Facility with the los angeles review of books. One of its Board Members one of its Board Members john is going to be an interlock for this evening. I thought i would tell you just a little bit about who ourest goes guests are tonight. John who i know is famous for many things hes a professor at uci river side, irvine, he he owes a book on the 1960s it a publisher i think thats true. Thanks for bringing that up. Hes most famous if anybody this evening needs to know anything about john lennon or the fbi hes your goto person he spends a decade litigating to get access to this information. Hes a writer commentator and man about town. And a friend of mine. And hes going to be talking to a friend of his stephen ross who is a professor at usc not ucla a usc and i would say of the two of them that these are serious historians who are not serious about themselves. The work that steven will be reading or talking about tonight and perhaps reading from is a really amazings captivating story that you cant believe. It combines the idea of collusion with foreign powers. [laughter] the involvement of entertainment mogul doing right thing and what i do during the daytime lawyers who are not concerned about their bill of hour rates. So if you have an opportunity at the end of this evening well have a wine, cheese signed books and like i hope you will buy and read steves book and my advice is not to start it after a dodgers world series if you intend to sleep at all because the book is captivating and youll love it. So with that let me turn it over to our friends and have they will let the games begin. You forgot one thing about john weiner. One very important john and his wife judy introduced me and my wife on a blind date. Nice. More important than any book publication. [laughter] well, thank you for inviting me to do this conversation its completely fascinateing bit you tell her something historians lucially dont get to do. We better start with a map this map is end papers of the book. Its the most striking thing ive seen in the book many a long time. This is a map of nazi is and tashist los angeles in 30s and 40s, and, i mean, in this is the bock in a nutshell is theres an awful lot of swastikas on this map. Whole point is as i was writing this and discovering how many different fascist outlet in the city and i reference my colleague in addition to being a superb historian is a car photographer and thought this is all it meant to be a jew in l. A. From 1933 to 19 lets say 1941 december working downtown and you cant see the ledger swastikas everything in red are either nazi swastika or f for the fascist and main fascist group was silver shirts that were start by William Dudley pelley he had been actually a very successful screen writer in hollywood. Who hated jews. And he left the movie industry despite making a good live hadding. And on january 30th, when hitler became chancellor he said if a painter can become the right chancellor of germany and have his brown shirts, if mussolini can have a black shirt then we in america can have a is silver shirt and we can launch silver shirts of america so leon lewis was surrounded by silver shirt metropolitan post largest one in the United States. Just a few blocks away i dont have up here was another silver shirt and then you have these odd fascist the right guardsman, the ku klux klan, california homesteaders, american war with your, american nationalist party, i had easily 68 more here but it would have crowded the map had too much. And heres what you need to know and then we can move on at charlottesville, they were changting the jew will not replace us. Downtown l. A. This was not in 1933. Just a few weeks ago in downtown 1933 until pearl harbor virtually every week if not every two weeks somebody was chanting death to jews. I have to sigh about that one. So this is a map of home grown, local american nazis. They have a lot of sites how many people are we talking about, is this just a few nut balls murmuring in their base ms. Whats had the extent of this . Well, the bun are actually the house nazis in la louisiana went through two. They began hitler sents over a german captain robyn tape in march 1933 to start in Nazi Organization in los angeles. And then in july 26th, 1933, they held their first open meeting at titleburg now like an americas best homes inn or Something Like this. Just east of just west of downtown and then eventually by 1936 become the american german bun meetings attract up to a thousand people but i wouldnt say they were all committed nazis my guess is if youre looking at who in l. A. This hard core nazi is you probably have about three to 400 people going to regular meetings. And then the silver shirts collectively you also had they claim to add thousands my guess is you probably had five or 600 at their had peek in l. A. In l. A. But all you to know you look at charlottesville you lock at orlando, you look at las vegas. All you need is one crazy person. And when you have three, tour, six, eight thousand you have a lot of single crazy people. Now i knew there was a bund in america and America First organization. I didnt really know very much about hitler himself being interested in los angeles and sending these emissaries to los angeles why was hitler interested in los angeles . Smghts its a good question. Were two reasons. The first and most important is that hitler and his minister of enlightenment and propaganda joseph a ph. D. And shows you where ph. D. Can get you they both loved watching movies. And apparently hitler would like to watch a movie every night before he went to bed particularly walt disney films because they shared similar world political view. They did. [laughter] isnt why he like them. He also felt that had hollywood and Great Britain not launch such a successful Propaganda Campaign during world war i against the German Government, that they could have gotten a lot more public support. And hitler was derled that those jews in hollywood were not going to smear nazi germany or himself. So in june 1933, he sent george who had been a counsel in new york city to los angeles with one job only and that is to stop hollywood from making any film that attacked germany or hitler. And of course hollywood refused to go along with the proposal. Well his weapon was article 15 from the jeer import law that stated if think studio in any country was to make a film that in any way denigrated germany that studio would have all of its films banned in germany and if enough studios did that that whole country would have all of their films banned in germany. And so that was one hammer he used and within a year hollywood passed a Production Code Administration under a lot of pressure because i know you ever going to find this hard to believe but hollywood was accused of sexual impropriety in 30s accused of making horrible movies and people who said wait a minute we need to clean up hollywood, and one thing the industry is always done is any time anyone has called for federal censorship theyve enacted selfcensorship laws so they created Production Code Administration in 1934 that summer. And that also had a clause if you wanted to be in first one movie theater. Which is where studios made 80 of their profits. You have to get a production code seal. And then they would not give a seal to any movie that denigrate a foreign nation or its leader so gessling had had a job made easier by hollywood as well but heres the thing, you have an industry that was run by jews. Censored by catholic, making film for protestant children. Only in america. Its a wonderful thing. So anyway hitler by stopping hollywood from making any senate nazi film they felt it would keep American Public opinion neutral and they wantedmen Public Opinion neutral until after they had concurred europe. Second reason they were interested in l. A. Was less about hollywood and then about smuggling and money, spies and secret orders in propaganda because new york even though it was closer the new york ports were very closely guarded because the mayor of New York Laguardia i dont know how many of you know but he was half jewish if he was a reform ared jew he would be fully jewish his mother and father was italian but he also identified as jewish as well as catholic. And he made sure those ports were carefully guarded. The nazis refer to new york as jew york and they decide it was too hard to send thing through and they knew in los angeles both in port of louisiana and down in san pedro you could get anything through because nobody was monitoring. You also have a city where police the Sheriffs Department, had many people who both sympathetic if not members of the bund and of silver shirt and clan especially the clan. And so these spy it is that had whose reports i use for most of the book, talk about driving down to the docks with herman who was the head of the bund here, and watch aing him receive secret sealed orders from either the captain of the vessel or from a officer because hit her had an officer on every german ship that left germany and went abroad. So hitler and the government this many los angeles because of the movie industry, your local l. A. Home grown math subsidy were very interested in the movie industry. Right. Which ones are we talking about here . Were talking about one with who had a plot to kill jewish in hollywood and studio theres so many of these plots. I kind of lose track myself. Yeah. The by the 1930s im guilty of this one of the question withs that gets asked is how come we dont know this story. I said well my cohort weiner me, and age cohort we were all concerned looking at radicalism in the 30s and 40s. And we were all concerned with exploring communist and left activity in hollywood. And kind of ignored conservatives fascist and right wing. Plead guilty. Im guilty too. And so no one was really looking very e deep into what was going on. And it was only i only discovered this sort of accidentally by when i was writing about edward g. Robinson in the nazi league and seen online consistent from cal state north ridge where it called in our own backyard which was about fascist and nazis. So i went o out to take a look but theyre like over 200 boxes of these spy reports and that was too much to look at for what would have been a page this a book but when i finished last book hollywood left and right i said im going to go back and take a look thats when i discovered this story and one of the things that went on is it wasnt just a nazis who wanted to kill jewses it was americans. Silver shirts who was overwhelmingly american and nazis have a silver shirt post because they wanted to show their american breathen that they could be good americans too. But in general, the fascist were operate oing on their own and they came up with two plots. One in 1935 35 early 36 which was going to hang 21 including buzz feed berkeley and first and others with the idea that if you hung these prominent people it would start pug rim throughout america that you would have mass killings of jews. Well that never happened because the plotters realized that leon lewis the hero of the spy master had had spice in their organization and they didnt know what it was and they knew if they committed murder they were going to get arrested for murder and they werent going to do them until they figured out who spy was so they postponed it and that postponement became permit nangt but a year later another fascist came into town, leo a british fascist who had at one point he was 68, the brother of victor who won an oscar in 1936 ironically for his role in the informer. And leo had been World Champion taught how to u murder through handtohand combat with both two scotland yard. So this guy may have been nuts but he was a killer and he had been in the army and had been a captain in the british army and he had an even more frightening plot which was he was going to blow up the homes of 24 hollywood movie stars and producers. From louie b. Mayor down to two christians who he said was too friendly to the jews. Charlie chaplain and james. And they were going to blow up those homes they were going to get 24 assassins working with them. They were going to blow up their homes. They are also preparing they had secured a boat in Long Beach Harbor that when any jews try to flee by boat they were going to destroy the boats as they were trying to leave the harbor as well. And that plot was only foiled because there were four plotters that was it. And one of the four plotters was leon lewiss spy chuck. J i think we have to now switch to the spy to the spy story our hero the hero of your book leon lewis and ace spice charles, who were these guys were quite different. Yes. Well first leon lewis never expected he would be a spy master he was born in small town in wisconsin. In the late 1880s, they went to college, went to law school at the university of chicago. Graduated 1913. And decided he wases going to dedicate himself to leom healing the world and so he had took a job with a new organization that had just started called Antidefamation League and he was their founding executive secretary it was a threeman operation. And one of his responsibilities was also to monitor hollywood films for antisemitism so even as early as 1913 he was working with these moguls he went off and fought in world war i rising from enlisted private to captain came back wect back to work for the adl convince them that antisemitism was so intense in europe they needed to create an international division. And so like any good person, you suggest something and you get to be the International Head as well as the national head. He stayed with the adl until he moved to l. A. In 1930, 31 and assumed law practice and just thought he would be a lawyer do billable hour and lead a kivel life and then hit her rose to power. And he watched this Jewish Community split nationally into two groups. The American Jewish committee basically argued youve got to get aggressive with hitler and they starred in International Boycott of german products until hitler stop prosecuting juice and not just jews but they figure this would pressure him to hurt the german economy. The other group, the American Jewish congress they argued by led by judge of rose, they had argued that that would that hitler would double down if you got in his face that he was crazy enough if you tried to pressure him he would go even more ballistic and therefore, they recommended going through intermediaries particularly religious leaders in germany. Well they kept talking, they kept talking. And then e they kept talking some more, and after the nazis held their first open meeting in june or july rather, and at that meeting said look were going to save the country from communist and jews he said thats enough. And he went down to if those of you who drive towards downtown on the 10 would be right before you hit downtown you see on your right south of the 10 bob hope patriotic hall is that familiar to many of you . Well that was built by the county supervisors in 1926 to it house veterans groups. And he was a member leon lewis at the disabled American Veterans so he went down there and he got four veterans three christians, one jew, and their wives to agree to join every math subsidy and fascist group in l. A. Undercover and try rise up to positions of power and influence and to send had him daily reports of what he discovered. And lewis ran that spy operation from august 1933 to the end of world war ii because even after pearl harbor when they rounded up math subsidy and fascist he knew that l. A. Was fused with antisemitism and, in fact, his spies told him antisemitism went up after pearl harbor. Could i interrupt at this point and i want to underline the fact that the spies that he recruited were not jewish xepght for one. These were christians who were reporting on antisemitism in los angeles that is one of the fascinating and heartening parts of your book. Well what they said is they were reporting on unamerican afnghts. And first house american activityingses committee was actually started by samuel and it was started to investigate nazis and fascist in america. And it got it got hijacked by anticommunists who turned it into a you know red scare pernlg in a sense. The other thing about lewis and these veterans is they all knew that they were working for a jew. And one of the questions my editor asked me is well didnt, didnt they think this was a jewish operation, and my answer is, no. That what they knew is that nazis and fascists had said they were going to kill Jewish Americans and kill catholic americans. And they were going to kill black americans. An when he talked about to veterans they basically said when you look at hyphenated things everything on the left of the high fin is an adjective and noun is american. And we dont give truck for any group from that is going to kill fellow americans because of their religion on their race. Whether theyre jewish american, catholic american, black american, they are all americans. And we have fought to save our country were in the allowing a foreign power to come in and kill other americans. And that was it. Really only one jewish spy he had a few informers who helped him but they were working piecemeal whatever major spies only one was jewish. So theres a lot of shocking things here. The map is shocking the extent of nazi presence in los angeles murder plots are shocking to me, though, the most shocking thing is none of these not that hitler was interested in l. A. The most shocking thing is the response that leon lewis got when he took his information to the chief of police of los angeles. So within a few weeks literally a few weeks of his operation, his four spies come back and they say we have uncovered a horrible plot. A german immigrants who was forced to flee germany in 20s because he had shot to death several communists had gone to San Francisco join the National Guard and had come down to l. A. After he had drawn his own blueprints of the entire National Guard armory where all of the weapons and ammunition was held. He was working with excuse me he was working with silver shirts in san diego