Michael: November 1943, Tehran. A presidential motorcade, complete with a limousine and armed guards, speeds through the city. But the man in the back seat, the one who looks just like Franklin D. Roosevelt, is a decoy. The real president is hiding in a dirty sedan on the backstreets. Kevin: Whoa, okay, that's an opening. So the President of the United States is sneaking around like a spy in some beat-up car? What on earth is going on? This sounds like the opening scene of a blockbuster movie. Michael: It absolutely does, and that's the world we're diving into today. This incredible, and mostly true, story comes from the book The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch. Kevin: That author pairing is fascinating. I know Meltzer writes these massive bestselling thrillers, the kind you can't put down. Michael: Exactly. And his co-author, Josh Mensch, is an acclaimed documentary television producer. You put them together, and you get this unique result: a work of history that's built on meticulous research but reads with the heart-pounding pace of a spy novel. They're telling the story of the first time the "Big Three"—Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin—ever met in person, and the audacious Nazi plot to assassinate all of them at once. Kevin: An event that could have completely changed the outcome of World War II. I mean, decapitating the entire Allied leadership in one fell swoop… that’s terrifying to even consider. Michael: Terrifying is the right word. The stakes were astronomical. This wasn't just a meeting; it was the meeting that would decide the final strategy for defeating Nazi Germany. And the Nazis knew it.

Michael: To really get the gravity of it, you have to picture Tehran at that moment. It’s technically neutral territory, but it’s occupied by Soviet and British troops, with Americans arriving too. The city is a hornet's nest of spies from every side—German, Soviet, British, American—all operating in the shadows. Kevin: So it’s the perfect place for an assassination. Chaotic, crowded, and crawling with agents. It’s not like they could meet in London or Washington. Michael: Precisely. They needed neutral ground, and Tehran was the compromise. But it was a deeply dangerous one. Into this tense environment, the Allied leaders arrive. Churchill is famously blustery and confident. Stalin is paranoid and calculating, operating on his home turf, so to speak, since his forces control the northern part of the city. And then there's FDR, traveling thousands of miles, physically frail from polio, but projecting an unshakable calm. Kevin: And he's the one being shuttled around in a secret, dirty car. So this threat was considered credible from the very beginning. Michael: Extremely credible. The initial intelligence came from Soviet intelligence, the NKVD. They reported that a team of Nazi commandos, elite assassins, had been parachuted into Iran. Their mission had a codename: Operation Long Jump. The goal was simple and brutal: kill the Big Three. Kevin: Okay, so what was the actual plan? How were they supposed to pull this off? Michael: The details are chilling. The Nazi team was led by a legendary SS officer, Otto Skorzeny, a man Hitler personally favored for high-risk missions. He was famous for a daring glider raid that rescued Mussolini from a mountaintop prison. He was, by all accounts, the best man for this kind of job. Kevin: A real-life supervillain. Michael: You could say that. The plan was to infiltrate Tehran, link up with local German agents, and identify a moment when all three leaders were together and vulnerable. The Tehran Conference offered the perfect opportunity. They would be moving between embassies, attending dinners, and holding meetings. An attack on a motorcade or a bombing at one of the embassies was the most likely scenario. Kevin: Which brings us back to the decoy. The Americans took this threat so seriously they put one of their own men in the line of fire. Michael: They did. A Secret Service agent who bore a resemblance to FDR was dressed up, complete with the President’s signature pince-nez glasses and fedora. He sat in the back of the official, flag-draped limousine and waved to the crowds. It was pure theater, designed to draw the assassins' attention. Kevin: That is an unbelievable level of bravery. To knowingly make yourself the target. Michael: Meanwhile, the real Franklin Roosevelt was driven in what was described as a small, filthy sedan through the city's winding back alleys. His only protection was a single jeep of armed soldiers. Think about that. The leader of the free world, in the middle of a global war, being protected by just one jeep. Kevin: That almost sounds riskier than the main motorcade! If any Nazi spotters had been on those backstreets, he would have been a sitting duck. Michael: It was an incredible gamble, but it was based on a psychological calculation: no one would ever expect the President of the United States to travel like that. It was security through obscurity. The deception worked. FDR arrived safely at the Soviet embassy, where the conference was to be held. Kevin: Wait, the Soviet embassy? Why there? Michael: Ah, and that is where the story gets even more complicated. Stalin insisted. He argued it was the most secure location and that moving between the British and Soviet embassies for meetings would present too many opportunities for an attack. He made a compelling case, and Roosevelt, reluctantly, agreed to stay at the Soviet compound as Stalin’s guest. Kevin: That feels… loaded. Stalin, the master of paranoia, offering his protection. There has to be more to that. Michael: There is. And that’s the pivot point of this entire story. The immediate physical threat of Nazi commandos was one thing. But the psychological games being played between the Allies themselves were a whole other war being fought in the shadows.

Kevin: Okay, I have to ask the question that's been nagging me. This whole, incredible story—the Nazi super-commando, the decoy motorcade, the last-minute rescue—it all hinges on that initial intelligence. You said it came from the Soviets. Michael: That's right. The NKVD. Kevin: How much can we really trust that? It feels almost too perfect for Stalin. He gets to look like the hero who saved the day, and as a bonus, he gets the American President to stay as a "guest" in the Soviet embassy, which we can all assume was riddled with listening devices. Michael: You've just hit on the central controversy of this entire historical event, and it's something the authors, Meltzer and Mensch, grapple with directly in the book. This is where the story shifts from a straightforward thriller to a fascinating historical mystery. Kevin: So, is it real? Or was it a masterful piece of Soviet propaganda? Michael: The truth is likely somewhere in the murky middle. Let's look at the evidence. The primary source confirming Operation Long Jump is, indeed, Soviet intelligence archives. After the conference, the Soviets arrested dozens of suspected German agents in Tehran and claimed to have foiled the plot. They made a big show of it. Kevin: Which sounds exactly like what you'd do if you were trying to sell a story. What about the other side? Did British or American intelligence ever confirm it? Michael: That's the problem. There's a conspicuous lack of corroboration from British MI6 or American OSS files. The British, in particular, were highly skeptical at the time. They suspected Stalin might have exaggerated the threat, or even invented it entirely, for political leverage. Kevin: And the leverage was getting FDR under his roof. Michael: Precisely. By convincing Roosevelt he was in mortal danger, Stalin could position himself as the protector. This not only put FDR in his debt but also gave Soviet intelligence an unparalleled opportunity to spy on the American president's private conversations and strategic planning sessions. Some historians believe the real "Operation Long Jump" was Stalin's plan to bug Roosevelt's room. Kevin: Wow. So the conspiracy within the conspiracy. That's a whole other level of intrigue. What do the authors think? Do they pick a side? Michael: They present both sides very fairly, which is what makes the book so compelling. They acknowledge the legitimate reasons for skepticism. They note the lack of Western confirmation and Stalin's obvious motives. However, they ultimately argue that the evidence, though imperfect, points toward a genuine Nazi plot, even if the Soviets then exploited it for their own ends. Kevin: What evidence is that? Beyond the Soviet files. Michael: They point to the context. The Nazis were getting desperate in 1943. The tide of the war was turning against them on the Eastern Front. A high-risk, high-reward operation like this fits their pattern of behavior. And Otto Skorzeny, the SS commando leader, was very real and specialized in exactly these kinds of audacious missions. While Skorzeny himself denied the plot's existence after the war, the authors suggest he had every reason to lie to protect his own skin. Kevin: So it’s a case of weighing probabilities. It’s plausible, it fits the Nazi M.O., but we lack the smoking gun from a non-Soviet source. Michael: Exactly. And that ambiguity is what makes this story so fascinating. It’s not a clean-cut tale of good versus evil. It’s a messy, complicated story about enemies and allies who don't fully trust each other, all acting in their own self-interest against a backdrop of global war. The fear of the plot was as powerful a weapon as the plot itself. Kevin: That’s a great way to put it. Whether the commandos were hiding on every rooftop or not, the belief that they were changed the dynamic of the conference. It forced Roosevelt into Stalin's sphere of influence and likely shaped some of the negotiations. Michael: It absolutely did. It’s a stark reminder that in the world of espionage and high-stakes diplomacy, perception can be reality. The threat doesn't have to be 100% real for it to have 100% real consequences.

Michael: So when you pull back, you're left with this incredible historical moment that operates on two levels. On the surface, it's a nail-biting thriller—a secret plot, body doubles, a race against time. It’s got all the elements of a great spy story. Kevin: But just beneath that, it’s a profound lesson in how history is actually made and recorded. It’s not a clean, objective timeline of events. It’s a messy, tangled web of competing narratives, of propaganda, of national interests, and of genuine, life-or-death heroism all happening at the same time. Michael: Exactly. The book doesn't just tell you a story; it invites you to be a historian, to weigh the conflicting evidence and decide for yourself what you believe. Was it a real Nazi plot? A masterful Soviet bluff? Or, most likely, a bit of both, with each side exploiting the situation for its own advantage? Kevin: And it's a powerful reminder that the great 'what ifs' of history are often terrifyingly close to the surface. The entire outcome of World War II, the shape of the post-war world, could have pivoted on the success or failure of this one secret operation. The world we live in today could be drastically different. Michael: That fragility is the core of it. The fate of millions rested on the safety of those three men in that one city for those few days. And their safety, in turn, rested on a complex dance of deception, trust, and paranoia. Kevin: It really makes you wonder, how many other 'official' stories from history have this same level of ambiguity just beneath the surface? How many accepted facts are built on a foundation that's just as murky as this one? Michael: That is a fantastic question, and it's one we should all ask when we look at the past. History is never as simple as it seems in the textbooks. Kevin: A great question for our listeners, too. What do you think? A real plot or a masterful bluff? We'd love to hear your perspectives. The debate is half the fun with a story like this. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.