The Saboteurs (Men at War) by W.E.B. Griffin; William E. Butterworth IV

Author:W.E.B. Griffin; William E. Butterworth IV
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: War stories, World War, Mystery & Detective, War & Military, 1939-1945, Fiction:War, United States, Secret service, General, Men's Adventure, Fiction, 1939-1945 - Secret service
ISBN: 9780515143065
Publisher: Jove
Published: 2007-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

[ TWO ]

Office of the President’s Physician

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C.

1815 6 March 1943

“That will be all for now, Charles,” the President of the United States of America said, wheeling himself through the side door into the nicely appointed office.

The valet—Charles Maples, a distinguished-looking older black man with gray hair, wearing a stiff white shirt and jacket, black slacks, and impeccably shined black leather shoes—had just put a large wooden tray holding a pitcher of ice, a selection of liquors in crystal decanters, three crystal glasses, a carafe of coffee, and three china mugs on the doctor’s spotless oak desk.

Seated in deep comfortable armchairs across the room were William J. Donovan, director of the Office of Strategic Services; and J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Both wore dark suits and ties. They stood up.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” the President said.

“Good evening, sir,” they replied almost in unison.

The valet said, “Please, let me know if I can be of further service.”

“See that we’re not disturbed,” Roosevelt replied.

“Yes, Mr. President.”

The valet went out the main door and it quietly clicked closed behind him.

Roosevelt—without a suit coat but in pants, white dress shirt, and a striped bow tie, and with a cigarette holder clenched in his teeth—rolled his wheelchair over to where Donovan and Hoover stood.

“Please, sit,” he said.

The FBI and OSS heads shared a New Year’s Day birthday, a fervent sense of patriotism, and, to varying degrees, the ear of the President—but that was it.

There was not any sort of animosity between them—in fact, they thought well of one another—but there was certainly a difference in both how they perceived their missions and how they carried them out.

The FBI head saw things in black and white, while the OSS chief acknowledged the many shades of gray.

Hoover, forty-eight years old, had been head of the bureau for just shy of nineteen years. He devoutly believed that the law was the law—period—and ran the FBI with an iron fist.

There was no questioning his competence and his success. The FBI under his leadership had become an extremely efficient law enforcement agency.

The most efficient one, the brash Hoover would be first to say. And he unapologetically corrected anyone who thought otherwise.

The FBI director had the habit of seeking out the limelight in the interest of making himself—which was to say the bureau, since Hoover was the FBI—look better.

In the 1930s, he had made a name for himself and the bureau by going after the mob—“the despicable thugs who threaten our law and order and, in turn, our very civilization,” he declared.

He assigned special agents to spend whatever was necessary—months, years, and who knew how much money—to hunt down such vicious gangsters as “Pretty Boy” Floyd and “Machine Gun” Kelly.

When the agents found a mobster, Hoover swooped in on the night of the bust, and was there, front and center, when the press’s camera bulbs popped.

It actually was brilliant PR—at which Hoover proved to be a very clever player—because the better his

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