And we are thrilled to have one of our local authors here tonight. Bill yenne is the author of more than three 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. That book is 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] bill 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. Conspiracy 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 conspiracy story, seem to have a 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 one 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. This particular conspiracy was aimed at the three allied powers of world war ii, at the three men and their staff, who commanded 70 million troops, who were against the armies of the third reich. That made it an especially big conspiracy. This came 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. 1200 miles from leningrad, kyiv. Iev. They still controlled all of western europe, or virtually all of it. The Anglo American allies had 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 they had run into a literal stonewall in the form of the gustav line and had been hung up in a precarious position. Such was the situation of the war at that time. The big three allies that were allied against the third reich, britain, u. S. , and soviet union, the leaders of the former two, churchill and roosevelt, met several times, in washington a couple of times, in quebec, casablanca. But they wanted to get together with stalling. In. 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 the diplomatic cables, or virtually all the diplomatic cables running back and forth between these three guys. I excerpted 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 talked about there being about setting up three tents in the desert, or in iraq and having each of the big three in a tent and having their meeting there. Joe said no. Joe wanted to meet in iran 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. Come to think of it, there was nobody in his government that he did trust. [laughter] he did not want to go far from home. The other thing often not told, 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 flight ever. Stalin refused, but they decided meeting stalin was worth it. November 27, 1943, date set. Meanwhile, inside the third reich, a guy named walter schellenberg, the guy who ran 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. One day, schellenberg got a phone call. From an albanian named alyssa bonds a. Bazna. This guy said, i hate the british and i am for sale for the right price. Schellenberg said, why should i listen to you . 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. The ss realized the intel that he was sending was spectacular. In fact, the germans codenamed this guy cicero, after the roman orator, because the intel he supplied spoke so eloquently. It was through cicero, in the chapter i have about him in the book i entitled it, the milliondollar master key. He was able to supply the master key that told the germans where and when. It was an exciting moment, not only to learn of the fact, but learn it was in iran. Iran, between 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 the airline, they built the railroad. 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. In the book, you will see, the first picture in the photo section, it is an autographed photo of adolf hitler, inscribed the shaw. End, the shaw and hitlers where exchanging personalized pictures. The germans were pretty excited. In 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. During the war 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. 1000 miles, longrange plans. Longrange planes. It was this one jump for inserting agents into iran that was the source of the name, operation long jump. Inside tehran, you have a city that is seating with seething with international spies. You have the germans, you have the british they were active throughout that region ever since world war i, back to the 19th century, that was an important part of their sphere of influence between the suez canal and india. A very big deal for them. They had a strong presence. Hi, thanks for coming. So they had a strong presence there. One about the americans . What about the americans . You probably heard of norman schwarzkopf, the famous general. You may have heard of his dad, also called norman schwarzkopf, who was the head of the new jersey state patrol, the guy who case, whoe lindbergh solved the crime of the century. Who does the shaw, the british people of the old shaw who exchanged pictures with hitler, they got his son in. They got him to hire schwarzkopf to run his armory. Army. This is the presence of the british and americans. What about the soviets . Soviets were present too. They sent 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 cruelest secret police this side of the gestapo. When the soviets knew the conference was going to take place, they flooded tehran with an kpd. Within kpd. You have heard in the movies about, sometimes you have the cops or secret police rounding out the usual suspects. They rounded up the usual suspects, and the unusual suspects. There is a famous quote about the purges in russia in 1937. 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. Not schwarzkopf, not the mi six. This takes us to a small circle of young friends living in tehran, mostly expats in their 20s. There were some a couple of lebanese, a couple of iranians, a french guy, a polish refugee girl who was the smartest one of the bunch, but that is another story. How the 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 things, the usual tension. He wanted it to go somewhere, she did not. They broke up and he got mad. Fastforward to 1943. 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. Back to distinguish on with his wouldbe girlfriend. I dont want to spoil it. It is in the book. Meanwhile, ida has befriended 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. He was recruited in the 1930s by German Military intelligence and started supplying them with information because he moved between europe and the middle east with his business dealings. He was able to supply them with information. Meanwhile, he had, as a young man, studied in england and had the same kind of affinity for the british that cicero had a dislike for the british. He was an anglophile. He did not mention that in his interview. He met 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. He employed this younger polish girl as a housekeeper at his house, she worked there and she 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. One day, it was a nice day, a day not unlike today. It was late september. A nice, fall day. A beautiful day. They decided they would go for a picnic. So this group of 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. They noticed, 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. They found somebody who said, we saw a girl like that, and there were these russian guys pushing her into a car. The nkvd dragnet who were indiscriminate, they worked in the soviet union in 1937, it ought to work here in tehran in 1943. They were just picking people up at random. They went back to mercer and said, our friend has been taken by the soviets. What are we going to do . Can you help us . He said, i will make a call. I know some people. He called his contact with mi6 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. I am sorry to say, your friend is in k bd custody. They set up these jails and dungeons all over town when they slept in to sweep the town clean swept into 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. Mercer came back to this circle of friends and said, that is the situation, i am sorry, nothing we can do. Ferguson, this cowboy, he says, we cannot let this stand. He was an oss agent and learned his trade a lot of these oss men did in those days by watching the movies. He knew what you needed to do, we are going to break her out of jail. This is a soviet dungeon. This does not work. They knew a guy who knew a guy. This iranian martial arts guy one of those guys who knows everybody in town. They set up a ruse which alerted lured the guards away and went to the jail. It was slightly guarded. They broke in, found wanda in her cell, and got her out. 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 take just her, they will know we came for her and she will be in trouble when she gets out. We have to let everybody go. They went around opening cells, they let everybody that they had thrown into this jail, they let them all out. Mercer is setting there watching all 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 greeted in german by schellenbergs operation long jump advance man, who parachuted into the desert outside of tehran, got into the city, and had been picked up in one of these sweeps. The nkvd had no idea who he was, he was just some guy 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 bill he was one of the ss. 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 ruthless and effective of the ss special Operations Team leaders. When the allies invaded italy and the king decided the fascist government, they put mussolini under guard, lock him up in this locked him up in this prison actually it was a hotel out of season. Scorzini was the guy who led the special operations to get him out of there. Amazing story. He was the guy that led the operation. Amazing story. I will not get into the details. They use these airplanes amazing thing. Within 24 hours, they had mussolini in berlin shaking hands with hitler. That is the kind of thing he did. He was one of the people who was likely to have been in involved in this thing. After the war, there were a lot of denials about this whole operation. He, in his memoirs, largely denied any involvement in it. In but 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 we will have that. He was the guy who was probably 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. Another whole elaborate but i dont want to spoil a certain story. On the cover, two of the three have militarylooking uniforms on. Under the conventions of the rules of war, had it succeeded, would it have been against what happened . Bill that is a good question 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. It is like the u. S. Going after admiral yamamoto. It was a targeted killing. Uniformed military officer, so under the rules of war, he was fair game. That is definitely an issue. Do do you think schellenberg cared . Do you think his boss cared . Himmler signed off on this operation, they did not care. In light of your description of the german ties with iran, how could they have held the 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 at that time . Bill it was the prior to the conference, after the invasion, it was a very effective occupation. I got a hold of the memoirs actually, the guy who was probably the lead 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. The iranians you had a lot of pro german iranians. A lot of them were waiting for the german army to get close enough so they could come into iran and liberate it from the soviets and british. You also had some pro ally iranians. But mainly, once the british and americans especially british and americans were there and spending money and doing infrastructure projects, because the americans ran the railroad through iran to take supplies into the soviet union, once they got in there, a lot of Public Opinion shifted toward the allies. That was the environment. The germans largely went underground at that point. Yes, maam. A couple of questions. Es in on this at all . The second question, scorzini ended up in argentina, right . Did he end up in argentina . Bill two questions they are. The first was admiral wilhelm ares, who was in charge. The advair and ss got along as about as well as the fbi and cia. It was tension between them. In fact, it was more serious. Interestingly, this was one of the few operations where the advair and ss actively actually cooperated. There were meetings where he was present and schellenberg interesting footnote, they used to go riding in the morning. They were both equestrians. Then they would go to work and fight against each other. It was a strange deal between those two. Corzini . Pened to he was picked up by the allies. Crimes,umanitarian war but on military war crimes because during the battle of the bulge, his team operated behind american lines in american u