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George S Patton, America's greatest combat general of the Second World War, was murdered after the conflict with the connivance of US leaders, according to a new book.

The recently-unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose Allied collusion with the Russians that cost American lives.

The death of Patton in December 1945 is one of the enduring mysteries of the war era. Although he had suffered serious injuries in a car crash, he was thought to be recovering and was on the verge of flying home.

But after a decade-long investigation, Robert Wilcox, a military historian, claims that the OSS head, General "Wild Bill" Donovan, ordered a highly decorated marksman, Douglas Bazata, to silence Patton, who gloried in the nickname "Old Blood and Guts".

His book, Target Patton, contains interviews with Bazata, who died in 1999, and extracts from his diaries, detailing how he staged the car crash by getting a troop truck to plough into Patton's Cadillac and how he then shot the general with a low-velocity projectile which broke his neck, while his fellow passengers escaped without a scratch.

Bazata also suggested that when Patton began to recover from his injuries, US officials turned a blind eye as agents of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, poisoned the general.

Mr Wilcox said that when he spoke to Bazata "he was struggling with himself, all these killings he had done. He confessed to me that he had caused the accident, ordered by Wild Bill Donovan.

"Donovan told him: 'We've got a terrible situation with this great patriot, he's out of control and we must save him from himself and from ruining everything the Allies have done.' I believe Douglas Bazata. He's a sterling guy."

Bazata led an extraordinary life. He was a member of the Jedburghs, the elite unit that parachuted into France to help organise the Resistance in the run up to D-Day in 1944. He earned four purple hearts, a Distinguished Service Cross and the French Croix de Guerre three times over.

After the war he became a celebrated artist who enjoyed the patronage of Princess Grace of Monaco and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He was friends with Salvador Dali, who painted a portrait of him as Don Quixote. He ended his career as an aide to US President Ronald Reagan's navy secretary, John Lehman.

Mr Wilcox also interviewed Stephen Skubik, an officer in the US Counter-Intelligence Corps, who said he learnt that Patton was on Stalin's death list. Skubik repeatedly alerted Donovan, who simply had him sent back to the US.

"You have two strong witnesses here," Mr Wilcox said. "The evidence is that the Russians finished the job."

It sounds far-fetched but Mr Wilcox has assembled a compelling case that US officials had something to hide. At least five documents relating to the car accident have been removed from US archives.

The driver of the truck was whisked away to London before he could be questioned and no autopsy was performed on Patton's body.

With the help of a Cadillac expert, Mr Wilcox has proved that the car on display in the Patton museum at Fort Knox is not the one Patton was driving. "That is a cover-up," Mr Wilcox said.

The Telegraph

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