The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy: And Other Tales From Home-Front America in World War II Read Online Free PDF
Author: William B. Breuer
local officials. He coerced California Governor Cuthbert Olson to close down all houses of prostitution, an act, wags declared, that caused the “ladies” to peddle their wares on street corners. It had not been made clear how whorehouses had been jeopardizing the security against Japanese attacks. 13
Fear for Roosevelt’s Life
S INCE WORD HAD FIRST REACHED Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. about the Japanese treachery, he had been obsessed with President Roosevelt’s security. A component of the Treasury, the Secret Service was directly responsible for protecting the chief executive on an around-the-clock basis.
American intelligence officers told the Secret Service that Abwehr, the German espionage agency, had for years planted agents in and around Washington. They had been instructed, said the report, to lay low, to blend in with their neighborhoods until given a signal from Berlin. Then, it was said, these moles would put on the German uniforms they had brought with them, dig out the weapons they had hidden, and, under cover of night, assault the White House and murder President Roosevelt.
Police in Washington were told to be on the lookout for suspicious characters lurking about in civilian clothes and promptly arrest them with no regard for their legal rights. How one “looks suspicious” was left to the judgment of the policemen.
An armored Packard sedan was acquired for Roosevelt, and Morgenthau established a tight procedure for admission into the White House. No doubt he recalled to his horror and embarrassment the time two teenage boys had slipped into the White House on New Year’s Day 1939 and prowled around the building without being challenged. They had walked in on the president and his wife and asked the astonished couple for autographs.
Fearing a bombing raid, Morgenthau insisted that Roosevelt take shelter in the thick vault of the Treasury Building, which is located near the White House. (A tunnel would soon connect the two structures.) The president quipped that he would take refuge there only if he could play poker with the guards and use Morgenthau’s twenty-dollar gold pieces for chips.
Morgenthau wanted to obtain four tanks from the Army to guard the approaches to the White House. Roosevelt said no. The treasury secretary then planned to bring in a battalion of heavily armed soldiers. Again, Roosevelt rejected the idea, agreeing to have only one soldier posted every one hundred feet along the iron fence that circles the grounds.
Without Roosevelt’s prior approval, Morgenthau arranged to have a company of soldiers manning World War I machine guns deployed around the White House grounds. On the roof of the building were two ancient antiaircraft guns, along with shells that had been in wooden crates for twenty years.
Among the president’s aides there was a heated debate over the subject of blacking out windows in the White House to thwart enemy bombers. The president was opposed to it, but those in favor won out. So like any housewife in Tupelo, Mississippi, or Springfield, Illinois, Henrietta Nesbitt, the housekeeper, was dispatched to scour Washington stores for blackout material.
Although she represented the nation’s most powerful figure, Nesbitt was able to pry loose only three bolts of cloth, a fraction of the amount that would be needed. So the problem was solved by using black sateen shades and painting windows black. 14
FBI Joins in Sinking Submarine
T WO WEEKS AFTER AMERICA was bombed into a global conflict, operators at the Radio Corporation of America Communications (RCAC) radio station at Point Reyes, about fifty miles northwest of San Francisco, heard two strange radio outlets exchanging messages. Using directional antenna, they figured that the strong station was probably one in Japan and the weaker station a submarine a short distance off the California coast.
The RCAC operators contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which sent an agent to the
Fear for Roosevelt’s Life
S INCE WORD HAD FIRST REACHED Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. about the Japanese treachery, he had been obsessed with President Roosevelt’s security. A component of the Treasury, the Secret Service was directly responsible for protecting the chief executive on an around-the-clock basis.
American intelligence officers told the Secret Service that Abwehr, the German espionage agency, had for years planted agents in and around Washington. They had been instructed, said the report, to lay low, to blend in with their neighborhoods until given a signal from Berlin. Then, it was said, these moles would put on the German uniforms they had brought with them, dig out the weapons they had hidden, and, under cover of night, assault the White House and murder President Roosevelt.
Police in Washington were told to be on the lookout for suspicious characters lurking about in civilian clothes and promptly arrest them with no regard for their legal rights. How one “looks suspicious” was left to the judgment of the policemen.
An armored Packard sedan was acquired for Roosevelt, and Morgenthau established a tight procedure for admission into the White House. No doubt he recalled to his horror and embarrassment the time two teenage boys had slipped into the White House on New Year’s Day 1939 and prowled around the building without being challenged. They had walked in on the president and his wife and asked the astonished couple for autographs.
Fearing a bombing raid, Morgenthau insisted that Roosevelt take shelter in the thick vault of the Treasury Building, which is located near the White House. (A tunnel would soon connect the two structures.) The president quipped that he would take refuge there only if he could play poker with the guards and use Morgenthau’s twenty-dollar gold pieces for chips.
Morgenthau wanted to obtain four tanks from the Army to guard the approaches to the White House. Roosevelt said no. The treasury secretary then planned to bring in a battalion of heavily armed soldiers. Again, Roosevelt rejected the idea, agreeing to have only one soldier posted every one hundred feet along the iron fence that circles the grounds.
Without Roosevelt’s prior approval, Morgenthau arranged to have a company of soldiers manning World War I machine guns deployed around the White House grounds. On the roof of the building were two ancient antiaircraft guns, along with shells that had been in wooden crates for twenty years.
Among the president’s aides there was a heated debate over the subject of blacking out windows in the White House to thwart enemy bombers. The president was opposed to it, but those in favor won out. So like any housewife in Tupelo, Mississippi, or Springfield, Illinois, Henrietta Nesbitt, the housekeeper, was dispatched to scour Washington stores for blackout material.
Although she represented the nation’s most powerful figure, Nesbitt was able to pry loose only three bolts of cloth, a fraction of the amount that would be needed. So the problem was solved by using black sateen shades and painting windows black. 14
FBI Joins in Sinking Submarine
T WO WEEKS AFTER AMERICA was bombed into a global conflict, operators at the Radio Corporation of America Communications (RCAC) radio station at Point Reyes, about fifty miles northwest of San Francisco, heard two strange radio outlets exchanging messages. Using directional antenna, they figured that the strong station was probably one in Japan and the weaker station a submarine a short distance off the California coast.
The RCAC operators contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which sent an agent to the
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