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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: One of the Nazi spies is hit by a car.

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Speaker 2: The other spy walking with him, instead of attending to

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Speaker 2: his colleague, picks up the statue of papers and he

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Speaker 2: runs off.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. I love a good spy story.

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Speaker 1: We've talked about spies embedded with the American government. We've

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Speaker 1: discussed librarians and academics researching in the basement of the

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Speaker 1: Library of Congress during World War Two, and now we're

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Speaker 1: talking with Thomas Mayer about a very unlikely spy. A

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Speaker 1: former football player turned spy for Winston Churchill. It's all

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Speaker 1: in Mayer's book The Invisible Spy. With this story, what

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Speaker 1: are the parallels do you think of what we're seeing today,

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Speaker 1: not even necessarily in the United States, but around the world.

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Speaker 1: You know, editors will want to know how does this

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Speaker 1: book resonate with readers today. What do you say?

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Speaker 2: I think this book is ripped right out of the

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Speaker 2: headlines of today. We're talking about the impact and the

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Speaker 2: importance of espionage, how it plays out. A big part

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Speaker 2: of the book is also about the propaganda campaign that

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Speaker 2: the British at Rockefeller Center were basically doing behind the

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Speaker 2: scenes in order to get America into the war. That

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Speaker 2: was the big hope of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. You know,

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Speaker 2: at that time, in nineteen forty, Churchill had just become

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister. He realized that it was very important for

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Speaker 2: America to get in because at that time London was

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Speaker 2: being bombed, people were living in the subways. It was

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Speaker 2: a matter of life and death for the British, and

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Speaker 2: it was essential in Churchill's eyes that America entered the war,

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Speaker 2: and so at Rockefeller Center was set up a secret

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Speaker 2: headquarters up on the thirty sixth floor of Rockefeller Center

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Speaker 2: where a whole group of British spies, some Canadians and British.

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Speaker 2: They ran a number of different things, but one of

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Speaker 2: the major things was a propaganda arm meant to influence

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Speaker 2: American media. And Ernest Cuneo, who's the subject of my book,

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Speaker 2: The Invisible Spy. Ernest Cuneo was wearing several different hats,

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Speaker 2: but you could say he was not only the first

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Speaker 2: spy American spy of World War One, but he was also,

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Speaker 2: by today's standards, a massive media influencer. This is really

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Speaker 2: kind of a walk into the deep state. Today. We

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Speaker 2: talk about deep state and some of it is just

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Speaker 2: rhetorical nonsense, but there are people who do make things

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Speaker 2: happen in the government, and people who are like Ernest Cuneo,

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Speaker 2: who are familiar with a number of different agencies and

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Speaker 2: they're the ones who make it happen. And even though

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Speaker 2: Ernest Couneo wanted to remain anonymous, that was all part

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Speaker 2: of his job description, if you will. He was very

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Speaker 2: influential with a number of different agencies, including the first

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Speaker 2: spy agency of the United Slate States.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this sounds like an incredible story. We have

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Speaker 1: spoken to a couple of different authors who have talked

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Speaker 1: about spies, one in particular, who talked about World War

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Speaker 1: two spies who were located in Europe and were sending

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Speaker 1: back information to spies and the basement of the Library

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Speaker 1: of Congress, And that is also a unlikely spy story.

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Speaker 1: About archivists and librarians and researchers and basically academic geeks

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Speaker 1: you know, who have done all this, you, I feel like,

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Speaker 1: almost have the opposite kind of unlikely spy. So why

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Speaker 1: don't we get started with you know, Ernest and what

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Speaker 1: can you tell me about him, maybe from either childhood

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Speaker 1: or when he was younger that will give us some

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Speaker 1: context about how he ended up doing what he did.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm really intrigued with Ernest Kuneil because he went

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Speaker 2: to Columbia and I went to Columbia journalism school, and

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Speaker 2: that kind of caught my eye. But he was an

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Speaker 2: Italian American kid who grew up in the New York area,

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Speaker 2: in the suburbs of New Jersey, and he played football

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Speaker 2: at Columbia when Columbia actually did have a good football team,

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Speaker 2: and he went into the NFL and he was playing

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Speaker 2: as an alignment in the NFL in the very early

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Speaker 2: days of the league. He actually would play for those

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Speaker 2: people who played football familiar with football. He played all

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Speaker 2: sixty minutes. He would play offensive lineman and then he

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Speaker 2: would play defensive lineman, and so he played for a

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Speaker 2: couple of years. The name of the team that he

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Speaker 2: played for was the Brooklyn Dodgers, not the baseball team,

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Speaker 2: the famous baseball team, but there was actually an NFL

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Speaker 2: franchise back in the early thirties by the name of

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Speaker 2: Brooklyn Dodgers, and he played for that. And it's the

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Speaker 2: same time he was going to law school. He got

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Speaker 2: a law degree. He was working for a time period

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Speaker 2: for the New York Daily News on the night shift,

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Speaker 2: so at times he was a reporter. So he was

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Speaker 2: a really bright guy. He had worked eventually with Walter Winchell,

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Speaker 2: who was probably, without that the most famous media figure

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Speaker 2: in America. He was he had a column that appeared

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Speaker 2: literally in hundreds of newspapers around the country. But he

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Speaker 2: also had a Sunday night radio broadcast, and that broadcast

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Speaker 2: was heard by millions of Americans. This is before television,

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Speaker 2: so on Sunday nights, you tune in and listened to

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Speaker 2: Walter Winchell. If you've ever heard Winchell's voice, it was

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Speaker 2: almost like a machine gun approach, or was very He

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Speaker 2: actually did the narration for a show called The Untouchables

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Speaker 2: for those people that may have that type of memory

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Speaker 2: of an old TV show, The Untouchables. But Coonio was

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Speaker 2: his lawyer h and also Coonia was a lawyer for

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Speaker 2: another well known media figure named Drew Pearson. And so

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Speaker 2: to me, Ernest Cooneo was fascinating because on one level,

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Speaker 2: he wanted to be anonymous, and he felt that that

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Speaker 2: was a key to his success. And he learned even

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Speaker 2: though he started out wanting seeking fame as a football player,

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Speaker 2: he really realized over time that in the world of politics,

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Speaker 2: in the world of the media, and also particularly in

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Speaker 2: the world of espionage, that it's really important to behind

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Speaker 2: the scenes, to become invisible. And that's what Ernest Cuneo became.

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Speaker 2: And that's one of the reasons why I was fascinated

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Speaker 2: with this book. The other thing is the life and

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Speaker 2: times of Ernest Cuneo. He's directly involved in a number

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Speaker 2: of different very prominent spy cases from the beginning of

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Speaker 2: World War two, even before America gets involved, from about

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Speaker 2: nineteen forty all the way through the Cold War and

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Speaker 2: all the way to the jfk assassination. That's the extent

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Speaker 2: of my book. And so his life and times involves

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Speaker 2: things where Ernest directly is involved or because he's working

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Speaker 2: with agencies that they are involved in a number of

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Speaker 2: spy cases that I play out in this book. So

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Speaker 2: for me, it was an opportunity to kind of talk

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Speaker 2: about the whole growth of American espionage and that's a

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Speaker 2: remarkable story in and of itself.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the transition that he makes from

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Speaker 1: NFL football player and you know, a law student, lawyer,

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Speaker 1: and reporter for a newspaper, all of these different things

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Speaker 1: to how you get from there to the thirty sixth

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Speaker 1: floor of Rockefeller Center. What year are we in and

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Speaker 1: put me into the context of where we are in America,

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Speaker 1: like socioeconomic and everything, and then looking towards what's about

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Speaker 1: to happen with World War two.

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Speaker 2: This is the nineteen thirties, so America is suffering through

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Speaker 2: the depression. Ernest Cuneo is a hard working kid. He's

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Speaker 2: been able through a football scholarship to go to Columbia,

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Speaker 2: but he gets a job eventually working for then Congressman

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Speaker 2: Fiarello LaGuardia, who eventually becomes the very famous not the

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Speaker 2: airport for the actual mayor for whom the airport is

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Speaker 2: named here in New York. And Fiarella LaGuardia was a

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Speaker 2: mentor for Ernest Cuneo, and that was a really important

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Speaker 2: thing because he was introduced to a number of different

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Speaker 2: essentially New York liberals, some of whom had connections with

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Speaker 2: Columbia that he knew. But they were called the brain

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Speaker 2: trust of President Franklin Roosevelt. And so when Roosevelt was

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Speaker 2: elected in nineteen thirty three, eventually, by the mid thirties,

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Speaker 2: Cuneo gets a job working he's a private attorney, but

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Speaker 2: he's working with Walter Winchel, but he's also working for

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Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, the National He's the Associate council for

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Speaker 2: the National Democratic Party. He's also what is called an

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Speaker 2: advance man, an advance man for the president and for

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Speaker 2: other major Democratic candidates. An advance man is that that's

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Speaker 2: a term of art in political campaigns. They are the

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Speaker 2: people that go out and scout out locations and they

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Speaker 2: set up everything. They make sure that the high school

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Speaker 2: band is playing when the president arrives and all those

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Speaker 2: type of things. But also because Ernest was working with

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Speaker 2: Walter Winchell, he really impressed upon them the importance of

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Speaker 2: being able to essentially manipulate the media, to work with

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Speaker 2: the media, to cultivate them, to have sources. And he

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Speaker 2: was a great source for Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson

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Speaker 2: and the people that he worked with, both at the

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Speaker 2: White House, eventually with the British spies at Rockefeller Center.

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Speaker 2: They recognize that about Ernest. So his power was in

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Speaker 2: his anonymity, if you will. It was. His power was

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Speaker 2: the ability to get things done, to plant stories, and

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Speaker 2: my book is replete with examples of that.

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Speaker 1: I want to take a little bit of a side

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Speaker 1: because I'm not sure how many people would know this,

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Speaker 1: but when we talk about the Democratic Party FDR, he's

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Speaker 1: elected in three to this Democratic Party, the Democratic Party

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Speaker 1: has changed dramatically clearly from nineteen thirty three on. I mean,

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Speaker 1: my first sort of history lesson with the Democratic Party

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Speaker 1: was Boss Tweed. When this was happening. FDR knew, you know,

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Speaker 1: on the horizon that word War two was coming or

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Speaker 1: what was sort of the advance, noticed that things were

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Speaker 1: going downhill where he starts thinking, and the brain trust

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Speaker 1: starts thinking, we need a plan because maybe we didn't

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Speaker 1: have a plan with World War One. I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Basically, America has a long history of isolationist views. The

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Speaker 2: view is that we have this big ocean, both in

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Speaker 2: the Atlantic and the Pacific that kind of keeps us

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Speaker 2: from the affairs. You know, in the thirties, it was

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Speaker 2: only about ten fifteen years past World War One, where

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Speaker 2: there were a number of young Americans who got killed

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Speaker 2: in that war, so people were not looking necessarily to

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Speaker 2: get involved. And yet in Europe particularly, but the rise

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Speaker 2: of Hitler, the fact that Hitler marched through all of

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Speaker 2: these countries, Frans Poll and all of these places. By

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Speaker 2: the late thirties, it was pretty clear that this was

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Speaker 2: a very serious situation that had to be dealt with.

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Speaker 2: Roosevelt recognized that, and yet he was also saying in

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Speaker 2: nineteen forty, when he ran for a third term, Roosevelt

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Speaker 2: promised at the Boston Garden, it was his last appearance

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Speaker 2: of that campaign. He said, I promise I wound send

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Speaker 2: your sons and daughters to to war.

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Speaker 1: That was a good impression, thank you.

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Speaker 2: So that's October of forty. But already Ernest Couneil was

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Speaker 2: at war, he was already working with the British spies

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Speaker 2: at Rockefeller Center. So Roosevelt, who was a masterful politician,

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Speaker 2: he was able to play three dimensional chess, as they say,

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Speaker 2: what he was saying publicly was different than what he

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Speaker 2: was the actions that he knew was necessary because war

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Speaker 2: was coming in some manner of form, and of course

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Speaker 2: did with the attack at Pearl Harbor.

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Speaker 1: Did we have many American spies during World War One

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Speaker 1: or any located in the United States or British spies.

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Speaker 2: No, you know, it's part of this whole isolationist view

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Speaker 2: of America. This history of isolationist view also has to

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Speaker 2: do kind of with a disparagement of espionage, which is crazy.

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Speaker 2: You know, the Germans, the Russians certainly believed in espionage.

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Speaker 2: Winston Churchill from those earliest days was involved with spying

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Speaker 2: and such, so they all understood the importance. The Nazis

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Speaker 2: certainly understand they had spies here in the United States.

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Speaker 2: But even during the Roosevelts administration, there was a Secretary

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Speaker 2: of State Henry Stimpson who famously said that gentlemen do

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Speaker 2: not read the mail of other gentlemen, which was really

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Speaker 2: interesting for a variety of reasons, but it was crazy.

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Speaker 2: You need intelligence. If you are a superpower of big power,

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Speaker 2: or any nation of any size should be having some

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Speaker 2: level of intelligence gathering. That doesn't mean necessarily a covert

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Speaker 2: James Bond type of spy, but literally the gathering of intelligence,

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Speaker 2: the developing of sources. That was really the first step,

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Speaker 2: and that was impressed upon President Roosevelt, and he allowed

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Speaker 2: Ernest Cuneo to deal directly with the British spies, and

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Speaker 2: that kind of, in a way, starts the whole ball

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Speaker 2: rolling of modern American espionage. You know, it gets more

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Speaker 2: and more involved as the story goes on, but essentially

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Speaker 2: when Churchill decides to put those spies in Rockefeller Center,

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Speaker 2: up on the thirty sixth floor, right across the street

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Speaker 2: from Saint Patrick's Cathedral, with all these smart alec New

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Speaker 2: Yorkers walking past, thinking, oh, we know everything that's going on.

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Speaker 2: I'm a smarter you know, I'm a smarty pant New Yorker,

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Speaker 2: and they're all oblivious to the fact that up on

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Speaker 2: the thirty sixth floor is this big foreign spy operation.

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Speaker 2: And that operation was something that eventually Roosevelt realizes that

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Speaker 2: we had to follow, we had to model our own

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Speaker 2: espionage agency, and that began. That be really begins with

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Speaker 2: Pearl Harbor.

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Speaker 1: Well, before we get to Pearl Harbor, take Earnest out

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Speaker 1: of it for a moment. The British spies, who are

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Speaker 1: you know, in Rockefeller Center, which is I guess operating

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Speaker 1: in plain sight? That's a smart thing to do. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: much like working in the basement of the Library of Congress.

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Speaker 1: When you look at these spies in the simplest of

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Speaker 1: simple terms, what are they doing that is considered you know,

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Speaker 1: gathering intelligence? Are they receiving information from their spies in Europe?

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Speaker 1: Or what's the purpose of that group in Rockefeller Center.

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Speaker 2: Well, they're doing a couple of things. Initially, they get

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Speaker 2: permission to keep the supply lines open. Spare in mind,

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Speaker 2: Britain's at war is really important to have those supply

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Speaker 2: lines coming from America. So that was the way that

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Speaker 2: they got permission to set up this operation. But very

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Speaker 2: quickly it expanded into other things. It expanded into keeping

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Speaker 2: an eye on all the Nazi spies in the United States.

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Speaker 2: And there were not only some Nazi spies in particularly

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Speaker 2: in the New York area, but there was also a

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Speaker 2: number of German born immigrants who were sympathetic to Germany

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Speaker 2: in fact, and this isolationist group. There was a group

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Speaker 2: called America First and they were very much pro German

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Speaker 2: or certainly not anti German, and they had a big

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Speaker 2: rally and a kind of a quasi Nazi rally at

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Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden in nineteen thirty nine. About twenty thousand

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Speaker 2: people were at Madison Square Garden. It was like the

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Speaker 2: Nickgame here and it was something that was really amazing,

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Speaker 2: but it was indicative of just how America felt at

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Speaker 2: that time. There was not only isolations, but there was

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Speaker 2: a number of peopeople who were for the Germans. So

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Speaker 2: the British were keeping an eye on the Nazi spies there,

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Speaker 2: but they also expanded it because the number one thing

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Speaker 2: that Churchill wanted out of the spy operation was to

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Speaker 2: convince America to get into the war, because without America's

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Speaker 2: help they were going to everything was going to sink.

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Speaker 2: There was very much feared in London that the Nazis

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Speaker 2: were about to invade Great Britain and everything would be

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Speaker 2: over by that point, and so they set up a

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Speaker 2: propaganda arm at Rockefeller Center, and that was one of

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Speaker 2: the biggest things that Ernest Cutio was involved with. He

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Speaker 2: was involved with essentially taking various different aspects of the

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Speaker 2: British views of everything from polling. At one point they

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Speaker 2: had an astrologer who they imported from London and Ernest

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Speaker 2: set up a press conference to have this astrologer who

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Speaker 2: had been a vaudevillian over in England. But he was

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Speaker 2: a phony astrologer, but he predicted the death of Hitler

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Speaker 2: because they knew that Hitler followed the British believed that

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Speaker 2: he was making military decisions. Hitler is making military decisions

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Speaker 2: based upon the stars, based upon this astrological chart, and

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Speaker 2: so they had this astrologer come over and it was

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Speaker 2: Couneo who set up a press conference. This astrologer said

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Speaker 2: Hitler's going to die, and that got headlines all around

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Speaker 2: the world. So there were a lot of things like that.

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Speaker 2: One last thing is that the British also got involved

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Speaker 2: in elections, which is another factor that's very much we

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Speaker 2: are concerned about. We hear about Russian interference, foreign interference

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Speaker 2: with our elections, and indeed the British did get involved

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen forty congressional campaigns. They went after a

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Speaker 2: number of different isolationists candidates, both of whom were Republican

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Speaker 2: and some Democrats. There was a Democrat in the area

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Speaker 2: where Roosevelt was from, in the Poughkeepsie, New York area,

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Speaker 2: they went after him, and by that they actually went

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Speaker 2: to the scene. They actually helped with some rallies. But

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Speaker 2: they also got involved in polling and surveying, and there

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Speaker 2: was like a phony poll, a survey that the British

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Speaker 2: set up that Cunio was very actively involved. I had

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Speaker 2: all these documents from Cuneo's papers that explain this. But

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Speaker 2: they did a survey in the nineteen forty Democratic and

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Speaker 2: Republican national conventions, a survey of how many delegates favored

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Speaker 2: intervention into the war. Now, most of those people that

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Speaker 2: were attending congresspeople and such, their letters were saying, don't

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Speaker 2: send my kids a war. We don't want to, we

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Speaker 2: don't want to get involved in a foreign war. And

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Speaker 2: yet the survey magically said that most delegates to both conventions,

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Speaker 2: Republican Democrats, the favored getting involved in the war. And

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Speaker 2: that serve that phony survey was reported by a number

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Speaker 2: of different major newspapers, the New York Times, the Herald

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Speaker 2: Tribune and such, and it's all laid out in my

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Speaker 2: in my book. I have the documents that were part

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Speaker 2: of that. They're up at the FDR library. Kunio's papers

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Speaker 2: are there and they described a lot that you can

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Speaker 2: see from the correspondence. How you know exactly what they did.

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Speaker 1: This might be another slight deviation from what we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: But I have a question, because I've researched some about

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Speaker 1: nativism in the eighteen hundreds, what do you think the

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Speaker 1: difference was between somebody who is in the nineteen thirties

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Speaker 1: or forties who I mean, I think FDR is looking

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Speaker 1: at as the difference between somebody who is an isolationist

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Speaker 1: and somebody who is a nativist in the United States.

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Speaker 1: Is there a large difference between the two in the

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Speaker 1: thirties or forties.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there was a difference, although they did

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Speaker 2: overlap certainly. But the Nativists, the No Nothing Party, they

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Speaker 2: were fundamentally anti immigrant. You know, I've done books. I

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Speaker 2: did a book about twenty five years ago about the

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Speaker 2: Kennedys about their Irish Catholic immigrant experience and how it

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Speaker 2: affected them. Public lives, and that's a big part of

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Speaker 2: that story. So basically that native is was anti immigrant.

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Speaker 2: That's fundamentally what that was about. The isolationists was to

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Speaker 2: some extent had its roots in George Washington's farewell address

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Speaker 2: that he warned about foreign entanglements, and there was a view.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if it was a conservative view or whatever,

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Speaker 2: because I think a lot of liberals share this view

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Speaker 2: as well, that why are we getting involved in Vietnam,

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Speaker 2: for instance, or why are we getting involved in Iraq? Why?

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Speaker 2: And we certainly see that these days now. Of course

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Speaker 2: that comes back to bite us in the proverbial rear ends,

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Speaker 2: and that certainly we saw that with Hitler that we

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Speaker 2: just could not Hitler was not going to go away,

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Speaker 2: and Roosevelt knew that, but he what he had to do,

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Speaker 2: like any good politicianist kind of lead the populace to

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Speaker 2: recognizing the reality. And so there was a distinction between

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Speaker 2: the name of this view and this isolationist view.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you bring up so many things for me

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Speaker 1: I researched. I once wanted to do a book on

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Speaker 1: Boss Tweed, who is you know, of course, a very

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Speaker 1: corrupt politician, Damminy Hall in the late eighteen hundreds, but

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Speaker 1: also on Thomas nast Sure, the cartoonist who was a

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Speaker 1: just incredible nativist, and some of his you know, cartoons

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Speaker 1: and sketch's political cartoons were of course very anti Irish. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So I think we started talking about Pearl Harbor. You said,

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Speaker 1: that's where something's changed. Was that maybe the view shifting

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Speaker 1: of the public of whether we should be involved.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the blatancy of that attack, kind of

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Speaker 2: nine to eleven like for today's audience. It was a

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Speaker 2: shocking event. And so that was the turning point. That's

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Speaker 2: where we immediately entered the war. And in fact, shortly thereafter,

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Speaker 2: Churchill comes over to the United States. He spends Christmas,

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Speaker 2: the Christmas holidays that year, this is in nineteen forty

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Speaker 2: one with FDR, and they literally map out their plans

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Speaker 2: for the how to prosecute the war in Europe. And

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Speaker 2: so this was when Churchill heard about Pearl Harbor. He

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Speaker 2: said to his son Randolph, essentially his prayers had been answered.

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Speaker 2: Now the United States would get involved, and now we

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Speaker 2: would be saved because Britain had been at warf by

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Speaker 2: that point for about two and a half years.

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Speaker 1: Now, you said, I think in the book that Ernest

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Speaker 1: had acted as sort of this liaison between the British

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Speaker 1: spies in Rockefeller Center and you know, the brain trust

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Speaker 1: with FDR, and then there's Churchill. How does that exactly work?

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Speaker 1: I hear that. You know, Ernest can do some pretty

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Speaker 1: amazing things, as you said, like an influencer and has

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Speaker 1: all of these great ideas, particularly with spinning the media

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Speaker 1: and the public. But what were his actual sort of

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Speaker 1: job duties.

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Speaker 2: Well, to some extent, you know, it's funny because he'd

388
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Speaker 2: definitely liked to keep it somewhat so that he couldn't

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Speaker 2: necessarily be pinned down with In fact, at one point

390
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Speaker 2: he decided not to accept a paycheck with the Office

391
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Speaker 2: of Strategic Services, just so that he would be free

392
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Speaker 2: to do what be on his own, to some extent

393
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Speaker 2: that he was almost like a free agent. Specifically, he

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Speaker 2: started by working with the British at Rockefeller Center. It

395
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Speaker 2: was there that, for instance, that he met two very

396
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Speaker 2: important people in his life. Subsequently, Ian Fleming, who created

397
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Speaker 2: James Bond, who was also a British spy there, and

398
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Speaker 2: he met a Canadian spy there by the name of

399
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Speaker 2: Margaret Watson, who eventually becomes Cuneo's wife. There's kind of

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Speaker 2: a romance there, and that was also one of the

401
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Speaker 2: things that kind of like pulled me as a writer

402
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Speaker 2: to the book, this kind of romance at Rockefeller Center.

403
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Speaker 2: I actually I actually proposed to my wife at Rockefeller Center.

404
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Speaker 2: So yeah, so it kind of grabbed my eye there.

405
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Speaker 2: But his job was to deal at first with the Brits,

406
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Speaker 2: and then as things moved along, he was planting stories.

407
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Speaker 2: I mean, the Brits were a great source of stories

408
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Speaker 2: for Walter Winchell, his boss. The main source of money

409
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Speaker 2: for Ernest Cooney. It was not so much what he

410
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Speaker 2: was getting from the government, but what he was getting

411
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Speaker 2: as a fees, legal fees. He was a very good

412
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Speaker 2: libel lawyer, for instance, and working for Walter Winchell paid

413
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Speaker 2: him a lot of money in those days. And then

414
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Speaker 2: also so did Drew Pearson. Pearson had been a if

415
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Speaker 2: you're familiar with Jack Anderson, it's the same column. It's

416
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Speaker 2: called the Washington Merry Go Round and it was a

417
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Speaker 2: very famous investigative before Woodward and Bernstein. This was the

418
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Speaker 2: column where people would look for the dirt in Washington.

419
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Speaker 2: And it was Drew Pearson who started Drew Pearson as

420
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Speaker 2: a young man was a Columbia teacher and one of

421
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Speaker 2: his students was Ernest Cuneo. So they were like these

422
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Speaker 2: very interesting personal connections that Cuneo had. But as time

423
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Speaker 2: went on, Cuneo's portfit just got wider and wider, so

424
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Speaker 2: that he is working with the Brits, he's working with

425
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Speaker 2: the various different media people, but also he's working with

426
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Speaker 2: the FBI because he knows and has actually gone out

427
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Speaker 2: with Winchell and others. With the FBI head Jaya good Hoover.

428
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Speaker 2: They would go to a place called the Store Club

429
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Speaker 2: where Winchall had his own table there and it was

430
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Speaker 2: very famous. All these Broadway and movie people were there,

431
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 2: so he knew Hoover. Hoover became famous because of Winchell

432
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 2: and Hoover running after gangsters, so he knew Hoover. You know,

433
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 2: Cuneo knew Hoover, he knew The National Security Advisor from

434
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 2: Roosevelt was a guy named Adolph Burle who was his

435
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 2: title was Assistant Secretary of State, but he essentially was

436
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 2: the national what we call now the National Security Advisor.

437
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,959
Speaker 2: And Burl had been Punio's teacher at Columbia, So you know,

438
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:00,400
Speaker 2: it was kind of an interesting world that he knew.

439
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:02,640
Speaker 2: He knew that people in the Justice Department, he knew

440
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 2: a couple of Supreme Court in Washington. There was a

441
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 2: building it was called the Armatage and it's where a

442
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 2: number of top people with power had They had little

443
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 2: apartments there when they were in Washington, and Cuneo had

444
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:19,959
Speaker 2: enough funds that he also had an apartment there. So

445
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,880
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of these things are done over drinks,

446
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 2: over lunch. So that's how more and more Cuneo's portfolio expanded.

447
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: Well, how tight of an operation is this? I mean,

448
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 1: you've mentioned quite a few people who are involved, which

449
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure is normal. But you know, you've got some

450
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:42,879
Speaker 1: newspaper folks, and you know that it seems wide ranging,

451
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 1: including a assuming attractive female Canadians. Buy was this considered

452
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:53,440
Speaker 1: a really good safe operation or you know, was this

453
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: sort of not as tightly organized as it could have been.

454
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 2: No, it's definitely dangerous. In fact, Margaret Watson was a

455
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 2: young woman late twenties who was one of many women

456
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 2: from the Winnipeg area in Canada who were recruited to

457
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 2: work at Rockefeller Center by Churchill's top spy his name

458
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:16,159
Speaker 2: was William quote unquote Intrepid. That was kind of his

459
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:20,959
Speaker 2: code name, William Intrepid Stevenson, and Stevenson had been a

460
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:24,440
Speaker 2: war hero. He was trusted by Churchill. He recruited a

461
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 2: number of young women from Canada to work there. In

462
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 2: the case of Margaret Watson, she had this photographic memory.

463
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 2: According to both I interviewed both Cuneo's children. They were

464
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 2: adults when I interviewed them. She had a photographic memory.

465
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 2: There were other women who, did you know, some very

466
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 2: functionary type of job, secretary jobs and stuff like that.

467
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 2: But there were others who were real spies out there

468
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 2: in the field spies. One of the more interesting characters

469
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 2: was a woman whose code name was Cynthia Amy Pack

470
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 2: was her real name, and she was a woman who

471
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 2: basically used her her sexual attractiveness to compromise foreign dignitaries

472
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 2: in Washington. And there's an older woman who worked out

473
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 2: a Rockefeller Center for the Churchill spies who was her

474
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 2: handler as they call it. But Cynthia, and I tell

475
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 2: some of the stories of Cynthia in my book The

476
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 2: Invisible Spy. But she is a fascinating character, needless to say,

477
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 2: using her sexual wiles to get secrets out of foreign

478
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 2: dignitaries and such. Conversely, there was actually some male spies

479
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 2: that had a similar talent as well. One of them

480
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 2: is Raul Dahl, the children's book author, who was a

481
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 2: British spy. Oh I didn't know that, yes, And he

482
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 2: was very attractive to women for that magical reason that

483
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 2: that kis myth that happens between people, and he had

484
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 2: a number of affairs that were aimed at helping elicit

485
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 2: information from key people, one of whom was a congresswoman

486
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 2: named Claire booth Loose that raw Dahl had an affair with.

487
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:11,240
Speaker 2: Claire booth Loose was married to Henry Loose, who owned

488
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 2: Time magazine and Life magazine, and she was very prominent,

489
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 2: as was her husband. But she had an affair with

490
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 2: Raul Dall so much so and they were so active

491
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 2: that a certain point Raudall complained to the British spies

492
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:31,959
Speaker 2: superiors saying I'm exhausted, I can't do this anymore. And

493
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 2: he won it off. And as the story goes, the

494
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 2: spymaster in charge of Doll said, well, did you ever

495
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,800
Speaker 2: see that movie The Henry the Eighth where he says

496
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 2: the things I must do for England. Well, that's exactly

497
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,240
Speaker 2: your position, the things you must do for England. So

498
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,959
Speaker 2: you know, it was just an interesting time period. Of

499
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 2: all these different characters. The female spies at Rockefeller Center

500
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 2: were almost as interesting or just as interesting as the

501
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 2: male spy. And I guess the one that was most

502
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 2: important to Ernest Cuneo was Ian Fleming because they become

503
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 2: lifelong friends. With the start of the war.

504
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 1: Okay, so you had said with Pearl Harbor, the public

505
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: sentiment starts to change towards the United States getting involved, right.

506
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 2: Majorly, like nine to eleven, you know, the way it

507
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 2: just catapults things.

508
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:27,479
Speaker 1: But Ernest had figured out some ways to sort of

509
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: boost this, you know, kind of tricking around with Poles

510
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 1: to say, you know that the congressional sentiment is more

511
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: leaning towards getting involved, right and all of this, when

512
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 1: do things heat up for them? I mean more than

513
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: is there anything that happens that's more than sort of

514
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 1: the you know, these placing of these stories things that

515
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: feel like they're really making a huge shift or is

516
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 1: it a tiny lots of little amounts of shifts that

517
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: just end up having a big influence.

518
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 2: There's really kind of like two periods. There's a period

519
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 2: from the summer nineteen forty when Churchill comes to power

520
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 2: and they set up things at Rockefeller Center, and then

521
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 2: bear in mind it's almost so that's in the summer

522
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 2: of forty about a year and a half almost until

523
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 2: Pearl Harbor happens in December of nineteen forty one. So

524
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 2: that's part of things. The British spies were very active.

525
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 2: In fact, I begin my book with a circumstance where

526
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 2: two Nazi spies are walking through Times Square, the heart

527
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 2: of Manhattan in New York City, and with them is

528
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 2: a satchel containing papers planning how they're going to blow

529
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 2: up Manhattan in the event that America finally gets into

530
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 2: the war. And so they're walking and one of the

531
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 2: Nazi spies is hit by a car. What happens is

532
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 2: the other spy walking with him, instead of attending to

533
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 2: his colleague and these fatal injuries that he had, he's

534
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 2: literally bleeding out is that ran over his head and such. Instead,

535
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,719
Speaker 2: he picks up the satchel of papers and he runs

536
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 2: off good spy. So the cops show up at the scene,

537
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 2: right the New York City cops and the dead man

538
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 2: his papers say that he's a Spaniard and he's got

539
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 2: these phony Spanish papers. So the cops check. The New

540
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 2: York City cops check with the Spanish consulate and they say, no,

541
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 2: there's no record of this guy. We don't know who

542
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 2: this guy is. And so the cops go to the

543
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 2: FBI Jague Hoover. Hoover doesn't know who it is. But

544
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 2: eventually what happens is they are in contact with the

545
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 2: British spies at Rockefeller Center and they know who this

546
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 2: sky is and how do they know how this guy is. Well,

547
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 2: one of the operations that they have is that in Bermuda,

548
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:45,479
Speaker 2: at the Princess Hotel in Hamilton in the basement. It's

549
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 2: a very fancy hotel, but they had an operation where

550
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 2: the mail that were being sent from America to Europe

551
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 2: would go through Bermuda. Bear in mind, you know, they

552
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 2: would fly it over and such, but they would go

553
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 2: through the mail and they were able to and it

554
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 2: was tons of people involved in this operation, but they

555
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 2: were able to spot a letter by the guy who

556
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:08,920
Speaker 2: ran away from the scene. The other Nazi spy who survived,

557
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 2: the one with the satchel. He wrote back to his

558
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 2: superiors in Germany, but in a letter, and it detailed

559
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 2: what happened, and so they were eventually able to find

560
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 2: out where that Nazi spy was living. They traced the

561
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 2: addresses and such, and so the FBI sets up this

562
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,359
Speaker 2: manhunt on this guy and for a while they just

563
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 2: watch him, and he has all these other different spies

564
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 2: that are related. So eventually the FBI comes up with

565
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 2: I think they indicted something like fifteen people eventually as

566
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 2: part of that spy ring. And so the Brits were

567
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 2: way more advanced than either the FBI or the New

568
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 2: York City Police at that time period. I start my

569
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:56,399
Speaker 2: book with that case because it also illustrates just how

570
00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 2: clueless we were about espionage at the beginning of World

571
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:04,439
Speaker 2: War Two and just how advanced the British war.

572
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:09,760
Speaker 1: Now, how does Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond,

573
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: come into all of this, because I know they become

574
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:16,240
Speaker 1: very good friends, he and Ernest, and also what Ernest

575
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: does inspires Fleming, you know for the James Bond series.

576
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:22,399
Speaker 1: So does this come in the middle of World War two?

577
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 2: Is that what happened in the beginning actually before Pearl Harbor? Okay,

578
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 2: So Ian Fleming is this very suave guy. You know,

579
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 2: you'll see pictures of Ian Fleming with these cigarette holders,

580
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 2: and he's a thin, very astude. He's a writer and

581
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 2: Cutio is definitely a writer, but he's also a lawyer.

582
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:42,800
Speaker 2: But Cutio is a different that guy. He looks like

583
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 2: a human refrigerator if you will. I mean, he's like

584
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 2: five foot nine. He was a lineman in the NFL.

585
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 2: So this is by nineteen forty he meets Ian Fleming,

586
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,360
Speaker 2: so they're very two different characters. Fleming is working for

587
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:01,879
Speaker 2: British intelligence and he's a very smart and creative guy.

588
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 2: He's working for a very powerful admiral. Admiral Godfrey was

589
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 2: his name, and so Fleming is involved with coming up

590
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 2: with a number of different operations. There's a play of

591
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 2: musical right now in Manhattan called Operation Mincemeat. It's a

592
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 2: play the origins of Operation Minsweet, which was using a

593
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 2: corpse to throw off the Nazis, and the corpse is

594
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 2: found by the Nazis determine that the invasion is going

595
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 2: to take place in one place and instead it's going

596
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:35,800
Speaker 2: to take place another place in Italy, and so that

597
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 2: was Fleming's idea, but he was also very creative in

598
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 2: other respects. And so he and Cuneo, even though there

599
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 2: were very different men, ones of brit ones of American,

600
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:52,359
Speaker 2: different looking, they like to go out and party, they

601
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:55,439
Speaker 2: liked to have fun, they liked women, They like going

602
00:36:55,480 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 2: out to nightclubs. Their scenes at the fellow who ran

603
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 2: the Churchill Spies, his name was William Intrepid Stevenson. They

604
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 2: would come up to his he had like this duplex

605
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:12,240
Speaker 2: in Manhattan with a big fireplace, and they'd be sharing drinks.

606
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 2: And in Cuneo's memoirs there's some of the exchanges that

607
00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 2: he had with Fleming that I repeat in my book.

608
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 2: But they become friends and so. And what's interesting is

609
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:26,799
Speaker 2: that after the war, you know, most people went their

610
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,399
Speaker 2: separate ways, they remained friends. In fact, they went into

611
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 2: business together. They created they were involved in a newspaper

612
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:39,800
Speaker 2: syndicate company called NANA was short. It was North American

613
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 2: Newspaper Alliance. But it was a company where they would

614
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,480
Speaker 2: have syndicated columnists and such. But it was also a

615
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 2: way of keeping in contact with the intelligence world and such.

616
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 2: So Fleming worked out of London for this company and

617
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 2: Cutio ran it in New York. But they were Buddies.

618
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,799
Speaker 2: There was another friend, like a childhood friend of Ian

619
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:05,359
Speaker 2: Flemings's name was Iver Bryce, and Iver was a very

620
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 2: wealthy man, and the three of them basically ran this

621
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 2: company together. Eventually, somewhat on a lark. Finally Fleming he

622
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 2: had talked for years about writing a novel, and so

623
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 2: he finally writes the novel. It comes out, and the

624
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 2: character's name is James Bond. It's name for an autobond expert,

625
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 2: but in any event, he comes up and it's basically

626
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 2: James Bond is patterned on William Stevenson, the guy who

627
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:38,359
Speaker 2: was running the Churchill Intrepid Intrepid exactly and actually there

628
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 2: are scenes in the first James Bond novel that actually happened.

629
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 2: They were kind of exaggerated versions of what happened at

630
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 2: Rockefeller Center that's in Casino Royale. But then eventually, with

631
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 2: that first James Bond novel, Fleming realizes that he needs

632
00:38:56,120 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 2: to know more about America because he really only knows

633
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:04,240
Speaker 2: America through manhe Night Spots and such, and also with Washington,

634
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 2: d C. But he doesn't know the rest of America.

635
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:11,839
Speaker 2: So he prevails on Coutio to go out and they

636
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 2: go out to Chicago and they go out to Las Vegas.

637
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 2: Cuneo has sources out in Las Vegas, the casinos, and

638
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 2: eventually they go out to Hollywood. But some of those

639
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 2: scenes are in James Bond books like Diamonds Are Forever.

640
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 2: And in fact, the one where I guess Cuneo had

641
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:31,879
Speaker 2: the most impact was on Thunderball. It was a very

642
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:36,359
Speaker 2: popular novel and very popular movie with Sean Connery. The

643
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 2: movie treatment for that was actually written by Cutio. In fact,

644
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 2: Fletting wanted Cuneo to play the bad guy who was

645
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:48,240
Speaker 2: supposed to be a mobster, and as an Italian American,

646
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 2: Cuneo didn't want to have anything to do with with

647
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 2: that type of slur on the Italian people, and so

648
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 2: of course they got other actors and such. But Fleming

649
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 2: dedicated Thunderball the novel to Cuneo. He says, to Ernest

650
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 2: Cuneo my muse, and he provided a lot of different ideas.

651
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 2: I thought one of the most fun parts of my

652
00:40:12,719 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 2: book is that trip, that cross country trip that Cuneo,

653
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 2: the American and Ian Fleming, the creator of this British

654
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 2: spy James Bond, just going out there and who they

655
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 2: meet and how he learns about America.

656
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 1: What were the things that you said were kind of

657
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: exaggerated in James Bond, but that were inspired by Ernest

658
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 1: and his work. Were there any kind of like direct

659
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 1: correlations where you could say, oh, my gosh, oh yeah,

660
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 1: what's a good example.

661
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:42,919
Speaker 2: In Casino Royale, there was a scene that was based

662
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:46,440
Speaker 2: upon a real life circumstance in which Fleming. This is

663
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 2: early before Pearl Harbor, but when the British are at

664
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 2: Rockefeller Center, there were a number of other countries that

665
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 2: had consulates in the Rockefeller Center area, including the Japanese.

666
00:40:57,239 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 2: And one night, this is what happened in real life life,

667
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,919
Speaker 2: is that Stevenson decided in the middle of the night

668
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:08,520
Speaker 2: to break in to the Japanese consulate office, break into

669
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 2: their Somehow they were able to get the codes for

670
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 2: the safe there, and they were able to take out

671
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 2: the code papers, the cipher papers and sets the codes,

672
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 2: take them, go up to their offices up on the

673
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 2: thirty sixth floor, make copies of these code papers and

674
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 2: then put them back in the safe of the Japanese.

675
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 2: And Flevty loved that idea. He just loved, you know,

676
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:34,800
Speaker 2: he just loved adventure and all that type of stuff,

677
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 2: and Stevenson was the person who would do those type

678
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 2: of things. He was he would push the envelope, as

679
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:44,719
Speaker 2: they say. So that was a real the real life experience.

680
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 2: He took that and he exaggerated it in Casino Royale

681
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 2: where James Bond actually assassinates a Japanese cipher expert through

682
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 2: the window. He's up, he's up on one of the

683
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 2: buildings Ackefeller Center, and he shoots through the window and

684
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:08,959
Speaker 2: kills this Japanese cipher expert in this envisioned version of

685
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 2: what actually happened in real life, or it was kind

686
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 2: of based upon real life. But Fleming, just with James Fond,

687
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 2: he let's say, made into a more memorable violent episode.

688
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that Ian Fleming has any I just

689
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: thought he was an author. I guess I didn't know

690
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 1: that he had some background in you know, espionage is

691
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: his just briefly, what was Fleming's background before he decided

692
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,479
Speaker 1: to stop and do a novel, just your average British spy.

693
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 2: No, quite the contrary. He was a writer. He saw

694
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:43,760
Speaker 2: this as a way of it's just a very interesting life.

695
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 2: And you know, he was one of those things that

696
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 2: in other words, getting involved. He was in naval intelligence,

697
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,760
Speaker 2: so he was an officer. There's pictures of Ian Fleming

698
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,480
Speaker 2: after the war. He has a couple of different jobs.

699
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,359
Speaker 2: He eventually one of the jobs is he winds up

700
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:02,800
Speaker 2: becoming the London representative for Cuneo's company that he Cunio

701
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 2: was running in New York, this Nana company, the newspaper syndicate.

702
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 2: But Fleming fundamentally was a writer, but he had not

703
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 2: tried his hand with the James Bond novels, and they

704
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 2: didn't come out until I think fifty three was the

705
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 2: first one, and then over time they became more and

706
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 2: more popular. The James Bond novels were particularly made popular

707
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 2: when President Kennedy took office in nineteen sixty one, and

708
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:31,840
Speaker 2: there were interviews with people and they said, what are

709
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,360
Speaker 2: some of your favorite books, and he said the James

710
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 2: Bond books. In fact, Jackie Kennedy was also a big

711
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 2: proponent of She liked the James Bond books as well

712
00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 2: that her husband was reading. And she sent a copy

713
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 2: of one of the James Bond books to Alan Dulles,

714
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 2: who was then the head of the CIA, and said,

715
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 2: you know, you should read this book. And then actually

716
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 2: there was some pressure on the CIA to try to

717
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:58,319
Speaker 2: come up with the gadgets that you see in these

718
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:03,239
Speaker 2: James Bond movies, know, the exploding cigars, all these other

719
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 2: different killing devices. They would see these movies in the

720
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 2: Kennedy administration say well, well, CIA, can you think you

721
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 2: can maybe come up with something like this? And so

722
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 2: Leming had remarkable success. He really captured the time, and

723
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 2: obviously it became a big franchise.

724
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit before we kind of talk

725
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:27,959
Speaker 1: about post war stuff with Cunia. What is Ernest's relationship

726
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:32,360
Speaker 1: with Margaret Watson? Like, I know that they eventually get married.

727
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 1: So these two spies decided to have children. I don't

728
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 1: know if that seems like a great idea, but this

729
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:40,439
Speaker 1: must have been post spy for them. I guess yeah,

730
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:40,799
Speaker 1: it was.

731
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know a lot of people after

732
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 2: World War Two, after depression, suffering through the depression, and

733
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 2: then having five years four years of World War a

734
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 2: lot of people dying, there were a lot of people

735
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 2: eager to go back and go home and create families

736
00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 2: and such. Margaret Watson was a fascinating character. As I mentioned,

737
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 2: she had a photographic memory. She was apparently involved in

738
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 2: some of the financial aspects. And there's a story that

739
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 2: her children, both her son and her daughter, both of

740
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:14,320
Speaker 2: them are very distinguished attorneys. In fact, the son, John Kutio,

741
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 2: I dedicate my book to him. It's one of the

742
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 2: people I dedicate my book The Invisible Spy to him,

743
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 2: but he just recently died. But both of them told

744
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 2: me a story about their mother. There was a point

745
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 2: at which some type of Nazi spy broke into the

746
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 2: dormitory where Watson and a number of other female spies

747
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 2: working for that Churchill operation Rockefeller Center where they lived.

748
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 2: It was nearby Rockefeller Center, and somehow they broke in.

749
00:45:41,160 --> 00:45:43,880
Speaker 2: It's not really clear exactly why they keyed in on

750
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 2: Margaret Watson, but the spy actually put a pillow over it.

751
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 2: She was trying to go to sleep, and then he

752
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:53,919
Speaker 2: broke in, tried to smother her, and she broke free.

753
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 2: She yelled for help, and they took care of the

754
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 2: person that broke in. Clearly had a German accent, that

755
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 2: was the one thing that was very clear, uh, And

756
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 2: they took care of him, as they say. So that

757
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 2: was kind of an interesting thing. The idea of this

758
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:12,879
Speaker 2: woman from like a lot of the Canadian women who

759
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 2: were working as Churchill's spies of Rockefeller Center. You know,

760
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,240
Speaker 2: they had come from relatively rural areas, a relatively small

761
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,840
Speaker 2: populated areas, and to come to the big city that

762
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:26,359
Speaker 2: was a that was a big thing for them. With

763
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:30,959
Speaker 2: Ernest Cuneo, I think what she's what Margaret Watson saw

764
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:34,359
Speaker 2: in Earnest was and again she was. They were very

765
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 2: different personalities, but Cooneo knew everybody, it seemed. She would

766
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:43,120
Speaker 2: go out to the nightclubs with Ernest, she would meet

767
00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 2: all these famous people like Walter Winchell. He really knew

768
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 2: this whole new world, this fascinating world of Manhattan, and

769
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 2: that was a big part of I think their romance.

770
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 2: Uh there. And and so when the war ends, they

771
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:00,399
Speaker 2: decided to get married. For Ernest Cuneo, he had been

772
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 2: married before he was on the rebound, as both his

773
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 2: children told me, he had been married to somebody had

774
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:11,240
Speaker 2: met at Columbia and it just wasn't working out, and

775
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 2: they divorced just before the war. But Margaret Watson was

776
00:47:15,480 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 2: somebody that really became his lifelong partner. They formed a

777
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 2: family together.

778
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:25,439
Speaker 1: He just died a couple of decades thirty years ago.

779
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:28,760
Speaker 2: Maybe, yeah, I'm sorry. As far as the chronology, Ernest

780
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:33,240
Speaker 2: graduated I believe like in twenty eight twenty nine somewhere

781
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 2: in that ballpark, and his wife Zilda was her name.

782
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 2: They were married for about eight years, so they get

783
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 2: divorced in like thirty eight thirty nine, somewhere in that ballpark.

784
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 2: There was apparently another woman that I mentioned briefly in

785
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 2: the book. I couldn't get any more details about that,

786
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:56,560
Speaker 2: but there apparently was another woman. But fundamentally it just

787
00:47:56,600 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 2: didn't work out. Cunea was working for the president. When

788
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:03,720
Speaker 2: you work for somebody like that, you're working all the time,

789
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:06,839
Speaker 2: you're away from the home. I don't know what other

790
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 2: private problems that were between it, but they divorced, and

791
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:16,720
Speaker 2: so by the time that Ernest is meeting Margaret Watson,

792
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 2: that would have been probably sometime in either late forty

793
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 2: or more likely or sometime in nineteen forty one. What

794
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:28,320
Speaker 2: was interesting to me was Stevenson, who was the top

795
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:32,839
Speaker 2: spy for Churchill at Rockefeller Center. He had brought all

796
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 2: these young women into the spy operation there, and so

797
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:39,600
Speaker 2: they were very careful about telling women not to get

798
00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 2: involved and not to disclose information about what was going on,

799
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 2: and be very wary of who they were talking to,

800
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 2: because you would never know if they were somehow going

801
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:53,320
Speaker 2: to be compromised by some other foreign agent or whatever.

802
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 2: In the case of Margaret Watson, I interviewed both her

803
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:03,080
Speaker 2: children and I asked, was Stevenson kind of encouraging this

804
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 2: relationship between Watson, Margaret and Ernie that in other words,

805
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 2: it was really important for the Churchill Spies to have

806
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:16,720
Speaker 2: Ernest Cuneo as their friend, working on their behalf, talking

807
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:19,319
Speaker 2: to the White House on all these different things. He

808
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 2: was making all these things happen for him. He was

809
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 2: the go between between the British and the White House,

810
00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:30,840
Speaker 2: and so to have a young woman who Ernest clearly likes.

811
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 2: Did Stephenson kind of push this on? Did he encourage

812
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 2: this relationship with beyond just romance? Was it somehow manipulating

813
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 2: these two young people? And it's interesting because they weren't

814
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 2: really sure. They didn't think so, But the daughter of

815
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:52,520
Speaker 2: Ernest Cuneo said, well, I know for a fact though

816
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,760
Speaker 2: my mother would not have done anything without the okay

817
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:59,920
Speaker 2: of Stevenson. So I think it was something that was

818
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 2: just a fortuitous thing that happened, that this romance with

819
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:09,520
Speaker 2: this vital American connection Ernest Cuneo was taking place.

820
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 1: Was helpful, apparently very helpful. Okay, what is post war

821
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:17,960
Speaker 1: like for them? Until you know they both die? We

822
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:21,719
Speaker 1: have these two kids, you know, everybody's coming home. Is

823
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: this the end of spying? Do they go? Does he

824
00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: go back to lawyering? What happens?

825
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 2: Well, he did go back to lawyering. He made a

826
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 2: bundle working for Winchell and for Drew Pearson in the

827
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 2: media as a libel lawyer and legal counsel, an advisor

828
00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:40,319
Speaker 2: just in general made a lot of money. Winchell was

829
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 2: the highest pay by far, the highest paid person in

830
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:46,319
Speaker 2: the media. But also he set up this company that

831
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:48,800
Speaker 2: he's working with, Ian Fleming. It was a way for

832
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 2: getting together. In fact, Fleming and Iver Bryce. They would

833
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:55,319
Speaker 2: go up to a place that Iver Bryce had up

834
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 2: in upstate New York and they would hang out and

835
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 2: they had a high old time hanging out together. This

836
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 2: is after World War Two. But Ernest never severs his

837
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 2: ties to people like Alan Dulles. Alan Dulles was the

838
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:14,400
Speaker 2: head of the CIA, but he actually began at Rockefeller Center.

839
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 2: He had been a lawyer. He began, and he was

840
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 2: a very successful spy for the United States. They eventually

841
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 2: sent him over to Switzerland, and that's where Dulles was

842
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 2: a particularly effective spy for them. But he began at

843
00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:31,360
Speaker 2: Rockefeller Center and he knew he actually was involved in

844
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:34,600
Speaker 2: an operation that Cuneo actually came up with the idea

845
00:51:34,719 --> 00:51:38,920
Speaker 2: for it. So Cutio never severed those ties with Dulles,

846
00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:41,840
Speaker 2: and so he would be what they call in the

847
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:45,640
Speaker 2: CIA terminology, he was an asset. He was somebody that

848
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 2: always had his eyes and ears and whatever he saw.

849
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 2: If he saw people that he thought might be Russian

850
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:55,240
Speaker 2: double agents and such, he would report that to Dulles,

851
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 2: and so he kept that. One of the most extraordinary

852
00:51:58,560 --> 00:52:02,920
Speaker 2: things in my book is a couple of FBI memos

853
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 2: that had never been apparently has never been reported about before.

854
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:11,920
Speaker 2: But when John F. Kennedy is assassinated, President Kennedy is

855
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:16,040
Speaker 2: assassinated in nineteen sixty three, Alan Dulles has put on

856
00:52:16,080 --> 00:52:19,239
Speaker 2: the Warren Commission. There were seven members of it, and

857
00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 2: Alan Dulles at some point during the deliberations while they're

858
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 2: investigating the president's murder, he wants to make clear that

859
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:31,440
Speaker 2: somehow the CIA is not to blame for that, you know,

860
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 2: somehow they didn't protect Kennedy from the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

861
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:42,759
Speaker 2: And so there are apparently Dulles was leaking information to

862
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 2: Ernest Cuneo, who planned to write almost a book like

863
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 2: the twenty thousand word magazine article for a magazine called

864
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:55,480
Speaker 2: The Saturday Evening Post. And so he's leaking this information

865
00:52:55,600 --> 00:53:00,440
Speaker 2: to Cuneo Dulles's and Cuneo then goes to Hoover, who

866
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:03,319
Speaker 2: he knows as well, and he's trying to see if

867
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 2: he can get Hoover to cooperate in this. And Hoover

868
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 2: is smart enough to realize, wait a minute, the President

869
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 2: of the United States doesn't want anybody talking about this

870
00:53:14,239 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 2: investigation of Kennedy's murder. This is the Warren Commission in

871
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 2: the middle of this investigation, and so they write these memos.

872
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 2: It's kind of what they call a cover your ass memo.

873
00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:28,960
Speaker 2: And basically the memos and I quote these in my book,

874
00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 2: is by Hoover and his number two at the FBI.

875
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 2: They say, Ernest Cuneo's come in and apparently Alan Dulles

876
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:39,080
Speaker 2: is leaking to him about what's going on at the

877
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:42,720
Speaker 2: Warren Commission, and we told him, you know, we like you, Ernest,

878
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:46,760
Speaker 2: but we can't tell you anything. We can't get involved

879
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:50,239
Speaker 2: in this, and we're very firm. And that's known in

880
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:55,160
Speaker 2: bureaucratic terms as covering your ass. That it's basically memorializing

881
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 2: what happened, just so that they have a memory and

882
00:53:57,960 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 2: that they all can say, oh no, now that article

883
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 2: that Cuneo was preparing never ran. Who knows what happened.

884
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:07,960
Speaker 2: There was a federal judge that also had worked for

885
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:11,440
Speaker 2: the FBI, and Cuneo talked to him as well about

886
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 2: it because he thought that he might be able to

887
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:17,399
Speaker 2: get information from the FBI through this judge. But it's

888
00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 2: extraordinary because this is the first known leak by the

889
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 2: Warren Commission, and it comes back to Alan Dulles. And

890
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:28,640
Speaker 2: what we already know historically is Dulles was not telling

891
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 2: the Warren Commission about the attempts to kill Cashtro by

892
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 2: the CIA. He kept that top secret. So people who

893
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:39,160
Speaker 2: looked at the Warren who were on the Warren Commission,

894
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 2: like future President Gerald Ford, they had no idea that

895
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:46,240
Speaker 2: the CIA was trying to kill Castro, and that Castro

896
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 2: has said, if you're trying to kill me. I can

897
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:52,280
Speaker 2: go after you. He said that just shortly before the assassinations.

898
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:55,360
Speaker 2: So Dulles we know who was already keeping things, but

899
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:59,400
Speaker 2: these documents indicate he was also leaking to try to

900
00:55:00,160 --> 00:55:04,359
Speaker 2: been the story and try to basically get the cias

901
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:06,680
Speaker 2: and his version of what was going on before the

902
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:10,480
Speaker 2: actual printing of the Warren Report to the public.

903
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:12,840
Speaker 1: Well, at the end of the day, what do you

904
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:18,719
Speaker 1: think was the meaning behind Ernest's work in all of this?

905
00:55:18,920 --> 00:55:22,800
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the big takeaway for you on why

906
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: his story was important enough for you to publish? You know,

907
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:29,920
Speaker 1: and it's certainly not just the first American spy in

908
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 1: World War Two. There's a lot more to him. So

909
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 1: what was that?

910
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:36,839
Speaker 2: Well, a couple of things. What is Yes, Virginia, there

911
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 2: is a deep state. It's not as extensive or fictitious

912
00:55:41,920 --> 00:55:45,080
Speaker 2: as we hear some of the modern politicians you know

913
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:48,040
Speaker 2: in our time period who are doing it mainly for

914
00:55:48,120 --> 00:55:52,520
Speaker 2: political purposes. But there are people in the government who've

915
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 2: been worked in key agencies who make things work. You

916
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:00,200
Speaker 2: can call them fixers, but they're the ones. You know.

917
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:03,239
Speaker 2: There will be people who make politicians and public officials

918
00:56:03,239 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 2: to say things to the public at press conferences. But

919
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:08,840
Speaker 2: then there are people who really make it happen.

920
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:10,720
Speaker 1: Ray Cohen would be one of those people.

921
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 2: You know, well, yeah, no, but even within government, I

922
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:15,480
Speaker 2: mean in in a spy agency. You know, if you

923
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 2: ever watched the movie the TV show Homeland, Carrie the

924
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 2: main character, she's making things happen and such, there are

925
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 2: people in every agency that make things happen. So to

926
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:30,200
Speaker 2: some extent, that was part of Cuneo's the importance of

927
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:33,600
Speaker 2: people behind the scenes. So I've spent forty years as

928
00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:36,400
Speaker 2: an investigative reporter. One of the things you learn is

929
00:56:36,440 --> 00:56:39,400
Speaker 2: that sometimes it's the middle level people who know the

930
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 2: most of what's really going on. But also it underlines

931
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 2: the importance of espionage. Why it's so important that we

932
00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:54,280
Speaker 2: have people of good character involved in our intelligence operations,

933
00:56:54,719 --> 00:56:57,719
Speaker 2: not only in terms of gathering information, but to the

934
00:56:57,760 --> 00:57:00,759
Speaker 2: extent that we get involved in covert opirations, kind of

935
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:04,080
Speaker 2: like the James Bond type of things. We're watching these

936
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 2: things very carefully. It's a tough job, it can be

937
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:10,880
Speaker 2: a dirty job, but it's an essential job to keeping

938
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:15,280
Speaker 2: the peace and being a powerful country. Espionage is really important.

939
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,280
Speaker 2: Winston Churchill always knew that you didn't have to explain that.

940
00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:22,800
Speaker 2: But for the Americans, with this isolationist history, that's something

941
00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 2: that keeps on coming back in our history. History gives

942
00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:29,280
Speaker 2: us a lot of lessons and it's a big takeaway,

943
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:32,080
Speaker 2: you know. And I also thought it was interesting in

944
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 2: terms of Ernest Kuneo's very aware of being an Italian

945
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:40,640
Speaker 2: American and one of the backdrops of my story is

946
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:44,280
Speaker 2: just what it's like to be a kid of immigrant parents.

947
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 2: And you know, at times he was the kid with

948
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:51,640
Speaker 2: the nose up against the glass looking into the higher

949
00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:54,840
Speaker 2: reaches of power, and he was not being invited. And

950
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:58,640
Speaker 2: there he got in there eventually, but he was never

951
00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:01,680
Speaker 2: like a top player, always like the middle level player.

952
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:05,760
Speaker 2: And so in fact, there's a scene in World War

953
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:10,120
Speaker 2: Two in this book where they were talking about intering,

954
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:15,480
Speaker 2: putting into camps Italian Americans who were born in Italy

955
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:17,680
Speaker 2: but here in the United States because we were at

956
00:58:17,720 --> 00:58:22,080
Speaker 2: war with Mazsolini and the Italian government, and so there

957
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 2: was talk about it was about six hundred thousand Italian

958
00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:29,240
Speaker 2: Americans who they were seriously thinking of putting into camps,

959
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 2: just like we were interning Japanese Americans on the Pacific Coast,

960
00:58:33,400 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 2: and Kutio got involved in that. He heard about it, he

961
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 2: acted upon it. He was a real advocate for Italian

962
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:43,040
Speaker 2: Americans and argued against it, and he did so effectively.

963
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:46,320
Speaker 2: He was one of the people that helped steer our

964
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:48,960
Speaker 2: government's policy in that regard. So there's a lot of

965
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 2: parallels and we definitely can learn from history with a

966
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:53,240
Speaker 2: story like Ernest Kunios.

967
00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:07,680
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

968
00:59:07,720 --> 00:59:10,600
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

969
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:13,960
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are

970
00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:17,800
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast tenfold More

971
00:59:17,840 --> 00:59:21,480
Speaker 1: Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and

972
00:59:21,520 --> 00:59:24,280
Speaker 1: give them a listen if you haven't already. This has

973
00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:28,840
Speaker 1: been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis M. Morosi.

974
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:33,640
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed

975
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:37,560
Speaker 1: by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer, artwork by

976
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:42,120
Speaker 1: Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff and

977
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:46,360
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978
00:59:46,480 --> 00:59:50,200
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979
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:54,440
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980
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