Through these ministrations, by the beginning of 1946, Sichel had built up a network of well-placed informants within Berlin’s business and political communities. He had something else, as well: the Crown Jewels. This was a loosely affiliated group of anti-fascist Germans who, during the war, had schemed to either overthrow Hitler or to broker an early surrender to the Western Allies. The common bond between them was that their principal conduit to the West had been the OSS station chief in neutral Switzerland, Allen Dulles.
