ONE The Name David Warburg had received the notice the evening before, an order to appear, setting this early appointment. Hed come downtown just as the sun was turning the dark city pink. From the window of his office on the third floor of the second most stately building on Pennsylvania Avenue, hed watched the morning ease fully into its own. The Washington Monument took the light, a garment. At five minutes before the hour, he set out.
The broad, polished corridors would be bustling soon with Treasury Department functionaries, but not yet. He strode to the central marble staircase, a gleaming gyre below the soaring translucent dome. One hand in his trouser pocket, his jacket back, one hand riding the railing, he skipped down two steps at a time, coming to the grand second floor, which was dominated by the diplomatic reception room and, adjoining that, the secretary of the treasurys suite of offices. Cool it, he told himself. Swinging left toward the ornate double door, he slowed his pace.
Last night, Janet had been certain that this meeting with the secretary himself promised something, as she put it, “really good.” But Warburg was wary. It had irritated her that hed declined to match her high spirits at the news of this summons. In the past, pointer in hand, hed briefed Mr. Morgenthau on debt security legislation and congressional vote counts, but hed never been formally introduced to him. This summons had come without explanation, which was enough to spark Janets wishfulness.
Warburg couldnt acknowledge it to her, or to anyone, but he was appalled to find himself a seat-of-government paper pusher as the war built toward an inevitably savage climax. The latest report was that German troops were marshaling on Hungarys border, Budapest another morsel soon to be devoured in a Nazi rampage that was not impeded by the Red Army offensive on the Dnieper. Warburg was that rare, able-bodied man of twenty-eight not in uniform. Dancing at midnight on the Shoreham terrace thrilled Janet, but it embarrassed him to be seen there, even with such a beauty. She was happy just to rest her cheek against the lapel of his suit coat, as they softly swayed to the orchestras mellow rhythm. He felt tenderly toward her, but tenderness was a flimsy bridge across the yawning gulf that had opened between them, whether she knew of it or not.
On his office wall, where Janet did not see it, Warburg had posted a floor-to-ceiling map of Europe, with yellow pins denoting General Mark Clarks stymied army in southern Italy, still the only Anglo-American force on the continent. There were also pins to the north and east, red ones, marking the Soviet offensive lines. Green pins, concentrated between the Danube and Vistula Rivers, marked places reported or rumored to be the Germans forced labor, transit, and prison camps. Warburg had been tracking the Nazi killing sites for months, though it had nothing to do with his official work.
The war, darling, hed say as they were dancing, by the time its over, Europe will be a charnel house. Did you hear me? No, of course she didnt, because hed said it to himself. It was not Janets fault that hed become obsessed with the slaughter lands to the east, nor was it her fault that he found it impossible to speak with her of his obsession. And, later, the face powder on his lapel would not come out.
Right out of law school, Warburg had been conscripted like most men, though the draft, in his case, was not into the Army. When, in the spring of 42, the law school dean, a former New Dealer named Harold Gardner, had taken the job of general counsel at the Treasury Department, he had taken a handful of newly minted lawyers with him, including Warburg. “Dont be ridiculous,” the dean had said to Warburg, swatting away his initial demurral. Warburg had already filed enlistment papers, effective at the terms end, itching to join the fight. But Gardner was insistent: “Washington is where your country needs you, David.” Warburg still refused, but Gardner chided him: as a lawyer in uniform, Warburg would never see service overseas in any case. Hed be a JAG mandarin, bringing acne-faced AWOLs to court-martial, at Fort McClellan in Alabama or someplace worse. In fact, Gardner had promised to see to it.
And so Warburg had joined the fray in Washington, becoming one of the samurai bureaucrats in the thick of the vast legislative reinvention of federal finances made necessary by the explosion of war spending. The rolling congressional authorizations for the war bond program was Warburgs particular portfolio. As it turned out, hed already been central to the raising of more than half a billion dollars in war funding, which helped keep inflation down and the war economy booming. Not bad service, that. But alas, judging by the markers on Warburgs wall map, Hitler wasnt as yet much hindered.
At the treasury secretarys reception area, a primly dressed woman promptly showed Warburg into the ornate inner office. Harold Gardner was there, sitting with Morgenthau in matched leather wing chairs in an alcove where one large Palladian window overlooked the White House. There was a clear view of the Presidents mansion because only the faintest pale lime of early buds tempered the stark black-and-white branches of the late-winter trees. A third man was seated on an adjacent sofa.
The three men came to their feet at Warburgs arrival. Henry Morgenthau Jr., a slim figure whose tanned baldness struck an elegant fashion note, was nearly as tall as Warburg. Yet Gardner was the first to stretch out his hand, putting his responsibility for this meeting on display. He let his affection for Warburg show, saying as he turned to Morgenthau, “David was the best we had in New Haven.” But before the secretary could reply, or even grasp Warburgs hand, his desk buzzer sounded, and he went to the telephone.
“Friendly greetings to you, Felix,” Morgenthau said grandly into the mouthpiece. Gardner and the other man resumed their seats, but Warburg remained standing, as if holding a hat.
“Thanks for calling back,” Morgenthau said. “Too early? Of course not. Ive been at my desk for an hour. Same as you.” Morgenthau listened, then laughed. “How is Frieda?” He paused, then added, “Give her our love.” There would be a performance aspect to this conversation. “The reason I called—I have one of your young relations here with me right now.” Pause. “Thats right. Im about to brief him on the job Im giving him. A very important job, and I wanted you to be the first to know. Yes. In Rome, once liberation comes . . .”
Listening, Warburg thought, Whoa, whats this? He exchanged a quick glance with Gardner, catching his all but imperceptible nod. Rome? Gardner had insisted more than once that Warburg was indispensable on Pennsylvania Avenue, with three new bills a month coming off his desk. “The Appropriations Committee,” Gardner had barked repeatedly, “is clay on your potters wheel. Cant do without you.”
“. . . the War Refugee Board,” Morgenthau was saying. My War Refugee Board. Once Mark Clark captures it, Rome will be the nerve center and the escape hatch both. And your young man will run things.”
Warburg took this in with apparent calm, but it was shocking news. The absolute opposite, he realized at once, of what Janet was hoping for.
War refugees. Everyone in Treasury was aware of Morgenthaus having badgered Roosevelt into long-overdue action on refugee relief, such as it was. “Refugee” was a generic euphemism, since those in the know—certainly including Warburg, whose gaze drifted to his wall map dozens of times a day—understood full well that the urgency applied to Hitlers particular target. Jews.
For months, Morgenthau had been sounding death camp alarms inside the government, finally forcing Roosevelts hand by threatening to go public with the still secret cables coming in from Geneva. Elsewhere in Washington, and even in certain hallways at Treasury, the War Refugee Board was seen as the product of a Jews special pleading for Jews.
In Warburgs own shuttling between Treasury and Capitol Hill, the WRB was not much discussed, and overseas operations of every kind were beyond his purview. Hell, overseas operations were beyond Morgenthaus purview, but that had not stopped him. Picking up on the secretarys spirit, Warburg had made a point to get his name added to the special cable circulation list, the weekly Geneva reports with their growing drumbeat of transfers, deportations, and disappearances. Green pins, to Warburg. Jewish pins.
And now what was he hearing? He himself to be appointed to the work? Rome? Warburg could not—
“David,” Morgenthau said abruptly, but into the phone. “David Warburg,” in answer to the other partys question. Morgenthaus tanned face had gone white, the skin at his mouth so taut it barely moved when he repeated, “Yes, David.”
All at once Warburg realized with whom Morgenthau was speaking—Felix!—and what was happening. A feeling of alarm made him momentarily lightheaded. He had to stifle the impulse to interrupt, to explain. It was an old feeling. Glancing again at Gardner, he saw the pleased expression on his mentors face begin slowly to darken as he, too, realized from the change in Morgenthaus demeanor and voice that something was wrong.