“I look at him and I can’t help but agree with Goethe that smoking makes one stupid. Oh, it’s all right for some old fellow-whether he smokes or not doesn’t matter in the least. But nicotine is a drug, and for people like us, whose brains are on the rack of responsibility day and night, there’s no excuse for this repulsive habit. What would become of me, and of Germany, if I drank and smoked half as much as that creature Churchill?”
“It doesn’t bear thinking of, my Fuhrer,” said Himmler.
With that the tirade ended and Schellenberg was, at last, allowed to continue. But when he reached the part that involved the Kashgai tribesmen of northern Iran, Hitler interrupted him once again, only this time he was laughing.
“To think that I’m a religious figure in the Muslim world. Did you know that Arabs are including my name in their prayers? Among these Persians I shall probably become a great khan. I’d like to go there when the world is at peace again. I’ll begin by spending a few weeks in some sheikh’s palace. Of course, they’ll have to spare me from their meat. I won’t ever eat their mutton. Instead, I shall fall back on their harems. But I’ve always liked Islam. I can understand people being enthusiastic about the paradise of Mahomet, with all those virgins awaiting the faithful. Not like the wishy-washy heaven that the Christians talk about.”
He stopped suddenly, and Schellenberg was finally able to finish outlining Operation Long Jump. Almost perversely, it was now that Hitler chose silence. From the breast pocket of his field jacket, he took out a cheap nickel-framed pair of reading glasses and glanced over the main points of Schellenberg’s memorandum, sniffing loudly and sucking more of the peppermint lozenges he was so fond of. Then, removing his glasses, he yawned, making no attempt to cover his mouth or to excuse himself, and said: “This is a good plan, Schellenberg. Bold, imaginative. I like that. To win a war you need men who are bold and imaginative.” He nodded. “It was you who went to Stockholm with the letters, was it not? To see this Finnish fellow of Himmler’s.”
“Yes, my Fuhrer.”
“And yet you bring me this plan. Operation Long Jump. Why?”
“It’s always a good idea to have a plan in place in case another falls through. That’s my job, sir. That’s the essence of intelligence. To prepare for all eventualities. Suppose the Big Three don’t agree to your peace proposals? Suppose they don’t even answer your letters? Better to have my men on the ground in Iran.”
Hitler nodded. “I can’t tell you everything that’s happening, Schellenberg. Not even you. But I think you might be right. Of course we could always do nothing and hope that the conference will be a disaster on its own terms. That might well happen, because it’s quite clear the early sympathy that existed between the British and the Americans is not blooming. I tell you, there’s a considerable amount of antipathy on the part of the British toward the Americans, and the only man among them who loves America unconditionally is himself half American-Roosevelt’s poodle, Winston Churchill. This conference in Teheran is going to last for days.” Hitler grinned. “That is, if your men don’t kill them all.” Hitler laughed and slapped his right thigh. “Yes, it will last for days. Like the last one, in Canada, between Churchill and Roosevelt. And now that Stalin’s on board, things will last even longer. I mean, it’s only too easy to imagine how enormous their difficulties must appear to them. The Red Army’s huge losses, the prospect of a European invasion, millions of lives in the balance. Believe me, gentlemen, it will require nothing short of a miracle to harness the British, the Americans, the Russians, and the Chinese to the common yoke of winning a war. History teaches us that coalitions rarely work, for there always comes a point where one nation balks at making sacrifices for the sake of another.
“The Americans are an unpredictable lot, and, frankly, they haven’t much stomach for any kind of sacrifice, which of course explains their tardiness in becoming involved in this war-and the last one, for that matter. In a tight corner, they’re just as likely to break as stand the course. The British are infinitely more courageous, there’s no comparison. How the Americans have the nerve to cast aspersions on the British after all that they have endured is almost incomprehensible. As for the Russians, well, their powers of resistance are quite inimitable.
