The Perfect Crime Is Possible

The Perfect Crime is Possible

Erich Muenter (aka Frank Holt) was the Harvard professor and wife murderer recruited by the German network of spies as an assassin to bring down vital targets such as ships, factories, livestock, and even captains of industry like J. P. Morgan during World War I. Below is an excerpt from my book Dark Invasion: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America, revealing how Muenter came to discover that the perfect crime is possible.

If Erich Muenter hadn’t walked across the Harvard campus to Emerson Hall on that wet February day in 1906 to borrow a book, he would never have seen the student pull the short-barreled black revolver from his pocket, aim, and, just as his arm was grabbed, fire. And then things might have been different.

It had been raining all morning, but as Professor Muenter made his way from the tiny classroom where he taught German to the formidable redbrick building on the opposite side of the muddy Harvard Yard, the storm suddenly became torrential. He tried to hurry, but his condition—“tuberculosis of the bones,” the doctor had diagnosed with a helpless finality—made walking even in the best of weather an awkward exercise. By the time he reached the pillared portico of Emerson Hall, he was soaked.

“What is man that Thou art mindful of him?” challenged the inscription carved above the massive entrance doors. Charles Eliot, the pious Harvard president, had personally selected the lines from the book of Psalms only weeks before the building had opened to students the previous year. But Muenter held little countenance for religion or, for that matter, any philosophy that questioned his rightful place in the scheme of things. He bristled with an egotist’s combative certainty; humility never had a chance to take root.

This dismal afternoon Professor Muenter’s always feisty, self-important attitude—a demeanor that famously filled timid Harvard undergrads struggling through German 101 with fear and anxiety—was further sharpened by the fact that he was drenched. The best Muenter could do, though, was to slap his damp, center-parted brown hair into place, give his shabby Vandyke a restorative tug or two, wipe his wire-framed glasses dry, and try to fix his customary confident, bemused expression on his sallow face. He might be soaked to the bone, but he’d still make it clear that he was a man of whom anyone, even the Harvard president himself, would be wise to be mindful.

The long trek up the three winding flights to the university’s new psychology laboratory was difficult; his spindly legs, the muscles weakened by his degenerative illness, didn’t do well on stairs. But Muenter was determined. At an off-campus German Society gathering he’d recently made the acquaintance of the lab’s director, the celebrated professor Hugo Munsterberg, and the two men quickly found they had much in common.

It didn’t seem to matter that Muenter, thirty-five years old and as thin and boyish as an undergraduate, could easily have passed for the portly forty-three-year-old bald-headed professor’s son. Nor was their bond simply that they both had been born in Germany, still savaged their English with a distinct guttural rumble (although the younger man’s accent was significantly fainter; after all, he’d been living in America for nearly half his life), and that both proudly held a cherished, even on occasion reverential, allegiance to the Fatherland. Rather, their budding friendship was built on a deeply held common interest in the criminal mind.

Professor Munsterberg had come to Harvard at the urging of William James, the philosopher, to set up the first scientific laboratory in the nation to explore the psychology of crime. And while Muenter’s bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago was in German, as a graduate student at Kansas State University he had investigated the motives (or more often rationales, he’d correct with a sly precision) that drove individuals to commit crimes. His research had resulted in a paper entitled “Insanity and Literature.” Now at Harvard, although he was pursuing his doctorate in German literature, Muenter retained his fascination with the mental mechanisms that create criminals.

When Muenter explained all this to Munsterberg, the professor immediately invited the younger man to visit his lab and to borrow any books he wanted from his personal library. Today, undeterred by the weather or the climb, a curious and enthusiastic Muenter had come to take advantage of the professor’s generosity.

What a world Muenter entered! The top floor of Emerson Hall was a warren of rooms through which wound a snaking trail of electrical wires connected to ingenious machines that, Munsterberg boasted, could do nothing less than “reveal the secrets of the human mind.”

As christened by the psychologist, the devices included an “automautograph,” to measure arm and finger muscle movements under stress; a “pneumograph,” to measure variations in breathing caused by emotional suggestions; and a “sphygmagraph,” to record the halts, jumps, and rapid beatings of a guilty heart. These machines, Munsterberg promised, “reduced a knowledge of the truth to an exact science.” In fact, in a widely read interview published in the New York Times, a resolute Munsterberg had proclaimed that “to deny that the experimental psychologist has the possibilities of determining the truth-telling powers is as absurd as to deny that the chemical expert can find out whether there is arsenic in the stomach.”

Months later, when questioned about Muenter’s tour of the laboratory on that rainy day, the professor would also be reminded of his bold comment to the newspaper—and his choice of metaphor would come back to haunt him with a chilling prescience. But that afternoon the renowned criminologist had no suspicions. In fact, he invited his young friend to sit in on a class that was about to begin.

Muenter was standing in the back of the lecture hall, listening to the professor with interest, when the outburst occurred.

“I want to throw some light on the matter,” a student interrupted, rising to his feet as he spoke.

All at once another student jumped up to challenge him. “I cannot stand that!” he shouted.

“You have insulted me!” the first student angrily replied.

“If you say another word—,” the second student warned, clenching his fist.

The first student drew a short black revolver from his coat pocket. In a fury, the other student charged at him.

At the same moment, Professor Munsterberg hurried from behind his lectern, managed to put himself between the two students, and grasped the gunman’s arm.

Suddenly the gun went off. Clutching his stomach, one boy slumped to the floor.

The classroom was pandemonium. Shrieking students jumped from their seats, eager to escape. But Erich Muenter, it was observed, stood rigidly at the back of the room, watching all that went on around him with a calm, unruffled fascination.

Nor did Muenter show any reaction when in the next instant the “wounded” student, grinning broadly, dramatically rose to his feet.

Calling the astonished class to order, Professor Munsterberg instructed the students to write an exact account of what had just happened. Tell me precisely what you saw, he reiterated.

As the students wrote, their professor explained that this was an exercise to demonstrate the fallibility of even eyewitness testimony in a criminal case. The search for truth, he lectured, may be well intentioned, but memory is always subjective. The shrewd courtroom defense attorney can use the power of suggestion to defeat most attempts to get at the truth. Similarly, the professor went on, the expert criminal can manipulate people so that they’ll believe what he wants them to believe.

When the students read their reconstructions aloud, it was clear that Professor Munsterberg’s thesis was correct: no two students offered identical versions of the “shooting.” And when the psychologist tried to influence their memories with his own probing questions, their recollections grew further distorted. “Truth,” the professor concluded, “exists only as an invention created under the spell of belief.”

That evening as Muenter—clutching the borrowed book, its specific title long forgotten—made his way back to the rooms he shared with his pregnant wife and their daughter on Oxford Street, he found himself still thinking about all he’d seen. Time after time he played back in his mind the demonstration he had witnessed, and the students’ contradictory and easily manipulated recollections of events. It had been an education.

But there was another reason the demonstration held his thoughts. It confirmed his long-cherished theory that the perfect crime was possible. Cast a “spell of belief,” and you could get away with anything. Even murder.

---

Full of drama and intensity, illustrated with eight pages of black and-white photos, Dark Invasion is riveting war thriller that chillingly echoes our own time. You can order your copy here.

Critical Acclaim for Dark Invasion:

★★★★★

“Howard Blum’s riveting and perturbing Dark Invasion…is well-researched and written, and it maintains a fairly high level of suspense, which is difficult to bring off in a book about historical events.”

—Wall Street Journal

★★★★★

“Dark Invasion…will move you to the edge of your seat with the facts alone, but the author’s suspenseful detective-mystery narrative is what keeps you there.”

—USA Today

★★★★★

“Blum briefs us on early homeland security with tales of German terrorists, including military officers, a germ-warfare expert, a Harvard prof and a document forger.”

—New York Post, “Required Reading”

★★★★★

“Dark Invasion is a must-read for lovers of suspense and anyone who wants to understand how the basis of our homeland security system was born.”

—Tom Reiss, author

The Past is Never Dead: A Look Back at In the Enemy's House

The Past is Never Dead: A Look Back at In the Enemy's House

On a brisk, late October day in 2005, John F. Fox, the studious Ph.D. who served as the FBI’s official historian, stood at the podium at the annual Symposium on Cryptologic History and launched into a riveting presentation. “One man,” he began, “was tall, thin, a genius linguist at the NSA who was working on breaking coded telegrams sent from Soviet offices in the U.S. to Moscow. The other was a lawyer and cop, a young FBI supervisor recently transferred to Headquarters. . . .”

Nearly a decade later I received the transcript of this short speech describing the unique working partnership of Bob Lamphere, an FBI counterintelligence agent, and Meredith Gardner, the man who re-created the KGB codebook. It had been sent my way by a friend in the intelligence community who presciently thought “there might be a bigger story here.” After my initial reading, I knew he was right.

Here was a true-life espionage tale, a story of two very different and very unlikely friends who had teamed up to chase down the most consequential spy ring in American history— the atomic spies. And it was also the story of one of the nation’s great, but barely known, intelligence triumphs, the long-running secret operation—hidden away at a former school for well-bred young women in Virginia—that had cracked the “unbreakable” Russian codes.

It was a tale, I quickly realized, I wanted to tell, and I began my own hunt to get at the previously unknown heart of the story and the people who had lived it. 

In the Enemy’s House is the result of that investigation. It is a narrative non-fiction spy tale. It has no ambitions to be a scholar’s buttoned-down, footnoted tome. Still, it is no less a true story. It is no less a history. It is no less buttressed by a firm foundation of facts.

At its narrative heart, In the Enemy’s House is a story about people who made history.

When I began work on this book my narrative ambitions were to share a spy drama, a tale of friendship, courage, genius, and regret. Yet as I researched and wrote the book during the presidential election campaign of 2016 and well into the first year of the new presidency, this Cold War history took on an unexpected resonance. And a chilling prescience. 

“The past,” as Faulkner warned, “is never dead; it is not even past.”

Here’s what people are saying about In the Enemy’s House:

★★★★★

“The book reads like the best of the spy novels.”

—David S., Amazon Reviewer

★★★★★

“Kudos to Mr. Blum on his fast paced, informative retelling of this all too overlooked episode in the history of USSR-U.S. relations. The story flies by and leaves one with a clear appreciation of the significance of this period.”

—Barry W., Amazon Reviewer

On Writing The Last Goodnight

On Writing The Last Goodnight

In the main building of the CIA’s sprawling Virginia campus, past the security guards and the detection machines, up a staircase and at the end of a winding corridor that doglegs to the left, is a windowless conference room. There is no name or number on the door. Inside, it has the feel of a space that might be used for a graduate seminar; there’s a whiteboard on one wall and a table long enough to sit a dozen or so intelligence analysts. But there were only two other people seated at the table on the June day when I was there—a distinguished agency historian and a press officer to watch over both of us. I had come with the hope of picking the scholar’s brain about Betty Pack, the British and American secret agent who had done so much to help the Allies win World War II.

It was, for me at least, a tense conversation. The CIA official knew, I suspected, a lot more than he was revealing, and I had the difficult task of trying to pull the information out of him. But he was a shrewd man who had spent a lifetime guarding secrets; he was not about to make an indiscreet revelation to me. Nevertheless, we both seemed to be enjoying the game until he took offense at something I had said.

I had announced that the book I intended to write would be a true story.

He laughed dismissively, and then launched into a lecture on the epistemology of espionage. Even nonfiction spy stories, to his way of thinking, were a search for ultimately elusive truths. The best that can be hoped for is a reliable hypothesis. No spy tale is ever the whole story; there are always too many unknowns, too many lies being passed off as facts, too many deliberate miscues by one participant or another.

I listened; argued meekly and defensively; and then did my best to move the conversation along to another hopefully more fruitful topic.

And now, having finished writing the nonfiction book that had prompted my visit to the CIA, I want to reiterate to its readers that this is a true story.

In writing The Last Goodnight, I have been able to draw on a treasure trove of information to tell Betty Pack’s story: her memoirs, tape-recorded reminiscences, childhood diaries, and a lifetime of letters; the Office of Strategic Services Papers at the National Archives; Federal Bureau of Investigation files; State Department records; the British Security Coordination official history; Foreign Office archives at the Public Record Office; and interviews with members of both the British and American intelligence services.

And yet I am also forced to acknowledge that there is a cautionary kernel of truth in the CIA scholar’s warning. There are, among the official sources, contradictory versions of events. And another caveat—governments, even more than half a century later, hold on to their secrets. Betty’s sixty-five-page FBI file is heavily redacted; tantalizing files at the National Archives are marked “Security Classified information, withdrawn at the request of a foreign government”; and the files assembled by H. Montgomery Hyde, Betty’s wartime colleague in the British secret service and her first biographer, which were bequeathed to Churchill College, Cambridge, have been edited. Parts of this collection are “closed indefinitely”; individual documents have been removed by intelligence service “weeders”; and some papers have been officially “closed until the year 2041.

In writing narrative nonfiction, you’re guided by – as the name of genre makes dauntingly clear – two essential rules: you need to tell a story; and it needs to be true.

The Last Goodnight is the deeply personal narrative of Betty Pack. It’s part love story, part spy tale, part psychological detective story. When there were two (or more) versions of an incident, I stuck with the one that made the most sense. 

I wanted to capture the resourcefulness, self-reliance, and tenacity of a woman who helped shape a still vibrant strand in the American character. I wanted to discover the truth about the attractive blond, codenamed “Cynthia,” who seduced diplomats and military attachés across the globe in exchange for ciphers and secrets; cracked embassy safes to steal codes; and obtained the Polish notebooks that proved key to Alan Turing’s success with Operation Ultra. I wanted to capture the moving portrait of an exceptional heroine whose undaunted courage helped to save the world.

And now that The Last Goodnight is out in the world, it’s up to you to decide if I succeeded at that mission. You can order your copy here.

Here’s what people are saying about The Last Goodnight:

★★★★★

“Finding out the extensive research that was done on the characters is amazing and makes the reader appreciate the reality of this story of Betty Pack alias Cynthia.”

—Barb L., Amazon Reviewer

★★★★★

“Howard Blum is an excellent writer and made it easy to imagine the settings, emotions, and suspense of a WWII spy. The history is fascinating, better than fiction!”

—Mark F., Amazon Reviewer

A Holiday Gift Guide for History Buffs

A Holiday Gift Guide for History Buffs

Although holiday traditions may look a little different in 2020, many of us still want to make our loved ones feel special this time of year. If you’re on the hunt for the perfect gift for the history buff in your life, look no further—here’s a list of must-haves that any espionage fan is bound to love.

For book Lovers

Night of the Assassins: The Untold Story of Hitler's Plot to Kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin by Howard Blum—a suspenseful true-life tale about an impossible mission, a ticking clock, and one man who stepped up to the challenge and prevented a world catastrophe.

In the Enemy’s House: The Secret Saga of the FBI Agent and the Code Breaker Who Caught the Russian Spies by Howard Blum—how two men uncovered a ring of Russian spies during the Cold War as they worked on operation Venona, a top-secret mission to uncover Soviet agents and protect the Holy Grail of Cold War espionage—the atomic bomb.

The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of Espionage, Adventure and Betrayal by Howard Blum—what better way to keep an espionage lover on his or her toes than a riveting biography of a dazzling American debutante who became an Allied spy during WWII? 

Dark Invasion: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America by Howard Blum—a gritty, high-energy true-life tale of German espionage and terror on American soil during World War I, and the NYPD Inspector who helped uncover the plot—the basis for the film to be produced by and starring Bradley Cooper.

For Fans of Espionage

James Bond Ultimate Collector’s Set—a collection of all 21 James Bond films, from Dr. No to Casino Royale and another 21 discs full of bonus features; a set that any 007 fan would die for.

Search History Card Game—what espionage adherent wouldn’t love a peek into their friends’ search histories? This game takes real internet searches and turns them into a unique gameplay that is sure to be a hit at any zoom party.  

Hunt a Killer—It’s like an escape room delivered to your door every month. Each month, you receive a box of clues that help you uncover the secret killer. A perfect gift for espionage fans (and their family).

Famous Assassinations in World History: An Encyclopedia—a book including the most up-to-date coverage of assassinations of key figures throughout history and around the world.

CIA Design Two-Tone Coffee Mug—this unique coffee mug is perfect for anyone who wants to feel like a secret official as they sip their coffee or tea.

The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI’s Hunt for America’s Stolen Secrets by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee — a thrilling novel based on real-life events about an FBI’s hunt for Brian Regan known as the Spy Who Couldn’t Spell.

For History Buffs

Weekly History Letters by Mail—the perfect gift for anyone who enjoys reliving the past. Letterjoy mails historic, hand-written letters from figures like Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein and Florence Nightingale every week, directly to your favorite history buff’s home.

United States Declaration of Independence Print—a must-have in any history buff’s home.

Presidential Novelty Socks—socks remain to be the best holiday present (as far as I can tell). What history buff wouldn’t want George Washington on their ankles?

How One Man Conned the Beltway - The New York Times

FDR Library: 21 Summer Activities for Young People

The FDR Library created a special edition of their At Home with the Roosevelts newsletter to help young people enjoy this (challenging) summer. 21 activities were created by Education Specialist Jeffrey Urbin that offer fun ideas to keep you busy and engaged.

TIME Op-Ed: The Search for the Truth About the Nazi Plot to Assassinate FDR

Night of the Assassins featured in World War 2 Magazine

Should the White House be Painted Black?

Should the White House be Painted Black?

At thirty-one, Mike Reilly found himself in charge of the safety of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the leader of a nation at war. Following is an excerpt from Night of the Assassins by Howard Blum that describes how he took on this monumental task. 

The weight of his new responsibilities landed on his broad shoulders with a sudden, nearly crushing force. “It was something to give a man,” he’d admit without embarrassment,  “cold shivers in the daytime and nightmares in bed. It did both.”

The Boss was no longer just  “a high priority target” for the mentally unsound. At any moment the president could be, Mike imagined with a fresh shudder of dread, in the sights of  “a regiment of Axis assassins.” Mike understood it would be his job “to outwit them.” And he knew they were a real threat.

Should the White House be painted black?

But would that be sufficient? Perhaps engineers also needed to alter the course of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. Even if the mansion were camouflaged, an enemy pilot could still follow these waterways; the building was, any map made clear, a measured mile from their confluence. It would be an easy bit of navigation.

Maybe, then, the only secure alternative was to relocate the president’s residence, find a home and office for him further inland, away from the dangerous geography of the East Coast. 

Such was the heightened anxiety in the uncertain days after America went to war that these precautions against aerial bombing attacks, as well as other similarly impulsive suggestions, were discussed with an earnestness that, only in retrospect, seems fantastic. 

Yet at the time the challenges were unprecedented. FDR was the first president who had to be protected against enemy nations who had aircraft that could fly across oceans to drop payloads of bombs or platoons of paratroopers from the sky above Washington. 

There were remote-controlled devices that, in the hands of spies or fifth columnists, could be detonated from a distance to blow up bridges, railroads, even buildings. And, if all the jittery rumors buzzing through the city were to be believed, the Nazis had high-powered rockets that could be shot off from faraway locations and strike with lethal accuracy. 

Secret Service head Mike Reilly's over-active imagination was grinding out one horror after another and yet he knew, however preposterous they might seem, he could not afford to be contemptuous of any of them: too much was at stake. 

Guided as much by his fears as any firm military expertise, he threw himself into the multi-faceted task of making sure the White House was put on a wartime footing.

His worrying and imagining of worst-case scenarios kept him prepared. When world leaders Franklin D Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, conducted a secret meeting in Tehran in 1939, they discovered Hitler's plot to send in paratroopers and wipe out the Allied leaders in one fell swoop. Reilly's quick thinking saved their lives, and possibly ensured the future of the free world. 

Night of the Assassins is a suspenseful true-life tale about an impossible mission, a ticking clock, and one man who stepped up to the challenge and prevented a world catastrophe.

Read the latest article!

A Twist of Fate for Mike Reilly, FDR's Head of Secret Service

The Simple Twist of Fate that May Have Saved FDR’s Life

History is full of human stories, and little twists of fate that seem inconsequential in the moment, but turn out to have a heavy historical impact.

For example, Mike Reilly only transferred from the Treasury Department to the Secret Service because he thought it would be better for his new marriage.

In 1935, he was transferred. In 1939, he saved Franklin Roosevelt’s life in Tehran (along with Churchill and Stalin) and, in doing so, altered the course of World War 2 and American history. He turned out to be one of the most famous Secret Service guards of all time—and on top of that, his marriage also thrived for more than fifty years.

Here’s an excerpt from Night of the Assassins about the twist of fate that started Mike Reilly on his journey to becoming FDR’s head of Secret Service:

Then marriage put a sudden damper on his roving, blood hound’s career. He had met a pretty red-haired secretary, Roby, who worked in the office of Senator Samuel Shortridge of California. Suddenly, all he could think about was commitment. After a whirl-wind courtship, they married in 1935 and Mike realized he’d need a new job, one where an investigator could stay in one place long enough to raise a family.

Mike decided a transfer to the Secret Service (also part of the Treasury Department) would do the trick. “I would be assigned to a district somewhere in the United States, and the extent of my travel would be an occasional few days, not more than an overnight from home,” according to the sensible future he’d plotted. It all went as he’d planned, at first. In June, 1935, his transfer to the Secret Service went through and he was quickly sent to his home state of Montana.

He figured Roby and he would put down stakes close to his relatives and life would play itself out with any dramas. Which was just what happened – and it left him bored silly. After all the heady cases tracking down genuine big-time villains, he found it dispiriting to be in shoved off to the hinterlands. His investigative challenges were few and far between, mostly low-grade tax avoidance cases. Worse, he knew many of the culprit from high school or college. In their former lives they had drunk a lot of beers, chased a lot of girls, played for the same teams.

If Mike had his way, he’d simply give any of his old buddies, he’d suggested, “a clout in the mouth and let him go.” That punishment would fit the crime. But having to put the cuffs on a man with whom he’d paled around, that didn’t sit right with Mike. He didn’t want to be the one who upended a friend’s life.

At the same time, he’d be violating his own sense of honor if he didn’t do the job the Treasury Department was paying him to do. Rather than having to go on making uncomfortable choices, Mike put in for a transfer.

Before the year was out he was assigned to Secret Service District 16. That was the White House detail.

His job – to protect the president.

Night of the Assassins is a suspenseful true-life tale about an impossible mission, a ticking clock, and one man who stepped up to the challenge and prevented a world catastrophe.

Need a Weekend Read? Vogue's Hamish Bowles Recommends Night of the Assassins

This Fourth of July, the answer is howling in the wind: The Hill

A Father's Day Gift Guide for History Buffs - Best Books for Father's Day

A Father’s Day Gift Guide for History Buffs

This year Father’s Day snuck up on us amongst a pandemic and social unrest, but as a father myself, it is vital that this important holiday not go unobserved. Don’t settle for boring ties and socks—this year, give your history-buff Dad a gift that will entertain and delight him.

Here’s a fool-proof list of Father’s Day gift ideas for hard-to-shop-for history buffs.

First and foremost, I must recommend my own new nonfiction thriller, Night of the Assassins: The Untold Story of Hitler's Plot to Kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin This book tells the action-packed story of a daring attempt on the lives of FDR, Churchill, and Stalin in Tehran. One Goodreads reviewer who gave the book to her father says, “I gave this book to my dad, the history buff in our family. He finished this book in a day, and asked me to give it a 5-star rating because he really enjoyed it. My dad had no knowledge of Hitler's plot to kill FDR, Churchill and Stalin, it was never in the history books or in the required teachings at any of our schools. This is the kind of history we live for; the untold truths that can only come from first-hand accounts of the action.”

Round out your gift with other best selling books by Howard Blum. Fans of Erik Larson will love these exciting, true non-fiction books filled with twists and turns. Also available as audiobooks!

In the Enemy's House: The Secret Saga of the FBI Agent and the Code Breaker Who Caught the Russian Spies by Howard Blum—a breathtaking chapter of American history and a page-turning mystery that plays out against the tense, life-and-death gamesmanship of the Cold War, this twisting thriller begins at the end of World War II and leads all the way to the execution of the Rosenbergs.

The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of Espionage, Adventure and Betrayal by Howard Blum—what better way to keep a history lover on his or her toes than a riveting biography of a dazzling American debutante who became an Allied spy during WWII?

Dark Invasion by Howard Blum—a gritty, high-energy true-life tale of German espionage and terror on American soil during World War I, and the NYPD Inspector who helped uncover the plot—the basis for the film to be produced by and starring Bradley Cooper.

And don’t stop at books when you’re shopping for Dad! Here are some gifts that will delight history fans.

The Periodic Table of Presidents from Uncommon Goods:

Presidential Slogan Coffee Mug from Amazon:

Ides of March Julius Caesar Bust from Amazon:

Chronology Board Game from Buffalo Games:

Democracy Coasters from Uncommon Goods:

And, of course, I realize that not everyone is rolling in dollars to buy fancy gifts for Dad in 2020. One free or low-cost idea to celebrate Dads who are interested in history is an invitation to a themed viewing party for the Hamilton Musical movie, due out from Disney Plus on July 3rd (see if you can get a free trial before then!). Serve Samuel Adams Beer, Tea Party tea, and whatever snacks were popular during the Revolutionary War.

Happy Father’s Day to all the thoughtful kids and grateful dads celebrating out there this year.

D-Day and the reopening of America: What history teaches about endgame strategies

Inside Hitler’s Plan to Rescue Mussolini from His Failing Regime

A Virtual Evening with Howard Blum

Join me on Wednesday, June 10th, at 5:00 p.m. as I discuss Night of the Assassins with Books & Books. Follow the link to save your spot.

Night of the Assassins Book Event with the Kansas City Library

Join me on Wednesday, June 3rd, at 6:30 p.m. CT as I discuss Night of the Assassins with the Kansas City Public Library. Follow the link to RSVP.

Seeing Double: How a doppelgänger foiled a secret Nazi plot... excerpt in Airmail Weekly

The Hill Op-Ed: Victory in Europe, and victory over a pandemic: Unconditional surrender vs. wishful thinking

Comfort and Wisdom for Stressful Times: FDR's Inaugural Addresses

Comfort and Wisdom for Stressful Times: FDR's Inaugural Addresses

As the United States faces the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic crisis, many Americans are craving wisdom and direction from our government. While it’s a bit of a challenge  to find wisdom in our current leadership, we can nevertheless still look back for encouragement  to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led the country through the Great Depression and the Second World War. 

FDR served as president for three terms, and was elected a historic four times. Each of his four inaugural addresses were each aimed at a nation in some form of crisis, facing grave fears and concerns. Each of Roosevelt’s speeches can offer its own comfort and direction and lessons in our own fearful and unsure times. 

In his first inaugural address, Roosevelt spoke to the people’s economic fears. “In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it…”

In his second inaugural address, after his election in 1937, the Great Depression had ended, however many Americans were still feeling its aftershocks and beginning to see populist rhetoric emerge both in the states, and abroad.

During this speech, Roosevelt brought the nation together and called for transparency and civic duty, saying, “Overwhelmingly, we of the Republic are men and women of goodwill — men and women who have more than warm hearts of dedication — men and women who have cool heads and willing hands of practical purpose as well. They will insist that every agency of popular government use effective instruments to carry out their will.

Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the whole people. It can make constant progress when it keeps abreast of all the facts. It can obtain justified support and legitimate criticism when the people receive true information of all that government does…”

In 1941, FDR delivered his third inaugural address as the world was in conflict and upheaval. London had been heavily bombed as Churchill and the British army tried to stop Germany’s Nazi invasion. In this speech, though America had not yet joined the allied forces, Roosevelt spoke to the people of what it meant to be a single citizen in a country undergoing a great challenge. 

“Lives or nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit. The life of a man is three-score years and ten: a little more, a little less. The life of a nation is the fullness of the measure of its will to live. 

There are men who doubt this. There are men who believe that democracy, as a form of government and a frame of life, is limited or measured by a kind of mystical and artificial fate — that, for some unexplained reason, tyranny and slavery have become the surging wave of the future — and that freedom is an ebbing tide. 

But we Americans know that this is not true.”

The fourth inaugural address, a few months before the end of World War 2, was a shorter speech. His health was waning, and the war was still raging, though Paris had been liberated and the tides seemed to be turning. 

In this speech, FDR spoke to a fatigued nation, a nation in mourning. He spoke to men and women eager to resume their pursuit of the American dream, and assured them that their difficult sacrifice would be worth it in the long run. 

In this fourth and final inaugural address, he said, “We Americans of today, together with our Allies, are passing through a period of supreme test. It is a test of our courage — of our resolve — of our wisdom — of our essential decency. 

If we meet that test — successfully and honorably — we shall perform a service of historic importance which men and women and children will honor throughout all time.”

FDR was a leader for the ages, one whose words can still bring the citizens of this country great comfort. In my latest book, I write of Roosevelt’s great bravery during wartime, the sacrifices he made in his pursuit of victory—and the secret service agent whose job it was to keep him safe. 

More about Night of the Assassins: The Untold Story of Hitler's Plot to Kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin:

The New York Times bestselling author returns with a tale as riveting and suspenseful as any thriller: the true story of the Nazi plot to kill the leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and the U.S.S.R. during World War II.

The mission: to kill the three most important and heavily guarded men in the world.

The assassins: a specially trained team headed by the killer known as The Most Dangerous Man in Europe.

The stakes: nothing less than the future of the Western world.

The year is 1943 and the three Allied leaders—Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin—are meeting for the first time at a top-secret conference in Tehran. But the Nazis have learned about the meeting and Hitler sees it as his last chance to turn the tide. Although the war is undoubtedly lost, the Germans believe that perhaps a new set of Allied leaders might be willing to make a more reasonable peace in its aftermath. And so a plan is devised—code name Operation Long Jump—to assassinate FDR, Churchill, and Stalin.

Immediately, a highly trained, hand-picked team of Nazi commandos is assembled, trained, armed with special weapons, and parachuted into Iran. They have six-days to complete the daring assignment before the statesmen will return home. With no margin for error and little time to spare, Mike Reilly, the head of FDR’s Secret Service detail—a man from a Montana silver mining town who describes himself as “an Irish cop with more muscle than brains”—must overcome his suspicions and instincts to work with a Soviet agent from the NKVD (the precursor to the KGB) to save the three most powerful men in the world.

Filled with eight pages of black-and-white photographs, Night of the Assassins is a suspenseful true-life tale about an impossible mission, a ticking clock, and one man who stepped up to the challenge and prevented a world catastrophe.

Night of the Assassins

The Untold Story of Hitler's Plot to Kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin

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