Thank you christina. I was in the enemys house and also the night of the assassins and remember last year it seems like in a year ago before the sequestering part of a previous lifetime, last year when i was working on the assassins, i spent a lot of time reading about world war ii, i tried to put myself in the shoes of the people i was reading about, and to protect one family and protect myself. And they found the perseverance, the fortitude to get through events is who i am now, where i wrote my book and if you hear noises in the background, those are not horns, is a college hilltop in connecticut and hopefully that will not be a thunderstorm. But through the writing i would spend a good view of my time wishing that i could understand what it was like to live in world war ii. In the empathy and what its like to live with the constant sense of uncertainty. What its like to live not knowing whats going to happen next and what its like to live through great unknown. Now its previously unimagined a year later and all i can say is be careful what you wish for. Im not saying the battle against the pandemic is the same as fighting world war ii, there is not another nation trying to conquer us, there is not another nation trying to take her treasure and rephase our philosophy with its own and were in a fight for our lives in a fight for countries future to see how america can get through this crisis and we will persevere, how it will adapt. And central to both world war ii and today by navigating these problems, we turn toward leade leaders, we look to them to ensure that we can manage today that we still have jobs, paychecks will come in and we look to them to the future to ensure that america will persevere in america can adapt to the challenges that we will face in the years ahead. Today i think more than ever, we can understand how important leadership is to a nation at a time of crisis. The story i want to tell tonight is the story of world war ii, previously largely a known story about how three allied leaders, fdr, churchill and stalin were put in harms way, it is a story about realization that can come up with a secret plot and he came to the conclusion that he was losing on the battlefield but there were some way out of this, some desperation strategy that could help they came up with a secret plan, secret mission, a mission to target the three ally leaders, fdr, churchill and stalin at the conference. The assassins, especially trained team of ss commandos by the manly allies identified as the most dangerous men in europe, the stakes like there was nothing less then the future of the world and one man mike riley was 33yearold head of fdr secret Service Details and he had to find the ingenuity and the courage to prevent an assassination that couldve changed the course of history. Fdr announced they would fight until churchill, the nazis, japan once this condition is laid down and become conventional surrender was made, the nazis realized they had suddenly turned to sand. At this point the command had come to the realization that beforthewar couldnt be won on e battlefield. The allies had invaded north africa. America was coming into the floor with troops and airplanes, the nazis however were now going to engage in a very pragmatic endgame strategy. They hoped they could snatch a stalemate for the defeat. They believed they would get a negotiated peace with the allies and in this piece, they would be able to keep their territories that they had one in Eastern Europe and they would be able to survive. Now that fdr had announced to the surrender, they realized it that was impossible. They realized that ultimately, they would have to answer to the tribunal that would stand before the court and they would have to pay for their crimes against humanity, attacks against civilians and they would pay with their lives. It is also was also a student f history. They knew the last time the surrender had been given it must be destroyed and was destroyed and that is what they realized what happened to germany unless something could be done. In july, 1943, two men walked into the hotel on a estes street and walked past the bar and went to a private. Its usually filled with typical taxi dancers, teenagers and younger would get paid to dance with those whose boyfriends or husbands were away fighting entities belonged to the hotel. The top spymasters secrets the two men were at the head of section six of an attack or obligations and that this was general walter schomburg im a 33yearsold, pragmatic man and the men he me man he met with hd enough to be his father. He was the head of the traditional military intelligence effort. The two men wanted to talk and begin to discuss in an Impossible Mission and how they could target the allied leaders. Theyve been talking about having a conference. And immediately asked the discussion began, they realized the problems they faced. While the allies said they wanted to be together, there was no data that was known. And even if the aide had been sent and determined, the allies were not revealing this and the spymasters wondered if they could even get this information through. The second problem, both the allies commanding with the greatest Standing Army in the world that was heavily guarded wherever they decided to meet and that brought the third problem, they needed a plan. If they didnt know where they would meet or when, how could they sneak up on them and make it a Strategic Plan . Yet at the same time they revolved. The result is the antidote to the plot that killed the allied leaders. Then september 12, 1943 just a tweak later or so, something happened that gave them hope. Another mission succeeded. 12 blighters fell down out of the sky above a mountain and theyd come to rescue mussolini and the man leading them. He was a fascinating figure, he had a scar on his cheek that he was proud of and he was a very inventive commander who headed a special publications just outside of the concentration camp and he was totally devastated. They came to him and said i want you to lead a mission to get mussolini out of the hands of the battalions that are imprisoning him. But we all know the italian dictator as the world is turning against italy, the powers by the Italian Government they would put it in this mountaintop fortress and kept him there until their decision on what to do with him. He looked at this and it was very daunting. The only way up the mountain with a single cable car and he was surrounded by the battalion of italian troops. You couldnt draw pair of troopers out of the sky. The mountaintop was a small area that you couldnt land the plane. So he came up with this idea of coming up with blighters. The other seven were blown off course and crashed. Five gliders came in on the mountaintop. He leads his men to the fortress of mussolini and the italians give up without much of a fight. The nights later there is scorsese bringing mussolini to hitler and hitler is overjoyed, scorsese get promoted to major and afterwards told them i want you to head operation long jump. Another Impossible Mission to target the allied leaders. She takes this challenge and is now famous to the world. The press is calling him the most dangerous. He assembles his team but he still has a major problem. He doesnt know where or when or if the meeting is going to take place. Oddly enough, in the fall of 1943, that is the same problem facing fdr. On november 2, if the articles into the oval office mike bradley, the head of the secret Service Detail and gives him a special mission. He wants them to find out if a meeting is going to take place. Bradley is a hero of my story, the night of the assassins. She gets the job in charge of fdr security at 31yearsold, former Football College store in montana. He takes the job two days after pearl harbor and is immediately overwhelmed, he describes himself as an irish cop and the obstacles that he faced were tremendous. This was the first word of the bombers across the ocean and washington, d. C. With paratroopers dropping out of the sky on the white house lawn and there was Something Else that made regarding roosevelt such a challenge. Fdr was quite literally a sitting target with allies from the waist down paralyzed from the waist down he couldnt move and bradley knew if fdr were hit in the crosshairs of an assassin he would likely have to put his body in front of fdr, and he was willing to do this. He would have to take the bullet. He called fdr with great affection and respect and they were quite close. But this morning on november 2, fdr tells him i want you to go to the airport in morocco and you are going to need some money and he will give you the information on whether or not there is a meeting and where it is going to take place, and if it is going to take place, you better go check it out. Fdr was sort of the spymaster in chief and four days later, from this mining town in montana shed been at the airport in morocco. A car pulls up with soldiers on the front seat. He finds the agent but hes supposed to meet. It seems hes in moscow for the past five days and is waiting to see if they can work out a plan for the meeting. General hall turns to him and says its going to be in tehran. When he hears this he has to thought. We have to scope out the place and a key has to go looking for a map. Meanwhile as he is finding out that this meeting is taking place and then, they are finding out that approximately the same time the spy is a walking, which is an interesting operative in intelligence circles. Everyone dislikes him because he bears gifts you didnt ask for and you dont know why hes bringing this information. It saves money, is a loose cannon and it makes spy agencies the most suspicious and the most weary is if he is a double agent bringing misinformation to send you on the wrong path. And to the german embassy, a man comes about 5foot three and says hes the British Ambassador and each night he goes to sleep he has the key to the British Ambassador safe and he can get diplomatic traffic and each time, he wants 20,000 british pounds. That is worth about [inaudible] today. They cannot make up their mind what to do. Do they trust this guy or not, and hes asking for a lot of money. Finally, the head of the ss special cloak and dagger operation decides we will get him counterfeit money and they have the ss together 20,000 pounds. They play with counterfeit money and take this document and later he writes the documents were so good that the spy is the code name cicero after the famous oligarch because the documents were so eloquent. And from these documents, they find out with mike riley found out. They know that the big three are meeting in tehran in the last week of november. When schellenberg and the nazi high command find this out, they now have two pieces of the puzzle that they can use. They know where and when fdr, churchill and stalin are meeting. But it is even greater because of Something Else. The allies since the beginning of the war, since 1940, the german intelligence has been sending agents into tehran to have a network of spies put up. They have safehouses established and communication systems. And there is even more than that. Over the past three months, they have been sending sabotage teams into iran. They take off in a secret base while they jump out of the sky and try to sabotage the allied material. Even better than that, the man in charge of this mission is alex scorsese, the very man that is heading the operation long jump. The german high command, the operational guys dont crash this mission, they will succeed. Meanwhile, mike has gone to tehran to check it out. He lands at the airport and the first thing he sees at the airport in tehran is the star control by Russian Troops and the russians are Walking Around with machine guns and they may be our allies pay are not our friends. He didnt likshe didnt like thr being surrounded by machine guns. Then he goes to visit the American Embassy where fdr is going to stay. There is a high wall with troops surrounded and fdr would be safe. Then he goes to visit the british and Russian Embassy. On the other side of town for miles away and they share a compound with gardens and large buildings. He realizes fdr would be having to travel back and forth through the twisting streets of tehran where there could be snipers in the crowd were on the roof or in a window and hes scared stiff. As he tours the city, Something Else strikes and something i think we can all identify with these days, theres an invisible enemy. Tehran is a hot zone. Gunners have been carved out. [inaudible] typhoid is raging everywhere and with fdrs immune system weakened because of his polio and mike is quite fearful. But he then learns that there are three places in iran where they could get fresh water. The American Embassy to the British Embassy and the Russian Embassy. The american engineers, when they came to the country they dug tunnels in the mountains under the city to these embassies and these water tunnels bring fresh water daily and mike breathes a sigh of relief but its only later he realizes how dangerous those water tunnels can be. So, ten days later, the allies on november 27 come to tehran. Theres no press involved there is a ceremony at the airport and on the way into the embassy [inaudible] churchill later says that he approaches the British Embassy within open top car and its caught in traffic. Hes just sitting there looking at his watch and scared stiff. He feels this has all been planned to put him in the most danger it couldnt have been more successfully planned. Of course hes being sarcastic. The obligation to get fdr to the city goes without a hitch and hes taken to the American Embassy, he settles in, hes on the second floor of the American Embassy and mike is feeling good about things. He gets a message there is a russian general downstairs waiting to see him. Mike goes downstairs. The general, the head of the nk bd, a precursor to the kgb secret intelligence service. Mike assumes the general is there to tell him stalin has arrived at the Russian Embassy, but mike takes one look at the general and realizes something is very wrong. The russian general tells him last night 38 nazi commanders came down out of the sky on a mission to kill the big three. And mike, his heart stops as he describes it in his memoirs. The first thing he can say he realizes he asks a silly question are you sure there were just 38, yes we caught them all and interrogated them quite thoroughly, the general explains. And mike has a vision in his mind of what it must have been like a but hes not too sorry because his whole responsibility is to protect the loss to the co boss. Then the general says theres Something Else. The man we interrogated, six commanders came in on a separate plane. They are loose in the city and have a mission to kill the big three can fdr, churchill and stalin. When mike heard this, his blood ran cold. For the next four days at the conference it is a cat and mouse game between mike lowry overcoming his animosity trying to get these six commandos, well trained, well armed with their plan in a city of 1 Million People they are going from house to house, to the bizarre looking for them and it comes down to the ninth of november 30, churchills 69th birthday party. Thereheres a picture from a photograph in my book you can see fdr, churchill and stalin sitting shoulder to shoulder at this dinner at the British Embassy on the night in tehran you can see the birthday cake and almost hear their voices singing happy birthday to churchill and at that moment, six nazi assassins are trying to make their way through the water tunnels to sneak into the embassy grounds, break into the dining room and change history. What happens . It all works out. They are not filled and the allies in the war. Bulet me take you back to the tehran conference. December 17, 1943. In the oval office fdr had just come back from overseas and is giving the First Press Conference of what happened in tehran. They had been talking of agreements made and 20 minutes into the conference, you could hear it except the fdr president ial library in hyde park he says we had a bit of a security problem. I had to move from the American Embassy to stay at the Russian Embassy because there were six nazi commandos on the loose. Then he gives a laugh, one of his funny laughs and says it would have been pretty good if they had gotten all three of us. The press joins in and what is most amazing and again you can see it on the recording come fdr then says let me tell you about china and there is no followup question, as if operation long jump, this plot to kill the big three was just a big rumor. There were some interviews people using pseudonyms after the war but then in 2003, the soviet secret Intelligence Agency released a treasure trove of classified documents about what happened in tehran and there was a young man barely 20yearsold at the time they pd a role in stopping the attack in the mike bradley interviews, and i was able to get a hold of those documents. They have been translated and i read through memoirs, newspapers and american archives, british archives, german archives to put all the pieces together to toe the true story of what happened that week in tehran and the true story of operation long jump. Let me circle back to what i said at the beginning. We are living in a time now where we can understand how important it is to get us through this crisis and prepare the future. The lack of leadership can be problematic and we also are living through a time that they have experienced how life can change just like that into these experiences that we have had in recent days i think make us understand the that night in tehran denies the assassins try to make their way into churchills 69th birthday. Thank you. Is starting now it is our summer series that features programs with wellknown authors from our archives