Killing Patton The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General (35 page)

In time, of course, Patton’s predictions will come true, and the world will have to live with the consequences of American gullibility.

*   *   *

The Soviet threat is not the only thing troubling Patton. He personally has undergone a series of strange near-death “coincidences.” First there was the attempt a few weeks ago by the Spitfire to shoot down his airplane. The British had loaned many of those airplanes to the Polish air force, and it was originally believed that it was a Polish pilot who attacked Patton’s L-5. But it turns out that the only Polish Spitfire wing in that part of Germany at the time was stationed far to the north, on the Baltic coast. The Spitfire has a combat range of 395 miles, making it impossible for the Polish fighters to make the round-trip flight from their base in Nordhorn to the location where Patton was fired upon, nearly three hundred miles south.

Records also show that no Polish aircraft went missing, and no Polish pilots were killed on the date of the attack—even though the Spitfire in question had Polish markings.

A Russian pilot, however, could have been the culprit.

Winston Churchill had been kind enough to give Joseph Stalin’s air force one thousand Mark IX Spitfires to fight the Nazis. The planes were everywhere over the skies of Germany.

Two weeks after the air attack, Patton was riding in the passenger seat of his open-air jeep when a German peasant’s ox cart nearly smashed into his vehicle. A long pole tipped with a sharpened farming blade protruded from the front of the cart. “We were nearly killed,” Patton wrote of his near decapitation in his journal. “The pole missed us by inches.”

Army intelligence agents have warned Patton that his life may be in danger. NKVD, the Russian security force in charge of political assassinations and espionage, is thought to be tracking his movements.
³
Whether it is the Russians or crazed Nazi sympathizers who have visions of assassinating him, Patton is taking no chances. His security detail has been strengthened, and he now carries a loaded revolver with him at all times.

As night approaches, Patton takes a break from writing letters in his office near Bad Tölz as Gen. Hobart “Hap” Gay, Patton’s longtime chief of staff, enters through the open door. “General,” he says to Patton, “there’s a Russian brigadier out in my office who says he has instructions to speak with you personally.”

Patton removes the Montecristo Especial cigar from the corner of his mouth. “What the hell does the son of a bitch want?”

“It’s about river craft on the Danube,” Gay replies vaguely.

“Bring the bastard in,” Patton replies. “You and Harkins come with him.”

Patton depends greatly on the wisdom of both Gay and Col. Paul Harkins, who have been at his side for years. In fact, it was Harkins who six months ago at Verdun nodded to Patton and confirmed that the Third Army was poised to quickly wheel north to save Bastogne.

The English-speaking Russian general enters Patton’s office, followed closely by Gay and Harkins. The Russian snaps to attention as Patton rises.

What follows is a lengthy protest against the behavior of the American army. Many Germans fled the Russians by crossing the Danube River into what is now known as the “American Zone.” Among them were boatmen who made their living ferrying people across the river. The Russians feel that these men and their boats rightfully belong to Mother Russia. “General Patton,” the general concludes. “The Fourth Russian Guards Army demands that you, General Patton, return these craft to Russian control.”

Patton does not immediately respond. He calmly places his Cuban cigar in an ashtray, slides opens his desk drawer, and removes his Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver.

Patton looks hard at the general. He then picks up the revolver and smashes it down hard on the desk. His face goes red. “Gay, goddamnit! Get this son of a bitch out of here. Who in the hell let him in? Don’t let any more Russian bastards into this headquarters. Harkins! Alert the Fourth and Eleventh and Sixty-Fifth Divisions for an attack to the east.”

The Russian general’s face instantly goes pale. Terrified, he says nothing as Gay leads him from the room. Harkins, as ordered, picks up a telephone and gives the command to commence attacking the Russian lines.

The general hurries away from Patton’s headquarters.

Gay and Harkins quickly return to Patton’s office to report on the situation. They fear that Patton may have just started a new war.

But the general is all smiles. He reclines in his desk chair, once again puffing on his cigar. “How was that?” he asks with a grin.

Patton doesn’t wait for an answer. “Sometimes you have to put on an act, and I’m not going to let any Russian marshal, general or private tell me what I have to do. Harkins, call off the alert.

“That’s the last we’ll hear from those bastards.”

But even George Patton knows that is not true.

*   *   *

On June 13, it is George S. Patton who is effectively silenced. He receives news that he has long dreaded: his combat career is over. Gen. Courtney Hodges’s emotional meltdown and his ineffective leadership of the American First Army during the early days of the Battle of the Bulge have been forgotten. Gen. Douglas MacArthur has chosen Hodges instead of Patton to join him in the Pacific Theater for the fight against the Japanese army.

George Patton has fought his last battle.

23

S
CHLOSS
C
ECILIENHOF

P
OTSDAM,
G
ERMANY

J
ULY
24, 1945

L
ATE AFTERNOON

President Harry S. Truman wants a word with Joseph Stalin.

As diplomatic negotiations end for the afternoon, he maneuvers around to where Stalin sits. The two men, alongside British prime minister Winston Churchill, have spent the day discussing the postwar future of Germany. A small group of advisers from each nation is also seated at the ten-foot-wide circular table in this century-old palace just outside Berlin. The high-ceilinged room is stifling, smelling of stale cigarette smoke, and ten degrees too warm, thanks to the summer sun shining in through the unopened windows.

The Potsdam Conference, as it will be remembered, is the first time that the new Big Three are meeting since the death of Franklin Roosevelt. Joseph Stalin plays the role of entitled host, behaving as if Potsdam were now part of Russia. The tablecloth and chairs at the negotiating table are bright Russian red. Outside, in the gardens, the Russians have even planted bright red flowers in the shape of the Communist star.

As with the last meeting between Allied leaders, in Yalta, Stalin has every intention of steamrolling his guests into acceding to his demands. The ongoing American policy of accommodating the Soviets, rather than containing their growing power, plays right into his hands.

Churchill is bitter. Joseph Stalin has not only taken full control of Eastern Europe, but is widely viewed as a hero by the rest of the Continent. There is growing speculation that voters in France, Scandinavia, Italy, and even England will favor Communist candidates in their next elections. Indeed, even as Churchill watches Harry Truman casually rise from the table and then pull Stalin aside for a brief chat, the people of Britain are at the polls selecting a new government. Churchill will fly home tomorrow to hear that he is no longer prime minister.

Harry Truman does not have that kind of a problem. He’s America’s leader until at least 1948. He is a reluctant president, and considers the White House a “jail.” But Truman is also moving quickly to put his own stamp on American politics by replacing FDR’s cabinet and trusted advisers with men he considers loyal to him.

Truman possesses one presidential trait that Franklin Roosevelt lacked, and that is the poker player’s ability to tell when another man is lying to him. FDR’s administration was filled with men such as Wild Bill Donovan, who gained access to the president through flattery and self-promotion. Harry Truman has no time for panderers who put their own interests before those of the American people. When one of Roosevelt’s most powerful advisers, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., threatened to resign if he wasn’t allowed to attend the Potsdam Conference, Truman immediately called his bluff.
¹

Morgenthau stepped down three days ago. His plan will not be implemented.

Truman is fiercely independent. In his lifetime, he has been a soldier, farmer, bank clerk, railroad worker, owner of a men’s clothing store, judge, and senator. He once dreamed of being a concert pianist, and still makes time to play. He waited until he was thirty-five to get married, but his devotion to his wife, Bess, is such that he regularly writes her long letters whenever they are apart. Upon his arrival in Potsdam, the Secret Service overheard an army officer make the mistake of telling Truman he could “arrange anything you like while you’re here—anything in the way of wine and women.”

An appalled Truman chewed out the officer, telling him that “I married my sweetheart. She doesn’t run around on me and I don’t run around on her. And I want that understood. Don’t ever mention that kind of stuff to me again.”

This traditional American president who dotes on his wife now grabs the elbow of Joseph Stalin, a man whose infidelities and brutality drove his wife to suicide. The two world leaders stand apart from the other attendees at the Potsdam Conference, but remain near the negotiating table. For those who can’t hear what the two men are saying, it would appear that they are simply making small talk. In fact, what Truman is about to tell Stalin will forever change the relationship between the United States and Russia. Truman, the smooth-talking “Missouri horse trader,” is determined to send a clear message: America is the true power broker at this meeting.

The president looks dapper in his double-breasted suit and his bow tie. Stalin and the Russian contingent are all clad in drab Soviet military uniforms. The Russian dictator is a man just as comfortable with hiding his emotions as Truman.

Choosing to leave his own interpreter behind, Truman speaks directly to Stalin, letting the young Russian interpreter V. N. Pavlov translate his very important message.

Winston Churchill stands five feet away, next to his foreign minister, Anthony Eden. Both have already been told the news. They silently watch Stalin, to gauge his reaction.

Stalin is known to remain expressionless in negotiations, so as not to give away his true emotions, but Truman knows there is more than one way to bluff in a poker game. “After long experimentation,” he tells Stalin in his typically direct way, “we have developed a new bomb far more destructive than any known bomb, and we plan to use it very soon unless Japan surrenders.”

Stalin’s face is impassive, pretending not to comprehend the full weight of Truman’s words. “I am glad to hear it,” the Russian responds. “I hope you make good use of it against the Japanese.”

The discussion over, the two engage in small talk for a few minutes before Truman makes his way back over to the U.S. delegation.

Churchill is flabbergasted by Stalin’s lack of comprehension, and will later write, “If he had the slightest idea of the revolution in world affairs which was in progress his reactions would have been obvious. Nothing would have been easier than for him to say, ‘Thank you so much for telling me about your new bomb. I of course have no technical knowledge. May I send my expert in these nuclear sciences to see your expert tomorrow morning?’ But his face remained gay and genial, and the talk between these two potentates soon came to an end.”

The British and Americans have been cooperating on the special bomb since 1939. Just eight days ago, in the vast desert of New Mexico, this new “atomic” weapon was successfully detonated. The explosion was equal to twenty kilotons of dynamite, and sent a bulbous cloud nearly eight miles into the sky. The sand beneath the blast was instantly turned into a layer of green glass ten feet deep, and the shock waves could be felt one hundred miles away. The man who directed the bomb-making project, a theoretical physicist named Robert Oppenheimer, made one simple remark to others who observed the explosion: “It worked.”

Yet Oppenheimer also realized that this device brought an entirely new form of evil to mankind. “I am become Death,” he thought to himself, “the destroyer of worlds.”
²

Truman had been waiting for confirmation of the blast results, and received them while on his way to Potsdam. The coded message detailing the bomb’s success was handed to him upon his arrival: “Operated this morning. Diagnosis seems satisfactory, and already exceeds expectations,” it read. With those words, Truman instantly has the power to assert American demands at the Potsdam Conference. No fighting force on earth possesses such a weapon, and he can threaten to use it on whoever stands in America’s way. Here at Potsdam, Truman uses the bomb as leverage to gain assurances that the Russians will join the war against the Japanese. The president also opposes Russian demands that the German people pay for the rebuilding of postwar Europe, with the bulk of those reparations going directly to the Soviet Union.

Yet Stalin is not afraid. Unbeknownst to Truman, he knows all about the atomic bomb, thanks to his extensive global intelligence network.
³
He has deliberately prepared for this moment, determined not to give away any hint of emotion that will reveal the depth of Russian espionage in America.

It does not matter that America is an ally. The Russians spy on anyone who is a threat, considering no act of intrigue to be off limits. Stalin believes that “atomic bombs are meant to frighten those with weak nerves.” Besides, his scientists are hard at work on an atomic bomb of their own. In four short years, the Russians will detonate a giant fireball.

Simply put, Joseph Stalin is determined to rule the world.

No American president, or American general, will stand in his way.