“How are you getting all this information?” General Arnold was curious. “I’ve seen nothing like this before.”
“A combination of sources, Sir. Some is simply assembling existing records and existing data. The commercial attaches in the Berlin embassy and elsewhere have been assembling this stuff for years, but nobody did anything with it. I’ve got people going through those files now.”
“Women, I suppose.” Arnold was slightly sarcastic at that. The number of women filling key positions in the Economic Intelligence and Warfare Section had already been noticed in Washington circles.
“That’s right. For this kind of work, women outperform men. They’re more methodical and detail-orientated. Comes from looking after babies, I suppose.” Stuyvesant listened appreciatively to the ripple of laughter that went around the room. “We’ve also started developing industrial intelligence sources in the financial and industrial communities. We’re still authenticating what we get back from them. Our initial inquiries into the industrial-economic structure of Hitler’s Germany focused attention on the following: electric power, including sources of fuel and distribution systems; steel, including sources of raw material; petroleum products, including synthetic processes; the aircraft industry, including aluminum production and engine plants; and transportation, the most prominent components being the railway, canal and highway networks. We also included in our evaluations the nonferrous metal supply, machine tool production, and food processing and distribution.
“One thing we found out has been immensely helpful. It turns out that the electric power generating and distribution system of Germany is relatively new, and that it has been built with capital borrowed largely from the United States. Now, American banks do not lend large sums of money for capital equipment without making careful investigations of the proposed structures. So, we approached the great international banks, particularly in New York, as to the availability of drawings and specifications of German electric plants and systems. In doing so we’ve tapped into a gold mine of data.
“The long and the short of it is that we’ve been able to put together a comprehensive target study on the German electric power system and the electric distribution system. It has even been possible to prepare target folders, including aiming points and bomb sizes. We’ve also been able to do the same on petroleum and synthetic oil plants; partially through the same sources, partially through the oil industries, and partially through individuals. We were fortunate in that we have experience of work carried out in Germany, in the Rumanian fields at Ploesti, and in the Middle East. This demonstrated the extreme importance and vulnerability of the German synthetic oil plants and the related importance of the Ploesti refineries. Thus, we have started to prepare target folders for those systems also. In addition, we made an analysis of the German steel industry and its sources of raw materials. We were less successful in our analysis of German transportation, partly because of the extent of the rail and canal system. But we have found enough to place the transportation system high on the priority list of desired targets.”
“Good God man, is there anything you haven’t looked at over the last month?” Stimson was impressed by the volume of work that was being presented here. “I have to say this. The political appreciation at this time is hardly favorable. I can say that the President views the possibility of a Nazi victory with deep concern. Three dictators, all hostile to the United States, are driving toward domination of important parts of the world. They threaten to completely upset the balance of power and with it world peace. Hitler and Mussolini have completed the conquest of Europe and appear to be contemplating the conquest of Western Russia and North Africa. England has been forced into a humiliating accommodation. On the other side of the world, the Japanese warlords are tearing China apart and look set to do the same to the rest of the Far East. Meanwhile, a fourth dictator, Stalin, though hardly a friend of America, is about the most valuable asset we have left in resisting Hitler. It seems likely that he too will be overwhelmed. If we cannot find allies, then we must fight this war alone and that appears a mighty and desperate endeavor.
“Stuyvesant, at first I doubted the wisdom of bringing a private sector industrialist into these meetings. I must say that the amount of work you and your team has put in to date justifies your presence here beyond any expectations we might have had. For that reason, I have authorized you to receive something so secret that even the President does not know the full scope of what we are achieving. We have cracked open a large number of diplomatic and military codes. Collectively, this work is called Ultra. It gives an insight into German and Japanese strategic planning. I want to expand your section’s responsibilities to include using that decrypted information in an effort to determine future German strategy. Our decrypts tell us what the Nazi leadership would like to do; we will use your section to determine what their resources will allow them to do. One thing I must say, right now. This information will not leak out. It must not leak out; for if it does, we may well lose the war that is surely coming.”
“We can’t sit on the fence any longer, Pandit. We’ve stalled the Colonial and Dominion Offices for ten days and that’s about as much as we can do. We are now facing the point where a decision has to be made. Do we defy Whitehall and stay in the war, or do we comply with their wishes and obey their orders?”
“Speaking as the leader of the Congress Party, I have to say that staying in the war is proving a very hard concept to explain to our membership.” Nehru spoke slowly and carefully. His meetings with the rank and file of the Party had not gone well. “Those who do not wish to remain under the British yoke also do not see why leaving it should involve us staying in a war that is far away and affects us little. Speaking for myself, I am convinced by your argument and believe that both honor and our safety as a new, untried nation demand that we remain in the war. I even believe that a continued alliance with the other dominions that have remained in the war will serve us best in the short term. But how to explain this so that our membership is convinced? This is beyond my abilities.”
Sir Martyn Sharpe twisted his mouth. He understood the problem and appreciated something else that, perhaps, Nehru himself hadn’t yet realized. That was that Nehru was beginning to set aside the beliefs of a lifetime in pursuit of the greater good.
“Perhaps, Martyn, you underestimate the degree of flexibility we have here. Or the use to which we can put any extra time that we buy.” Sir Eric Haohoa sipped gently at his tea.
“How so, Eric?”
“Well, people have argued with the Colonial and Dominion Offices before, they have tried to defy them and they have even tried to bribe them. Only in the latter case have they been successful and then but rarely. But, nobody has ever ignored them before. I don’t think they know how to cope with that. The longer our silence lasts, the greater will be the confusion at their end. A simple reply will be dealt with at a low level using precedent, but an unprecedented non-response? Nobody at a low level will be prepared to take the initiative in dealing with it. They’ll boot it up to a higher level for consideration and that will continue all the way up until it reaches the top. Then, the elephant principle will kick in.”
“What, pray, is the elephant principle?” Nehru was fascinated by this glimpse of the British bureaucracy at work.
“Pandit, if I may call you so?” Sir Eric waited and got a nod in response. “Pandit, making important decisions in the Civil Service is like the mating of elephants. There is lots of dust and noise, everything happens at a very high level, and there is no result for several years. Martyn is being much too pessimistic; we have weeks or even months before that situation becomes critical and we have to jump. In the meantime, we have time to deal with much more important issues.”