essential World War II spy, and even that was blurred and warped by time.
Some of the lies were clearly Hollywoodâs, but otherâs came from Erickson himself. For an article in Life m agazine from April 27, 1962, a reporter went to the set of the William Holden movie. The story was supposed to be a puff piece about this new American hero, but it began with a puzzled note. âWhen he discusses himself and his remarkable works,â the reporter found, âErickson assumes the old wary habits of a secret agent and become contradictory, evasive, deceptive ⦠When pressed for the correct facts,â the reporter wrote, âhe flails his arms and goes into a fidgety dance until, yielding at the end, he remarks quietly, âItâs nothing. Either way will do.ââ The popular account of certain events in Ericksonâs life seemed suspicious, especially with regards to his motivations. In the book, heâs recruited into espionage by the American ambassador to Sweden. In the movie, itâs a case of OSS blackmail.
Iâd come across Ericksonâs name while researching my book, Agent Garbo , which told the story of another master spy, Juan Pujol. I grew increasingly fascinated by âRed:â here was a World War II agent who possessed a unique trio of qualities: he was important, dashing and, rarest of all, American. But there was no definitive account of his mission to Germany or why heâd volunteered for it.
I contacted spy historians, hired a genealogist, tried to locate Ericksonâs family (a rumored stepson turned out to have never existed) and combed the records for any mention of his mission in Germany. But it was one dry hole after another. CIA files yielded a single page on the agent: his New York Times obituary. The OSS archives contain a personnel folder under Ericksonâs name. The folder is empty except for a Post-It sized note that reads âBlue Fileâ and âSwedish Mission.â The archivists at NARA, the National Archives and Record Administration in College Park, MD, have been unable to locate the Blue File.
Finally, in early 2013, I discovered a cache of the secret agentâs papers locked away in the Riksarkivet Marieberg , the national archives of Sweden, in the capital, Stockholm. It proved to be the Erickson motherlode: boxes and boxes of personal letters, documents, account books, postcards, photographs, business ledgers and certificates dating back to the early 1900â²s. Theyâd lain undisturbed for decades, sitting on a shelf in a modern brick building near the shore of Lake Mälaren, the collected papers of a world-historical enigma.
Perhaps the most revealing document in the archives, aside from the letters from Anne-Maria, is a note he wrote to a fellow American over a small matter. Before a trip back to New York in 1962, Erickson called the owner of the building heâd grown up in as a child, 1253 Sterling Place in Brooklyn, now owned by a man named Barnes, a Jamaican immigrant. Erickson wanted to see the place again, to relive the memories of his years as a boy there. The borough was undergoing a wrenching change that saw the old European stock give way to a largely Caribbean population, a change that had brought bitter feelings and even violence. Mr. Barnes made sure that Erickson knew his race, so that there wouldnât be any unpleasantness when he showed up on Sterling Place.
Erickson wrote him a letter before coming to Brooklyn:
My dear Mr. Barnes:
The reason I am writing this letter is that I want to go on record to thank you not only for your unusually courteous letter giving me permission to call on you and see the back yard and the home I was born in, but also the manner in which you have spoken to me on the phone. It is strange that one of the most inexpensive and greatest things a man is born with is courtesy and unfortunately, much too few people use it.
When you mentioned that you were from
Some of the lies were clearly Hollywoodâs, but otherâs came from Erickson himself. For an article in Life m agazine from April 27, 1962, a reporter went to the set of the William Holden movie. The story was supposed to be a puff piece about this new American hero, but it began with a puzzled note. âWhen he discusses himself and his remarkable works,â the reporter found, âErickson assumes the old wary habits of a secret agent and become contradictory, evasive, deceptive ⦠When pressed for the correct facts,â the reporter wrote, âhe flails his arms and goes into a fidgety dance until, yielding at the end, he remarks quietly, âItâs nothing. Either way will do.ââ The popular account of certain events in Ericksonâs life seemed suspicious, especially with regards to his motivations. In the book, heâs recruited into espionage by the American ambassador to Sweden. In the movie, itâs a case of OSS blackmail.
Iâd come across Ericksonâs name while researching my book, Agent Garbo , which told the story of another master spy, Juan Pujol. I grew increasingly fascinated by âRed:â here was a World War II agent who possessed a unique trio of qualities: he was important, dashing and, rarest of all, American. But there was no definitive account of his mission to Germany or why heâd volunteered for it.
I contacted spy historians, hired a genealogist, tried to locate Ericksonâs family (a rumored stepson turned out to have never existed) and combed the records for any mention of his mission in Germany. But it was one dry hole after another. CIA files yielded a single page on the agent: his New York Times obituary. The OSS archives contain a personnel folder under Ericksonâs name. The folder is empty except for a Post-It sized note that reads âBlue Fileâ and âSwedish Mission.â The archivists at NARA, the National Archives and Record Administration in College Park, MD, have been unable to locate the Blue File.
Finally, in early 2013, I discovered a cache of the secret agentâs papers locked away in the Riksarkivet Marieberg , the national archives of Sweden, in the capital, Stockholm. It proved to be the Erickson motherlode: boxes and boxes of personal letters, documents, account books, postcards, photographs, business ledgers and certificates dating back to the early 1900â²s. Theyâd lain undisturbed for decades, sitting on a shelf in a modern brick building near the shore of Lake Mälaren, the collected papers of a world-historical enigma.
Perhaps the most revealing document in the archives, aside from the letters from Anne-Maria, is a note he wrote to a fellow American over a small matter. Before a trip back to New York in 1962, Erickson called the owner of the building heâd grown up in as a child, 1253 Sterling Place in Brooklyn, now owned by a man named Barnes, a Jamaican immigrant. Erickson wanted to see the place again, to relive the memories of his years as a boy there. The borough was undergoing a wrenching change that saw the old European stock give way to a largely Caribbean population, a change that had brought bitter feelings and even violence. Mr. Barnes made sure that Erickson knew his race, so that there wouldnât be any unpleasantness when he showed up on Sterling Place.
Erickson wrote him a letter before coming to Brooklyn:
My dear Mr. Barnes:
The reason I am writing this letter is that I want to go on record to thank you not only for your unusually courteous letter giving me permission to call on you and see the back yard and the home I was born in, but also the manner in which you have spoken to me on the phone. It is strange that one of the most inexpensive and greatest things a man is born with is courtesy and unfortunately, much too few people use it.
When you mentioned that you were from
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