[ RadSafe ] .....A GOOD....and...FASCINATING STORY with thanks to Don M.

[Dan McCarn]

Wow!

Dan ii

Dan W McCarn, Geologist
108 Sherwood Blvd
Los Alamos, NM 87544-3425
+1-505-670-8123 (Mobile - New Mexico)
HotGreenChile at gmail.com (Private email) HotGreenChile at gmail dot com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwmccarn

On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 6:17 AM, Maury <maurysis at peoplepc.com> wrote:

> Courtesy Don M. -- Another amazing background of people and times. . . .
> m&d
> ======================================
>
>        When baseball greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig went on tour in
> baseball-crazy Japan in 1934...some fans wondered why...''a third-string
> ball catcher named Moe Berg'' was included. Although he played with five
> major-league teams from 1923 to 1939...Moe was a very mediocre ball
> player.  But Moe was regarded as "the brainiest ballplayer of all time." In
> fact..Casey Stengel once said:  "This is the strangest man ever to play
> baseball".
>
>                     When all the baseball stars went to Japan, Moe Berg
> went with them and many people wondered why he went with "the team"  Lou
> Gehrig and  Babe Ruth.  The answer was simple: Moe Berg was  ''a United
> States spy''  working undercover with the Office of Strategic Services
> (predecessor of today's CIA). Moe spoke 15 languages...including Japanese.
> And he had two loves: "Baseball"...and..."Spying."
>
>                     In Tokyo...garbed in a kimono...Moe Berg took flowers
> to the daughter of an American diplomat being treated in St. Luke's
> Hospital...the tallest building in the Japanese capital.  He never
> delivered the flowers. The ball-player ascended to the hospital roof...and
> filmed key features:  the Harbor, Military installations, Railway yards,
> etc.  Eight years later, General Jimmy Doolittle studied Moe Berg's films
> in planning his spectacular raid on Tokyo..
>
>                     His father disapproved and never once watched his son
> play. In Barringer High School...Moe learned Latin, Greek and French. Moe
> read at least 10 newspapers everyday.
>
>                     He graduated 'Magna Cum Laude' from Princeton...having
> added Spanish, Italian, German and Sanskrit to his linguistic quiver.
> During further studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, inColumbia Law School...he
> picked up Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Arabic, Portuguese and
> Hungarian: 15 languages in all...plus some regional dialects.  While
> playing baseball for Princeton University..Moe Berg would describe plays in
> Latin...or Sanskrit.
>
>                     Tito's  partisans
>
>                     During World War II...Moe was parachuted into
> Yugoslavia to assess the value to the war effort of the two groups of
> partisans there.  He reported back that Marshall Tito's forces were widely
> supported by the people and Winston Churchill ordered all-out support for
> the Yugoslav underground fighter, rather than Mihajlovic's Serbians.
>
>                     The parachute jump...at age 41...undoubtedly was a
> challenge. But there was more to come in that same year. Moe Berg
> penetrated German-held Norway...met with members of the underground and
> located a secret heavy-water plant...part of the Nazis' effort to build an
> atomic bomb.   Moe Berg's information...guided the Royal Air Force in a
> bombing raid to destroy that plant.  The  R.A.F. destroys the  Norwegian
> heavy water  plant targeted  by Moe Berg.
>
>                     There still remained the question...of how far had the
> Nazis progressed in the race to build the first Atomic bomb.  If the Nazis
> were successful, they would win the war.  Moe Berg (under the code name
> "Remus") was sent to Switzerland to hear leading German physicist Werner
> Heisenberg, a Nobel Laureate lecturer...and to determine if the Nazis were
> close to building an A-bomb.  Moe managed to slip past the SS guards at the
> auditorium... posing as a Swiss graduate student.  The spy carried in his
> pocket a pistol and a cyanide pill.
>
>                     If the German indicated the Nazis were close to
> building a weapon..Berg was to shoot him...and then swallow the cyanide
> pill.  Moe...sitting in the front row...determined that the Germans were
> nowhere near their goal so he complimented Mr. Heisenberg on his
> speech...and walked him back to his hotel.
>
>                     Werner  Heisenberg -  he blocked  the  Nazis from
> acquiring an  atomic bomb.   Moe Berg's report was distributed to Britain's
> Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and key
> figures in the team... developing the Atomic Bomb.  Roosevelt responded:
> "Give my regards to the catcher.”
>
>                     Most of Germany's leading physicists had been
> Jewish...and had fled the Nazis mainly to Britain and the United States.
> After the war, Moe Berg was awarded the Medal of Freedom - America 's
> highest honor for a civilian in wartime. But Berg refused to accept it
> because he couldn't tell people about his exploits.
>
>                     After his death, his sister accepted the Medal. It now
> hangs in the Baseball Hall of Fame...in Cooperstown. Presidential Medal of
> Freedom: the  highest award given to civilians   during  wartime. Moe
> Berg's baseball card is the only card on display at the CIA  Headquarters
> in Washington, DC.
>
>     So, "Now you know!"
>
>
>
>
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