Presidential Agent by Sinclair, Upton - 1944

"In 1937 and 1938 the war clouds were gathering that soon would darken the whole world. The most portentous plans in modern history were brewing in the Nazi cauldron. The end of Austria, of Poland, of Czechoslovakia was near - the end of the world as it was. Plots and counterplots were being hatched in secret. It was vitally important that these plans be ferreted out in advance and reported to the head of our own government.
"Lanny Budd's lifelong intimacy with the 'headliners' of our time fitted him for a role of critical importance in this period of ominous watchfulness, and Sinclair has had the exciting idea of casting him as a fictional special agent for the President. He was on the spot, ostensibly in his role of art agent, wherever world-shaking events were about to happen. Through his eyes and ears the reader hears Hitler raving in his retreat at Berchtesgaden, see Goring strut and brag, sits in salons in France where the Cagoulard conspiracy is being plotted, listens to polite chat of appeasement in London drawing rooms, suffers agonies of suspense as Lanny tries to rescue his wife, Trudi, from the hands of her Nazi captors. It is spell-binding narrative in which the detail are fictitious but the broad pattern of history is true. " .