Operation Long Jump: Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Greatest Assassination Plot in History

218 Pages·2007·1.82 MB·English

OPERATION LONG JUMP

Copyright © 2015 by Bill Yenne All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any
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Regnery History™ is a trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation; Regnery® is a
registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation First e-book edition 2015: 978-1-
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Originally published in hardcover, 2015
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yenne, Bill, 1949-author.
Operation Long Jump: Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, and the greatest assassina-tion plot in history / Bill
Yenne.
pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Operation Long Jump. 2. World War, 1939-1945--Secret service--Germany. 3. Conspiracies--Iran--
Tehran--History--20th century. 4. Conspiracies--Germany--History--20th century. 5. Teheran Conference
(1943: Tehran, Iran) 6. Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945. 7. Stalin, Joseph, 1878-
1953. 8. Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965. I. Title.
D810.S7Y46 2015
940.53’141--dc23
2015015710
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Contents
Cast of Characters
Acronyms
Prologue: What Might Have Been
Introduction: A Pretty Good Haul…If
1
Iran, the Remote Fastness
2
The German-Iranian Nexus
3
Spy vs. Spy
4
Tehran, the Nest of Intrigue
5
A Free Island in Occupied Persia
6
High Value Targets
7
How, When, and Where
8
Hit Men
9
Behind the Most Elaborate of Curtains
10
A Maiden in Distress
11
Cicero, the Million-Dollar Master Key
12
Danger at Every Turn
13
Boots on the Ground
14
Saturday, November 27
15
Sunday, November 28
16
Monday, November 29
17
Tuesday, November 30
18
Wednesday, December 1
19
Thursday, December 2
20
What Might Have Been
21
The Common Man
22
The Tide of History
Epilogue
About the Author
Bibliography
Index
Cast of Characters
DMITRI VASILEVICH ARKADIEV: the NKVD man who coordinated Soviet
logistics for the Tehran Conference GENERAL HENRY “HAP” ARNOLD:
the commanding general of the USAAF, and a participant in the Tehran
Conference ELYESA BAZNA: a German asset in Turkey, called Cicero
because the intelligence he provided spoke so eloquently LAVRENTY
BERIA: head of the Soviet NKVD and a probable participant in the Tehran
Conference, though he kept to the shadows CHIP BOHLEN: the first
secretary at the American embassy in Moscow and Roosevelt’s translator in
Tehran GENERAL ALAN BROOKE: chief of the British General Staff, and
a participant in the Tehran Conference READER BULLARD: the veteran
foreign service man who was the British ambassador to Iran
ADMIRAL WILHELM CANARIS: the head of the Abwehr, the German
military intelligence organization KHALIL CHAPAT: a French-Iranian high
school teacher and a fixture of the expat community in Tehran WINSTON
CHURCHILL: the Prime Minister of Great Britain and one of the targets of
Operation Long Jump GENERAL DONALD CONNOLLY: the engineer
who headed the U.S. Army’s Persian Gulf Command ADMIRAL ANDREW
CUNNINGHAM: chief of the Royal Naval Staff, and a participant in the
Tehran Conference JAMES DOWNWARD: an agent of the U.S. Office of
War Information in Tehran
PERCY DOWNWARD: a covert agent of the British SOE operating in Tehran
LOUIS GOETHE DREYFUS: the veteran foreign service man who was the
American ambassador to Iran MISBAH EBTEHAJ: a practitioner of
Pahlevani, a form of Iranian martial arts and someone who seemed to know
everyone in Tehran ANTHONY EDEN: foreign minister of the United
Kingdom, and a participant in the Tehran Conference
ERWIN ETTEL: the veteran foreign service man and loyal Nazi who was the
prewar German ambassador to Iran PETER FERGUSON: an American
adventurer and OSS man who hatched a scheme to thwart Long Jump
ROMAN GAMOTHA: an agent on the ground in Iran of the German SD spy
agency
GEORG ALEXANDER HANSEN: the chief of the Abwehr counterintelligence
component
AVERELL HARRIMAN: the American ambassador to the Soviet Union, and a
participant in the Tehran Conference STURMBANNFÜHRER RUDOLF
VON HOLTEN-PFLUG: an aggressive and ambitious SS officer and a Long
Jump team leader HARRY HOPKINS: special assistant to President
Roosevelt, and a participant in the Tehran Conference GENERAL
PATRICK HURLEY: Roosevelt’s personal troubleshooter in Russia and the
Middle East, and a participant in the Tehran Conference
OBERGRUPPENFÜHRER ERNST KALTENBRUNNER: the head of the
German Sicherheitsdienst (SD) domestic and foreign intelligence agency
ARCHIBALD CLARK KERR: the British ambassador to the Soviet Union,
a participant in the Tehran Conference NASR KHAN: the warlord leader of
the powerful Qashqai, a nomadic people who saw the Germans as liberators
ADMIRAL ERNEST KING: United States Chief of Naval Operations, a
participant in the Tehran Conference DANIEL KOMISSAROV: a Farsi-
speaking translator and key figure within the Soviet embassy in Tehran
IDA KOVALSKA: a well-educated Polish refugee, part of the expat community
in Tehran, and a confidante of spies NIKOLAI IVANOVICH
KUZNETSOV: a legendary NKVD double agent specializing in covert
operations ADMIRAL WILLIAM LEAHY: Roosevelt’s military chief of
staff, also the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a participant in the
Tehran Conference GEORGE LENCZOWSKI: the press attaché at the
Polish embassy in Tehran
FITZROY MACLEAN: a legendary soldier of fortune and British covert
operations master
GENERAL GEORGE MARSHALL: Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, and a
participant in the Tehran Conference MIKHAIL MAXIMOV: the Soviet
ambassador to Iran, he replaced Andrei Smirnov in 1943
FRANZ MAYR: the longest-serving agent of the German SD spy network on
the ground in Iran
ADMIRAL ROSS MCINTIRE: Roosevelt’s doctor
ERNST MERSER: a Swiss double agent operating for the SIS and the Abwehr
in Tehran under cover as a businessman, he became the central figure in
Operation Long Jump ARTHUR MILLSPAUGH: the American fiscal
genius who became Administrator General of Finances of Iran
VYACHESLAV MOLOTOV: the Soviet foreign commissar, and a
participant in the Tehran Conference
SYDNEY MORRELL: a British Security Coordination agent under cover as a
public affairs man
HABIBULLAH NOBAKHT: a pro-German Iranian politician, he gave aid and
comfort to German spies
STURMBANNFÜHRER WINIFRED OBERG: the handler of German spies in
the Middle East for the SD
STURMBANNFÜHRER HANS ULRICH VON ORTEL: an SS hit man, clever
and aggressive, but he talked too much MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI:
the timid son of Reza Shah who grew up to be a despot
HAROLD PETERS: an agent of the U.S. Office of War Information operating in
Tehran
WANDA POLLACK: a young Polish refugee who was taken in by Ernst
Merser, and who was to play an unwitting pivotal role in the Long Jump
story PAUL POURBAIX: a Belgian NKVD informant and a fixture of the
Tehran expat community
MICHAEL FRANCIS REILLY: the head of the Secret Service White House
Detail and Roosevelt’s bodyguard LIEUTENANT (JG) BILL RIGDON: the
U.S. Navy officer who was Roosevelt’s personal secretary at the Tehran
conference FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: the President of the United States
and one of the targets of Operation Long Jump BRIGADEFÜHRER
WALTHER FRIEDRICH SCHELLENBERG: the head of SD-Ausland, the
foreign espionage wing of the SD
UNTERSTURMFÜHRER JOSEF SCHNABEL: a young and energetic SS man
who was part of the Long Jump team LOTHAR SCHOELLHORN: a
ruthless criminal recruited by the Abwehr for his skills as a hired killer
MAJOR JULIUS SCHULZE-HOLTHUS: the agent on the ground in Iran of the
Abwehr, German military intelligence GENERAL HERBERT NORMAN
SCHWARZKOPF: the crime buster from New Jersey who headed the
Iranian gendarmerie REZA SHAH: the iron-fisted ruler of Iran until deposed
in 1941
STANDARTENFÜHRER OTTO SKORZENY: the legendary SS special forces
commander, known for accomplishing the impossible ANDREI SMIRNOV:
the Soviet ambassador to Iran, replaced in 1943 by Mikhail Maximov
JOSEF STALIN: Marshal of the Soviet Union, and one of the targets of
Operation Long Jump
GEVORK VARTANIAN: an NKVD man in Tehran who described Long Jump
to the international media sixty years later ANDREI MIKHALOVITS
VERTINSKI: the NKVD resident agent in Tehran
MARSHAL KLIMENT VOROSHILOV: Stalin’s senior military man at the
Tehran Conference
MERVYN WOLLHEIM: an American amateur archeologist and a fixture of the
expat community in Tehran
GENERAL FAZLOLLAH ZAHEDI: a pro-German Iranian general who gave
aid and comfort to German spies