While you watch, order your copy of the landmark cases companion book available for 8. 95 plus shipping at cspan. Org landmarkcases. Now on booktv, military historian bill yenne recalls the nazi plot to assassinate president roosevelt, josef stalin and Winston Churchill in 1943. [inaudible conversations] well, good evening, and thank you so much for coming. Im susan from portfolio books, and we are thrilled to have one of our local authors here tonight, bill yenne, the author of more than three dozen nonfiction books as well as ten novels. Some of his literary fans include general wesley clark and general craig mckinley, president of the air force association. He has written numerous books on military history and has recently released a book called hit the target, which we have right over here. And that book is related to the eighth air force. But tonight were very honored to have bill here to discuss his latest book with us, operation long jump. Bill yenne. Thank you. [applause] well, thanks, thanks to paula, who isnt here, and john who is for inviting me here tonight, and thanks to all of you for coming out and sitting down to listen to my story. Well, you know, conspiracy stories are almost as fun to write about as they are to read. Well, thats not true. Theyre more fun to write about. [laughter] but an assassination conspiracy stories seem to have sort of a special resonance, and people get excited and interested in that stuff. Well, im here to talk about what im maintaining is the largest assassination conspiracy in history. Churchill, roosevelt, stalin in one room with three bullets, and the court of World History is changed. The lincoln conspiracy was a pretty big deal back in 65, but the war was over by that timings and it was time, and it was directed at the leadership of only one country. This particular conspiracy was aimed at the three allied powers in world war ii, at the three men and their staffs who commanded 70 million troops who were arrayed against the armies of the third like. So that third reich. So that made it an especially big conspiracy. This came at a very hard time for the allies, unlike the situation in 1865 when the war was over. This took place in 1943. It was, it was the year of the turning point of world war ii, although you wouldnt have known that to look at the situation on the battle fronts. Germans were, had been defeated at stalingrad, but they were still in control of a huge slice of the western soviet union, 1200mile front from leningrad to kiev. They still controlled all of western europe or virtually all of western europe. The Anglo American allies had kicked rommel out of north africa, but they had invaded italy and were expecting to make steady progress against the germans in that peninsula. But by november of 1943 when this takes place, they had run into a literal stone wall in the form of the but sad line and such was the situation of the war at that time. So the big three allies that were allied against the third reich britain, the u. S. And soviet union well, the leaders of the former two, churchill and roosevelt, they had met several times. They met in washington a couple of times, they met in quebec, met at casablanca, famous conference. But they really wanted to get together with stalin. They really wanted to have a big three summit conference. They wanted to have everybody together in the same room to discuss the strategy for defeating the third reich. So i actually had access to some of the diplomatic cables or virtually all of the diplomatic cables that were running back and forth between these three guys, and i sort of excerpted them and crafted them into like a conversation. Actually more of an argument between the big three. Roosevelt said, well, you know, joe, wed like to get together. Why dont you and i meet in alaska. Joe said, no. Well, roosevelt and churchill got together, and they asked stalin. He said, well, okay. Were going to be meeting in cairo. Weve got a conference in cairo coming up in november. Why dont you come down and meet with us there. And joe said, no. Churchill even got biblical, and he talked about there being, about setting up three tents in the desert in iraq and having each one of the big three in a tent and have their meeting there. And joe said, no. Joe wanted to, wanted to meet in iran because it was close to the soviet union. And he wanted to meet close to the soviet union because there were people inside his government that he didnt trust. Well, actually, come to think of it, there was nobody in his government that he did trust. [laughter] so he didnt want to go far from home. The other thing that is often not told about stalin and the list of fun facts about the least fun man of the 20th century is that he was afraid of flying. He didnt want to go too far. In fact, the trip to tehran was his one and only airplane flight ever. So they argued, and stalin refused, and finally they decided that meeting stalin was worth it. So november 27th, 1943, dates set. Meanwhile, inside the third reich a guy named Walter Shellenberg who is the guy who ran the Covert Operations Division of the ss, or he got this idea that maybe we should try to take him out. One room, three bullets. So he cooked up this scheme to assassinate the big three. In fact, he had even started to organize his hit teams. Problem was he didnt know where or when this thing was going to take place. In fact, the allies argued about it until, like, six weeks before the conference. So nobody knew where it was going to be. He certainly didnt. And then one day shellenberg got a phone call from a kosovar albanian named melissa basna. This guy said, i hate, i hate the british, and im for sale for the right price. So shellenberg said, well, why should i listen to you . And he said, because i got a job in the British Embassy in ankara and thats where all the, all the diplomatic cables are coming through, and the ambassador, well, hes not a light sleeper. He, in fact, he has insomnia, so he takes this, he takes sleeping pills. Not just the kind of sleeping pills that you and i might take, but some of that serious stuff like Michael Jackson used to abuse. And so when hes asleep, he is out. So shellenberg said, okay, how much do you want . He asked for a lot of money. Finally shell pberg said, well, why not . Well take a chance. So the intel started flowing. He would creep into the boards room at night the ambassadors room at night when he was honking away in his bed and take pictures of all the cables and documents with his little mynox camera, and he was shipping those off to shellenberg in berlin. And the ss realized that the intel that he was, that he was sending was spectacular. In fact, the germans even code named this guy cicero after the roman orator, because the intel he supplied spoke so eloquently. So it was through cicero and the chapter i have about him in the book, i entitled it the Million Dollar master key. Because he was able to supply the master key that told the germans where and when. Well, it was an exciting, it was an exciting moment not only to learn the fact, but to learn that it was in iran. Iran, between the wars and, in fact, going back to world war i, i could tell some stories about that but the germans and the iranians had been very close. They were, germany was irans leading trading partner. They, the germans ran the airline, they built the railroad. Most of the dye, some 60, 70 percent of the dye that was used in persian rugs came from germany. So that was how close they were. Germany had this incredible network of agents all over, all over iran. The German Military intelligence, they had a network of agents. Ss had a network of agents. Very, very close. In fact, in the book youll see that the first picture in the little photo section, its an autographed photo of adolf hitler inscribed to his friend, the shah. This guy, shah and hitler were exchanging autographed, personalized pictures. Thats how close they they were. So the germans were pretty excited. So, in fact, this was such a big deal that the british and the soviets in the fall of 1941 at a time when the german armies were closing in on moscow, german armies in north africa were closing in on the suez canal. They took time out to invade and occupy iran because of the german, the German Networks inside this country. Thats how big a deal this was. And so all during the war and before the war they were sending agents in and out. In fact, they had longrange aircraft flying out of crimea, dropping paratroopers in there throughout the entire war, supply drops, troop drops. A thousand miles, extremely longrange planes, ju290s if youre an aircraft i know weve got at least one aircraft buff in the room. And it was this long jump more inserting agents into for inserting agents into iran, that was the source of name, operation long jump. So inside tehran youve got a city thats seething with international spies. Youve got the germans, youve got british. They were, they were active throughout that region before, well, ever since world war worl, back to the 19th century. That was an important part of their, part of their sphere of influence between the suez canal and india. Very big deal for them. So they had a strong presence. And hi, annika. Thanks for coming. To they had a strong presence there. So they had a strong presence there. What about the americans . Well, you probably heard of norman schwarzkopf, the famous general. You may have heard of his dad can, also called norman schwarzkopf, who was the head of the new jersey state patrol who was the guy who cracked the lindbergh case, the guy who solved the crime of the century. Norman schwarzkopf. So who does shah, the new shah because the british deposed the old shah, the one who exchanged autographed pictures with hitler, they got his son in. They got him to hire schwarzkopf to run his john so this is the presence of the british and the americans. So what about the soviets . Well, the soviets, they were present too. They sent in the nkvd, the predecessor to the kgb. These were the same guys who made their reputation back in the 30s with the purges and rounding up people and sticking them in the gulags. They filled the gulags three or four times over. They were some of the cruelest secret police this side of the gestapo. And so they flooded these guys into well, they filtered them in early, and then when the soviets knew that the the big three conference was going to take place, then they flooded tehran with nkvd. Now, these guys are youve heard in the movies about sometimes youve got the cops is and the secret police rounding up the usual suspects. Well, the nkvd rounded up the usual suspects and the unusual suspects. And, in fact, there is a famous quote about the purges in russia in 1937 that said that they, basically, they picked up every second man and an awful lot of women and sent them off to the gulags. So this is their strategy, and they brought that to tehran. They brought their dragnets, and they brought their jails, and they brought their dungeons. They were setting up jails and dungeons all over tehran. But long jump was not thwarted through the efforts of these, any of these agencies, not schwarzkopf, not the british mi6, not the nkvd. And this takes us to a small circle of young friends live anything tehran, mostly expats, mostly people in their 20s. And there was, there were some, a couple lebanese, and there were some iranians, there was an ran january iranianfrench guy and a polish refugee girl who actually was the smartest one of the whole bunch, but thats a whole other story. How the polish refugees got to iran is another story. But anyway, this existed before the war. Passing through iran before the war and coming into contact with these people was an more than, Young American named peter ferguson. Well, ferguson was kind of a cowboy. He fell for this, this polish girl. Her name was ida. So ferguson and ida, it was one of those boygirl things that, you know, lots of the usual tension. Yet he wanted it to go somewhere he didnt, and they broke up, and he got mad and went home. So fast forward to 1943. He has gone home, the war has started, and his dad who was well connected who knew somebody who knew somebody got him a job with the oss, the office of strategic services, wild bill donovans organization that was a predecessor to the cia. So meanwhile, and so then since they, you know, when he had his interview, they asked him, well, what have you done in life . Well, i hitchhiked around, i spent some time in iran. Okay, youre going back to iran. So he ends up back in iran. Back in his, this little thing going on with his wouldbe girlfriend. Well, i wont get in i dont want to spoil it. Its in the book. Meanwhile, ida has befriended another polish refugee girl, somewhat younger. Her name is wanda pollack, and she works for a swiss businessman named ernst mercer. Well, mercer is an interesting character, as was the case so often with the International Businessmen in the 1930s as the 1930s became the 1940s. He was a double agent. He was recruited in the 1930s by the German Military intelligence and hired on with them and started supplying them with information because he was, he moved between europe and the middle east with his business dealings. So he was, he was able to supply them with a lot of information. Meanwhile, he had as a, as a young man he had studied in england, and he had the same kind of affinity for the british that cicero had a dislike for the british. He was quite an anglophile. He didnt mention that in his interview with the, with the German Military intelligence. And he met, he met an english playwright named somerset molm. [inaudible] yep. And he was, he spent time in switzerland, and it was while he was in switzerland he, these two crossed paths, and molm said, well, you might want to, might want to take a look at doing some, doing some work for mi6. And he jumped at the chance. So thats how ernst mercer became a double agent. And he had employed this younger polish girl as a housekeeper at his house, and she worked there, and she was befriended by ida, and she became part of this circle of friends, this small group of young people who would hang out, and theyd go to coffee shops and bars like young people do. Just part of that social scene. And, well, one day it was a nice day. It was a day not unlike today here in millie valley. It was late september, and nice fall day, beautiful fall day. Decided that they were going to go for a picnic. And so this group of friends went to a park on the edge of town for a picnic. They were having a good time. They were probably drinking a Little Something or other, and, you know, getting a little bit relaxed, and they noticed that, wheres wanda . Wanda was gone. Oh, yeah, she said she was going to go take a walk. Well, how long ago was that . She certainly should be back by now. But she wasnt. So they went to look for her. And they looked high and low, and they couldnt find her. Finally, they found somebody who said, oh, yeah, we saw a girl like that, and there were these russian guys pushing her into a car. So the nkvd dragnet which was very indiscriminate they just picked up every second man and a lot of women that had worked in the receive crete on you item soviet union in 1937, it ought to work here in tehran in 1943. So they were just picking people up at random. So they went back to ernst mercer, and they said our friends been taken by the soviets. What are we going to do . Can you help us . And he said, all right. Im going to, im going to, ill make a call. Ill call a few people, i know some people that know some people. So he called his contact with mi6 at the British Embassy in tehran and said, well, this thing happened, what do you know . The guy said, okay, i can find out, and he found out. Well, i am sorry to say that your friend is in nkvd custody at such and such a place. Remember, they set up these jails and dungeons all over town when they swept in to sweep the town clean in advance of the big three summit. So, yep, shes in jail at this particular address, and its the nkvd, and you i hate to say it, but youve got to kiss this girl goodbye. So mercer came back to this little circle of friends, and he said thats the situation. Im sorry, nothing we can do. So ferguson, this cowboy, he says we cant let this stand. He was an oss agent, and he had learned, he had learned his trade, his spycraft trade the way a lot of these young oss men did in those days, by watching the movies. And he knew what you needed to do, were going to break her out of jail. I mean, this was a soviet dungeon. [laughter] this doesnt work. So they knew a guy who knew a guy, and the guy there was this iranian martial arts guy who, he was one of those guys who knows everybody in town. So they set up a ruse which lured the guards away, and they got, they went to the jail. It was lightly forwarded. They broke in, they found wanda in her cell, and they got her out. And as they were taking her out of this dungeon, you know . You can picture this in the movie now. Youve seen these scenes where theyre taking her out of this dark dungeon, somebody says, well, you know, if we take just her, or theyll know that we came for her, and shell be in big trouble when she gets out. We gotta let everybody go. So they just went around opening cells. They let everybody that the nkvd had swept up and thrown into this particular jail, they let em all out. And ernst mercer is standing there watching all of this, and all of a sudden hes and hes being a german speaking swiss, he was multilingual, but he was speaking to his friends in germanaccented english. All of a sudden he hears somebody behind him whos speaking german. And he turns around, and hes greeted in german by Walter Shellenbergs operation long jump advance man who had parachuted into the desert outside of tehran, had gotten into the city and had been picked up in one of these sweeps. The nkvd had no idea who he was. He was just some guy that spoke german. And they had no idea that he was the advance man for this, the thing they were guarding against most. And so he gets let out of jail. And this is where the story really gets interesting. This is where it gets really interesting. But i dont want to spoil it, so im going to [laughter] so im, i will entertain questions. Thank you. [applause] i had a question. Yes, sir. [inaudible] in the yeah. He was part of the, he was one of the ss he was, otto skorsini, the label he enjoyed the most, in fact he used it for his memoirs, was the most dangerous man in europe. He was probably the most, the most ruthless and most effective of the, of the ss special Operations Team leaders. In fact, when the allies invaded italy and the king decided to end the fascist government, they put mousse lipny under mu