WEBVTT - A Polite Word for Liar 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:27.876 --> 0:00:29.676 I always flatter myself. I think I'm going to be 0:00:29.716 --> 0:00:31.516 able to play it that fast, and I actually can. 0:00:31.956 --> 0:00:34.076 So take it from your introduction again after the three 0:00:34.156 --> 0:00:35.356 chords a little slower. 0:00:42.516 --> 0:00:44.836 If you ever want to treat yourself to something wonderful, 0:00:45.476 --> 0:00:48.836 type in the name Adler and the word harmonica on YouTube. 0:00:49.396 --> 0:00:52.076 This is from an Australian program called four Corners from 0:00:52.116 --> 0:00:55.156 nineteen sixty one. There are a hundred videos like this. 0:00:56.436 --> 0:01:00.436 Do people take it seriously with this instrument? Well, nasty question. 0:01:00.836 --> 0:01:01.196 I do. 0:01:01.516 --> 0:01:02.916 Oh, I take myself so seriously. 0:01:02.876 --> 0:01:03.396 I do take it. 0:01:04.156 --> 0:01:04.556 You haven't. 0:01:04.756 --> 0:01:04.996 Well. 0:01:05.716 --> 0:01:08.196 If Vowan Williams writes for the mouth Ogan, he's not 0:01:08.236 --> 0:01:09.076 doing this for a joke. 0:01:18.996 --> 0:01:22.396 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:01:22.676 --> 0:01:27.116 my podcast about things Overlooked and Misunderstood. This is the 0:01:27.156 --> 0:01:30.876 first of two episodes about memory, about the myths we 0:01:30.916 --> 0:01:36.036 hold about it, and the games are Memories Playing. This 0:01:36.076 --> 0:01:39.556 one is about an argument between two old friends over 0:01:39.596 --> 0:01:43.436 what supposedly happened or did not happen during a raid 0:01:43.516 --> 0:01:47.316 on a house supposedly full of Nazis in July nineteen 0:01:47.396 --> 0:01:50.956 forty five, or maybe April of nineteen forty six. 0:01:51.756 --> 0:01:52.476 I have no idea. 0:01:56.316 --> 0:02:01.916 This is an interview with Larry Adlard by Dorothy Horowitz 0:02:02.596 --> 0:02:09.876 on February the fifth, nineteen eighty six. And Harry Adler 0:02:10.476 --> 0:02:19.556 is the virtuo so hand organ player? Is that correct title? 0:02:20.716 --> 0:02:23.116 Did you say hand organ mouth Oregon? 0:02:23.156 --> 0:02:24.996 Because the hand organs which you've grown from mongy. 0:02:26.156 --> 0:02:28.116 By the time Larry Adler sat down to tell his 0:02:28.116 --> 0:02:31.076 life story to a historian with the American Jewish Committee, 0:02:31.236 --> 0:02:32.996 his reputation was well known. 0:02:33.036 --> 0:02:35.636 Perfectly all right with me? No no, no, no, no no. 0:02:35.396 --> 0:02:39.036 No mouth Oregon player or harmonica player. 0:02:40.236 --> 0:02:43.396 I use the word mouth organ, but the people who 0:02:43.436 --> 0:02:44.876 manufacture it could harmony. 0:02:46.076 --> 0:02:51.236 And I might add a raccont tour par excellence. And 0:02:51.356 --> 0:02:53.996 we hope you're going to indulge in a lot of 0:02:54.036 --> 0:02:56.676 that because we're going to want to know all about you. 0:02:56.876 --> 0:02:59.356 Of course, you know that raconteur is a very polite 0:02:59.356 --> 0:03:00.076 word for liar. 0:03:01.076 --> 0:03:05.316 Raconteur is a very polite word for liar. That could 0:03:05.436 --> 0:03:14.236 easily be on Larry Adler's tombstone. Larry Adler was the 0:03:14.276 --> 0:03:17.716 greatest harmonica player in the world. Your grandparents would know 0:03:17.756 --> 0:03:20.796 exactly who he was. I have to admit I'd never 0:03:20.836 --> 0:03:23.036 heard of him until I was rooting around one day 0:03:23.196 --> 0:03:26.236 in the oral history archives at the New York Public Library. 0:03:26.836 --> 0:03:29.356 I ran across his interview, listened to it for a 0:03:29.356 --> 0:03:32.436 few moments, and was about to give up when Adler 0:03:32.476 --> 0:03:35.756 began to tell the story of his affair with Ingrid Bergmann, 0:03:35.996 --> 0:03:38.916 back when she was considered the most beautiful actress in 0:03:38.956 --> 0:03:43.156 the world. They met while Adler was on tour at 0:03:43.196 --> 0:03:46.196 the end of the Second World War entertaining the troops 0:03:46.196 --> 0:03:50.276 in Europe. Late one night, He's in a bar in Augsburg, Germany, 0:03:50.516 --> 0:03:51.756 playing the piano. 0:03:51.916 --> 0:03:53.916 And she came into the room where I was playing, 0:03:55.676 --> 0:03:57.636 like when I was playing, asked me what it was. 0:03:57.996 --> 0:04:00.596 I said it was something I made up, and she said, 0:04:00.636 --> 0:04:02.396 have you written it down? I said no, I can't 0:04:02.396 --> 0:04:05.996 write music. And he said, you're very smugging't you. You're 0:04:05.996 --> 0:04:09.356 not only ignorant, you're proud of your ignorance. How I'm 0:04:09.356 --> 0:04:10.156 at Ingrid Bergmann. 0:04:11.636 --> 0:04:14.476 Adler tells his interviewer that he'd just recently read a 0:04:14.476 --> 0:04:17.396 biography of Bergmann in which Bergmann's husband claimed that he 0:04:17.876 --> 0:04:21.156 Larry Adler had come to him and confessed their affair. 0:04:21.636 --> 0:04:23.836 I know I wouldn't have done such a thing, because 0:04:24.356 --> 0:04:27.516 I wouldn't have done that to England. I wouldn't have 0:04:27.796 --> 0:04:31.076 named what would happening to her husband. However, it is 0:04:31.116 --> 0:04:33.516 in the book, and I can't deny that he said 0:04:33.516 --> 0:04:36.236 that to the author of the book. But as I say, 0:04:36.276 --> 0:04:39.396 I can't see me doing it. It is against my 0:04:39.556 --> 0:04:41.196 nature and my principles. 0:04:41.836 --> 0:04:44.476 Just to be clear, Larry Adler was having an affair 0:04:44.556 --> 0:04:47.036 with one of the most famous actresses in the world, 0:04:47.596 --> 0:04:51.116 and the actress's husband says Adler confessed it to him. 0:04:51.716 --> 0:04:54.436 You would think that would be a memorable event. But 0:04:54.476 --> 0:04:58.036 Adler's response is maybe, I guess it could have happened 0:04:58.796 --> 0:04:59.716 by the way in. 0:05:00.436 --> 0:05:03.916 War in peace and I'm paraphrasing, of course, because you 0:05:04.196 --> 0:05:07.836 can't remember tolstoy word for would. There's a sequence where 0:05:07.876 --> 0:05:09.836 a young man who's been at a I think the 0:05:09.836 --> 0:05:13.036 Battle of Borodino is in Moscow in a drawing room, 0:05:13.076 --> 0:05:16.276 telling these very attractive young ladies about his war experiences. 0:05:16.756 --> 0:05:19.756 But he was behind the lines. He didn't see action. 0:05:20.796 --> 0:05:23.436 He only heard about action from other soldiers. But he 0:05:23.476 --> 0:05:26.476 saw that he was losing his audience because he couldn't 0:05:26.516 --> 0:05:29.796 give them any tales of battle action. So he began 0:05:29.916 --> 0:05:32.396 to use the story that other soldiers had told him, 0:05:32.756 --> 0:05:36.156 but making it personal, as if he had experienced that action. 0:05:36.716 --> 0:05:39.076 And then Tolstoy has a line very much like this, 0:05:40.476 --> 0:05:43.156 and he realized as he spoke that the truth was 0:05:43.196 --> 0:05:46.116 slipping away from him, and soon he would no longer 0:05:46.196 --> 0:05:49.476 know what the truth was now. I think that applies 0:05:49.596 --> 0:05:52.596 very much to anybody telling any story about anything. 0:05:54.276 --> 0:05:57.876 The officer in Tolstoy's War and Peace tells a story 0:05:57.876 --> 0:06:01.316 that isn't true, and from then on forgets that it 0:06:01.356 --> 0:06:05.076 isn't true. Larry Adler doesn't call the officer a liar 0:06:05.676 --> 0:06:09.036 or say he shouldn't make things up. Adler says, that's 0:06:09.196 --> 0:06:12.716 the way memories work. They're up for grabs. In fact, 0:06:12.956 --> 0:06:17.636 throughout the Oral History, Adler keeps summoning memories and simultaneously 0:06:17.716 --> 0:06:21.596 discounting them until he has completely convinced you that that's 0:06:21.636 --> 0:06:28.796 the way we all ought to act. The interview culminates 0:06:29.036 --> 0:06:31.156 in the story of the raid on the Munich boarding 0:06:31.156 --> 0:06:34.556 house full of Nazis with his old friend, the dashingly 0:06:34.596 --> 0:06:41.196 handsome spy named Hans Werner aka John Whites. But we're 0:06:41.236 --> 0:06:48.676 getting ahead of ourselves. Larry Adler was born in Baltimore 0:06:48.716 --> 0:06:52.956 in nineteen fourteen to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. His dad 0:06:53.036 --> 0:06:55.676 was a plumber. At the age of two, he wandered 0:06:55.716 --> 0:06:58.276 away from home and was later found at a local bar, 0:06:58.436 --> 0:07:01.156 standing on top of a pool table and singing I've 0:07:01.196 --> 0:07:03.916 got the profiteering blues to wild applause. 0:07:04.556 --> 0:07:05.436 He was a prodigy. 0:07:07.276 --> 0:07:09.876 At fourteen, he took his harmone on the train to 0:07:09.916 --> 0:07:12.996 New York City and talked his way into performing on Broadway. 0:07:13.716 --> 0:07:16.556 I passed the Paramount Theater and Rudey Valet's name was 0:07:16.596 --> 0:07:17.596 on the marquee. 0:07:17.916 --> 0:07:20.676 Rudy Valley was basically the jay Z of the nineteen twenties. 0:07:21.276 --> 0:07:24.156 So I got off the streetcar, sneak past the stage 0:07:24.196 --> 0:07:28.116 door man found Rudy Valley and started to play for him, 0:07:28.556 --> 0:07:30.596 and he interrupted, I mean, look, I'm just a master 0:07:30.636 --> 0:07:32.316 of ceremonies, your kid, I'm not an agent. 0:07:33.556 --> 0:07:36.516 Valley put him on that very night. It was obvious 0:07:36.596 --> 0:07:40.836 even then that Adler was something special. He had perfect pitch, 0:07:41.396 --> 0:07:44.636 an astounding musical memory. He could make the harmonica sing 0:07:44.676 --> 0:07:46.676 in a way that no one else has ever done. 0:07:47.116 --> 0:07:49.316 If you watch any of those old videos of Adler, 0:07:49.316 --> 0:07:55.116 on YouTube. He's mesmerizing, slender, long, thin fingers, huge forehead, 0:07:55.516 --> 0:07:58.756 oversized eyes. There's a wonderful story about him in The 0:07:58.796 --> 0:08:01.796 New Yorker in nineteen forty two, which describes him as 0:08:01.796 --> 0:08:08.276 resembling a very young and slightly sinister kitten. Once, when 0:08:08.276 --> 0:08:10.796 he's living in Beverly Hills, Adler gets a call from 0:08:10.876 --> 0:08:14.236 Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin says, please come over and make a 0:08:14.236 --> 0:08:17.716 fourth for tennis, because Bill Tilden can't make it. Bill 0:08:17.756 --> 0:08:20.316 Tilden argued with the greatest tennis player of all time 0:08:20.356 --> 0:08:24.036 after Roger Federer. Adler goes over. There's a woman there 0:08:24.196 --> 0:08:27.036 with badly combed hair and black sneakers and a man 0:08:27.076 --> 0:08:29.756 with a weird mustache. They hit for a while and 0:08:29.796 --> 0:08:33.756 he realizes, Oh, the woman is Greta Garbo, and the 0:08:33.756 --> 0:08:41.836 man with the weird mustache Salvado'dlly Tilden, Garbo, Dolly Chaplain. 0:08:42.556 --> 0:08:44.876 This kind of thing happens to Adler all the time. 0:08:45.436 --> 0:08:48.996 He wanted to subtitle his autobiography name drops keep falling 0:08:49.036 --> 0:08:52.116 on My Head. He was friends with the legendary composer 0:08:52.116 --> 0:08:55.356 Frank Lesser, but he hated Lesser's wife, whom he called 0:08:55.916 --> 0:08:59.956 wait for it the evil of two lessers. I mean, 0:09:00.236 --> 0:09:02.316 how much do you love this guy? 0:09:02.596 --> 0:09:04.916 Prince Philip wrote me a wonderful letter when my father 0:09:05.036 --> 0:09:08.756 died from Buckingham Palace and said, you know how close 0:09:08.796 --> 0:09:09.076 they were. 0:09:09.596 --> 0:09:13.516 That's Peter Adler, Larry's son. Prince Philip, of course is 0:09:13.516 --> 0:09:14.396 the Queen's husband. 0:09:14.596 --> 0:09:17.236 Well, they were both members of an infamous club called 0:09:17.276 --> 0:09:20.836 the Thursday Club, and I think there were only thirteen members, 0:09:21.276 --> 0:09:25.556 and they would meet every other Thursday at Wheeler's Restaurant 0:09:26.076 --> 0:09:30.116 and all get very drunk and tell tales and whatever 0:09:30.156 --> 0:09:32.836 they did. And we were living in Grosvenor's Square at 0:09:32.836 --> 0:09:35.276 the time, and in the middle of the afternoon, my 0:09:35.396 --> 0:09:40.116 father arrives without warning, totally drunk with Prince Philip. They'd 0:09:40.156 --> 0:09:43.356 come straight from a Thursday Club lunch. And the fact 0:09:43.356 --> 0:09:45.436 that my father had never given my mother any warning 0:09:45.476 --> 0:09:47.836 he was arriving with the Duke of Edinburgh. I don't 0:09:47.876 --> 0:09:51.636 think you forgave him. 0:09:53.356 --> 0:09:57.196 But the greatest Larry Adler story comes earlier. Adler is 0:09:57.196 --> 0:10:01.396 in Germany entertaining the American troops. He's touring with Jack Benny, 0:10:01.636 --> 0:10:04.236 one of the most famous entertainers of the day, and 0:10:04.396 --> 0:10:06.796 Ingrid Bergmann, who has just met at the Piano Bar 0:10:06.836 --> 0:10:09.876 in Augsburg and is possibly already sleeping. 0:10:09.556 --> 0:10:16.076 With And the story is Jack Benny Ingrid Bergman and 0:10:16.116 --> 0:10:20.196 I were in Munich July nineteen forty five and we 0:10:20.316 --> 0:10:22.716 met this young man, John Whites, who is the commander 0:10:22.756 --> 0:10:23.876 of an OSS unit. 0:10:27.276 --> 0:10:31.276 John Whites the second old friend in this story. From 0:10:31.276 --> 0:10:34.316 the nineteen sixties to the nineteen eighties, John Whites was 0:10:34.356 --> 0:10:37.996 a successful high end men's fashion designer. He made the 0:10:38.076 --> 0:10:39.836 kind of clothes he would put it in an overnight 0:10:39.876 --> 0:10:42.556 bag before jumping on the concord to make a lunch 0:10:42.596 --> 0:10:46.596 date at the Savoy in London. In shirts. White's favored 0:10:46.636 --> 0:10:49.676 what was known as the European cut, which, as a 0:10:49.716 --> 0:10:54.276 fashion critic once wrote, disqualified anyone without a perfectly flat stomach. 0:10:55.356 --> 0:10:59.756 Whites was six foot two, insanely handsome, raced sports cars 0:10:59.796 --> 0:11:03.876 at Lahmann and Sebron, wrote best selling thrillers and scholarly biographies. 0:11:04.636 --> 0:11:09.676 Educated in exclusive English boarding schools, aristocratic bearing, married to 0:11:09.716 --> 0:11:13.796 a stunning actress, Susan Kohner. He was basically James Bond. 0:11:16.316 --> 0:11:21.076 What was the world that your father was? 0:11:21.196 --> 0:11:24.436 Father and mother inhabited in sort of sixties and seventies 0:11:24.516 --> 0:11:24.916 New York. 0:11:25.356 --> 0:11:30.756 I was a pretty, you know, kind of beautiful people set. 0:11:31.036 --> 0:11:34.236 That's John White's son Chris. He and his brother Paul 0:11:34.236 --> 0:11:35.996 are both filmmakers in Los Angeles. 0:11:36.196 --> 0:11:38.756 There's actually there's a book called The Beautiful People in which. 0:11:38.516 --> 0:11:41.596 My parents are featured, along with the rest of their bunch. 0:11:42.396 --> 0:11:45.276 You've probably seen some of the Whites brothers films about 0:11:45.276 --> 0:11:49.556 a boy, The Exquisite in Good Company, American Pie if 0:11:49.556 --> 0:11:52.636 you're wondering their father was a big fan of American Pie. 0:11:53.076 --> 0:11:56.636 But our dad really loved it. 0:11:56.916 --> 0:12:00.236 Yeah, he defends you know. 0:12:00.916 --> 0:12:01.036 So. 0:12:01.396 --> 0:12:02.076 I remember him. 0:12:01.996 --> 0:12:05.356 Saying that he was in a coffee shop and some 0:12:06.116 --> 0:12:08.836 old guy said to him, well, sarcastic, I bet you 0:12:08.876 --> 0:12:11.996 really proud of your kids for making this horrible film, 0:12:12.236 --> 0:12:14.396 And he's I don't know where he came up with this, 0:12:14.676 --> 0:12:17.356 but he said, haven't you ever masturbated in your life? 0:12:20.316 --> 0:12:23.436 John Whites was German born in Berlin in nineteen twenty 0:12:23.436 --> 0:12:27.356 three as Hans Werner Whitz. He was also Jewish and 0:12:27.476 --> 0:12:30.716 of that class of wealthy assimilated German Jews, for whom 0:12:30.756 --> 0:12:34.956 those two identities were not a contradiction. His father, Robert 0:12:35.036 --> 0:12:37.196 had fought for Germany in the First World War and 0:12:37.236 --> 0:12:38.516 won an Iron Cross. 0:12:39.156 --> 0:12:43.956 Vacations in the north of Germany and kind of a 0:12:43.956 --> 0:12:44.796 beautiful life. 0:12:45.516 --> 0:12:49.556 Then Hitler took power. Whites's family fled in nineteen thirty eight, 0:12:50.116 --> 0:12:52.996 then onto Shanghai where he waited for his American visa 0:12:53.196 --> 0:12:56.756 and played rugby on the side, and finally to America. 0:12:56.836 --> 0:13:00.476 In nineteen forty one, John Whites joins the US Army 0:13:00.636 --> 0:13:04.076 and gets recruited by the legendary wartime spymaster while Bill 0:13:04.196 --> 0:13:08.516 Donovan into the USS, the forerunner of today's CIA. Then 0:13:08.556 --> 0:13:12.276 he sent too occupied Europe as an undercover spy. Because 0:13:12.276 --> 0:13:14.716 of course he doesn't have to pretend to be German, 0:13:14.956 --> 0:13:19.036 He's actually German. He's dropped into France, makes contact with 0:13:19.076 --> 0:13:21.716 the resistance. He's part of the group that liberated one 0:13:21.716 --> 0:13:24.476 of the most infamous concentration camps, Daco. 0:13:25.316 --> 0:13:29.356 He told me about when he was in Dachause seeing 0:13:30.076 --> 0:13:34.836 a gas chamber and there was a little window whereby 0:13:34.876 --> 0:13:38.156 the operator could tell whether the people inside were dead 0:13:38.356 --> 0:13:41.156 or not, and next to it was a. 0:13:41.076 --> 0:13:45.916 Picture of his little child. He described it as being 0:13:45.916 --> 0:13:49.156 the way that a taxi driver would have a picture 0:13:49.196 --> 0:13:52.996 of his family and children like taped to the dashboard, 0:13:54.556 --> 0:13:56.636 but that really stuck with them. 0:13:57.956 --> 0:14:00.716 After the war, Daca was turned into a holding pen 0:14:00.796 --> 0:14:03.836 for prisoners of war. Whites was sent into the camp 0:14:04.076 --> 0:14:07.156 to spy on the captured German soldiers to impersonate a 0:14:07.196 --> 0:14:11.836 German pow. Some German soldiers after the war ended would 0:14:11.836 --> 0:14:14.516 burn off their SS tattoos with the end of a cigarette. 0:14:15.116 --> 0:14:18.316 Whites got a tattoo and then burned himself as well 0:14:18.756 --> 0:14:20.396 to make the impersonation real. 0:14:21.236 --> 0:14:25.156 Now you'd say he had PTSD actually, but nobody talked 0:14:25.156 --> 0:14:29.196 about it in that way. So he was, you know, 0:14:30.636 --> 0:14:33.276 a drinker, not a sloppy one, but someone who sort 0:14:33.276 --> 0:14:36.796 of regularly until he suddenly cut it off like cold 0:14:36.836 --> 0:14:40.516 turkey at some point in our childhood. He didn't sleep well, 0:14:40.916 --> 0:14:44.476 He woke up very early in the morning. He had 0:14:45.356 --> 0:14:49.396 incredibly regular habits born of the Army, of kind of 0:14:49.516 --> 0:14:54.316 keeping things in order. He was if he was crossed 0:14:54.676 --> 0:14:59.036 by a stranger, if someone was rude to him or impolite, 0:14:59.236 --> 0:15:03.636 he would be very scary and dangerous. He definitely seemed 0:15:04.036 --> 0:15:08.836 from the war someone who had no physical fear of 0:15:08.876 --> 0:15:12.916 other people, and that was really scary as a child to. 0:15:13.476 --> 0:15:17.676 Watch White told his sons that he didn't know whether 0:15:17.716 --> 0:15:20.076 he could ever be a good father. The war had 0:15:20.156 --> 0:15:21.076 changed him too much. 0:15:21.676 --> 0:15:23.716 Chris and I used to talk about our childhood as 0:15:24.276 --> 0:15:27.716 growing up in a behind the iron curtain. I think 0:15:27.756 --> 0:15:32.636 you had to have sort of surreptitious modes of self expression, 0:15:33.156 --> 0:15:35.916 and humor was a big aspect of that. 0:15:36.716 --> 0:15:38.436 The fact that we ended up working together is partly 0:15:38.476 --> 0:15:41.036 because we sort of developed this shared sense of humor, 0:15:41.316 --> 0:15:44.436 and it was kind of like a samizdat method of 0:15:44.516 --> 0:15:51.396 maintaining our autonomy with a very sort of domineering dad 0:15:51.916 --> 0:15:58.236 who was always ready for things to lapse into complete Yeah. 0:15:57.916 --> 0:16:02.956 Yeah, a dad who was always ready for things to 0:16:02.996 --> 0:16:10.196 lapse into catastrophe. Back to Munich, the war has just ended. 0:16:10.836 --> 0:16:13.676 Whites is now running an undercover operation against a German 0:16:13.716 --> 0:16:17.076 guerrilla group called Werewolf. It's made up of ex Nazi 0:16:17.116 --> 0:16:21.556 soldiers who are causing trouble across liberated Europe. A Werewolf 0:16:21.636 --> 0:16:24.436 cell had holed up in a Munich rooming house not 0:16:24.556 --> 0:16:28.356 far from the Deutsche Theater. John Whites has infiltrated the 0:16:28.356 --> 0:16:31.916 group under the name Hans Werner. Then work comes in 0:16:31.956 --> 0:16:35.676 from the Allied Brass round up the Werewolf members, And 0:16:35.876 --> 0:16:40.236 just as the order is issued, Whites runs into Larry Adler, 0:16:40.796 --> 0:16:42.916 Ingrid Bergmann, and Jack Penny. 0:16:43.036 --> 0:16:47.916 And he said that they had found the house where 0:16:47.956 --> 0:16:50.996 they knew there were eight German soldiers. Now the war 0:16:51.116 --> 0:16:54.676 was over. Therefore these soldiers had neither surrendered nor been captured. 0:16:55.316 --> 0:16:58.116 John and his OSS unit were going to raid them, 0:16:58.716 --> 0:17:00.996 and would Jack, Ingrid and I like to come along? 0:17:01.036 --> 0:17:01.156 Well? 0:17:01.236 --> 0:17:04.396 Jack and Ingrid refused that were terrified of the idea. 0:17:04.516 --> 0:17:05.116 I loved it. 0:17:06.276 --> 0:17:10.596 Now let's just pause here while I point not the obvious. 0:17:10.596 --> 0:17:14.836 A twenty something John White's the dashingly handsome undercover spy 0:17:15.436 --> 0:17:21.396 runs into, respectively America's most famous actress, America's most famous comedian, 0:17:21.716 --> 0:17:25.356 and the world's greatest harmonica player, presumably at a nightclub, 0:17:25.676 --> 0:17:27.876 and he invites all three of them to join him 0:17:27.916 --> 0:17:30.476 in raiding a house full of Nazi gorillas, and one 0:17:30.516 --> 0:17:33.676 of them, the skinny harmonica player from Baltimore, says, yes, 0:17:35.116 --> 0:17:38.836 the Whites Brothers disciples of Hollywood, do not find this 0:17:39.076 --> 0:17:40.316 as odd as I did? 0:17:40.716 --> 0:17:42.556 Does it strike you one of the many weird things 0:17:42.556 --> 0:17:45.076 with that story is the notion that you are an 0:17:45.116 --> 0:17:48.476 OSS officer in Munich you're going to do this bus 0:17:48.916 --> 0:17:52.316 and you bring along a famous harmonica player. 0:17:54.196 --> 0:17:55.196 What's strange about that. 0:17:57.116 --> 0:17:59.196 I guess it's a testament of the power of celebrity. 0:18:00.596 --> 0:18:01.996 It was kind of like a ride along, you. 0:18:01.956 --> 0:18:04.116 Know, like Kevin Hart and ICEQ. 0:18:08.036 --> 0:18:11.836 So Larry Adler for his mission, I'm guessing he's lying 0:18:11.836 --> 0:18:14.236 in the arms of the world's most beautiful actress. He 0:18:14.316 --> 0:18:17.156 gets up, puts on a helmet and goes off to 0:18:17.196 --> 0:18:18.636 capture some Nazis. 0:18:19.276 --> 0:18:21.436 So I met these oss men at four thirty in 0:18:21.476 --> 0:18:23.876 the morning. We got into a jeep, went to this 0:18:23.996 --> 0:18:28.316 house and according to John, the oss men burst into 0:18:28.396 --> 0:18:30.596 the house. Two of the Germans fired back at them 0:18:30.636 --> 0:18:34.276 and were killed. The other six were captured Kifrais. 0:18:34.836 --> 0:18:39.716 According to John, John Whitez remembers a gunfight, but Adler 0:18:39.956 --> 0:18:41.636 remembers something completely different. 0:18:42.116 --> 0:18:44.276 My story is when we got into the house, there 0:18:44.316 --> 0:18:47.796 were two old ladies. There was no firing, no one 0:18:47.876 --> 0:18:51.476 was hurt in any way. And so there are these 0:18:51.516 --> 0:18:54.876 two diametrically opposed stories my two people who were there. 0:18:57.436 --> 0:19:01.236 In John Whitez's memory, a house full of Nazis a 0:19:01.316 --> 0:19:06.636 nasty battle, death drama. In Larryadler's memory of the same night. Nothing, 0:19:07.156 --> 0:19:10.676 no nazis, no gunfight, no one dies. They burst in 0:19:10.956 --> 0:19:13.316 and all they find is a room full of harmless 0:19:13.316 --> 0:19:22.036 old women, presumably knitting. But wait, there's another version, same characters, 0:19:22.436 --> 0:19:25.556 same setup, only it's supposed to take place almost a 0:19:25.636 --> 0:19:28.116 year later, in April of nineteen forty six. 0:19:28.916 --> 0:19:32.836 I told this story to a group of publishers in 0:19:32.836 --> 0:19:34.516 London when I made a speech, and one of the 0:19:34.516 --> 0:19:36.836 publishers told me, after, what, mister Bradler, did you know 0:19:38.116 --> 0:19:40.876 that the raid you're talking about is mentioned in another book? 0:19:42.316 --> 0:19:44.956 And John Whites is mentioned, but not by name. He's 0:19:44.996 --> 0:19:47.356 called Werner because that was his name as an agent 0:19:47.396 --> 0:19:50.796 to infiltrate the German lions. John under the name of 0:19:50.796 --> 0:19:53.636 Werner is leading the raid. You are with him, and 0:19:53.676 --> 0:19:57.476 now there are eighteen Nazi soldiers. The house is surrounded 0:19:57.476 --> 0:20:01.836 by armored carriers and floodlights. And I still remember two 0:20:01.996 --> 0:20:05.636 old ladies. So the question is who is right? 0:20:08.236 --> 0:20:09.876 Exactly who's right? 0:20:10.596 --> 0:20:13.516 For the rest of their days, Adler and Whites will 0:20:13.596 --> 0:20:14.316 argue about it. 0:20:14.956 --> 0:20:17.476 I remember Larry bringing up the story to Needle Dad 0:20:20.716 --> 0:20:21.196 and my dad. 0:20:22.076 --> 0:20:25.996 The funny thing is my father could be very very 0:20:26.116 --> 0:20:28.636 forbidding and peremptory with people who sort of crossed him. 0:20:28.836 --> 0:20:29.596 For some reason. 0:20:29.676 --> 0:20:33.156 He had a soft spot for Larry. 0:20:33.796 --> 0:20:37.516 Everyone had a sou spot for Larry. 0:20:38.676 --> 0:20:41.556 What I heard at lunch was you were rounding up 0:20:41.596 --> 0:20:48.236 these Nazis, and all I saw was old women. Oh Larry, 0:20:50.196 --> 0:20:52.276 you some shut up and have another champagne. 0:21:02.956 --> 0:21:06.316 There's a very specific idea about memory embedded in the 0:21:06.316 --> 0:21:10.116 story Larry Adler tells from War and Peace, the story 0:21:10.156 --> 0:21:12.476 about the soldier entertaining a group of young ladies in 0:21:12.516 --> 0:21:17.236 Moscow and the Battle of Borodino. The officer wants to 0:21:17.236 --> 0:21:20.276 impress the people around him, so he moves himself to 0:21:20.316 --> 0:21:23.196 the front lines, and once he makes that improvement on 0:21:23.276 --> 0:21:25.876 the truth in the service of his own ego, what 0:21:26.036 --> 0:21:29.716 actually happens slips away. He becomes the victim of his 0:21:29.796 --> 0:21:36.476 own self deception. That's the theory Adler believed in he 0:21:36.516 --> 0:21:39.036 tells another story about the time he was in Newfoundland 0:21:39.116 --> 0:21:42.236 during the war entertaining troops. He needs to get back 0:21:42.276 --> 0:21:45.316 to Gander Airport because he has a nightclub appearance scheduled 0:21:45.356 --> 0:21:48.036 in New York. He finds an airman who is a 0:21:48.076 --> 0:21:50.476 cargo plane which is going to be towing a glider, 0:21:50.996 --> 0:21:53.276 and he says to Adler, you can ride in the glider. 0:21:53.876 --> 0:21:56.116 I was in the glider, the captain was in the 0:21:56.116 --> 0:21:58.276 front plane. And how exciting it was for me being 0:21:58.316 --> 0:22:00.636 in the glidder being towed, And how the most exciting 0:22:00.676 --> 0:22:03.956 part came when we were over Gander Airport and he 0:22:04.036 --> 0:22:06.756 cut the glider loose by a release mechanism and we 0:22:06.876 --> 0:22:08.996 floated down in this heavenly feeling I had of his 0:22:09.196 --> 0:22:10.756 escape that I never wanted the land. 0:22:12.196 --> 0:22:14.196 Adler tells that story for years. 0:22:15.316 --> 0:22:18.996 Well, my daughter found a diary. It covered my trip 0:22:19.036 --> 0:22:22.516 to Newfoundland. I wasn't in the glider. I was in 0:22:22.556 --> 0:22:26.316 the front plane. Now you see how that took over. 0:22:26.356 --> 0:22:29.636 It's a better story being in the glider. It makes 0:22:29.356 --> 0:22:31.116 it if you say to somebody, I was in the 0:22:31.156 --> 0:22:33.716 first front plane, but we were towing a glider, that's 0:22:33.716 --> 0:22:36.636 no story. I was in the glider and that was 0:22:36.756 --> 0:22:39.596 very exciting. That's more of a story. So that after 0:22:39.636 --> 0:22:42.756 a while, the wish to be in the glider took 0:22:42.796 --> 0:22:45.476 over and became fat and put me in the glider. 0:22:45.916 --> 0:22:47.556 And the truth is that I've never been in a 0:22:47.596 --> 0:22:52.556 glider in my life. That's what I mean by self deception. 0:22:54.236 --> 0:22:56.916 Adler knew he had a big ego, and he simply 0:22:56.956 --> 0:22:59.956 assumed that his ego was out in the world, rewriting 0:22:59.996 --> 0:23:04.236 history on his behalf, which seems to make sense. Adler 0:23:04.316 --> 0:23:08.236 is the compulsive storyteller, right the name dropper. In his 0:23:08.316 --> 0:23:11.556 New Yorker profile, there's this line. The most casual request 0:23:11.596 --> 0:23:15.716 for information from a newspaper reporter or interviewer will often 0:23:15.756 --> 0:23:20.196 bring in reply a twelve or fifteen typewritten single space 0:23:20.356 --> 0:23:24.716 narrative composed and typed by Larry in person and containing 0:23:24.836 --> 0:23:29.316 dialogue and anecdotes. I think that whenever we run across 0:23:29.316 --> 0:23:32.396 someone telling a false story, we assume that this is 0:23:32.396 --> 0:23:37.676 what's happening, that the lie is driven by ego. In 0:23:37.716 --> 0:23:40.276 the next episode, I'm going to talk about an instant 0:23:40.276 --> 0:23:43.716 that you'll almost certainly remember. A modern version of Adler's 0:23:43.716 --> 0:23:48.076 glider story. Somebody famous was caught saying, in effect that 0:23:48.156 --> 0:23:50.276 they were in the glider when they were actually in 0:23:50.316 --> 0:23:54.796 the plane pulling the glider, and the overwhelming assumption was 0:23:54.796 --> 0:23:58.356 that the storyteller changed the details of what happened because 0:23:58.436 --> 0:24:03.916 he wanted to look better, braver, bolder. But here's my question, 0:24:04.716 --> 0:24:07.756 why do we always have to frame memory, disagreements and 0:24:07.996 --> 0:24:11.276 errors in terms of character. Why do we always need 0:24:11.316 --> 0:24:14.476 a culprit, because I'm not sure Adler can be explained 0:24:14.516 --> 0:24:17.356