Operation Long Jump
Operation Long Jump (
Planning
According to Soviet sources,
Counter-intelligence
The
The Soviets got more information from 19-year-old Soviet spy
Vartanian later told the following details,
We followed them to Tehran, where the Nazi field station had readied a villa for their stay. They were travelling by camel, and were loaded with weapons. While we were watching the group, we established that they had contacted Berlin by radio, and recorded their communication...When we decrypted these radio messages, we learnt that the Germans were preparing to land a second group of subversives for a terrorist act—the assassination or abduction of the 'Big Three’. The second group was supposed to be led by Skorzeny himself.[2]
All the members of the first group were arrested and forced to contact their handlers under Soviet supervision. The operation got off track and the main group led by Skorzeny never went to Tehran. Thus the success of Vartanian's group in locating the Nazi advance party prevented the Nazi attempt to assassinate the "Big Three".[citation needed]
Cancellation
According to the NKVD, with October approaching the mission was aborted; Berlin is said to have received a secret code from Tehran indicating that its agents had been discovered and they were under surveillance.[3]
In 1984, Vartanian was recognised for his role in uncovering Operation Long Jump. He was awarded the
Western skepticism
When Stalin informed Churchill and Roosevelt about the plan, some members within the American and British delegations doubted the existence of a plot because all evidence of its existence was provided by Soviet intelligence. In Britain, the Joint Intelligence Committee of the War Cabinet, considering the matter afterwards in London, concluded that the so-called Nazi plot against the Big Three was "complete baloney".[6]
There have been debates about the veracity of the story. Skeptics brought up a number of arguments in that regard. Firstly, the German espionage network in Iran had been destroyed in mid-1943, well before Tehran was chosen as a meeting place. Secondly, more than 3,000 NKVD security troops guarded the city for the duration of the conference without incident. Thirdly, both Roosevelt and Churchill travelled on foot or open jeep throughout their four-day stay in Tehran.[7]
Otto Skorzeny denied the story after the war. In his memoirs, he recalled a meeting with Hitler and
Historiography
In Russia, the story remains a subject of great interest. In 2003, the Russian writer Yuri Kuznets held a press conference in the Foreign Intelligence ministry in Moscow to promote his book Tehran-43.[9] In 2007, a Russian television company promoted a documentary with the working title The Lion and the Bear. It documented Long Jump and was to be presented by Churchill's granddaughter Celia Sandys.[10]
In his memoirs, Pavel Sudoplatov brought up the details of how Kuznetsov recruited German officer Oster. According to Sudoplatov, the training of German saboteurs was taking place in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, where the group led by the intelligence officer Kuznetsov, who was disguised as a Wehrmacht lieutenant, was working. Oster, who owed Kunetsov some money, offered to pay back the debt with Persian carpets after his trip to Tehran, which suggested that the plot about the assassination attempt during the Tehran conference was quite feasible.[11]
French journalist Laslo Havas wrote a book about Operation Long Jump after the war and confirmed that Soviet intelligence had disrupted the German plot.[3]
Professor Miron Rezun, a
For example,
British military historian
In his detailed monograph Espionage and Counterintelligence in Occupied Persia (Iran), Anglo-Canadian intelligence historian Adrian O'Sullivan has thoroughly reviewed the primary sources and secondary literature on Operation Long Jump and has placed the alleged plot squarely in the context of Allied security operations around the time of the Tehran Conference. O'Sullivan claims to have debunked the perpetuation of the myth in recent years by the KGB and the Putin-era intelligence services.[14]
The novel Stormtroop Edelweiss - Valley of the Assassins, by Charles Whiting (writing as Leo Kessler), presents a heavily fictionalized version of Operation Long Jump, substituting a unit of elite German mountain troops for Skorzeny and his party.
Several English-language publications have addressed the plot. Book-length publications include Operation Long Jump (2015) by Bill Yenne[15] and Night of the Assassins (2020) by Pulitzer-winning author and journalist Howard Blum.[16]
Stanley Lovell, Director of Research for the OSS, devoted an entire chapter of his 1963 memoir Of Spies and Stratagems to a very similar story. According to Lovell: OSS agent "C-12" was sent undercover into backwoods Iran. When a German commando team parachuted into the area, "C-12" got himself hired as their guide and translator. He escorted them to Tehran, where they planted explosives under a street used by Churchill and Roosevelt. Then he turned them in. Lovell admitted he had no official knowledge of this.[17]
See also
- Teheran 43, a Soviet-French drama film from 1981 about an assassination attempt on Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt during the Tehran Conference
References
- ^ Nikolai Dolgopolov (November 29, 2007). "How 'The Lion And The Bear' Were Saved". Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
- ^ a b c d e "Gevork Vartanyan". The Telegraph. 11 January 2012.
- ^ a b c Havas, Laslo (1967). Hitler's Plot to Kill the Big Three. Cowles Book Co. p. 164.[ISBN missing]
- Center for the Study of Intelligence. Archived from the originalon June 13, 2007. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
- OCLC 13309.
- ^ Eubank, Keith (1985). Summit at Teheran. William Morrow publishing. pp. 161–97.[ISBN missing]
- ^ O'Sullivan, Donal (2010). Dealing with the Devil. New York. pp. 203–04.[ISBN missing]
- ISBN 978-3-938392-11-9.
- ISBN 5-8153-0146-9
- ^ Dolgopolov, Nikolai (January 2007). Triple jeopardy: the Nazi plan to kill WWII leaders in Tehran. RIA Nowosti vom 4.
- ^ Pavel Sudoplatov. Special Operations: Lubyanka and Kremlin 1930–1950 // ОЛМА-press, 2003. p. 205
- ^ Rezunm, Miron (1981). The Soviet Union and the Iran: Soviet Policy in Iran from the Beginnings of the Pahlavi Dynasty Until the Soviet Invasion in 1941. Collection de relations internationales. Institut universitaire de hautes études internationales, Université de Genève. p. 363.
- ^ West, Nigel (2008). Historical Dictionary of World War II Intelligence. Scarecrow Press. pp. 140–141.
- ^ O'Sullivan, Adrian (2015). Espionage and Counterintelligence in Occupied Persia (Iran): The Success of the Allied Secret Services, 1941–45. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 170–94.
- ISBN 978-1-62157-440-8.
- ISBN 978-0-06-287291-3.
- ^ Lovell, Stanley (1963). ""C-12"". Of Spies and Stratagems. Prentice-Hall.