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 who were buying illegally buying weapons from corrupt marines. Who got ahold of some marine i guess would be navy surplus selling it to them. They were drilling in san diego getting ready to take over the armory there, and then he asked lewiss spies at four veterans who were officer and highly placed to get the blueprints to the armory in l. A. And told them my idea is on the same day were going to have a combination of nazis and all three cities. Silver shirts, and nazi vessels that are board all had storm troopers on them therm going to coming on to the land and join with these people to take over the armories and three cities and they promised that they would any officer who soldier who agreed to join them would change sides anyone who told them no would be shot on the spot. Would they have done this . Well, i can tell you this san diego wases getting ready for it. Because eventually leon lewis contacted Naval Intelligence but his first stop was to police chief james davis, head of the los angeles police. And leon lewis starts telling them about this and he says he writes memo afterwards two minutes into my talk daviss stopped me an said you dont get it hitler is doing right thing in germany hes doing what he has to do because jews are totally ruined his economy. And that the real enemy and real danger in america are not nazis in fascists here. The real danger in l. A. Are in boyle heightses where all of those communists are and he basically told lewis as far as he was concerned every communist wases a jew. And every jew was a communist. And he had he wasnt going to do anything. Lewis then went to the sheriff. [inaudible conversations] told them the same thing. And for them i understand that the Sheriffs Department and the Police Department at this point had had quite a few nazi supporters in one case one of the sheriffs captains was a nazi working with leo maclachlan so they went to the fbi. And the fbi said we cant do anything unless were order from washington jay did not order his local bureau to investigate herman the head of the bunged in l. A. The head of the entire Western Region of the german american bund and number two nazi in America Hoover did not order him put under surveillance until the middle of november 1941. Were going to have a pop quiz if you know what happened three weeks later. We need to [laughter] we need to open this up to questions and just a minute. But one of the things i would like to ask about couple of other things to ask about so weve got the police chief the sheriff, the gi, refuse to do anything about this. There are a few good guys in your story. Yes. The goodest of the good guys would be comangder ellison who was a rare animal who was a jew who graduated in app on the west coast looked over the information that leon lewis had been sending him and was shocked that they werent paying closer attention because everything lewis sent him turned out to be true. And so he was lewiss closest ally and indirect ally lewis had an associate spy mast or joe, who had begun spying with his uncle klein while they were living in chicago. He was austrian born berlin raised uncle klein was chicago born berlin raised living julius was living in germany during world war i with sent to a camps caned and then went back as a spy to the u. S. Army. When he went to chicago he and his nephew started spying on their own on nazis in chicago in late 3233. So much so that ruess who was working for the newspapers his editor found out o about this and said i want you to go talk to our publisher roy keaton who is head of the entire illinois National Guard. And imagine this 55 very shy jew with bottle neck glasses and a very heavy accent goes into talk to the publisher scared to death, the publisher says is all of this true he says yes and he gives them a piece of paper he says i want you to go to this hotel in chicago youre going meet with the military man whatever he tells you to do you do. And now im ordering you as head of the National Guard and dont worry about your newspaper assignments. So he goes to the Bismarck Hotel and hen meets with army colonel he tells colonel, everything that was going that he and his uncle had been doing and colonel said you guys are amazing but you have no training im turning you over to some of my e lead forces to train you in counterespionage so trained in counterespionage well that colonel did okay for himself his name was george c. Marshall he was head of the army he became head of Army Intelligence and eventually secretary of state marshal and from 1933 on from that moment, ruess and his uncle julius klein kept sending george c. Marshall reports on nazi afnghts you go to the papers i know you can all go there after you get out of here. I found those reports there. He was sending them through the end of the war, and ruesss uncle julius klein rose up to be high test ranking jew in the army as a Brigadier General by the end of the war. My last question before we open it up. I i know that this this story has a personal angle for you. My parents were both survivors. My father had been in the war car ghetto and when that was shutdown by the nazis he was shipped off to how my mother been in the large ghetto and when that was destroyed she was sent to and they asked for volunteers to go to a work camp and told them that whatever which ever Women Volunteer were give you a shower and we knew what the shower meant. Everyone knew what that was after three days if this is what life was going to be like i wanted a shower. And so she volunteered and she said the fact that all of these women were standing naked hugging one another with our last breath. The fact that none of us had a heart attack when water came out of the shower heads and not gas is amazing. And she was sent to bergen it shall and then it a munition camp to the rest of the war. And my parents met in munich after the war and came to america. And the opening of my prologue is about listening to my mother every single night throughout my childhood tell me her nightmares about coming to our home and either taking her away or my sister and i. So we are very my city and i are typical Second Generation children suffering from the neuroses as well as the energy of to achieve that Second Generation children especially if your Second Generation first born boy well steve thank you for your energy and thank you for this bock an thank you for talking about it tonight its an incredible story, and you ever done a fantastic job of after kiefl research as well as story telling. We have a few minutes for questions here. You all know the rules about about questions. If you have a question let me just say that the question let people know that our goal here is to have the questions be actually questions rather than statements. Thank you very much. We would like you to speak into the microphone for our audience and heres the microphone. Wife someone from the front this is our microphone. This is being taped for cspan so if you for booktv if you have a question if you can come up to the mic. Rks so i have a question contrary to what john is instructing by thanking you for doing this i thought this was wonderful and i am always made better by the opportunity to listen to o brilliant people telling interesting stories about important things. So thank you very much. Speaking of stories your book provides some of the few positive anecdotes about the movie moguls like louie mayor and jack wariner i wonder if you can a little bit about perhaps their mixed motives in assisting leon lewis, and talk about how they got started and where it went and second part of my overlong question here is, could you also discuss the importance of leadership and whether you think this could have nazis in los angeles occurred without hey, man to take the lead would have been a respond spontaneous kindf operation if it wasnt a great leader. To answer second question first no it would not take you need leadership. One thing im convinced now is you need leadership no matter how democratic your organization is there needs to be somebody when occupy wall street one of the reason that fell apart. It wanted to be as democratic as you could be with no leaders but there has to be leaderses im sorry. Leon lewis was a reluctant leader he never wanted to be one but he was one and he did it for all of those years now i forgot the first part of the question. Oh the moguls. Yeah. Well part of this is theres a book that kale out a very bad book that came out in 2013 called collaboration hollywood back with hitler that my friends and i agree that if this man had been one with of ow ph. D. Students, he never would have published that dissertation. It is a paleological dissertation he basically writes it from the point of view of knowing the holocaust happenedded why didnt moguls do more to stop it. Thats his take and that they collaborate because they stayed in business with nazis they were collaborators. Well its an a historical point of view. And he also got the moguls totally wrong. Which is the moguls first of all, hollywood is first and foremost in the money making business not the conscienceness raising business. When the book came out o i got interviewed bid New York Times and first question they asked me wases really pissed me off was dont you think moguls were guilty of collaboration i said why dont you start by asking me ill l deal with that but first ask me was i beyond guilty of collaboration where chemicals guilty of collaboration wases ford guilty of collaboration was u. S. Steel guilty of collaboration . All of these people were supplying the german war machine with machinery. Ed jews were making movies it is antisemitic attack they were doing business. But heres the thing, they were also representing corporations for geds good and for bad but they didnt like it. Leon lewis as i mention never expected to be a spy mast or he did not start this as a vigilante organization. Its one of the things where people ask me what should we do . Should we, you know, start aspiring like leon lewis i think it is a very dangerous thing to recommend in part because three of his spies died under very suspicious circumstances. And im convinced at least two of the three were killed. Once with leon lewis realized there wasnt help from agency you could get people to listen to you later on but that took years he had to do it on his own and given up law practs and out of money he was running this out of his own pocket. And finally he turned to three friends. One the most powerful Entertainment Industry in the United States and also one of the five most powerful people in the republican party. One who went in smoke filled room to decide who is the republican president ial candidate second person he went toes was a good friend irving and mgm and third was rabbi head of the most powerful temple in los angeles. Wilshire boulevard temple, and leon went to them and said im running out of money. Were going to have to stop this because were with paying our spies a small. Because most of them the nazis wanted them because they were following the same strategy as hitler did in the 20s. Hitler recruited brown shirts out of world war i veterans who were angry with the swrer German Government for cutting their benefits well as soon as roosevelt came into office in march 9 they cut the benefits of veterans from ad to 100 a month to 20 a month. And those veterans were really angry and the germans they could get world war i veterans angry with their government they didnt realize they were even more angry with foreign nation coming in and telling them what to do. Anyway, theyre running out of money lewis turns to the three guys and says you have to help. So they in turn particularly who was he made lew look like a piker. He was the most powerful person in hollywood. Who he told 40 mogul studio head major producers directors show ups at Hillcrest Country Club on march 15th i think it was 19 34 for secret meeting they all show up and they have no idea why theyre there but they know he says go, you go. They walk into is a private room, all 40 of them and intront of they will table are two issues of the silver shirt magazines both filled with the most antisemitic articles particularly going after the mowing mogul drawing with book hook nose and u drawing of the moguls salivating over Young Christian looking women and theyre looking at this and you can only imagine their eyes going up. But what really shocks them he starts off by saying to them this is only the tip of the iceburg. Do you know that senate subsidies and fascist have invaded your studios and you are unaware of it . And they were like what well his spies reported below 80 personnel 80 they were the trigs, the grips, lighting people, carpenters, et cetera. That the foreman in every one of the studios many of them were member of the silver shirt and they were firing off the of the jewish employees and it had gotten to a point where paramount was mgm almost 100 , and columbia studio all of the others with and hes saying this is going on and your studio and none of you are aware of this, and let me you Something Else these sip people are plotting to kill you. Well by the end of the evening he walked out in the equivalent of todays dollars which is like 400 grand, and moguls rest of their spy operation mogul underwrote the entire operation. And they had no doubts that they ever have doubts after at one point leon lewis had his spies penetrate sod deeply that one of his spies he recruited a former secretary of the bunged who was now angry at the bunged who planted a tape recorder in hermans office. And at one point he brought together a dozen mogul and played them a tape recording of the plot to murder them this was the hanging plot and as joseph ruess reported in his memoir unpublished memoir, what took them aback more than anything else was that nazis were talking about murdering them as, though, they were talking about going to a sunday picnic. No emotion, youre going to do this youre going to bring this and youre going to do that and then theyll all be dead so mowing moguls, in fact, and only time in several thousand years that jews kept the important secret. It never got out and ive written a lot about hollywood in the 30s and 40s. I never come across a mention had of the spiring or of the jews funding. Thats how tight lipped they were when it really mattered. More question was it that you were shy to come up here in 1922 they did a major raid in where they discovered Something Like was it 120 people in the Sheriffs Department that belong to the clan but the clan was still very active particularly in long beach and, in fact, john was eluding before to the identity of this spies one of the two key spies was charles who had been a major leader of the ku klux klan in long beach until he had a change of heart. He still was anticommunist had you but no longer abide hating of jews of catholics of other up gross. Because he felt they were still americans i may not love these people with but be theyre americaned and he was disgusted what clan was doing but he never told anybody through the 1940s until the end of the were war he told no one he was part of this undercover operation so his friends apparently were perplexed they didnt understand how could this good wholesome american guy be not only a member was clan but he rose up he never quit the clan but he was recruiting officer for the Southern California clan. He was also he rose up to leadership positions and a number of these smaller fascist groups, and he worked very closely with silver shirts with head of the silver shirts for los angeles ken i. T. Xangdzer they were part of the second plot to kill the 24 hollywood figures. And so heres a true hero a man who was hated by his friends for most of his life until he finally revealed what he had really been doing but even then it never got publicized. These people leon lewis joe ruess, chuck, went to their death never telling their stories to anyone publicly. It was a need to know basis. And leon lewis and joe ruess never told anyone because they were afraid and, i mean, this is how this is how scared they were 37 joe ruess lived until his early 90s worked for sc and gave a testimony to the Sheller Foundation would have been im going to guess in the 80s or so and i watched that testimony. And at one point the interviewer says to him so mr. Ruess what happened to your spy and joe ruess literally jumped out of o his seat freaked out and he said how do you know that name . How do you know that name is where did you hear that and he was so upset and woman said well, he testified before in 1939 ruess had forgotten it but i interviewed his son who told me his father never told him anything about what he and leon lewis were with doing he said only thing his father told him was he said do you remember one day when you were a boy i came home and i told you i tripped in front of the house and my face bruised he said yeah you broke your glasses no actually i got jumped by two nazis they were beaghts me and probably would have to death but a car came by and slowed down, and you know, so what was going on here and they ran away. Leon lewis never told his family and ruess and chuck i dont think told his family until after the war. [inaudible conversations] the question was in taking over the armories in San Francisco l. A. And san diego was this a harebrain scheme or was it being ordered by germany . Germany wasnt ordering any of these plots because as i discovered germany in germany hitler wanted to keep america neutral and he had knew if there were these crazy plots in americans were killed that it could be traced back to nazis American Public opinion would turn. So he didnt start sending my guess well i know this for sure he didnt start sending agents who were checking out airplane facilities for sabotage until roughly 1940. So these were all plots started by local well german who were the main german math subsidies and by american fascist who absolutely believed that america was so semitic that so Many Americans hated jews if somebody had courage to start killing jews in a major city and if you did it in three cities simultaneously this would encourage and give backbone to all of those antisemis out there who are too afraid that they believe they wrote this its in the spy reports they believed it would set off throughout the entire United States. And that at the very least if jews wrnght all killed they would be force od to plea america now thats a little fantastic. But they were prepared to do it. Worked up to crystal question. The question is do u draw any parallels between my book then and whats going on now . No. Because im a his hadtorian. But i have drawn parallels ive written a few opeds in the last few weeks i have one l. A. Times from a few weeks eying and one last week in the washington post. Thats why it seems to be appropriate to draw the parallel. And the main parallel i would draw is that we are facing the same question that really forebearers from 30s and 40s in l. A. Faced which is what do you do when had hate groups move from the margins to mainstream and when government authorities seem even complaisant or complicit what to do . The first thing you say is there arent good people on both sides. Im sorry, there are no good math subsidies. There are no good White Supremacists there are no good silver shirts there are no good hate had amongers all of these people are filled with hate. I dont have an answer but the answer is what leon showed us is need to be vigilant and whats amazing to me is leon lewis used most powerful weapon that we command which is our brain. He foiled all of these plots without ever firing gun. None of his spies ever fired a weapon some of them carried guns. Because they had been threatened by nazis. Because the nazis refer to leon lewis as most dangerous jew in los angeles. And they knew senate disco and silver shirts and groups they knew that leon lewis had penetrated their organization. And in fact i just did something with take two this shot outside the office at 7 27 west 7th street. And i pointed out to him that there would be days where either bungt or silver shirts would send over somebody to stand across the street watching the entrance to leon lewiss office. Because they wanted to see if anyone they knew in there and if they could identify they know know who the spy was but they were never able to do it and leon lewis king thely outsmarted him but the message i think if he was here today is you have to say no to hate. When you hear hate speech, you know not all of us are going to go undercover not a lot of are going to do these heroic things but heroism isnt of a massive scale heroism can just be you hear somebody saying hateful things and you turn to them and you say thats not okay. We ep dont talk that way we hear of a demonstration by hate group. Go to the demonstration but dont go prepare ared for violation. Go and show your where opposition but you go saying were prepared to engage in violation, then i think you just demean your own cause. And then people see youre no better than had them it is about vigilance and paying attention. And even things like taking a knee. At a Football Game which people are mocking it is not about about the flag that is distraction but lack of democracy and those of you watching world series having a baseball player for those of you not following it on houston team after hit a home run after he made a gesture raising eyes like this which the fans in houston began to do and baseball commissioner rather than having guts to suspend him right now suspended him for next year for five games thats not okay when you hear hate, when you hear that kind of racism or prejudice you speak up. To me thats the lesson you speak up. Question oh, could you come up here to the mic . A local fascist leaders nazis, used for i assume they were to defend after wars they disappeared do they try . Thats a good question the two leaders herman head nazi and had his number one guy hans arrested december 8th, 1941 and imprisoned. Neither of saw light of day until hans i couldnt get his i dont know exactly when he was tossed out of the country but around 1946 and he was sent back to germany. Herman was kept in jail until 1947 when he agreed to join his buddies in argentina. And his american wife american born wife have been waiting for him patiently went to argentina after a year she had enough of life in argentina came back to florida and he followed a little while later decided he would rather live with his wife then fellow senate subsidies. But the irony is herman died in 1973 in dade county, florida surround by my parents and all of the survivors in the most heavily survivor county i believe in the United States. I think one of the great ironies of life. Thank you [inaudible conversations] thank you so much for doing this. Thank you all for coming tonight. [applause] [inaudible conversations] booktv has covered several books about adolf hitler and world war ii if topic interest you visit booktv drg and search hitler book or world war ii book several programs appear and watch them all online. Booktv tapes hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long. Heres a look at some of the events well be covering this week. Monday were in pasadena, california, to hear priest Gregory Boyle talk about his experiences working with gang members. Then on tuesday, well be in washington, d. C. At the smithsonian richly center where physicist explores the friendship between scientists richard and john wheeler. Were many mountain view, california wednesday at the Computer History Museum to historian leslie offer thoughts how Silicon Valley became center of technological intervention tuesday at the president ial library in hyde park, new york. Where Roosevelt Institute resident historian david will recount final 100 days of Franklin Roosevelts life and presidency. And we wrap up the week on friday at the National Constitution center in philadelphia for the annual bill of right day suppose. Many of these events are are open to the public look for them to air in the near future on booktv on cspan2. Sunday at 7 p. M. Eastern, on booktv on cspan2, former Senior Advisor to secretary of state Rex Tillerson discussing had his book Digital World war islam extremist and fight for supreme city. Congress is King Distribution is queen and she wears pants in the family and if you think about that, you know, the way i like to think about isis and others is that you know, its were in a con tengt war. Then at 8 former msnbc news anchor with everything you need to know about social media without having to call a kid. Everybody can get together and join together to do incredible things and if theres stories in the book about what others are done with social media. And social media its not really new. All whats new is Delivery Platform we have smoke signal and see smoke signal the telephone line everybody on the block will get on the phone. You know what so different is everything is amplified in materials of how far you reach and, of course, the speed of the communication. For full schedule go to booktv. Org. Good morning everyone im a member of the event staff here, and i would like to welcome you all this evening to project and pros tonight were here to listen to abigail talk about her ne b