The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg by Nicholas Dawidoff

Author:Nicholas Dawidoff [Dawidoff, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Sports, Military, History, World War II
ISBN: 9780307807090
Google: kAHo0DTDC_UC
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-11-02T04:00:00+00:00

THE INFORMATION BERG was sending to Washington from the top floor of 24 Dufourstrasse wasn’t as dramatic as his cables describing the meeting with Heisenberg, but intelligence work rarely manages such excitation. Berg did spend an afternoon scrutinizing the Swiss scientist and Nazi sympathizer Walther Dallenbach, while concealed behind a curtain in the private Zurich library where Dallenbach was working, but that was an unusually charged moment. The work of espionage has much in common with the dogged days of digging and sifting that archaeologists put in while searching for the remains of a mosaic.

Through the month Berg continued to spend most of his time with Scherrer. Scherrer wanted badly to visit the United States, to take up a temporary assignment either with the Aerojet Corporation or at the California Institute of Technology, and Berg said he would see what he could do.

“This is very urgent,” came Berg’s March 19 dispatch to Washington. “He expects an affirmative answer.” That was understandable and so was Groves’s reply. “Nothing doing,” said the general. As long as there was a war in Europe, Groves wanted Scherrer in Switzerland, where he could provide him with information. At the moment, all Groves would approve for Scherrer was a cache of physics magazines and four Goodyear atom-smasher belts that the scientist had asked for. Berg grew anxious. A trip had been planned for him to Sweden, where he was to interview Lise Meitner. But Scherrer had been very important to him. “Please trust my judgment,” he wired back, “that I should not leave without definite word from you that invitation will be forthcoming when time suitable.” The sense he got from Washington was that Scherrer would be taken care of.

Berg spent Easter Sunday bicycling, swimming, and drinking wine at a Swiss lake with Scherrer. Slim and fit, wearing sunglasses with his dark suit and fedora, Berg cut a sleek figure that contrasted with the skinny-legged, shaggy-maned Scherrer. A few days later Berg was off. With the war obviously ending, another OSS agent, German-born Max Kliefoth, who was a World War I flying ace under the “Red” Baron von Richthofen, was put in touch with Scherrer, and Berg left for Paris by command car.

Everything was now concluding at a breathtaking pace that must have dizzied men accustomed to the sluggish tempo of intelligence work. General Patton and the Third Army were steaming toward Berlin with Pash, Goudsmit, and Alsos right behind them. On April 12, Berg met with Donovan for breakfast in Paris. President Roosevelt had died earlier that day, and, like most Americans, Donovan and Berg were stunned. Many Americans would remember where they were when FDR died the way they would again in 1963, after John F. Kennedy was killed. Berg, a loyal Democrat who loved Roosevelt, was certainly among them. To be sitting across from the commander of the OSS made the occasion all the more memorable for Berg, especially when Donovan, who excelled in sentimental moments, comforted him. “FDR knew what you were doing,” he said.

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