American History Tellers - The Bastard Brigade - The Strangest Man | 4

Episode Date: August 7, 2019

By mid-1944, the Allies’ fight to track down and stop the Nazi atomic program had met with failure and disappointment. And so the Manhattan Project took a new tack by recruiting and developing atomic spies — including a backup catcher for the Boston Red Sox named Moe Berg. Although little known today, Berg was one of the most famous athletes of his day, and a certified genius. He could charm sports writers and fans alike with his tales of palling around with Babe Ruth and other celebrities, but he also held degrees from Princeton, Columbia, and the Sorbonne and spoke a dozen languages. When World War II broke out, Berg volunteered to work on behalf of the Office of Strategic Services as a spy. Over time, however, Berg’s focus would shift from espionage toward assassination. Soon, he would travel abroad to target the most feared scientist in the world and the sharpest mind in the Nazi Uranium Club: German physicist Werner Heisenberg. Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's the spring of 1942, just months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. You're a military analyst in Washington, D.C., and you've got a crucial assignment. Unfortunately, it's also proving impossible. You need to gather intelligence about Tokyo. You're especially interested in pinning down the location of military industrial targets, train depots, shipyards, manufacturing plants.

But the Japanese guard that information closely. There's virtually nothing out there. You can find hardly anything, and you can't believe what you've been reduced to as a result. A fellow analyst dumps a load of magazines on your desk. God, what are these? Travel magazines. Anything that's mentioned Japan for the past 20 years. So what, we're just supposed to flip through them? Where'd you even get these? The library. We seized them in the interest of national security. God, this is ridiculous. Do you really think we're going to learn anything from these? All I know is that we're getting paid to look at pretty pictures. You start flipping through the magazines, page after page after page. Most of the pictures of Japan focus on tourist attractions,

Buddhist temples, the emperor's palace, sumo wrestling. Wait, here's something. What? The fish market. If you squint, you can see the harbor in the background. Those might be military ships. I don't know. But at least I'm trying.

You've been drooling over that Brazilian beach spread for the past half hour. And I'm only halfway through. Look at her! Oh, for Pete's sake. You get up and pace the room. This is every bit as useless as you feared. But where else are you going to find anything? Finally, a distraction.

You pick up the phone. Hello? Yeah, we're pretty desperate. We just raided the public library. What kind of film? Kidding? Send it over. Who was that? The War Department. They've got some sort of film on Tokyo. You spend the next 20 minutes setting up your department's projector

and hanging a white sheet. A courier arrives. You open up the package, pull the reel of film out, and slot it into the projector. The video isn't long. It's under 30 seconds. But you can't believe what you're seeing. Factories, train depots, and a much clearer view of the harbor. This is incredible. Who did this? A colleague checks the label. You're not going

to believe this. It says Moe Berg. Wait, the catcher for the Red Sox? That Moe Berg? I guess so. I heard he joined that spy agency, OSS. Watch the film another time. Mesmerized. The footage is spectacular and could prove critical to the war effort. Why is a big league baseball catcher filming Tokyo? I do not know. It's a mystery for the ages. But what I do know is that Moe Berg, catcher for the Red Sox, just made our job a heck of a lot easier. Kill List is a true story of how i ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in

danger follow kill list wherever you get your podcasts you can listen to kill list and more exhibit c true crime shows like morbid early and ad free right now by joining wandry plus have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge or why by joining Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. By mid-1944, the Allies' fight to track down and stop the Nazi atomic bomb program had met failure and disappointment, and the intelligence, limited as it was, was deeply troubling. Joe Kennedy, the erratic older brother of future President John F. Kennedy, had died on a mission to destroy a supposed atomic bunker in northern France. But the bunker turned out to be a facade, a Nazi misdirection. So to stop the Germans, the American military realized that it would need better and more timely intelligence. So the Manhattan Project began

to recruit and develop atomic spies, including Moe Berg. Although little known today, Berg was one of the most famous athletes in the world then. Over time, though, Berg's primary task would shift from espionage towards something much darker, assassination. And his top target would be the most feared scientist in the world then, the sharpest mind in the Nazi uranium club, German physicist Werner Heisenberg. This is episode four, The Strangest Man. Imagine it's 1937, and you're a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. You're in Detroit for a double header, and frankly, you're bored. The Red Sox are winning the first game in a rout,

and you're sitting in the bullpen with nothing to do. So you wander over and sit down next to the most entertaining fellow on the team, backup catcher Moe Berg. How's it hanging, Moe? Hmm? He's reading a book and doesn't look up. Come on, you can read that later on the train. There's a game on.

Moe turns the page and keeps ignoring you. Hey, tell me again about that time you and Babe Ruth went to that cat house in Japan. What were they called? Goshus? Geishas. Yeah. What'd she tell Babe again? I can never remember. Ah, okay. You don't want to tell that one today? How about the time you saw Hitler in Berlin? That's a good one. I'm busy. Busy? You're reading. And you can't have your nose buried in a book all the time.

It screws with your eyesight. You're a bad enough hitter as it is. A few teammates chuckle at this, but Berg just flips back a page to reread something. Oh my god, now you're going backwards. What's so fascinating, anyway? Hey! You ripped the book from his hands. Relativistic non-Euclid... Oh my god, I don't even know what these words mean. Relativistic non-Euclidean space-time. Give it back. Fine, here. What's so great about this book that you can't even talk to me? It's about the nature of the cosmos. Wow. Yes, wow. You ever heard of Albert Einstein?

Yes, Mo. I'm not that dumb. Well, I'm calling on him next week in Princeton on our day off. We're going to have a chat. Okay, Mo. And then you got a date with the Queen of Sheba. You don't believe me. No, I do not believe you.

Mo shrugs and you chuckle. Yeah, what a character. But back on the field, things have suddenly gotten interesting. Detroit's got the bases loaded. You watch the next few pitches. With the inning over, you turn back to Berg. But he's dug something out of his bag, a letter, and he hands it to you. It's written in German, which your father spoke.

He was an immigrant from Europe, so you can sort of make it out. It's an invitation for Mo to visit the next time he's in Princeton. And then you see the signature. Holy smokes. This is from Albert Einstein. It is. Now, can I get back to my book? Moe Berg was born into a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, in 1902. Despite a tough, scrappy childhood, Berg was a certified genius.

He entered Princeton University at age 16 and later studied at the famous Sorbonne Institute in Paris. Most impressive of all, he could speak at least a half-dozen languages. Some people said a full dozen. But Berg's true love was baseball. As he once told a reporter, I'd rather be a ballplayer than a president of a bank or a justice on the United States Supreme Court. And after starring on The Diamond at Princeton, he signed with the Brooklyn Robins, later called the Dodgers, in the early 1920s. This was followed by a stint in the minors, but after Berg caught on with the

Chicago White Sox, he developed into one of the top catchers in the American League. He once set a record by playing 117 games straight without committing an error. He also excelled at the cerebral side of baseball. He knew every batter's weakness, and with his tricky pitch calls, he easily got inside their heads. In 1929, Berg's best season, he hit a.287 and.107 games and even earned a few votes for MVP. His exploits off the diamond were no less impressive. During his off-seasons, he traveled to all corners of the world—China, India, Europe, the Middle East, and more. He also managed to earn a law degree from Columbia University in his spare time. But then a knee injury in an exhibition game in 1930 derailed his baseball career. He'd always been slow, but now he was an outright liability on the base paths,

and his hitting deteriorated sharply. He ended up bouncing around the league to the Washington Senators and then the Boston Red Sox. But in an unexpected twist, the knee injury was the best thing that ever happened to his career. With his brainy approach to the game, being moved to backup catcher allowed him to become the perfect mentor for young pitchers, and the lazy pace of bullpen life gave him plenty of time to read and tell stories. It also gave him more time to gab with sports writers who worship Berg and love telling stories about his eccentricities, like the fact that he sometimes ate meals consisting of nothing but applesauce. The legendary manager Casey Stengel, in fact, once called Moe Berg the

strangest person to ever play professional baseball. He was strange, but he was also brilliant. Among other things, Berg could read hieroglyphics. He would buy dictionaries, he once said, to see if they were complete. And no one could ever forget the time he polished off a book on non-Euclidean relativistic spacetime in the bullpen during a doubleheader. All in all, Berg probably got more column inches than any benchwarmer in sports history. And in the 1930s, he vaulted to national stardom after appearing on an NBC radio quiz show called Information Please, The Jeopardy of Its Day. In a legendary half-hour performance, Berg answered questions about Halley's Comet, Chop Suey, Nero's Wives,

The Dreyfus Affair, and Kaiser Wilhelm. He even got the trick question right, what's the brightest star in the sky? Of course, it's the sun. NBC got 24,000 letters in response to the show, and baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis told Berg, in 30 minutes, you did more for baseball than I've done the entire time I've been commissioner. The added attention did chafe Berg sometimes. During his rare appearances on the field, fans in opposing stadiums would heckle him with questions like, hey Berg, is it Walrus's or Wal-Rye? But after information pleas, Berg became one of the biggest stars in baseball, the thinking man's Babe Ruth. He started palling around with the

Marx Brothers and humorous Will Rogers. And whenever President Franklin Roosevelt attended a Washington Senators game, he waved to the catcher from the stands. But there was another side to Moe Berg, too. A dark, furtive side. Despite his popularity with the press, Berg had no close friends among his teammates. Most didn't even know where he lived during the offseason. He also developed a reputation for seducing married women,

high-society types who couldn't entangle him in a real relationship. When he played for Washington, his teammates remembered, he even kept a tuxedo in his locker for post-game soirees at foreign embassies. And Berg pulled strange stunts sometimes. In 1934, he joined Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and other Hall of Famers on an all-star baseball tour of Japan. As a ballplayer, Berg wasn't in their class, but he could speak Japanese and address the crowds on behalf of the others. In addition, Berg shot video footage

for a documentary about the trip using cameras he'd borrowed from a studio in New York. In Japan, Ruth was the unquestioned star of the team, and most of the games were routes, with the Americans winning handily. Berg, meanwhile, barely played. In fact, the most memorable incident of the trip for him took place off the field. One day before a game in Tokyo, Berg faked an illness and stayed in bed. But as soon as the team bus pulled away from the hotel,

he jumped up, donned a kimono, and headed outside. He bought a bouquet of flowers nearby and walked over to the local hospital. He'd read an item in the newspaper that the American ambassador's daughter had just had a baby and he wanted to surprise her. But that was just a cover story. Berg snuck past the security guards at the hospital and rode the elevator to the fifth floor, where the ambassador's daughter was staying. But as soon as the coast was clear, he ditched the flowers and rode the elevator to the seventh floor. From there, he climbed a spiral staircase to the roof and then scaled a bell tower. By tradition, no buildings in Japan could stand taller than the emperor's palace,

and the seven-story hospital was one of the tallest buildings around. As soon as Berg gained this vantage point, he reached into his kimono and removed a lunchbox-sized video camera he'd strapped to his chest. Then he proceeded to film the city, taking care to linger over industrial sites, ammunition plants, railway lines, oil refineries, and warships in the harbor. He got 23 seconds of footage before packing up and sneaking back down to the lobby. He never did meet the ambassador's daughter. When World War II started a few years later, Berg gave this footage to the U.S. military. As the only ground's eye footage they had of Tokyo, it was incredibly valuable.

But to this day, no one knows why Berg took the film. His brother later claimed that Berg had special orders from the U.S. Secretary of State, but there's no conclusive evidence of that. Perhaps Berg simply liked spying. He certainly had no qualms about doing whatever it took to help his country. By the 1939 baseball season, Berg was washed up, playing in just a handful of games each season. And with the rise of fascism in Europe, he was getting restless. Berg had been visiting Berlin in January 1933 when Adolf Hitler got elected Chancellor of Germany. He then spent the day watching crowds of ecstatic Nazis march in the streets.

When he got home, Berg told everyone who'd listened that Europe was headed for war. And when his prediction came true in 1939, he felt called to something higher than baseball for the. And when his prediction came true in 1939, he felt called to something higher than baseball for the first time in his life. As he told one reporter, Europe is in flames, withering in a fire set by Hitler. And what am I doing? Sitting in the bullpen, telling jokes to relief pitchers. So as soon as the United States joined the war in 1941, Berg quit baseball. At 39, he was too old for the military. But given his interest in spying, he soon joined the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS. OSS was the precursor to the CIA, but it wasn't yet the world of straight-laced

professional agents in suits. OSS was one of the strangest and most disorganized agencies in the history of the U.S. government, which meant it suited Moe Byrd perfectly, and the agency would soon tap him for one of the most where aspiring entrepreneurs get the opportunity of a lifetime. I wouldn't be chasing it if I didn't believe that the world needs this product. In each episode, the entrepreneurs get 90 seconds to pitch to an audience of potential customers.

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But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her. And she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is the Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing names photos addresses and specific instructions for people's murders this podcast is the true story of how i ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in danger and it turns out convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy easy. Follow Kill List on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C true crime shows

like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening. Imagine it's June 1943. You're a recruit for the Office of Strategic Services, and you've spent several weeks training here at an old Girl Scout campground in Maryland. Things have been odd so far, to say the least. You've learned how to bug telephones, make miniature matchbox cameras, and blow up bridges. And you couldn't help but notice to your alarm that your explosives instructor is short a few fingers. But nothing so far has

prepared you for what comes next. It starts when your instructor bursts into your room. God! Jesus! You gave me a heart attack! Up and at them! Exam time! Oh, God, it's 3 a.m. Nazis don't sleep. Grab your boots. Let's move. You head outside, and a few minutes later, you arrive at an old clapboard farmhouse on the edge of the campground. Some of your fellow recruits swear it's haunted. You normally don't believe in that sort of mumbo jumbo, but it looks awfully eerie in the moonlight. Your mission is to break in and take out the Nazis inside. Any questions? Yes? What the hell's going on?

You'll find out. Here's your pistol. Your first task is breaking in. Thankfully, you aced your lockpicking class, and the front door swings open. But things deteriorate from there. The front hallway is dark, and as you creep forward, you listen. It's Germans. They're probably just piping sound in, but you wouldn't put it past the OSS to have some real Nazis on hand. And then things go really sideways.

You trip and fall and drop your gun. As you pat around for it, you feel how uneven the floorboards are, probably on purpose. You find your gun, get back to your feet, and walk on a little more carefully now. But you notice the German voices have stopped. It's eerily silent. Who's there? Show yourself. Suddenly, a light flickers to your left. Something moves, and as you whip around, your training takes over. It looked like a German soldier, and when you hit it, it exploded with something like confetti. Before you can sort out what's going on, the light flashes again and you hear a voice. Sieg Heil! You turn and shoot again and see another explosion of confetti. Then it happens again behind you. But now it's silent. With your gun leveled, you kneel down and pick up the confetti.

It's chunky, like pulp or something. What the hell is this? It's papier-mâché. Jesus! You squeeze your trigger frantically five or six times before you're realizing you're out of bullets. And only then does a flashlight click on, and you realize who said that. It's your instructor. What the hell are you doing here? I could have shot you. Nah, I was counting the shots. Only then does a flashlight click on, and you realize who said that. It's your instructor.

What the hell are you doing here? I could have shot you. Nah, I was counting the shots. Nice work. You got all three Nazis. He swings the flashlight around and shows you their crude, half-blown-off faces. Spring-loaded dummies with papier-mâché faces. So now what? Nothing. What do you mean?

There's nothing more to teach you. Welcome to the OSS. The OSS trained recruits like Moe Berg at that Girl Scout campground in Maryland in 1943, with classes and experiences set up to prepare recruits for action. Overall, the training was vintage OSS, demanding, innovative, and bizarre. In fact, critics sometimes referred to OSS as St. Elizabeth's after an infamous Washington, D.C. lunatic asylum. And its oddities started right at the top with Chief Executive William Wild Bill Donovan. Donovan was an old World War I veteran with a soft spot for misfits and weirdos.

The agents he hired included professional wrestlers, theologians, and mafia hitmen, not to mention film star Marlene Dietrich, chef Julia Child, the novelist John Steinbeck, and actor John Wayne. Given his own quirks, Moe Berg fit in perfectly. In his very first mission, Berg parachuted into Norway and rendezvoused with undercover agents at the Weymark heavy water plant. Berg confirmed that the Nazis had rebuilt the plant and started up heavy water production again, a sign of their commitment to atomic research. Around the same time, the head of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves, approached Donovan at OSS and asked him for some

spies. Groves wanted a better picture of what the Nazi Uranium Club was doing and needed agents on the ground in Europe to ferret out information. Donovan offered Berg, who seemed like a natural fit, a brainy Ivy Leaguer who'd already done good work on atomic espionage in Norway. Groves, however, hesitated at the offer. Berg was a famous athlete whose picture had appeared in newspapers hundreds of times. He wasn't exactly ideal for undercover work. But Berg always had a magic charm over people.

Fellow ballplayers were dazzled by his intellect, while military officers and intellectuals were awed by his athletic prowess. And Berg did have several assets as a spy, especially his language skills. Groves eventually decided that the pros outweighed the cons, and Moe Berg became America's first atomic spy. His inaugural mission took place in Rome, where several Italian nuclear physicists lived. Germany and Italy were both Axis powers,

and the Allies suspected that the Italians had been in touch with their German colleagues during the war and could therefore reveal what the Germans were doing. The Allies were especially eager for news about Werner Heisenberg, the Nobel Prize-winning top scientist of the Nazi Uranium Club. Heisenberg had already been identified as a potential kidnapping target by the U.S. He was ferociously smart and an ardent German patriot. Removing him from the German bomb project would effectively cripple it. Berg left for Italy in May 1944. The Axis still controlled Rome then, but OSS wanted Berg on the ground there so he'd rush in as soon as it fell. For supplies, Berg was issued $2,000 cash, a pistol,

and, ominously, a cyanide-filled rubber capsule to use in case he was ever taken prisoner. As soon as Berg landed in Naples, his cover was nearly blown for exactly the reason General Groves feared. Actor Humphrey Bogart, baseball star Lefty Gomez, and former heavyweight champ Jack Sharkey were all visiting Italy at the time to boost the morale of the troops. Gomez and Sharkey happened to bump into Berg on the streets of Naples. Gomez knew Berg well, having traveled with him on the all-star tour of Japan in 34, so he called out Moe's name. Berg was mortified. He put a finger to his lips and shushed Gomez. He then turned and melted into the crowd behind him, leaving Gomez a bit baffled.

After that, Berg thought it prudent to lie low for a while. In fact, he disappeared so completely that even his bosses lost track of him. Not only was this embarrassing for them, it threatened to compromise Berg's mission. When Rome finally did fall in early June, OSS still had no idea where Berg was. As a result, OSS officials were reduced to sending cables all over Europe and North Africa trying to track down their own agent. Berg never responded. But he hadn't shirked his duty.

Berg heard about the liberation of Rome while visiting an American general in a small coastal city on the heel of Italy. After Berg laid on a little charm, the general loaned the catcher a private plane and pilot who whisked him back to Naples. Berg then caught a ride north and pilot, who whisked him back to Naples. Berg then caught a ride north and arrived in Rome four hours later. Over the next few weeks, he interrogated several nuclear physicists there. Most of the interviews went smoothly, but Berg did have to get wily in a few cases.

One scientist refused to talk at first, so Berg casually pulled down a book of sonnets from the man's shelf and began reciting a few passages, in Italian, of course. The scientist was startled, but Berg explained that he'd studied the poems at Princeton. They fell into a literary discussion and were soon toasting the poems with wine. Almost before the scientist realized it, he was spilling everything he knew about atomic research. And when the charm didn't work, Berg was not above subterfuge. One top physicist in Rome was Giancarlo Wicca, who was decidedly unimpressed with Berg when the catcher interviewed him. Wicca was a snobbish European intellectual and dismissed Americans as barbarians.

But Berg persisted. He knew that Wicca had studied under Werner Heisenberg a decade earlier, and the two had kept touch during the war. Wicca eventually mentioned that he'd received a postcard from Heisenberg recently, updating him on life in Germany. Before long, Wicca tired of the interview and kicked Berg out of his office. But on his way out the door, Berg managed to steal the postcard from Wicca's desk and slip it into his pocket. That night, he translated it from German to English and photographed it for intelligence officials. Berg then dropped by the physicist's office the next day and casually slipped the

postcard back into place. Wicca never suspected a thing. He'd let his guard down, assuming that a mere athlete could never put one over on a brilliant scholar like him. Heisenberg's postcard contained one line of real emotion. The time in which one could think calmly on physics is so far away that it seems as if ages had passed. Otherwise, the postcard merely explained what he'd been doing for the past months, including moving his family to a cabin in the Bavarian Alps. The news probably seemed mundane to Heisenberg, but including it

here was reckless. OSS now knew of one place to hunt for him. The postcard also mentioned Heisenberg's lab. He was still working in Berlin then, but intelligence reports had hinted that he'd been shifting his lab south soon, beyond the reach of bombing raids. Specifically, there were rumors of Heisenberg opening an underground atomic lair, an atom cellar, in a small village in southern Germany. Berg had questioned Wicca closely on this during their interview and confirmed the basics. When Berg relayed the results of his interview to OSS, including the photograph of the postcard, officials there were ecstatic, while Bill Donovan personally congratulated Berg.

So after this success, Berg was on the Heisenberg beat permanently. And before long, OSS dreamed up its wildest errand yet for the catcher, sending him into Switzerland on a mission to assassinate. In November 1991, media tycoon Robert Maxwell mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht in the Canary Islands. But it wasn't just his body that would come to the surface in the days that followed. It soon emerged that Robert's business was on the brink of collapse, and behind his facade of wealth and success was a litany of bad investments, mounting debt, and multi-million dollar fraud. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show Business Movers. We tell the true stories of business leaders who risked it all, the critical moments that define their journey,

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Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Imagine it's December 1944. You're an OSS agent in Zurich, Switzerland, and you're walking to meet a fellow undercover spy for what's probably the strangest mission of your career. You're supposed to attend a physics lecture at a local university, which is odd enough, but depending on what the scientist says, this other agent might stand up and shoot him, murder him right in the middle of the talk. Your job is help the agent escape afterward, even if it means killing bystanders. It all sounds desperate, but this atom bomb threat has your bosses taking some crazy risks. But as big as these surprises are,

they're nothing compared to the shock you're about to receive. You're supposed to meet the agent in a park, near a snow-covered statue. He'll be holding a green book so you can identify him, and will recite a code phrase. As you approach the rendezvous point, you see a tall man in a trench coat. Must be your contact. But then he turns his face. Moe Berg. You run up and shake his hand. Wow, it is you. I've been a Senators fan since I was a kid. Are you entertaining the troops somewhere? Get off me. Berg pushes you away. Then he holds up a book. It's green. Dr. Johnson and the twins say hello.

It's the code phrase. You're my contact? Berg immediately starts walking. When you catch up, he hisses at you. What kind of amateur are you? I was just surprised, Mr. Berg, and don't use my name, you idiot. I'm a graduate student named Bernard. Right, sorry. You know that OSS has been tapping all sorts of oddballs lately, but you never figured Moe Berg would be here. Your questions can wait, though. You have a mission.

You take a breath and pull yourself together. My apologies, Bernard. I didn't recognize you. That's better. Did you bring the hammer? Yes. You glance down at his pocket and see the outline of not a hammer, but his pistol. And you have your medicine? I do. Can I see it?

What the hell do you need to see it for? I can't let you go to the lecture without your medicine. Berg grumbles and digs into his pocket. His hand emerges with a small black pill. All right, good. Now let's go learn some science. The initial drunken plot to kidnap Werner Heisenberg in 1942 had died of inattention, but scientific and military leaders never quite abandoned the idea. So when a Swiss spy reported that Heisenberg would be visiting Zurich again in December 1944, OSS swung into action. Because Switzerland was a neutral country, Americans could travel there freely, and because Moe Berg could speak multiple languages,

he fit in with the diverse crowds. The plan called for Berg to make initial contact with Heisenberg and win his trust. Then several other agents would sweep in and help Berg with the actual kidnapping. But for various reasons, every other member of the plot had to drop out. One suffered a nervous breakdown, while others missed travel deadlines due to OSS incompetence. So by mid-December, Mo Berg was the only member of the plot left. As a result, the mission had to shift focus. Despite being an

ex-athlete, Berg probably wouldn't be able to subdue and kidnap Heisenberg all by himself. The only viable option now was to assassinate him. This would leave a lot of responsibility in Berg's hands. But the Allies couldn't send him into the lecture and tell him to shoot Heisenberg no matter what. Doing so would have violated Switzerland's wartime neutrality, a serious breach of international protocol, and caused a massive scandal. Switzerland likely would have kicked out every American diplomat and intelligence official in the country, and that outcome would have been devastating for American spying efforts.

Switzerland was one of the few places where Germans, Italians, Americans, British, and Frenchmen could all meet. The United States would have been blind and deaf in Europe for the remainder of the few places where Germans, Italians, Americans, British, and Frenchmen could all meet. The United States would have been blind and deaf in Europe for the remainder of the war. In addition, while the United States had been hearing ominous reports of Heisenberg's progress, nothing was certain. He was definitely doing atomic research for the Nazis, but how far along was he? Would he hand Hitler a bomb before the end of the war? If not, then the Americans were risking accusations of murdering a Nobel Prize winner in cold blood. So Berg had a lot to weigh in his mind. Shooting Heisenberg would be the easy solution, but would it be the right one?

In the days before the lecture, Berg polished up his German accent and came up with a cover story, posing as a Swiss graduate student. Then he grabbed his gun and cyanide pill, rendezvoused with an OSS agent named Leo, and walked to the university. Due to fuel rationing during the war, the lecture hall was freezing. Most people there kept their coats on as a result, which played to Berg's advantage, since it both hid and gave him access to his gun. He and Leo sat near the front of the hall. At 4.15 p.m., the talk started. Heisenberg strode on stage, and Berg finally laid eyes on the man that every atomic scientist

in the Allied world had been obsessing over for years. Berg's instructions were to listen carefully to Heisenberg and determine how close the Germans were to an atomic bomb. Of course, Heisenberg wasn't going to just sketch an atomic bomb on the blackboard or divulge Nazi secrets. So instead, Berg listened to subtle clues, hoping that Heisenberg would betray something inadvertently, maybe make a stray remark about chain reactions or atomic reactors, or point to an equation about uranium fission, or say something unguarded. And if he did, Berg would stand up and shoot him. Berg then had orders to escape, if at all possible, with Leo's help.

But if he couldn't escape, it was his duty to take the cyanide pill and end his own life. The Allies simply couldn't risk Berg being captured, not with all the atomic secrets he knew. Because Berg was posing as a student, he pretended to take notes during the talk. In reality, he was sizing up the man he was prepared to kill. In his notes, he described Heisenberg as looking Irish, with ruddy hair, a bald spot, bushy eyebrows, and sinister eyes. Berg stared so intently at Heisenberg that at one point he and the German physicist apparently locked eyes for several seconds. In his notebook, Berg scribbled, H likes my interest in his lecture. No matter how hard he strained, though, Berg couldn't quite

decipher what Heisenberg was talking about. It seemed like an innocuous physics lecture, unrelated to bombs. But how could he be sure? Was he missing something? Meanwhile, the physicists in the room remained oblivious to Berg's torment. They focused instead on the equations Heisenberg had written on the blackboard. Berg scribbled in his notebook, discussing math while Rome burns. If they only knew what I'm thinking.

But in truth, Berg himself didn't know what to think. Failing to act could hand Hitler the bomb. So should he shoot and potentially save the world? Then again, could he really shoot a man without the evidence he needs, especially when he might have to sacrifice his own life in the process? This private torture continued for two and a half hours. And when the lecture finally ended, despite all that was at stake, Berg didn't shoot. Afterward, several physicists rushed the stage to chat with Heisenberg. Berg took the opportunity to sneak up and eavesdrop by pretending to study the equations

on the blackboard. Might Heisenberg let his guard down now? Brag about something? But after some chit-chat, a few old friends whisked Heisenberg off to dinner, leaving Berg behind. Having nothing to do, he slunk off, emotionally wrung out, and still uncertain whether he'd done the right thing by doing nothing. Later that week, however, Berg got a second chance. The scientist who'd invited Heisenberg to Zurich was holding a dinner party, and Berg, the supposed graduate student, snagged an invitation. His hope was that, away from the seminar room in a relaxed atmosphere with food and wine, Heisenberg would say something

careless and betray the status of the Nazi nuclear bomb. But it wasn't a typical dinner party. As a scientist working for the Third Reich, Heisenberg had a target on his back, and as soon as the party started, several guests cornered him and began pelting him with questions. Berg once again eavesdropped, and it was ugly from the start. Heisenberg tried defending himself, but the guests berated him for working for the Nazis. The physicist left the party not long afterward, exhausted and alone. But as he slipped outside to walk to his hotel, someone joined him, someone Heisenberg recognized

from his lecture a few days earlier, a Swiss physics student with the intense expression. The student greeted him in German and pointed out that they were going the same way, so they might as well walk together. So Heisenberg and Moe, gun and pill in pocket, slipped off together into the night. Berg knew this would be his last chance to question Heisenberg, who was leaving the next day. It was also his last chance to determine how much progress the Germans had made on an atomic bomb, and if necessary, stop the project dead by shooting Heisenberg. As they walked, Berg peppered Heisenberg with questions. He even drew on his lawyer training and made several leading statements

to draw Heisenberg out. Zürich is so boring, he said at one point. I'd give anything to be in Germany right now, where you can really fight the enemy. Heisenberg muttered that he disagreed, but didn't elaborate. As they walked the streets, Berg continued to press, and Heisenberg continued to parry. Years of living under Hitler had conditioned Heisenberg to guard his opinions carefully. You simply didn't talk politics with strangers. So he answered the questions as vaguely as he could without being rude. But he had no clue that his life depended on his answers. Even a joke, a wry comment taken the wrong way, could have fatal consequences. Berg, meanwhile, had a perfect opportunity to carry out the

execution. He and Heisenberg were walking alone, late at night, on deserted streets. He easily could have ditched the gun and fled. So why not shoot Heisenberg just to be safe? In the end, Berg simply couldn't do it. Killing somebody in cold blood without proof of their crimes was a fascist thing to do, a Nazi thing to do. Berg couldn't cross that line. The two men parted at Heisenberg's hotel, and when Heisenberg turned his back one last time, Berg walked away. Heisenberg quickly put the encounter out of his mind, but Berg never could. Fate had thrown Moe Berg two chances to take out Germany's top nuclear scientist, and he'd watch both pitches go by. For the rest of his life, he wrestled with his decision.

After the war, Berg became something of a drifter, spending most of his time traveling and crashing at houses of friends. There, he'd dust off his old stories about Babe Ruth and Japan and FDR, chatting and laughing until the wee hours of the morning. But in darker moments, Berg would return to those hours with Heisenberg, the agony in the lecture hall, walking the dark streets of Zurich with him. While drafting an unpublished memoir, he asked himself whether he really could have disposed of Heisenberg. Perhaps he didn't want to think of himself as a cold-blooded killer, or perhaps he feared the opposite,

that deep down he was a coward and never could have taken Heisenberg out. Regardless, he continued to obsess over the mission and never quite got past it. Once, he even showed his brother the cyanide-filled rubber capsule he'd taken into the lecture. Berg kept it his entire life. Berg's superiors at OSS had a more measured response to the mission. The war was still going on, and they trusted his judgment and accepted his decision. They could also see the bigger picture. Berg's atomic espionage had provided critical intelligence on the Nazi uranium club.

Among other things, his work pinned down where Heisenberg's family was hiding in southern Germany. Berg also picked up choice bits about Heisenberg himself and where his atom cellar was. The OSS was thrilled with this information. And they knew there was another mission to go after Heisenberg in the works. Not a lone wolf operation, but a team effort with top soldiers and brilliant scientists. Berg had certainly laid a crucial foundation, and now it would fall to others to actually lay hands on Werner Heisenberg and bring the threat of the Nazi atomic bomb to an end. Next week on American History Tellers, undercover commandos and scientists infiltrate Europe on a quest to seize Nazi uranium, taking the hunt for Werner Heisenberg

and the other members of the Uranium Club into the dragon's lair of Nazi Germany itself. From Wondery, this is American History Tellers. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. I hope you enjoyed this episode. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship, sound design by Derek Behrens. This episode is written by Sam Kean and based on his book, The Bastard Brigade, edited by Dorian Marina, edited and produced by Jenny Lauer Beckman. Our executive producer is Marshall Louis,

created by Hernán López for Wondery. Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes. Even if you haven't read the book, you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today. The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror. So when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see is our own monstrous abilities. From the host and producer of American History Tellers and History Daily comes the new podcast, The Real History of Dracula. We'll reveal how author Bram Stoker raided ancient folklore,

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