[indiscernible] think you all for being here welcome to the oldest independent bookstore in los angeles. We are pleased to be shared our facility with the los angeles review of books one of its Board Members john weiner is going to be an enter lock a tour i thought i would tell you this a little bit about who our guests are tonight john who i know is famous for many things he does a book on the 1960s to a publisher i think thats true. He is most famous if anybody needs to know anything about john lennon or the fbi he is your go to person. He spent a decade litigating to get access to this information he is a writer and commentator and a man about town. And a friend of mine. He is going to be talking to a friend of his who is a professor at usc i would say of the two of them that these are serious historians who are not serious about themselves. The work that stephen will be reading or talking about tonight. And perhaps reading from. Is a really amazing captivating story that you cant believe. It combines the idea of collusion with foreign powers the involvement of entertainment moguls doing the right thing and what was hardest to meet to accept lawyers who are not concerned about their billable hour rates. If you have an opportunity at the end of this evening i hope you will buy and read the book. My advice would be to not started after i dodgers World Series Game if you intend to sleep at all because the book is captivating and you will love it. With that let me turned over to our friends and have them let the games begin. And have them let the games begin. John and his wife judy introduced me and my wife on a blind date. More important than any book publication. Thank you for inviting me. I think we better this is a map of nazi and fascist loft. There is an awful lot of swastikas on this map. As i was writing this and discovering how many different fascist and different outlets in the sea. Its an unbelievable photographer and cartographer. And so the two of us Work Together this is all you need to know about what it meant to be a in la from 1933 working downtown and this is who you are surrounded by. You can see the ledger the swastikas and everything in red is either and the main group was the silver shirts that were started by William DudleyWilliam Dudley he had been a very successful screenwriter in hollywood who hated jews. Despite making a good living and on january 30 when hitler became rice chancellor he said if a painter can become the chancellor of germany and have his brownshirts than we in america can have our silver shirts. And tomorrow i am going to a launch the launch the silver shirts. Of america so ileana lewis was surrounded by the metropolitan post and the largest one in the United States just a few blocks away and i have it up. But it was another silver shirt. Then you have the odd fascists the whites guard meant the american warriors in the nationalist party i have easily six to eight more here but it would have a crowded the map too much. Heres what you need to know. And then we can move on. At charlottesville they were chanting the jews well not replace us. Downtown la this is just a few weeks ago from 1933 until pearl harbor virtually every week if not every two weeks we had decided about that one. This is a map of homegrown local american nazis they have a lot of sites. How many people are we talking about is this just a few nutballs were married in their basements what is the extent of this. The deutsche house here. And the nazis in la they went through two iterations. They began they sent over a german captain in march 1933 to start a nazi organization. In los angeles. In july 26, 1933 they held their first open meeting at the all title berg which is now like in americas best homes in or Something Like this. Just east or just west of downtown. I eventually by 1936 they would become the german american group. You have meetings that could attract up to a thousand people but i would not say they were all committed nazis. My guess is if you are looking at who in la you probably had about three to 400. Going to regular meetings and then the silver shirts collectively you also had they claim to have thousands. You probably had five or 600 at their peak in la. But all you need to know you look at charlottes theyll and orlando you look at las vegas. All you need is one crazy person. When you had three or four or six or 8,000 you can have a lot of single crazy people. I have heard that there was a boon in america. I didnt really know at about hitler himself being interested in los angeles and sending these emissaries to los angeles. Why was he interested in los angeles. There were two reasons. The first and the most important is that hitler and his administer of enlightenment and propaganda they both loved watching movies. Apparently hitler liked to watch a movie every name for he went to bed. Like walt disney films. They did. He also felt had hollywood and Great Britain not launched 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 determined that those jews in hollywood or not going to smear nazi germany or him. So in june 1933. He sent George Kissling who have been a council in new york city to los angeles with one job only. And thats a stop hollywood for making any film that attacked germany or hitler. Of course hollywood refused to go along with that. His weapon was article 15 from the german import law law of 1932. Which stated that if any studio in any country was to make a film that in any way denigrated germany that that studio would have all of its films b and in germany and if enough studios did that the whole country would have all of their films banned in germany. That was one hammer he used and within a year hollywood pastor Production Code Administration under a lot of pressure hollywood was accused of sexual impropriety back in the 30s and accused of making horrible movies. And there were people who said wait a minute. We need to clean up hollywood. And wanting one thing the industry has always done. They have and acted self an active self censorship laws. The Production Code Administration in 1934. That also have a clause. There would not give the seal to any movie that denigrated a foreign nation or its leader. So they have the job made easier by hollywood as well. It was censored by catholics. Making films for protestant children. Only in america. Hitler by stopping they thought it would keep American Public opinion neutral. And they wanted American Public opinion neutral until after they have conquered europe. The second reason they were interested in la was less about hollywood and more about smuggling and money, spies in secret orders and propaganda because in new york even though it was closer they were very closely guarded because the member the mayor of new york he was half jewish. If he was a reformed he wouldve been fully jewish. He also identified as a jewish as well as catholic. Those ports were carefully guarded. They decided that it was too hard to send things through and they knew in los angeles and the port of la and down in san pedro you could get anything it through because nobody was a monitoring aunt. You also have a city where the police, the Sheriffs Department had many people who are both were both sympathetic if not members of the end of the clan. Especially the clan. And so despise his reports i use talk about driving down to the docks with hermanns friend who is the have of the bandh here and watching him receive secret sealed orders from the captain of the vessel or from a gestapo office. Hitler have a gestapo office. So hitler and the nazi government. Because of the movie industry. Your local la homegrown nazis were also very interested in the movie industry. Which ones are we talking about here. We are talking about the ones who have a plot to kill i can at least track myself. By the 1930s one of the questions i always get asked is how much we dont know about the story. My cohort we were all concerned with looking at radicalism in the 30s and 40s. We were all concerned with exploring companies communist activity. And ignored conservative i am guilty also. And so no one was really looking at very deep into what was going on it was only discovered accidentally when i was writing about robinson. It is about fascist and nazis. Theyre like over 200 boxes of the spiral imports. That was too much to look at for what would have been a page in a book. When i finished the last book i said im going to go back and take a look. Thats when i discovered in the story. And one of the things that went on is it wasnt just the nazis who wanted to kill them it was americans. The silver shirts and all these other groups that got all of the other names were overwhelmingly american. They wanted to show their american brethren that they could be good americans also. In general the fascists were operating on their own. They came up with two plots in 1935 early 36 which was going to hang 20 hollywood figures from la. If you hung these prominent people he would have mass killings of jews. Leon lewis and the hero of my story had spies inside of their organization and they did not know who it was. And they knew that if they committed murder they were going to get arrested for murder and they were not going to do that until they figured out who the spy was. That postponement became permanent. A year later another fascist came into town. At one point he was 6 feet eight and the brother of Victor Mclaughlin who won an oscar in 1936 for his role in the informer. And he head at one point been the world jujitsu champion he was taught how to murder with that the handtohand combat. This guy may have been nuts but he was a killer. And he had been in the army i captain in the british army and he have an even more frightening plot which he was in a blowup the homes of 24 hollywood movie stars and producers. From Louis B Mayer down to two christians who he said it was too friendly to the jews. They were going to blow up their homes. There were to get 24 assassins working with them they were going to blow up their homes they were also preparing they had secured about in Long Beach Harbor that when any jews tried to flee by boat they were going to destroy the boats as they were trained to leave the harbor as well. And that plot was only foiled because there was for plotters and that was it. And one of the for plotters i think we now had to switch to the spys story our hero and his spy these guys were quite different. He never expected he would be a spy master. He was born in a small town in wisconsin in the late 1880s. And decided he was going to dedicate himself to healing the world and so he took a job with this new organization that had just started and he was their founding there founding executive secretary. It was a threeman operation. One of his responsibilities was also to monitor hollywood films so even as 1917 he was working with these. It was so intense in europe to create an International Division and so like any good person you suggest something and you get to be the international had as well as the national head. He moved to la in 1930 or 1931. Just thought he was going be a lawyer. And lead a comfortable life. He watched them split nationally into two groups. They start an international boycott. Not just jews. This would pressure him because it would hurt the german economy. The other group the American Jewish congress they argued led by judge proskauer that hitler would double down if you got in his face. And he was crazy enough. If you tried to pressure him. He would go even more ballistic. They recommended going through intermediaries they kept talking. And they kept talking more. At that meeting we are going to save the country from communists and jews. Those of you who drive to the downtown. Is that familiar to many of you it was built by the county supervisor. He was a member yet for veterans to agree to join every nazi group in la undercover and try to rise up to position of power and influence into send him daily reports of what he have discovered. And lewis rant that spy operation from august 1933 to the end of world war ii because even after pearl harbor when they rounded up the nazis and fascists he knew that they were fused. It went up after pearl harbor. I want to underline the fact that the spies that he recruited were not jewish except for one. These were christians who were reporting on anti semitism in los angeles. As one of the fascinating and heartening parts of your book. They were reporting on unamerican activities. In the first house was actually started by samuel dickstein. And it was starting to investigate nazis in america. It got hijacked by anticommunist to turn into a red scare purge innocents. The other thing about lewis and the veterans is they all knew that they were working for a train to jew. What they knew is that nazis in the fascists said they were going to kill Jewish Americans. And catholic americans. They basically said when you look at those hyphenated things everything on the left of theis an adjective. And the noun is american and we dont give truck for any group that is going to kill fellow americans because of their religion or their race. Whether they are Jewish American catholic jewishamerican catholic american black american pair all americans. And we have fought to save our country. We are not allowing a foreign power to come in and kill other americans. That was it. It really only one jewish spy. Hit a few informers who helped him. They were working piecemeal. There is a lot of shocking things here. The extent of nazi presence in los angeles the murder plots are shocking. To me though. The most shocking thing is none of these the response that leon lewis got when he took his information within a few weeks literally just a few weeks of this operation. We have uncovered a horrible plot. A german immigrated. He had shot to death several communists. Have gone to San Francisco. And have come down to la after he had drawn his own blueprints of the entire National Guard armory with where all of the weapons and ammunitions were held he was working the silver shirts in san diego and were buying weapons from corrupt marines who got a hold of some of the marine navy surplus selling it to them. They were drilling in san diego getting ready to take over the armory there. And then he ask lewis spies they were in a high place. To get to the blueprints in the armory. And to tell them that on the same day we are going to have a combination of nazis in all three cities and not the vessels that are aborted. They were to, to join with these people to take over. Any officer ors shoulder that agreed to join a would change sides. Eventually they contacted naval intelligence. His first stop was to james to gun davis have of the Los Angeles Police and they start telling them about this. He writes a memo afterwards two minutes into my talk davis stopped me and said you dont get it. Hitler is doing the right thing and germany. Hes only doing what he has to do because the jews are totally around his economy. In the real enemy and the real danger in america is not the nazis and fascists here. They are in boyle heights. Where all of those communists are. As far as he was concerned every communist was a and every was a communist. He wasnt in the do anything. They then went to the sheriff and told him the same thing. The Sheriffs Department and the Police Department at this point have quite a few nazi supporters one of the sheriffs captains was a nazi working with mcglocklin. We can do anything unless were ordered from washington the bureau to investigate the have of the entire Western Region of the germanamerican bond. Hoover did not order you to put under surveillance. We need to open this up to questions and just a minute. But one other thing that i would like to ask about. We have the police chief and the sheriff and the fbi refused to do anything about this. There are a few good guys that are in your story. A rare animal which is a which graduated in annapolis. With the west coast. They have looked over the information. Everything they sent them turned out to be true. He was the closest ally in the fight. And then an indirect ally he have an associates spymaster. He have began spine with his uncle who was living in chicago his uncle julius klein was chicago board. He was living in germany during world war i. He and his nephew started spying on their own as nazis in chicago. So much so that bruce who is looking for that newspapers. I want you to go talk to our publisher. Who is the have of the entire illinois National Guard. And imagine this by foot for 5foot five vietnamese very shy jew in a very heavy accent goes into talk to the publishers he gives him a piece of paper. And he said i want you to go to this hotel were to meet with the military man. Whatever you tell him to do you do. He goes into the Bismarck Hotel and he tells them everything that he and his uncle had been doing. In the colonel said colonel said you guys are amazing. But you know training. I will turn you over to some of my elite forces who are going to train you counter espionage. That colonel did okay for himself. His name was joy c marshall. And eventually secretary of state marshall and from 1933 on from that moment if you go to that you could all go to that. The question before we open it up. My parents were both survivors. My father have been and that warsaw ghetto. When that was shot down he was shipped off. And after three days they ask for volunteers to go to work camp we will give you a shower and then send you to the work camp. We knew what the shower meant. Everybody knew what that was. After three days if this is what life was going to be like i wanted a shower. She volunteered and she said the fact that all of these women we are standing naked hugging one another with the last breath. When none of them have a heart attack when it came out. And they have listened to that mother every single nig