The most important of all tasks, in the view of F.D.R., was the forming of an international organization to settle future disputes and keep the peace of the world. There must never be another war like this, if civilization was to endure. The President had called an international conference at a mansion in Washington called Dumbarton Oaks, and it had worked out the details of such an undertaking; now he wanted to persuade Stalin to agree to a time and place for a formal assemblage of delegates to organize and launch the project. That was the most important news that Lanny Budd had heard for a long time; it would mean a real chance of winning the peace as well as the war. He told Hopkins in confidence about the Chattersworth bequest, and they agreed to meet and discuss that later on.
VII
A tragic thing it was to Lanny to see this desperately sick man, holding on to life in a sort of frenzy, putting his last ounce of strength into the effort to render one final service to mankind. Every moment of his life was an effort; and when he could do no more he would sink back upon the pillow, gasping, and Lanny would turn himself into a manservant, put a blanket over him, bring him a glass of water, take notes of what he needed or what he wanted said to this person or that. Harry had secretaries with him, but they were busy every moment, and there were always unexpected errands turning up. He would start to apologize, and Lanny would say, “This is the most important thing I have ever done.”
So it went for day after day. Lanny wrote down the day’s agenda, he ran errands, he looked up passages in books and reports, read the morning paper and marked items Harry would need to see. The Times was flown from London every day of the conference, arriving the day after its issue date—this despite the fact that a two-hundred-mile motor drive was part of the route. Mail was brought daily by a special courier of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Harry would read, dictate, and consult all morning, have lunch with Roosevelt, and then attend a conference with the American staff. At four o’clock would come the formal meeting of the three delegations, lasting about three hours. At eight would come one of those exhausting dinners, with numerous toasts, and discussion which had to be translated. A sick man had to be excused from these affairs.
That was the time Lanny sat by his bedside and got his orders, made his reports, and gave opinions when they were asked for. This was the culmination of the war for the art expert, and the best part. The war itself was a brutal thing, but here was conscience as well as brains being applied to human affairs. The powers which were going to rule the world, perhaps for the next century, were meeting here and learning to understand one another, to come to definite agreement about all possible differences, so that reason and fair play might at last take charge of the world.
Stalin was being very accommodating, Lanny was told. He was in agreement with all the military plans for the finishing of the war, and he promised to enter the war against Japan within two or three months after the German surrender. He agreed to all the plans for the demilitarization of both enemy lands. He was not so keen for the proposed international organization; he preferred to have the three nations which were winning the war keep the right to settle the peace; he couldn’t see much sense in a proposal which would place the Soviet Union and Honduras, for example, on the same plane of power. He was persuaded to agree on the basis that the Big Three should retain the power to veto actions they didn’t like—they being the ones who would have to supply the military force if it was required.
Harry had long talks with his underground adviser on this subject. They agreed that the principal reason the old League of Nations failed was because America had refused to come in; so now there could be no use in proposing at Yalta anything that the United States Senate would refuse to endorse. “Those old political pachyderms,” as Harry called them, would demand the same thing that the Red dictator was demanding, the right to say NO to any proposal that would compel the United States to send its military forces out of the country. “That Man” and his New Deal crackpots might work up any fancy schemes they chose, but the decision would rest with elderly senators from the poll-tax belt who held all the committee chairmanships by virtue of the seniority rule.
VIII
Harry said that he had told the Boss of the help Lanny Budd was giving, and the Boss had expressed his gratitude. Lanny got his reward on the fourth day of the conference, when he was invited to lunch with F.D.R. and his daughter, Mrs. Boettiger, who was acting as his secretary. Present also was Pa Watson, the President’s military aide, an elderly brigadier general whom he dearly loved and who was destined to die before this trip was over. Lanny listened to talk about the various personalities at the great affair and the decisions which were being taken. He had the honor of being asked for his opinion more than once, and ventured to suggest that it was an error to divide Germany into zones under Russian, British, French, and American control. It meant there would be four different Germanys, and many disputes among their administrators. It would be far wiser to have one joint administration, and then the disputes could be settled at the council table before the various measures were put into effect. Roosevelt replied, sadly, that this was his own view, but Stalin and Churchill had ganged up against him.
Lanny said, “Of course, each will want to have his own way in his own zone.”
“No doubt, but they have agreed that the principles of the Atlantic Charter shall be applied in all the lands they control.”
“I hate to be a pessimist,” was the reply, “but it is hard to bind men to agreements when they do not give the same meaning to the words they are using.”
The tired man could not face this thought and Lanny did not press it. He knew that Roosevelt was acting as moderator between two political extremists, who had been denouncing each other ever since each had heard of the other—a longer time in Churchill’s case than in Stalin’s. The descendant of the first Duke of Marlborough had leaped into prominence during the Boer War, almost half a century ago, at which time Joseph Djugashvili, the cobbler’s son, had been a wretchedly poor theological student in Tiflis, unknown to anybody in the great world. Now they were in agreement on only two things: the desire to wipe Nazi-Fascism from the earth and the desire to do the same to the Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. What they were going to put in the place of these two systems was something it was better not to mention in each other’s presence.
IX
After the formal dinners broke up there was some standing around and chatting, and some of the lesser lights were welcome to enter and enjoy glimpses of the great. Lanny kept in the background, because the Navy had brought along photographers who took pictures of everyone they thought might be of interest to posterity, and Lanny didn’t think of himself as belonging in that class. He watched both Stalin and Churchill, and thought how much older they looked; the war was wearing all these old men down. Churchill was still round and rosy, but he had shadows under his eyes and was almost entirely bald. Stalin’s hair was gray, and his face was sallow and lined; he looked ill at ease in a military outfit cut too big for him—perhaps with the idea of concealing the fact that he was a small man.
His eye caught Lanny’s, and presently an aide came over and asked, “Are you Mr. Budd?” Then, “The Marshal would like to speak to you.” So Lanny had not been forgotten, as he had imagined.
He went up and was greeted. “Why did you not come to see me again?” When this had been translated by the young man who never left the Marshal’s side, Lanny smiled and said that he had had the idea that the Marshal must be busy these days. He added, “This is the occasion to which I have been looking forward for many years.”
“I too,” replied Stalin. “I am always happy to meet your President, who is a very great man.” Nothing could have been more gracious; and Lanny, seeing Air Marshal Khudiakov waiting to speak to his chief, moved tactfully on.
With the Prime Minister there was less formality, for they had sat more than twenty years ago by the swimming pool of Maxine Elliott’s villa at Cannes—Churchill wearing a red dre
ssing gown and a big, ragged straw hat. Then the onetime Liberal turned Tory had been sure that his political career was over and that he was destined to spend his days writing what he called “hist’ry.” When Lanny reminded him of this he remarked, “In those days I had never heard of Adolf Hitler, damn his soul.” He added, “You don’t come to see us any more, Budd.”
Lanny explained, “I used to come to visit my little daughter, but now I have her in Connecticut, away from the buzzbombs.”
“We shall soon make England safe again,” declared the Prime Minister. “And Jimmie can sleep in his own little room.” He was quoting from a popular song expressing the English yearning for peace.
When Lanny told Harry about these greetings the latter remarked with a smile, “These things come naturally to you, Lanny; but for me, I have to rub my eyes when I wake up in one of the Tsar’s bedrooms. You know, I was a poor boy in Sioux City, Iowa.”
Said the son of Budd-Erling, “I never went in for genealogy, but I’ve been told that the first Budd who came to New England was a tinker. I dare say that if you went back far enough in Winston’s past you’d find chimneysweeps and charwomen.”
“More likely thieves and harlots,” said Harry.
X
The Yalta Conference lasted eight days, from Sunday to Sunday. Everybody was happy, because the Russians were continuing their drive to the Oder and the Baltic, and on the western front the Americans, British, and Canadians were beginning their drive for the Rhine. Even Lanny’s shadow was happy, because every day when the American stranger went for a walk in the clear cold sunshine he gave the little man a package of chewing gum or a five-cent bar of chocolate. Shower baths were scarce, but internal libations were abundant—even at breakfast the Russians had ten different sizes and colors of glasses for the drinking of different wines and liquors, and if there were blunders in the conference proceedings Lanny attributed them to this state of affairs. He remembered that Lenin had been an abstemious man, and that one of the first acts of his revolution had been to prohibit the manufacture of alcoholic liquor. What a change in twenty-eight years!
When the conference adjourned, a simultaneous issuance of a statement was arranged; the Americans expended a lot of energy making sure that the other two groups agreed on the meaning of that word “simultaneous.” In previous instances there had somehow happened to be a leak from London, and all American newspapermen were sore about it. This time it didn’t happen; the declaration to the world was given out from the three capitals at the same hour.
Said the conference: “It is our inflexible purpose to destroy German militarism and Nazism, and to ensure that Germany will never again be able to destroy the peace of the world. We are determined to disarm and disband all German Armed Forces; break up for all time the German General Staff that has continually contrived the resurgence of German militarism; remove or destroy all German military equipment; eliminate or control all German industry that could be used for military production; bring all war criminals to just and swift punishment and exact reparations in kind for the destruction wrought by the Germans; wipe out the Nazi party, Nazi laws, organizations, and institutions, remove all Nazi and militarist influences from public office and from the cultural and economic life of the German people; and take in harmony such measures in Germany as may be necessary to the future peace and safety of the world.”
All that gave great pleasure to Lanny Budd, the more so because he had a chance to see it three days before the rest of the world. Harry Hopkins wrote the preliminary draft, and Lanny read it; it was Lanny who suggested the words “and from the cultural and economic life of the German people.” The whirligig of time had brought this quiet form of revenge to a man who had known Hitler, Göring, Hess, and Goebbels for a matter of a decade and a half, and who had watched them forcing Nazi laws, organizations, and institutions upon the deluded German people.
XI
Completely absorbed in these important matters, Lanny was surprised by the arrival of a noncom belonging to the military guard. The man said, “There is a Russky that wants to see you, sir. Says he has a letter for you.”
“Why didn’t he give it to you?” asked the officer.
“Says he has to put it in your hands, sir. He’s waiting outside one of the back doors.”
Lanny had no idea what that could mean. He followed the man to a door which led to the elaborate court behind the palace. The door was well guarded, and when Lanny stepped out to confront the waiting Russky, one of the soldiers turned a flashlight upon the man’s face. The man shrank and put his hands over his face, exclaiming, “Nyet! Nyet!” Lanny, who had no reason to fear any danger, told the soldier to shut off the light, and said, “My name is Budd. You have a letter for me?”
Without a word the man put a small envelope into his hand, and Lanny stepped back into the building to read it. He found five words: “I must see you. Pugliese.” He knew the writing well; it was that of his Uncle Jesse, and the name was code which nobody in the world but he could have understood. Pugliese is a rather unusual Italian name, and Barbara Pugliese was the name of that Syndicalist woman to whom Jesse Blackless had taken Lanny at the age of fourteen, and who had made such an impression upon the mind of a sensitive lad. The Fascists had murdered her in San Remo twenty years ago.
Uncle Jesse in Yalta, and secretly! It meant something serious, and Lanny couldn’t in decency hesitate. He went out to the messenger; he couldn’t recall the Russian word for “wait,” but he could say “Stoy!” and he said it twice for good measure. The man said, “Da,” and Lanny went to his room, which was upstairs, and got his overcoat, cap, and gloves.
It was a cold night, cloudy and dark. The man walked very quietly, and Lanny did the same. He wondered how the man had got past the Russians who guarded the park so carefully; but he had no way to inquire. No word was spoken, and they walked for several minutes on a snow-covered path. Then the man stopped. Lanny saw nobody, but a voice spoke the code name, Italian fashion, Pool-yay-say. Lanny said, “How are you?” And an almost invisible form stepped out from behind a tree and clasped his hand.
“I am in danger,” whispered the old man with no preliminaries. “Don’t speak my name. I want you to take me out with you.”
“Good God!” exclaimed the nephew, astounded. “I couldn’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“I am not my own master here. I haven’t the right to ask such a thing.”
“No one knows that I am here. I traveled with a forged permit, and I paid money to get here.”
“Yes, Uncle—” Lanny checked himself. “You would surely be recognized, and it would cause a frightful diplomatic scandal. We art here to guarantee the peace.”
“You are here to be swindled out of your eyeteeth.”
“You have lost faith in your cause then?”
“I have lost faith in the men who are supposed to be serving it. I am one of the old Bolsheviks, and an unpleasant reminder to them. Most of us have been put out of the way. I am an old man, and sick, and I cannot do any good here, or any harm outside.”
“Have you applied for a permit to leave?”
“There would be no sense in applying. I know too much, and they would never trust me. Others have applied, and they have disappeared.”
“What sort of citizenship have you now?”
“Many years ago I took French citizenship in order to stand for the Assembly. You know that.”
“Yes. Unfortunately there are no French here.”
“You might ask your President to take me out.”
It was the toughest decision Lanny had ever had to make, but he could not even hesitate. “I would be asking our President to risk all that he is trying to accomplish. It would be improper for me to ask him, and if he asked me I should have to advise against it.”
“That is your last word?”
“I will ask him to intercede for you if you wish; but I can’t ask him to take you out without Stalin’s permission. You must understan
d our position—”
But Lanny was talking to empty air. The old and sick man had turned and disappeared into the darkness. The nephew went back into the well-lighted palace, feeling somewhat old and sick himself.
Later in the evening he told Harry what had happened. Harry knew about Jesse Blackless, for there had once been a controversy over his right to re-enter his native land. Harry said, “It’s too bad, but of course we couldn’t attempt to smuggle him. The old man has made, his bed and he must lie in it.”
XII
When the conference ended, on the second Sunday, F.D.R. said to his agent, “Tell me what plans you have.”
Lanny replied, “Unless you have something special in mind, I had better go back to Paris. Our Army is on the move again, and I promised the Monuments and the Alsos people that I’d be there to give them what help I could.”
The Boss said, “OK”; and then, perhaps feeling guilty because he hadn’t had more time for a friend, he added, “Would you like to ride out with me?” The friend grinned and said, “You must know the answer to that.”
A long cortege set out from Livadia along the coast to Sevastopol. The Stalin party led the way; he had a whole division of MVD men guarding the route, all the way to the railhead. Roosevelt followed, in Al Capone’s armored car; his daughter and Mike Reilly rode with him, and Lanny rode in one of the later cars. In Sevastopol they saw a sight never to be forgotten—what the Germans could do to a city when they had advance notice and plenty of explosives at hand. The motor cavalcade entered the city just at twilight, when it all looked mysterious and awful; miles and miles of rubble, and here and there steel girders sticking up, or a wall standing alone, like a billboard. Lanny was told that only six buildings had been left intact.