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“The President is a very smart, arguably brilliant, politician who has learned that it’s almost always better to avoid a bitter confrontation. I think he may have decided that his establishing the Directorate of Central Intelligence over Hoover’s objections was all the bitter confrontation he could handle.”

“How does Hoover feel about you?”

“He would have preferred—would really have preferred—to have one of his own appointed director. Once the President told him that there would be a Directorate of Central Intelligence despite his objections to it, Hoover seriously proposed Clyde Tolson, his deputy, for the job. But even J. Edgar doesn’t get everything he wants.”

“That wasn’t my question, sir.”

“He’s hoping he will be able to control me.”

“What’s General Donovan going to do now?”

“You know he’s a lawyer? A very good one?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, the President, citing that, asked him to go to Nuremberg as Number Two to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who’s going to be the c

hief American prosecutor.”

“He threw him a bone, in other words?”

“Now that you’re a lieutenant colonel, Colonel, you’re going to have to learn to control your tendency to ask out loud questions that should not be asked out loud.”

“Admiral, you have a meeting with the President at ten forty-five,” Allred said.

Souers walked to the bed, extending his hand.

“I’ll be in touch, Max,” he said. “Get yourself declared ambulatory. The sooner I can get you back to Argentina, the better.”

“I was thinking, sir, that I would go to Germany first, to have a look at the Pullach compound, and get with Colonel Mattingly and Lieutenant Cronley, before I go back to Buenos Aires.”

“I think that’s a very good idea, if you think you’re up to all that travel,” he said.

“I’m up to it, sir.”

“I hadn’t planned to get into this with you. That was before you agreed to stay on. But now . . .”

“Yes, sir?”

“Now that you’re going to have to have a commander-subordinate relationship with Captain . . . Captain . . . Cronley . . .”

“Sorry, sir. I knew that the President had promoted Cronley for grabbing the uranium oxide in Argentina.”

“And for his behavior—all right, his ‘valor above and beyond the call of duty.’”

“Yes, sir.”

“Prefacing this by saying I think he fully deserved the promotion, and the Distinguished Service Medal that went with it, and that I personally happen to like him very much, I have to tell you what happened after he returned to Germany.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Admiral,” Lieutenant Allred said, as he tapped his wristwatch, “the President . . .”

“The world won’t end if I’m ten minutes late,” Admiral Souers said. “And if it looks as if we’ll be late, get on the radio to the White House and tell them we’re stuck in traffic.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know about those Negro troops who have been guarding Kloster Grünau? Under that enormous first sergeant they call ‘Tiny’? First Sergeant Dunwiddie?”