Booksusan cole from folio and we are thrilled to have one of our local authors here tonight. Bill yenne is the author of more than a dozen nonfiction books as well as novels. He has written numerous books on military history and recently released a book called, hit the target, which we have over here. Related to the eighth air force. Tonight, we are honored to have bill to discuss his latest book with us, operation long jump. Bill yenne. [applause] thanks to paula, who is not here, and john, who is. Thanks to all of you for coming out. Sitting down and listening to my story. Stories are almost as fun to write about as they are to read. That is not true. They are more fun to write about. [laughter] bill an assassination anspiracy story, seem to have special residence and people get excited and interested in that stuff. I am here to talk about what i am maintaining is the largest assassination conspiracy in history. Churchill, roosevelt, stalin, in ,ne room, with three bullets and the course of World History is changed. The lincoln conspiracy was a pretty big deal in 1865. But the war was over by that time. It was directed at the leadership of only one country. Conspiracy was aimed at the three allied powers of world war ii, at the three men and their staff, who , whonded 70 million troops were against the armies of the third reich. That made it an especially big conspiracy. At a hard time for the allies, unlike the situation in 1865 when the war was over. This took place in 1943. It was the year of the turning point of world war ii, although you would not have known that to look at the situation on the battle fronts. The germans had been defeated at stalingrad, but still in control of a huge slice of the western soviet union. 200 miles from leningrad, kyiv they still controlled all of western europe, or virtually all of it. Allies hadmerican kicked out of north africa. They invaded italy and were expecting to make steady progress against the germans and that peninsula by november of 1943, when this takes place. They had one into a literal stonewall in the form of the gustav line and had been hung up in a precarious position. Situation of the war at that time. Allies that were allied against the third reich, britain, u. S. , and soviet union, former two,of the churchill and roosevelt, met several times, in washington a couple of times, in quebec, casablanca. But they wanted to get together with stalling. They 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. I actually had access to some of , ordiplomatic cables virtually all the diplomatic cables running back and forth between these three guys. Them at crafted them into a conversation, more of an argument, between the big three. Roosevelt said, joe, we would like to get together, why dont you and i meet in alaska . Joe said no. Roosevelt and churchill got together and asked stalin, they said, we will meet in cairo, we have a conference in cairo coming up in november. Why dont you come down and meet with us there . Joe said no. Churchill got biblical and ked about there being about setting up three tents in the is or in the desert in iraq and having each of the big three in a tent and having their meeting there. Joe said no. Irananted to meet in because it was close to the soviet union. He wanted to meet close to the soviet union because there were people inside his government that he did not trust. It, there wasof nobody in his government that he did trust. He did not want to go far from home. Told,her thing often not stalin and the list of fun facts of the least fun man is he was afraid of flying. He did not want to go too far. His trip to tehran was his only airplane fight ever airplane flight ever. Decidedefused, but they meeting stalin was worth it. 1943, date set. Meanwhile, inside the third reich, a guy named walter ranllenberg, the guy who the Covert Operations Division of the ss, he got this idea that, maybe we should try to take them out. One room, three bullets. He cooked up this scheme to assassinate the big three. In fact, he had started to organize his hit teams. The problem was, he did not know where or when this would take place. The allies argued about it until six weeks before the conference. Nobody knew where it would be. He certainly did not. Schellenberg got a phone call. Named alyssaian bonds a. Said, i hate the british and i am for sale for. He right price schellenberg said, why should i listen to . He said, because i got a job in the British Embassy in ankara. That is where all the diplomatic cables are coming through and the ambassador, he is not a light sleeper. He has insomnia so he takes sleeping pills. Not just the sleeping pills you and i might take, but the serious stuff like jackson used to abuse. When he is asleep, he is out. Schellenberg said, how much do you want . He asked for a lot. Schellenberg finally said, why not . We will take a chance. The intel started flowing. He would creep into the ambassadors room at night when he was honking away in his bed and take pictures of the cables and documents on his camera. He was shipping those off to schellenberg in berlin. Intel thatized the he was sending was spectacular. Codenamedhe germans this guy cicero, after the roman orator, because the intel he supplied spoke so eloquently. Cicero, in the chapter i have about him in the the i entitled it, milliondollar master key. He was able to supply the master key that told the germans where and when. Moment, notciting only to learn of the fact, but learn it was in iran. The wars, and going back to world war i i can tell some stories about that the germans and iranians had been very close. Germany was irans leading trading partner. The germans ran to the railroad the germans ran the airline, they built the railroad. 70 of the diet used in persian rugs came from germany. That was how close they were. Germany had this incredible network of agents all over iran. The germany military intelligence had a network of agents, the ss had a network of agents, very close. See, theok, you will first picture in the photo section, it is an autographed photo of hoefler inscribed of hitlers inscribed to his friend the shop. Whereaw and hitlers exchanging personalized pictures. The germans were pretty excited. Fact, this was such a big deal, the british and soviets, and the fall of 1941, at a time when the german armies were closing in on moscow, the 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 Networks inside this country. That is how big a deal this was. And before the war, they were sending agents in and out. They had longrange aircraft flying out of crimea, dropping paratroopers in there throughout the entire war, supply drops, trooper drops. Plans. Les, longrange longrange planes. Jump foris one inserting agents into iran that was the source of the name, operation long jump. Tehran, you have a city that is seating with international spies. You have the germans, you have the british they were active throughout that region ever , back to thear i 19th century, that was an important part of their sphere of influence between the suez canal and india. They had a strong presence. So they had a strong presence there. One about the americans . You probably heard of norman schwarzkopf, the famous general. Dad,ay have heard of his also called norman schwarzkopf, who was the head of the new jersey state patrol, the guy who practice the limburg case, who solved the crime of the century. , the britishshaw people of the old shaw who exchanged pictures with hitlers, they got his son in. They got him to hire schwarzkopf to run his armory. This is the presence of the british and americans. What about the soviets . Soviets were present too. In the end kpd, the predecessor to the kgb, the guys who made their reputation in the 1930s with the purges and rounding up people and sticking them in the gulag, they filled them three or four times over. They were some of the coolest secret police this side of the est secret police this side of the kustoff pope. The soviets knew the conference was going to take with, they flooded tehran an kpd. Moviese heard in the about, sometimes you have the cops or secret police rounding out the usual suspects. Usualounded up the suspects, and the unusual suspects. There is a famous quote about 1937. Rges in russia in it said, basically, they picked up every second man and an awful lot of women and send them to the gulags. This is their strategy and they brought that to tehran. They brought their dragnets and their jails and their dungeons. They were setting up jails and dungeons all over tehran. But, long jump was not sorted thwarted through the efforts of any of these agencies. Mi six. Arzkopf, not the this takes us to a small circle living inriends tehran, mostly expats in their 20s. There were some a couple livn of lebanese, a couple of iranians, a french guy, a polish refugee who was the smartest one of the bunch, but that is another story. How they polish refugees got to iran is another story. Anyway, this existed before the war. Passing through iran before the war, coming into contact with these people, was an american named peter ferguson. Ferguson was kind of a cowboy. He felt for this polish girl named ida, oscar. It was one of those boy girl. Hings, the usual tension he wanted to do she wanted it to go somewhere she did not. They broke up and he got mad. To 1943. Ard he has gone home, the war started, and his dad, who was well connected, new somebody, got him a job with the office of strategic services. Bill donovans organization and that was the predecessor to the cia. Meanwhile, in the interview, they asked him, what have you done in life . He said, i spent some time in iran. They said, you are going back to iran. He goes back to iran. On with hisinguish wouldbe girlfriend. I dont want to spoil it. It is in the book. Befriendedida has another polish refugee girl, somewhat younger, her name is wanda pollock. She works for a swiss businessman named ernst mercer. Mercer is an interesting character. As was the case so often with International Businessmen in the 1930s. He is a double agent. 1930srecruited in the by German Military intelligence and started supplying them with information because he moved between europe and the middle east with his business dealings. To supply them with information. , as a younge had man, studied in england and had the same kind of affinity for the british that cicero had a dislike for the british. E was an anglophile he did not mention that in his interview. An english playwright named somerset mom. He spent time in switzerland. While he was in switzerland, these two crossed paths and somerset says, you might want to take a look at doing some work for mi six. He jumped at the chance. That is how mercer became a double agent. Employed this younger polish girl as a housekeeper at his and shehe worked there was befriended by ida and she became part of this circle of friends, this group of young people, who would hang out and go to coffee shops and bars. Part of that social scene. Day, a, it was a nice die a date not unlike today a date not unlike today. It was late september. Beautiful day. Decided they would go for a picnic. Friends went to a park at the edge of town for a picnic. They were having a good time. Probably drinking a Little Something or other. Getting a little relaxed. , where is wanda . Wanda was gone. She said she was going to take a walk. How long ago was that . She should be back by now. But she wasnt. They went to look for her. They looked high and low and could not find her. Said, wed somebody who saw a girl like that, and there were these russian guys pushing her into a car. Nkvd dragnet who were indiscriminate, they worked in the soviet union in 1937, it ought to work here in tehran in a 43. They were just picking people up at random. And went back to mercer said, our friend has been taken by the soviets. What are we going to do . Can you help us . Call. D, i will make a i know some people. Mi6alled his contact with at the British Embassy in tehran and said, this thing happened, what do you know . The guy said, i can found out i can find out. He found out. Friendrry to say, your. S in k bd custody they set up these jails and dungeons all over town when they slept in to sweep the town clean in advance of the big three summit. She is in jail at this address. I hate to say it, but you have to kiss this girl goodbye. To this circlek of friends and said, that is the situation, i am sorry, nothing we can do. Cowboy, he says, we cannot let this stand. Learnedn oss agent and these oss a lot of men did in those days by watching the movies. ,e knew what you needed to do we are going to break her out of jail. Dungeon. Soviet this does not work. They knew a guy who knew a guy. Guy anian martial arts one of those guys who knows everybody in town. A ruse which alerted the guards away and went to the jail. It was slightly guarded. They broke in, found wanda in out. Ell, and got her as they were taking her out of this dungeon you can picture this in the movie, you have seen these scenes where they are taking her out of this dark dungeon somebody says, if we will know we, they came for her and she will be in trouble when she gets out. We have to let everybody go. They went around opening cells, had let everybody that they thrown into this jail, they let them all out. Mercer is setting there watching this and all of a sudden he is being a germanspeaking swiss, he was talking to his english friends in a german accent in english, and he hears somebody behind him who is speaking german. He turns around and he is byeted in german schellenbergs operation long parachutede man, who into the desert outside of tehran, got into the city, and had been picked up in one of these sweeps. Had no idea who he was, he was just some guy who spoke german. He had no they had no idea he was this guy who orchestrated the think they were guarding against most. He gets let out of jail. This is where the story really gets interesting. But i dont want to spoil it. [laughter] bill i will entertain questions. [applause] you mentioned the ss. Was one of scorzini, the label he enjoyed the most, he used it for his eventual memoirs, was the most dangerous man in europe. He was probably the most of the ssnd effective special Operations Team leaders. When the allies invaded italy decided the fascist government, they put mussolini under guard, lock him up in this prison actually it was a zinil out of season scor was the guy who led the special operations to get him out of there. Amazing story. I will not get into all the details. They use these airplanes amazing things. Within 24 hours, they had mussolini in berlin shaking hands with hitlers. He was one of the people who was likely to have been in involved in this thing. War, there were a lot of denials about this whole operation. He, in his memoirs, largely denied any involvement in it. In later conversations, he admitted, he had been part of it, but did not go to tehran. That would have made a great story. Maybe in the movie version. Probablye guy who was best equipped to lead such a mission, but they did have some amazing people on the ground. They had at least six ss hit teams. But i dont want to spoil a certain story. On the cover, two of the three have militarylooking uniforms. Under the conventions of the rules of war, would it have been against what happened . Good questiona and one i got into briefly in the book. Both churchill and stalin did wear uniforms. Stalin did have military ranks. Under the rules of war, they would have been fair game. U. S. Going after admiral yamamoto. It was a targeted killing. Was a uniform military officer. Under the rules of war, he was fair game. That is definitely an issue. Do you think schellenberg cared . You think his boss cared . When hitlers signed off on this operation, they did not care. In light of your description of the german ties with iran, how could they have healthy conference in tehran in the first place knowing the danger that was created by that . How could the Russian Secret Service and german spies have coexisted in that city . The prior to the conference, after the invasion,. T was an effective occupation memoirs d of the actually, the guy who was probably the lead out of their agent in iran, his story about how they clamped down when the british came in, they clamped down hard and fast. So did the soviets. Iranians you had a lot of progerman iranians. A lot of them were waiting for the german army to get close enough so they could come into from theliberate it soviets and british. Had some pro ally iranians. Mainly, once the british and americans especially british and americans were there and spending money and doing infrastructure projects, because the americans rented the railroad through iran to take supplies into the soviet union, once i got in there, a lot of Public Opinion shifted toward the allies. That was the environment. The germans largely went underground. A couple questions. Was cut our sin on this at all . Scorzinid question, ended up in argentina, right . Did he . Bill two questions there. The first was admiral wilhelm of the who was in charge out of there. Ss got along as about as well as the fbi and cia. That tension between them. It was more serious. Interestingly, this was one of the few operations where the advair and ss actively cooperated. Where he wasetings present and schellenberg interesting footnote, schellenberg and come eris used to go riding. Work and would go to fight against each other. It was a strange deal between those two. What happened to scorzini . He was picked up by the allies. Not on war crimes, but on military war crimes because during the battle of the bulge, his team operated behind american lines in american uniforms, which is something that is against the rules of war. He was tried for that. He got a lawyer who found a sop sopitish operatives who operated behind german uniforms behind german lines in german uniforms and got him to testify. He got out of those charges. On other charges. Serving time, he broke out of jail in 1947, after the war, he was in an ally prison, he broke out of jail, he was never recaptured. There were magazine photos of him on the of paris. He later did spend some time in argentina. Mainly, he moved to spain and operated there. He had a private Security Consulting firm. The 1960s. Through he was doing work for the Spanish Government and the egyptian government. He was never recaptured. Eventually, they just washed it away. The courts in germany who ran that types of thing. They just cut him loose for time served. My mother was a surveyor for those roads north of the kasten c. An interesting story, it was a german project and something the british hated this railroad. They hated it because it went from the persian gulf to the soviet union. They wanted a railroad that went from iraq to india. They wanted it to go eastwest and not coasttocoast from the persian gulf to the caspian sea. That is the way the shah wanted it and that is the way they built it. It later became an important goingith the supplies from the persian gulf into the soviet union. Two questions. One is, you are talking about your first chapter describing what the assassination would be like. I dont think it would be a spoiler if you told us you have an idea with the assassination would have been like . You gave us a hint, which was there was a german who was a russian defector and interments and acting like russians germans were acting like russians. It seemed like there was candy every other page. When you wrote it, did you think you were a kid in a candy store . Bill it was loads of fun. I am glad you are having fun with it. Yes,r your first question, that is another component. The russians in russian uniforms , that is another part of the plot. I do want to spoil it. Spoiler alert, i am not spoiling. One of the questions i have done a lot of radio shows about this book. One of the questions that comes coming from the premise of, we never really read much about this, we never heard much about this thing, why is that . I go back to if you read that far into the book, you read the famous quote from Franklin Roosevelt at his press backrence after he arrived in washington after this whole thing. One of his comments that i was a chapter title out of, it would have been a pretty good haul if they could have gotten all three of us. The one that is the most telling , after he described this, he described german agents running all over tehran hunting the big three, he says to the washington is no uses, there going into that. The Washington Press corps, a bit different than the press corps we know of, did not go into it. This whole thing died. There were some reasons having to do with censorship and the how should i say in charge of the troop on the beund in tehran, which would which would suggest a reporter, who did try to go into it, who did try to get into that probably would have run into some serious obstacles. More questions. Alright. Going once, going twice. Thank you. Wait. And your book, what was your greatest obstacle . In terms of the research. You drove by my house during that time, you probably a black suv across the street. [laughter] bill that had nothing to do with it. Was thebiggest obstacle fact that for so bunk, nobody went into this. For so long, nobody went into this. The people writing about Current Affairs in 1943 had a some big fish to fry. A failed assassination plot does not measure up to stalingrad and the normandy invasion and all this stuff. There was a real posse of information. Have the diplomatic cables between the big three as they were discussing that. Ll these very solutions to it very yes allusions to it. Churchill mentioned it, roosevelt mentioned it. Itlen spyware first mention stalins biographers mention it. Theof my resources was riley, who was the head of the white house detail of a secret service. He was roosevelts bodyguard. He was there. E was in and out of tehran during thise ground whole operation. He knew a lot and mentioned a lot in his memoir. Got let me i give you one example. Operative,ne german franz meyer. Guy, the sss before theef in iran war and as the war began. Up all theicked threads that mentioned him. Of the memoirs of schulz, who was the station chief for the advair in iran at the time. He writes a lot about franz meyer. There was also this guy lynn this guy who was at the polish embassy, he ended up teaching at berkeley. He wrote a lot about that period. He mentions franz meyer. I am using franz meyer as an example. Two weeks ago, i got an email people sent me males occasionally. This man sends me at email about my book. I got an email from this guy named randolph churchill. I start looking it up and he really is the grandson of winston churchill. I are exchanging emails and am figuring it out. He hooked me up with the Churchill Society so i know it is really him. At chartwell, churchills home, i am emailing her, we are not quite facebook friends yet. [laughter] randolph, we are on a first name basis because he calls me bill. [laughter] bill, we have thathing at chartwell might interest you. It is this iron cross that was given to my grandfather. It was taken off a german who in tehran around the time of the conference. Said, what you like to see this . I could email you a picture. What am i going to say . Not, dont worry about it. No, i said please do. He sends me this thing. It has been framed and there is a label. Whose name is on it . Franz meyer. This is the challenge wasnt digging through all of this stuff. There was a hungarian journalist based in paris who did a lot of study of this. He interviewed a lot of the members of the ss hit teams in the 1960s when these guys were still alive. That was a lot of there. The challenge was finding all of this stuff. That was also one of the exciting things about this. I guess people will ask you what are you working on next . Is it that polish girl . T make an arduous journey to tehran . Bill im working on some other things. Yeah, i have several other things in the work and the works. The Japanese Invasion of the United States, another thing that did not but there were a lot things around that. I also do a lot affiliation history. Aviation history. Wondering about the cables. Were they declassified . Bill yes, they were declassified some time ago. You have to dig to find them, but when you are finding them, there is nobody guarding them. A lot of stuff is online at the department of state website. If you know where to go and what to look for. I spend time in washington, d. C. , i am one of those people who goes into those dark bolts dark bolts. Dark vaults. Inappropriate to ask you to tell us a little bit about the russian Fighter Pilot . I love that story. I wonder if people know that book. Bill this is one of my previous books. It was published in the u. S. And u. K. Three years ago. This month, it came out in the czech republic. They sent me a copy of it. Another book to go on my shelf that i cannot lead by me. Thetitle of the book is white rose of stalingrad. The white rose of stalingrad was her woman in her 20s late teens, she was barely 21. Most of her career was when she was 20. Scoringme the highest female areas of alltime. She flew with the soviet air force in world war ii. She fought at stalingrad, which is how she got her name. Misnomer. Me is a pdack. Me was lilia li lilia means lily, so she painted a lily on the side of her plane. These guys are not going to identify flowers. That is the last thing a Fighter Pilot will do. They thought it must be a rose. She became the white rose of stalingrad. That was her nickname. Least 12 and as mainly in, and then into ukraine when the soviet armies were toward back for tf tf. Toward kiev. She grew up under stalin. What i mentioned earlier about vd running up every second man, her father was the second man. If that did not keep him out of trouble. He ended up as a second man. He never came home from the log. From the gulag. To fight the germans, so she did. An amazing life, amazing story. After her 21st birthday, she is on patrol over the eastern ukraine. By the time i wrote the book, it was a peaceful part of the world. Peaceful over not the last year or so. The place where they shot down the malaysian airliner was about 10 miles from the wreckage of her plane. There and she never came back. The last time they saw her, she was being chased through the clouds. It was 25 years before they found the wreckage of what they assumed was her plane and recovered her body. That is that story. Well, we have been at this for about an hour. If there is no more questions [applause] i am happy to sign books. The young man behind the register will be happy to sell them. [laughter] bill i would like to thank my friends from cspan. This is not our first time together. At theed on other show Aviation Museum a couple years ago. We are old friends. You cannot relive this night on cspan. You can relive this night on cspan. It is optional. When will it be on cspan . Bill that is a good question. I do not know. I will put out an email. [applause] bill sure. [inaudible] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] history bookshelf features the countries best known American History writers of the past decade talking about their books. You can watch our weekly series every saturday at 4 00 eastern on American History tv on cspan3. This weekend on lectures in history, Johnson CountyCommunity College professor teaches a class on the expansion of the United States during the spanishamerican war and the acquisition of hawaii. Here is a preview. 1890, there was a tariff on hawaiian sugar. This is bad for hawaiian sugar. What you see as the disruption to their economy . Americans with u. S. Military support from pearl harbor overthrew the Hawaiian Government and the president at the time, president harrison, supported adding hawaii as a territory. Congress does not get it done before he leaves office. Next president opposes it. Hawaiians oppose it. They opposed a place fully peacefully. They knew if that used violence to prevent an American Invasion, if an American Invasion took place, they would be deemed enemies and would not be allowed to keep their property. Not only would people die, but their property would be undermined. They do not violently resist. In 1898, mckinley will support and congress will annex hawaii as a part of the United States in july. I will explain why americans do this. Things, annex is almost always the word people use to describe how hawaii became part of the United States. Annex means, acquired without war. Wouldnt native hawaiians agree this was a peaceful transition . No. They would view it as hostile and aggressive. That comes from the colonizers point of view, not the colonized. Learn more about the expansion of the United States during the spanishamerican war and the acquisition of hawaii saturday at 8 00 p. M. At midnight eastern on lectures in history. 20 classroom on American History tv. Join in the classroom on American History tv. Shamei hang my head in [indiscernible] say, personalized reporting of these fellows, i that that you want to know opinion, because you are going to be disappointed and beat down the road if i did not tell you that. Frankly, ielling you think the industry is wrecking all of us. That is pretty heavyhanded. You can imagine what it was like for the eternal at the next day. Imagine what it was like for the journalist the next day. He said favorite wrecking the country. That is disturbing. We are hearing that today, the press is the america enemy of the people. P press is not the enemy, they are doing work for the american people. Museumsy night, the Vice President of content, talks about the tension between our american president s and the press. What cspans q a sunday night in november 1970 nine, iranian students seized the u. S. Embassy in tehran and took americans hostage. Captivewo females held and another time hostage able to escape in a cia mission talked about their experiences during the iran hostage crisis. Council on Global Affairs hosted this event. Good evening and welcome. Welcome to our program. Todays event is on the record and we are live streaming. Please silence your phones. Before this evenings