George Locke Howe (April 19, 1898[1] – June 19, 1977) was an author, architect, andOffice of Strategic Services officer inWorld War II. His experiences in the OSS were the basis of his novelCall It Treason, which was adapted as the 1951 filmDecision Before Dawn.
Howe was born inBristol, Rhode Island, the son of Mary Locke andWallis Eastburn Howe, a prominent architect. He was a member of a Boston literary family that includedMark A. DeWolfe,Helen Howe andQuincy Howe.[2] Howe graduated from Harvard College in 1918 and then graduated in 1925 from Harvard Architectural School with a Master's Degree in Architecture.[3]
He served with the U.S. Navy during World War I, enlisting as a Hospital Apprentice in 1917 and serving inQueenstown, Ireland and on theUSS Plattsburg. He was discharged in 1919 and rose to the rank ofYeoman Second Class.[4]
Howe earned a master's in architecture in 1925 and practiced with his father inProvidence, Rhode Island.
He moved to Washington, D.C., in the 1930s where he worked with the Public Buildings Administration. He entered private practice with a series of partners from 1940 to the early 1960s, becoming a prominent architect in the capital. During his architectural career, he supervised the design and construction of more than 600 buildings.[2]
During the war, Howe served with theOffice of Strategic Services (O.S.S.), the precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency. He served with an O.S.S. detachment ofG-2, military intelligence, in the U.S.Seventh Army in Algeria, France and Germany. He held the rank oflieutenant colonel.[2][3]
Howe provided documents and cover stories for German soldier POWs recruited to re-enter the Reich in the last months of the war to collect intelligence. According to writerJoseph E. Persico, the "handsome and urbane architect of middle age ... seemed to take a childlike delight in this late-blooming career in professional deception." There was nothing childlike in the missions the German soldier-recruits undertook, however. They "confronted German land mines and machine-gun nests on the way out and American defenses on the way back."[5] They also faced detection and execution in Germany.
In recognition of his wartime service, Howe was awarded theMedal of Freedom by PresidentHarry S. Truman.[2] TheWar Department announced in June 1946 that Howe was bestowed the award for "extraordinary service" with the armed forces as a civilian between March 1944 and May 1945.[6]
Howe authored articles that appeared inAmerican Heritage, and poems and translations that appeared inThe New Yorker,Atlantic Monthly andHarper's.[2]
In 1935 he wrote his first novelSlaves Cottage, published byCoward-McCann. The book is set in the fictional New England seacost village of Hope, focusing on its most prominent family, which made its fortune in theslave trade.The New York Times review said that Howe writes with a "romanticism that recallsHawthorne." but that his restrained prose "lacks adequate sympathy for the emotions described."[7]The Los Angeles Times called it "an earnest but dull story."[8]
His 1949 novelCall it Treason, published byViking Press, focuses on three German soldiers who agree to work for the U.S. Army against their country. They are known in Army parlance as "agents," "Joes" and "bodies." One, code-named "Tiger," is a Communist who is greedy for power and wealth, the second, code-named "Paluka," is an adventure-seeking daredevil,[3] and the third is an idealistic young medical student from Berlin, code-named "Happy." They are recruited by intelligence officers of the Seventh Army to be dropped behind the lines to gather intelligence.[9]
The novel traces their journey to return, with Happy as the primary focus of the novel. Happy is ordered to locate two German divisions for Armycartographers. The article explores the motives that brings these three men to commit treason, with Happy's journey throughUlm andHeidelberg to theRhine atMannheim is the principal narrative thread of the book. ANew York Times reviewer called the book "not primarily a novel at all," that "the plot is necessarily set and stereotyped," and that its principal interest was its description of life in Germany during the war.[9]
The novel was based on Howe's experiences as an OSS officer. The book won a $15,000 first prize award in a contest by the Christophers, "an organization devoted to bringing Christian principles into everyday life."[2][10]
Howe dedicated the book "To Happy 1925-45." In a foreword to the novel, the author reprinted a sorrowful 1947 letter he had received from Happy's father seeking information about his son's fate. At the book's end, the author recounts that he had responded to the original letter from Happy's father, telling him what had happened to his son. The novel ends with a second letter from the father, noting that both he and his wife were grateful to Howe "for having seen as deep into our boy's heart as only we had seen."[11]
Howe wrote the novel while spending six months in the hospital recovering from serious injuries in a car accident. He was intraction and had to dictate the text of the novel into a machine.[2]
The novel was translated into seven languages and was published in eight countries. It was adapted into a 1951 film,Decision Before Dawn, starringOskar Werner as Happy and featuringRichard Basehart andGary Merrill as U.S. intelligence officers.[12]
Howe was also author of the 1953 novelThe Heart Alone[3] and the 1959 novelMt. Hope; A New England Chronicle, published by Viking Press. The book is ahistorical novel set in Bristol, Rhode Island, and is largely a chronicle of members of the Howe family. ANew York Times review called it a "tongue-in-cheek record of buccaneering skullduggery."[13]
In hisBoston Globe obituary, Howe was described as a "tall, lean, dark-eyed, patrician-looking man."[2]
Howe was married to Elisabeth W. Parker. They had a son and three daughters. He retired in 1968 and lived at a farm inCulpeper, Virginia, where he raised and boardedthoroughbred horses.[2] He died at 79 on June 19, 1977, after surgery at a Veterans Administration Hospital in Salem, Virginia.[14]
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