How a Pro Baseball Player Became a Key World War II Secret Agent

Throughout the early part of 1944, British intelligence agents reported that a Swiss scientist working in the Black Forest of southern Germany was working on a super explosive, possibly an atomic bomb. United States intelligence agents representing the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Bern, Switzerland reported that Werner Heisenberg was working in the small town of Hechingen in southern Germany. Though he was not an avid follower of Hitler's Nazi regime, he nevertheless was faithful to his home country of Germany.

Though Norwegian commandos had slowed the production of heavy water by their courageous attack on the Nazi plant in Vemork, Norway in February of 1943, the Allies were still concerned about reports of atomic research using uranium. French intelligence agents believed that there might be German atomic bombs hidden in strategic spots along the Atlantic just waiting for an Allied invasion.

The Alsos Mission

In an effort to find out exactly what the Germans did know about creating an atomic bomb, a secret mission called Alsos (Greek for grove) was developed by General Leslie Groves (head of the Manhattan Project). An early scheme, though the head of the OSS William Donovan eventually scrapped it, was to kidnap Werner Heisenberg, take him to Switzerland, fly him to the Mediterranean, parachute him to a place where a submarine would pick him up.

A more serious effort was put forth when Dr. Samuel Goudsmit, a highly respected physicist, was asked to head an investigation into what the Nazis knew about the atomic bomb. Goudsmit served as a professor of physics at the University of Michigan and Northwestern, spoke Dutch, German, and English, worked on the development of radar, and knew many of Europe's top scientists including Werner Heisenberg. With the aid of Colonel Boris Pash, Goudsmit was to follow the invading Allied forces through Normandy and sometimes move ahead of them in the search for information concerning any progress Nazi scientists might have in developing the bomb.

An early aim of the mission was to find Frederic Joliot-Curie, son-in-law of the celebrated 1911 Nobel Prize winner Madame Curie, who had been victim of the Nazis moving into his laboratory in Paris. Joliot-Curie was located and told Pash and Goudsmit that though the German scientists that used his laboratory experimented with nuclear physics he did not believe they had the ability to construct an atomic weapon.

It wasn't until the Allies entered Strasbourg, France that the Alsos Mission began making headway on the question of the Nazis' work with the atom. The Alsos team found the office of Professor Carl von Weizsacker, a physics instructor at the University of Strasbourg, which contained a large amount of papers left behind by the Germans that contained information concerning the German physicists' progress with the bomb and the address of Heisenberg's address in Hechingen. Goudsmit and his men found a secret nuclear laboratory in a wing of a hospital along with seven German physicists and chemists that were posing as physicians. Goudsmit spent hours reading the papers in Weizsacker's office and quickly came to the conclusion that the Germans had no atomic bomb and were unlikely to be able to develop one in the near future. This information was sent to General Groves who remained skeptical.

Agent Moe Berg - Spy Catcher

In order to continue the research into the German's progress with the bomb, the OSS used an unlikely weapon: a professional baseball player, Moe Berg. Berg had played with the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox and had graduated with honors from Princeton before he became an OSS agent and had carried out several covert missions. Berg was part of a 1935 trip to Japan where he played baseball in an exhibition. He filmed Tokyo harbor and military installations along the coast from the team plane. General Jimmy Doolittle may have viewed this film in preparation for his famous Tokyo raid.

Berg was involved in following the movements of the teenage King of Yugoslavia, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, the seventeen-year old son of the 1934-assassinated King Alexander, who had fled his court for England in 1941 and studied at Cambridge. Berg monitored intelligence reports from the Balkans.

He was tasked with finding more information concerning the status of the Vemork heavy water plant after the Norwegian commandos attacked the plant. In the spring of 1943, he was parachuted into Norway from a U.S. military plane that flew from England. In Norway he was met by Norwegian resistance fighters who assisted him in traveling to Oslo. Berg questioned scientists in Oslo concerning activity at the plant. They told him that repairs had been made to the plant and the Nazis were starting to increase their production. Berg reported to OSS chief Donovan the disturbing information. Donovan relayed the information to General Groves, who ordered a bombing mission on the plant. On November 16, 1943, the American high command or­dered the 8th Air Force to bomb the plant. Initially, the air force had considered the act of night bombing impossible, which forced MI6 to order the commando raids. The night bombings were successful enough to convince Goering, minister of the German atomic program, to move the heavy water production from Vemork to Germany.[i]

With his knowledge of numerous languages and his ability to speak German fluently, Berg was chosen to attend a Heisenberg lecture in Zurich. If Heisenberg said anything in the lecture that led Berg to believe the Germans were close to the atomic bomb, Berg was instructed by the OSS to shoot Heisenberg on the spot. Berg attended the lecture with a pistol and a cyanide pill in case he was to be captured. Though Berg was well versed in scientific studies he was not sure if Heisenberg's lecture hinted at the Nazi's abilities to create an atom bomb. Berg decided not to use the gun.

As the Alsos Mission progressed it was clearer to Goudsmit and Groves that the Germans were far from developing the atomic bomb. Goudsmit and Berg were both honored with the Medal of Freedom after the war.[ii]

[i] Kaufman, Louis and Fitzgerald, Barbara. Moe Berg, -- Athlete, Scholar, Spy, Little, Brown and Co., Boston, MA, 1974, pp. 165-66.

[ii] Goudsmit, Samuel A., Alsos, American Institute of Physics, Woodbury, New York, 1996. Breuer, William B. Undercover Tales of World War II, John Wiley and Sons, 1999, New York, pp. 208-11. The Medal of Freedom was established by President Truman in 1945 in recognition of notable service in the war. In 1963 reintroduced the medal as an honor for distinguished civilians in peacetime.