In November 1943, as the tide was turning in the Allies’ favor in World War II, United States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin met in Tehran to discuss their plans for the war. When they returned home, at least one of them announced that the meeting been shadowed by a Nazi assassination plot. “I suppose it would make a pretty good haul if they could get all of us going through the street,” FDR said to the press when he got back to the United States.
Was the plot real? A new book, The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch, digs into that question and comes up with unclear answers. Rich Tenorio writes:
By late November, FDR, Churchill and Stalin had arrived in Tehran for their long-delayed meeting. Although Mayr was out of action, the Nazis had new plans. They had begun receiving intel on the Allies from an unexpected informant, “Cicero,” the Ankara-based valet to the British ambassador to Turkey. Hitler, Schellenberg and Skorzeny met at the Fuhrer’s Wolf’s Lair headquarters in East Prussia, allegedly to plan an operation in Tehran.
According to the Soviets, 38 German operatives parachuted into Iran, with all but six being captured by the eve of the conference. Soviet officials shared concerns of an assassination plot with American and British counterparts and persuaded the Americans to change their lodging from the US embassy to the Soviet embassy.
“They could have meetings in a very secure location,” Mensch said, adding that the Soviet embassy adjoined the British embassy. Had the leaders gone back and forth across the city, he added, “the big fear was if Nazi sharpshooters, soldiers or probable agents in disguise would have a shot at them.”
Was the fear warranted? Or could the Soviets have been up to something themselves?
Asked about British doubts, Mensch cited another historian from the UK, Adrian O’Sullivan.
“[O’Sullivan] was very skeptical of the plot,” Mensch said. “He has written pretty extensively about the Iranian regime in the war, which provided a lot of information that was helpful to us about Franz Mayr, his circle and various Nazi missions to Iran in 1943. He thought the Soviets just made it up or exaggerated the plot for their own reasons. What we try to do in the book is sort through skeptical opinions.”
“We come down somewhere in the middle,” Mensch reflected. “There are different points of view and arguments for and against. Ultimately, we form our own conclusion. We’re very open about the fact that some information is still a mystery, still unknown.”
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-probable-nazi-plot-to-kill-churchill-fdr-and-stalin-all-at-once-in-tehran/