,63 and in his apologies to the two slapped soldiers and his troops in general, the latter which he decided to do on his own. But privately he was resentful. He wrote in his diary, “Ike and Beedle [General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s chief of staff] are not at all interested in me but simply in saving their own faces . . . .”64
He still believed his prowess would prevail.
Then things got even worse for him.
As plans for the invasion of Europe unfolded, Bradley, his underling, was awarded command of American forces in the upcoming invasion of Europe, the biggest show of the war. The job should have been his, Patton believed. He had earned it on the battle field. But Eisenhower said Bradley, quiet and unassertive, was more stable, more dependable—an observation that had to mean in following orders as well. Patton was put in limbo for a possible assignment on the continent once the landings succeeded—but only if he behaved. He was warned to keep his mouth shut or, needed or not, he would be gone. It was a blow. Patton was angry. But he adjusted. He knew acceptance was his only chance of staying in the game. In the meantime, his name, now known to put fear in the hearts of the German high command, was attached to a fictitious paper army made to seem like the one being readied for the cross-channel invasion. Its location, paperwork, and radio traffic indicated a landing at Calais, the closest and most logical place for invasion in the minds of the Nazis trying to decipher the Allies’ plans. He was to be part of one of the great deceptions of the war. All he had to do was be quiet and play the ruse, and he might get a real part later.
Then he was blindsided.
Patton did not really want to attend the opening of a new “Welcome Club” for American troops in Knutsford, England as he waited to do his part. But the women of the club persisted and it was for the troops, so he consented. He even arrived late, so as to keep a low profile.65 Still, news photographers were waiting for him and he made them promise not to publish the pictures or report he was there. It was April 1944, two months before the invasion, and he was still part of the ruse. Then, unexpectedly, the hostess announced he was going to say a few words and the audience was already clapping before he could decline. So he went to the podium and spoke briefly. Basically, it was a short welcoming, and as he himself, Blumenson and others describe it, it included, “I feel that such clubs as this are a very real value, because I believe with Mr. Bernard Shaw, I think it was he, that the British and Americans are two people separated by a common language, and since it is the evident destiny of the British and Americans, and, of course, the Russians, to rule the world, the better we know each other, the better job we will do.”66
He left.
The next day, to his surprise, he awoke to another controversy. There are no tapes of the speech and Patton himself spoke without notes so his exact words can never be positively known. But most British newspapers included the reference to the Russians as sharing rule of the post-war world, while American papers generally did not—which was why the controversy was loudest in the U.S. Despite assurances to the contrary, the press at Knutsford had broken their word and reported Patton’s “off the record” remarks. The press in America, still angry over the slappings and knowing his anti-Soviet sentiments, compounded the problem by distorting the reportage to make it seem like Patton had slighted “our great ally” Russia. The distortion was all they needed to vilify him again. The Washington Post editorialized that Patton had “progressed from simple assault on individuals to collective assault on entire nationalities . . . .”67
Congressmen joined in. A Republican, Karl Mundt of South Dakota, declared Patton “has succeeded in slapping the face of every one of the United Nations except Great Britain.”68 War Secretary Stimson was “horrified,” writes Patton biographer Stanley Hirshson. Stimson had to deal with Congress daily and saw the criticism as one more wrench thrown in his task. He leaned on Marshall, who leaned on Eisenhower, who, already having a tough time dealing with Soviet Union in his coalition, had enough. While acknowledging there may have been extenuating circumstances, he wrote back to Marshall that Patton was “mentally unbalanced” and he, Eisenhower, was ready, if Marshall agreed, to send Patton home.”69 Marshall, however, taking note of the attacks on Patton’s sanity, nevertheless threw the problem back to Eisenhower. The coming need for Patton was too great. “Do not consider War Department position in the matter,” he cabled. “Consider only Overlord [the coming invasion of Europe] and your own heavy burden of responsibility for its success. Everything else is of minor importance.”70 It was a sobering reply. Could he take back Europe without Patton? Who was better? He decided to reconsider. After summoning a confused and rightly peeved Patton and berating him, then making him wait in dread for days to find out what his decision would be, Eisenhower wrote Patton, “I am once more taking the responsibility of retaining you in command in spite of damaging repercussions resulting from a personal indiscretion. I do this solely because of my faith in you as a battle leader. . . .”71
Patton took the reprieve as a sign from God. “Divine Destiny came through in a big way,” he wrote his wife on May 3, 1944.72 In his diary, he penned, “My final thought on the matter is that I am destined to achieve some great thing—what, I don’t know, but this last incident was so trivial in its nature, but so terrible in its effect, that it is not the result of an accident but the work of God. His Will be done.”73
