With nicotine-stained fingers, General Dwight D. Eisenhower crushed out the glowing Camel, the hour’s fourth cigarette, on the stone wall outside Chequers, the country house of British prime ministers. The grounds and facade preserved an evanescent glow in the misty twilight. He should head back in before the dampness wrinkled his uniform. Then again, it was damp inside the place. And cold.

Initially he’d declined the invitation to this evening’s dinner. True to their traditions, the upper-class British hosted countless social affairs, and if he attended even a fraction of those to which he was invited, they’d nip at his precious time the way the wind made off with the dry topsoil in his native Kansas.

No house like this one in Kansas, he mused. The bronze-shaded-brick mansion overlooked the dreamy soft meadows of Buckinghamshire. He’d been here on prior occasions as Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s guest. Late into the evenings the two had discussed history and especially wars the Prime Minister loved to expound upon and whose particulars Eisenhower, from his military schooling and readings, could debate with acumen. The shared appreciation had helped him secure Churchill’s favor, without which he’d never have ascended to the seniormost military command among the western Allies.

His meteoric rise could segue to an abrupt plummet, he reminded himself. Aside from Churchill’s embrace, what anchored him was the confidence of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and of U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, his superior and mentor in Washington. Recently Marshall and the other members of the Combined Chiefs of Staff had sent him the draft of his formal mission directive, two pages that summarized his daunting task and whose contents essentially could be distilled to two words: Defeat Germany.

The directive did not specify all his tasks. There were critical others, the principal of which, in his mind, was reducible to almost as few words: Get along with Churchill. He considered it Unwritten Mandate Number One. As to how to carry it out, nobody could instruct him, not even the erudite Marshall. At every meeting where Churchill was present, Eisenhower wielded his mix of skills—the likeable personality, clarity of expression, honed judgment, and mental toughness—to make the relationship work and sometimes to hold his ground. He’d learned it was important to stand up to the man to gain his respect. On the other hand, Eisenhower didn’t argue with him frivolously. The topic had to be imperative. Too much was at stake.

No sooner had he turned down tonight’s invitation than Churchill’s personal assistant phoned to say that “the PM” had something important to convey and wished to do so in person. Eisenhower accepted—see Unwritten Mandate Number One—and postponed tonight’s scheduled planning meeting to a later hour. The change would disrupt the schedules of dozens of senior officers, American and British alike, not that pointing it out to Churchill would do any good. Great men, among whom the Prime Minister counted himself, did not trouble themselves with sparing the time of others.

The door creaked open, casting a yellow rhombus into the mist and framing a young aide in a dark suit. “General? He’s asked that you come in, if you’re not busy.”

Probably these had been Churchill’s verbatim words, uttered in the statesman’s gruff mumble and laced with irony, as if anyone were ever too busy to respond to his direct summons. In the study, the smoky air hovered thickly amid books, austere furniture, portraits of former prime ministers, and one of Winston’s attractive American mother in a black gown. The tread-worn, crimson-turned-pinkish oriental rug might have originated in Peshawar or Kabul, where Winston had served as a young lieutenant nearly half a century ago. Seated, he puffed on a red-and-gold-banded Havana. Eisenhower, never one to pass up a smoke, flicked his lighter on another Camel.

“Sherry, General?” said Churchill.

“No, thanks. I have a meeting later tonight.”

“Oh?”

“At COSSAC.” The cryptic reply expanded to Chief of Staff, Supreme Allied Commander, a planning entity whose nerve center resided at Norfolk House on St. James Square, London. Tonight’s deliberations would concentrate on OVERLORD, the forthcoming Allied invasion of continental Europe. The details were a closely guarded secret very few were privy to. Churchill was among the few; the young aide was not.

“Ask the gentleman in,” Churchill told the aide.

A raven-haired man entered. Taller than average, probably in his late thirties, he had an athlete’s build that Eisenhower, who’d played varsity football at West Point, instantly perceived. He wore a pristinely tailored three-piece suit and a striped tie from one of the prep schools or colleges whose colors wellborn British typically recognized, and Eisenhower didn’t, even if over his months in England he'd come to appreciate some of the distinctions among the English classes. The term ‘gentleman’ differentiated a man of lineage and social standing, not necessarily of wealth, though often the case. Such status tended to confer an inalienable sangfroid, and the entrant seemed to possess it in abundance.

The young aide left, closing the door behind.

Churchill said, “Sebastian Wentworth of MI-6. One of Menzies’s top men.” Stewart Menzies, Eisenhower was aware, was the head of MI-6.

Eisenhower shook Wentworth’s hand. The Prime Minister grumbled, “Speak.”

Eisenhower had gleaned too that, among the British elites, certain standards of behavior simply were taken for granted. Toward a common citizen on the street, Churchill would have acted with gracious courtesy. To his fellow high-flier of British society, as well as to his beleaguered staff, he was brusque. No need to be otherwise.

“I’m here, sir, because we face an impasse.” His crisp tone was deferential yet confident. “A rare opportunity has developed wherein we might mount a covert intelligence endeavor to improve our chances with OVERLORD. It requires the infiltration into neutral Sweden of a certain American with an uncommon mix of languages. Unfortunately, the timelines are short.”

“Sounds like OSS business,” said Eisenhower. He recalled that Brigadier General William J. Donovan, the Director of the Office of Strategic Services, was currently in London.

“Indeed, sir,” replied Wentworth. “You see, we approached General Donovan with the proposal, and we explained…”

“Get to it!” snapped the Prime Minister.

“He declined to help. Assuredly he has his reasons, but so unusual is the chance, I doubt we shall see another like it. And without the American participation we requested, I’m afraid we lack anyone who can speak the mix of pivotal languages with a native flair.”

Eisenhower saw the move. Donovan hadn’t liked the proposal, whatever it entailed, and the British spymasters were jumping over his head. Churchill didn’t have to weigh in. His presence made two things clear: The matter commanded extraordinary importance, and, if Churchill chose to, he could loft it over Eisenhower’s head to President Roosevelt.

Eisenhower said, “When did you speak to General Donovan?”

“Yesterday, sir.”

“He has the full picture?”

“Yes, we briefed him verbally.”

Meaning it wasn’t on paper. “All right. I’ll look into it.”

Wentworth was about to say more, maybe to stress the urgency or sensitivity, when he caught Churchill’s glare. It meant, stop talking, you've made your pitch. The MI-6 man nodded, pivoted, and left.

Churchill puffed on his cigar. “There’s another part, General. Perhaps you should sit.”

Eisenhower did.

“I’m afraid I must confess to you a most distressing development,” said the Prime Minister.

__________

At COSSAC later that evening, the delayed meeting was about to begin. The OVERLORD plan, many months in draft, awaited Eisenhower’s approval. To pen his signature was more than a formality. It would set in motion intensive preparations for a massive enterprise whose viability and success would depend on many things, including some he could not control such as the industrial production of essential materiel, German force deployments, and the weather.

Eisenhower pulled aside his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Walter Bedell “Beetle” Smith, and spoke sotto voce to Smith’s ear. “Have you heard of a proposal yesterday by MI-6 to Donovan at OSS?”

“No.”

In 45 seconds, Eisenhower summarized the meeting with Churchill and Wentworth, leaving out only the ‘distressing development’ the Prime Minister had disclosed at the end. “Get Donovan’s side of it, discreetly, as soon as possible.”

Beetle Smith stepped out as the meeting commenced. His job was to attend to his commander’s wishes, and he paid keen attention to Ike’s phraseology. The word discreetly meant to keep the inquiry out of regular staff channels. Ike’s description of the Chequers meeting was likewise telling. The British might have chosen a more conventional way to impart their complaint. Wentworth, the MI-6 man, had not been a dinner guest, and no other British officials had been present during the meeting in the study. Nothing had been handed over on paper. The nuances telegraphed that the Prime Minister did not want the matter mingled in the normal protocols that surrounded his actions. The Brits were aware too that William “Wild Bill” Donovan, an American legend, was President Roosevelt’s personal appointee, and the OSS was not under Eisenhower’s command, though its activities in Europe were.

Beetle penned a quick note he passed to his aide: ‘General Donovan in my office, 0600 tomorrow.’

__________

At five minutes before midnight, the call reached Donovan at his suite at London’s Claridge Hotel. He listened, replied, “All right,” and hung up. The caller, identifying himself as a staff officer at SHAEF—Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force—had stated only that the Chief of Staff wished to see Donovan at the Navy Building at 6 a.m. tomorrow. The timing suggested urgency, and Beetle Smith’s involvement implied Eisenhower’s. All this was obvious. The issue, whatever it might be, was not.

He returned to bed and tried to fall asleep, pulling the bedcovers to his chin. The room was chilly; not even a posh Mayfair hotel heated its rooms at night. Claridge’s had been his London home away from home since his pre-war travels here in 1940. When America entered the war, the hotel became an American haunt, the fourth floor converted to a temporary military command post. Extravagant by the standards of wartime England, his room boasted a spacious sitting area and private bath. And the OSS London headquarters on Grosvenor Street was just around the corner.

Though the OSS fell under the authority of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Donovan’s personal stature, his relationship with fellow New Yorker and Columbia Law School classmate Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the civilian character of the organization had helped forge a margin of independence from the jumpy military bureaucracy. What was going on?

One possibility made him uneasy. Might the British Secret Service have brought to General Eisenhower the ill-conceived scheme they had unveiled to Donovan yesterday, and that he’d turned down? His three-plus years of dealings with MI-6, if not wholly positive, at least had been collegial. The Brits had made it their praxis to engage with him, as he had with them, in the semi-informal channels between the two intelligence services.

Unable to sleep, he padded to the sitting room and commenced to pace, cinching the belt on his silk bath robe that strained to go around his middle. In World War I, he’d not had to worry about getting fat; dodging bullets tended to keep a person lean. These days the dangers were of a different sort. When World War I ended, he returned to the United States a celebrated hero. He served as Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Justice Department and later founded a successful New York law firm catering to wealthy people and corporations, some with worldwide business dealings. Through these connections, he gained prodigious insights into international power dynamics, and these led to his designation in 1940 as President Roosevelt’s personal envoy, his mission to evaluate Britain’s ability to survive what at the time seemed like a hopeless mismatch against the Nazi war machine. No question, the British used him to gain America’s backing, granting him, a private citizen whose sole status was that he had the president’s ear, a statesman’s welcome, tour of their war zones, and the knowledge of capabilities they’d shown to no foreigner until then. To be so favored a guest of the British might lead you to believe he was an Anglophile. No, he was a pragmatist seeking his own country’s vital advantage. If Britain lost the fight, the consequences for America augured dismally. He returned to Washington and briefed the president and senior cabinet members, even used his law firm’s researchers to dig up a legal precedent for the lend-lease initiative FDR subsequently advocated to Congress. When in July 1941 Donovan took up his role as the chief of America’s first civilian intelligence agency—initially titled the Coordinator of Information, later morphing into the military-incorporated OSS—the Brits helped him, lifting the veil on the secret methodologies they had perfected over the centuries.

The tutelage came at a price. Having championed him to head American intelligence, the British Secret Service regarded him and his service as their wards. They demanded approval authority over all U.S. intelligence activities mounted from the British Isles, colonies, and zones of influence. Beneath their patina of courtesy, they lorded their prerogatives. The war required resources—troops, ships, aircraft—and America’s capacity to supply them dwarfed that of the British. In fields where the Americans lagged, and particularly in espionage, the Brits treated their former colonial subjects like stark neophytes.

Neophytes? Try running a New York law firm!

Calm down. You’re not certain what they’re up to.

He recalled an occasion when a senior MI-6 representative, having perhaps downed too many aperitifs, had berated him about America’s “late entry” to the war. Donovan was tempted to point out that European imperialism had produced the wars of the twentieth century. Staunch allies though they were, Britain and America had their own distinctive goals in the conflict. Not that Britannia didn’t favor the eradication of evil, the liberation of Europe, and chiefly her own survival, but her inveterate obsession was the continuance of her empire. Britons, particularly the upper classes, were addicted to grandeur, and nothing was grander than history’s largest hegemony, encompassing five hundred million willing and not-so-willing subjects, with whom Americans, their colonial shackles thrown off but not forgotten, tended to empathize. On this crux, the sentiment of the majority of Americans who wanted to stay out of the war might have proved insuperable, had Pearl Harbor not tipped the scales. Yes, crucial U.S. interests were at stake, but having been around the same bend with the Europeans barely a quarter of a century ago, Donovan found it hard not to see them as arrogant swankpots who perpetually sowed their own catastrophes.

At the window, he wedged open the blackout curtain to look down on Brock Street. Nothing seemed to move in the quiescent British capital. An illusion. Shrouded in darkness, the city prepared, restocked, planned. Reluctantly he had to believe that MI-6 had maneuvered around him, their intent, couched in their inimitable civility, to ram their misguided caper down his throat.

The question: What should he do about it?

If he had his way, they weren’t going to schoolmaster him this time.