Huot

But over a simple dinner washed down with schnapps and a light rosé, the charismatic Croatian wowed Huot, who called him “a man of action rather than polemics.”

Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

John Toulmin, a former Boston bank executive Donovan had recently made his Cairo station chief, had a queasy feeling about the headstrong Huot, who tended to jump the gun on operations.

Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

On October 23, however, Huot clearly did wander off the reservation.

Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

The British soon took over the convoying and Huot was eventually sent home.

Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

Later, however, it became an open and hotly disputed question whether Huot had obtained the proper authorizations from the theater command to mount a major supply operation into a country London considered its turf.

Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

The handsome and manicured Tito, dressed in a gray tunic and breeches with black riding boots that clinked with spurs, chain-smoked cigarettes perched in what Huot thought was a ridiculous-looking miniature pipe adorned with silver filigree.

Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

John Toulmin, a former Boston bank executive Donovan had recently made his Cairo station chief, had a queasy feeling about the headstrong Huot, who tended to jump the gun on operations.

Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

But over a simple dinner washed down with schnapps and a light rosé, the charismatic Croatian wowed Huot, who called him “a man of action rather than polemics.”

Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

The brigadier was away from the camp when Huot showed up for a long chat about guerrilla operations and American supplies with Tito in his office, a bare-wood shed under a stand of cedar trees.

Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

The British later howled that Huot never told them he was convoying hundreds of tons of supplies to Tito, which amounted to a smuggling operation behind their backs.

Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011