rick atkinson, of course, is working on a trilogy publishing the first two books on the second world war and specifically the first volume on the american involvement in north africa and the second on the italian campaign which was a bloody affair. in doesn't get a lot of attention in history and obviously as those a lot more -- deserves a lot more. he is a luminous and writer. wonderful piece of history and a grave writing. but the book allen recommend for people who wanted to understand what went wrong in iraq is a book called fiasco by thomas ricks. he has written a sequel called the gamble but i haven't read that the fiasco is really what a great book in terms of peeling away what happened and iraq. and essentially the united

states made some very critical mistakes before it even now. the first was the inadequacy of the troops that went into iraq which meant that while we could topple the regime we could not restore the line order and so when that occurred american troops all too often found themselves frankly standing on the sidelines having to watch it because it was of their mission and we didn't have enough troops to do much about it here, it's significantly eroded iraqi public confidence in who we were in what we were about to. then secondly paul brummer who was then that sort of the guy in charge, put in charge overturn some decisions the american military have been trying to make in order to restore law and order and to essentially try to rebuild some kind of structure. the first was his decision to this man and the iraqi military

which had been at odds with what our own military was trying to do. by that that, of course, he essentially created a couple hundred thousand unemployed in the family is whose main source of income was unarmed military country in a military man and thus fueling sympathy for the insurgency and frankly providing a source of weapons. the third great mistake was the decision that to ban all members of the baathist party which had been the dominant party in iraq since the time of saddam hussein from serving in the new government. well, it might be understandable that you wanted the senior members of the baathist party precluded, but to go down to the locust -- local level bureaucrats who had no choice and wanted to advance the had to be members of the baathist party

in to man them to again created hundreds of thousands of unemployed folks who now also were very hostile to the united states and were sympathetic to the insurgency. those three big problems, those three bad decisions on the part of the previous administration and specifically paul bremer really helped shape of what was then going to happen and, of course, now we are in and along this military engagement in our history and all those things have finally started to show some improvement on the ground when you read this book fiasco you realize if we had made some different decisions frankly the outcomes might have been much more positive and we might not have lost as many american lives in iraq not have lost as many iraqi lives in the ensuing seven

or eight years. >> to cede more summer lists and other information visit our web site at booktv.org. >> thomas schoonover, a emeritus of history professor at louisiana in lafayette recalls the life of heinz luning, in nazi spy and a dash of the beginning of a wolrd war ii and will later become the inspiration for gramm and greens "our man in havana". at the international spy museum and in washington d.c., last about an hour. >> good afternoon and welcome to the international spy museum. i'm peter earnest, the second of director and delighted to see you here. i thank you are in for a delightful interlude in and what is looking like it may be a nice day. it is always a struggle these

days. i'm very happy to welcome the year dr. thomas schoonover and i think he has achieved something very great here. i think it is a massive flow achievement and that he has in his work recreated a world that really none of us remember and that is the world of world war ii. what he has done is used the story of a spy, a spy who is not untypical, a reluctance by who turned out to be quite inapt, is by a very mixed motives and who was exploited by all him ratan. those who employed him, the germans sent him to cuba and those who eventually capture him and all the intelligence

services that road about success when he was tried and executed. at that time the only one executed in all of what america for espionage. it is a terrific story, well told, and if you want to understand the world of intelligence this is a microcosm. there is nothing in this story that would not happen today. dr. thomas schoonover creates a world and gives you a context to understand what was going on in that world, where the politics in the international rivalries, what was cuba like, what sort of intelligence did some of the people cooperating with us like ernest hemingway provide? what did this by who was so reluctant and so bubbling, what did he really achieve and why when he was captured and executed did everyone crow about capturing the master spy and latin america? it is really a great story and

very well told. like many spies he had many failings, and didn't do very well at his tradecraft. he was eventually captured it through a variety not least of which was britain's intelligence service censorship unlike other spies unfamiliar with he was a womanizer which could have also led to his capture. the womanizer, a man who wasn't highly motivated and whose final letter to his mother on the eve of his execution was sent to money from bunny so you cannot fail to be touched by this story and if you read it he will enter a world which i think if some other routes for the world we're living in now. there is nothing in this story that is not after the inappropriate for today. you are reading a classics by story, one so classic that even

the fictionalize asian of it became a classic and that is bram greens "our man in havana". so i really recommend as a good read and, please, join me in welcoming the man who wrote it, thomas schoonover. [applause] >> thank you for inviting me and having me here. he mentioned that luning was a reluctance by in in a sense i was reluctant to do this because from graduate school i always tried to avoid having anything to do with freedom of information act. several of my colleagues, and graduate students and young faculty had complained about their efforts to try to do research so i went into the 19th century to avoid that but a friend of mine recommended the story to me and he's a very good

friend bill i looked at it and got drawn in as i did what i read our -- "our man in havana" and i didn't realize the connection when i read "our man in havana". well, i intend to do -- the title of the book is this man in havana and on america and the story i'm going to reveal in the store in the book i'm going to compress a great deal is about a person heinz luning will became a spy partly of necessity because he was antiknock see -- and perform poorly but had considerable international significance for four or five months and they caught him immediately after. and the first impression german

agent in havana, cuba, heinz luning was not a successful spy. after examination of his career many would describe him as, bumbling, incompetent, observed and other unflattering adjectives. however, if we reflect upon his role in wolrd war ii we will probably the signed than a different evaluation of the significance of the luning in the war, at least for the for some months that he was captured at the end of august 1942 and he had some impact even before that since they were searching for him for about a year and a trailing influence because for two and half years after he was executed they continue to try to track down leads and connections

that he had because they thought he was a master spy and i thought i think of all the people knew him or had contact they would end up with something brief so today i/o -- he has built an out correctly, i used a biography of luning to look into law other things unknown with espionage and the war. his own biography is difficult to follow because he was not an important person in did not come from an important family and because a lot of records destroyed in germany he worked in the military circle which was hammered in the area around it in their records are almost wholly destroyed by bombing and fire in the war so i piecemeal, able to piece mill and put together a little of that. so first of all i will sketched his life and until he went to

havana and then i will evaluate his work from two distinct perspectives. first, the reality of his espionage that is what he actually do and then the strategic and political role of his short time in the caribbean. on a preliminary level of let me know that obtaining information about luning was not easy. much of the material was as i have already indicated there were almost entirely destroyed her, and other records that u.s. tried in cuba and there was an appeal in a file on their, that has gone lost. a copy of that was sent to chile and that also cannot be located. the british records are there but there are closed until 2017

because they have a 75 year rule for personal documents. i decided not to wait. and then, of course, the fbi as ig's was the special arm of the fbi during world war ii special investigation service. in operated only in america and fbi agents at that time were not allowed to operate outside the country under any circumstances so that j. edgar hoover had to treat a special agency and insisted it be maintained in a separate filing and budget request and separate rooms and separate agents -- nobody was both an fbi agent in the sis agent so tracking him down post some difficulties and some of the records in hamburg were also destroyed, not a lot but some. heinz luning was born -- his

beloved mother and italian german italian nationality died in 1924 after a long illness and had apparently a traumatic effect upon him. he always spoke in what little records i have very highly of her and felt very much italian because of his mother. he was only 13 of the time and his father, a tobacco merchant from a family where the error and least a generation or two, committed suicide at the beginning of the great depression in a river in 1929. fortunately for hines he was 18 at the time, his father committed suicide and he had an uncle in hamburg was also a tobacco merchant and the two brothers to find the father's tobacco business when the father had passed on the. so heinz was invited to come to

hamburg and he moved when he was 20, went back and forth in an 23 the move to hamburg and lived with his uncle gustavo it was also a tobacco merchant and adopted heinz after a while so he was adopted by his uncle. he was married to a woman, a divorced chicago woman of german descent. she had been born in chicago and raised in chicago but in a german family that had maintained its ties with germany and family estates near heidelberg so there were four children and they all went back to germany every year, partly for school in. the oldest child was a boy and the other three were girls and actually got an eye toward near heidelberg when he was 19 or 20.

so they all spoke german, they're all content and happening in germany so when the war came fill up in the youngest daughter stayed in the united states ended ida and zero the were in germany, the family was divided, mary two germans and remain outside the country. late in life of -- a chicago woman had a child by an earlier marriage. when she married him that was her second marriage. heinz after moving into hamburg impregnated his whatever, his sister, stepsister, the one by adoption. and they have the same parents and to protect the family from disgrace hilda and heinz were sent to manhattan to get married. in manhattan was picked because of the oldest boy philippe lived

in manhattan so in 19363 months pregnant held up when there and heinz went with her and they stayed with the bill up. i'm going to come back and talk about him later on because he's kind of an interesting and significant premier. this also leads to something that could make probably a tv show because heinz was married to his cousin who was also his sister or stepsister and she became his wife. she was his cousin. marriage, became his stepsister or whatever through adoption, and then became his wife so that meant that his hands became his mother when she was adopted in his mother in law when he married the girl. anyway, so they could probably

make an interesting tv comedy not of that. once this happened in the of quote tried to prepare heinz to support his wife was also his daughter, by sending him to the company business. they sent him in 36 and 37 twice to santo domingo where the tobacco company bought most of its tobacco and was supposed to learn about the tobacco business and learn spanish. in 36 he went to the united states, first of all, because he got married and in 37 he went and spent three or four months in santo domingo then went to the u.s. because learning english was one important. he argued italian and portuguese from his mother and chairman, of course. the family have problems, the whole family was anti nazi as far as we can tell. he had another ogle the was a

lutheran minister who was imprisoned numerous times, they don't even mention his name, they just a he is in jail again for speaking out in sermons or other situations against the nazis. on the second to visit to the dominican republic in 1937 speech to try to have his wife and child born six months after they're married, sent over there so they can leave germany, but the german government by this time already controlled currency is so that they would not allow hard currency to buy tickets to leave. and he for a while was not going to come back, separating from his wife but he loved his wife and child so ultimately he was persuaded to go back, but just for added insurance he did not want to serve. he saw a were coming in did not want to serve in the military, he took out presidency and the

dominican republic, was admitted as a residence not citizen of the republic. he used the this and his mother's italian citizenship to confuse the nazi construction. 39, 40 and 41 he avoided conscription. he knew that wasn't going to work for ever and he complained to his friends about having to serve in the army and killed people he didn't feel bad about. and his tutor, he had a tutor for spanish, in guatemala lady and she said, you know spanish, though up there, they are looking for people to serve as agents in the new world. so he used his uncle to make a connection and a few years later he got a call and that with people and was then brought in in late june of 41. he went through a very quick

course six weeks and then was released and sent out. is training took place in hamburg, each had its own training area. he described his six week training course in great detail to the sis to interrogators in havana, they interrogated him about 30 times at great length to try to get information and in knowing how agents were trained would be very useful. everything they learned the extent to which they learn this stuff, and he was he very well in person. they didn't check on him to see when he revealed stop to see if it was reliable and as far as they can tell with other interrogations' and information he was a reliable source. he didn't like the nazis and there was no reason for him not

to tell what he did appear, he didn't know a whole lot because the training was done a very secretive way. a group of 12, trained for the most part individually. they all have code names, his name was lumina, and the others all had come names so the only thing was when they look like. the meat briefly several times in the day and he could tell what their code name was, but they were not allowed to talk to each other very much so if you only knew the code name because they had to sign in on a book. so he was not a good source of personal information by general information about the training and what kind of stuff they learn turned out to be fairly useful. luning was sent to havana with high expectations -- well, they brought him in the academy with high expectations with all these labor skills and by the time he was let out they have low

expectations. they told him they would give him freak contacts in the puerto rico in santo domingo and, in fact, he was explicitly ordered not to contact anybody else with in the caribbean area. he was also supposed to get a book code and told him he would not get it. but that was what they decided before this, that they would deploy a weaker agents rather than driving them out because uyghur ages when they went to latin america, when they were caught would attract a lot of attention and a lot of investigation. they would tie down sis or british intelligence agents booking into their meaningless past rather than looking for the agents who were more successful so the decoys were there and i am certain that luning was a decoy and in this he was successful. his file and not because of what he.com but the way j. edgar

hoover, the u.s. ambassador, batista, the president of cuba, and general benitez was head of the cuban national police, they placed so much in their belief that he was the principles by in the new world that particularly hoover would not give up. it wasn't just that they said this, they talked to the press and other journalists and mentioned how important he was and they were rupturing the german connection in the world so with that kind of a record in, putting their names on the record they had to keep looking for him and his while ultimately becomes one of the largest files gathered during world war ii on a single agent even though well

into the early stages they knew that he didn't really do very much. they thought maybe they were wrong. i like to refer to him as the weapon of mass destruction of wolrd war ii, they thought he was devastated in the whole caribbean and latin america and there was nothing there. now i would like to show you a few images from his youth and even from havana. this is the left side of this, in from the time he was 10 until he was 20. the earlier house that he lived in, several houses were destroyed in the war, this one survived. in those the house that his father lived in when he committed suicide. this is a house in hamburg that he lived in a with his wife in for the rest of his life and his wife until -- i don't know when she died, for 20 years or more

after the war, and his son lived there until much longer. , the sun was adolf. it had nothing to do with hitler, but adolf was a family name. many -- favor old family names that went back for generations and several of his uncles were named adolf the the second name and so that had nothing to do with any attachment to adolf hitler, it had to do with a great great grandfather that the family venerated. the very right side of this, this was the training area this. luning got some trading there in the building he was trained in most of the time got blasted away. it was destroyed in one of the

bombings of hamburg right in the center of the city so right near the port with a very heavy bombing totally destroyed. this is further out in there for a tad less often in that building survived. this was the up there drop access -- address but where he operated and they had telephones and the mailing address. if the had to give someone a mailing address he used to this address. when they called him the call this place and he was not the only agent, they had dozens who used to this for drop mail is a mailing address and telephone. the building is also further out and was not damaged extensively in the war. that is luning, the star of the story. he was fairly tall, dark, his mother was italian.

italian german from the northern part of italy. this was the parlor, he had a rooming house in havana and this is the parlor at the rooming house year ago it was actually made by a friend in havana who teaches at the university and he may not himself. that is the way it looks more or less now, probably taken in 20 years ago, not necessarily when luning and lived there in the 65 years ago. as part of a cover for his activity in havana when he left up there he was told he will not speak to or have any friendly relations with any german war nazi organization or fascist organization and you have to develop some covers.

he started a women's fashion store and he hired to manage it, he hired to manage its the wife was already his best friend in havana, emilio, who lived in the same boardinghouse then he did that and his wife, clara tutt, managed the store for him. he became very close to that family. and actually it my friend in there, emilio but rodriguez, sent me photos of the family but i did not use them in the book, but they had a son who was born a year or two after heinz was executed in the name of the spanish name, not heinz august luning, that would not have promoted his cover, but he translated that into spanish.

.. >> that was not his favorite

bar but it does not exist i could not get a picture of a i had a fan who went to havana years ago and went to the place where it was and now in this an insurance company. he actually took a picture. he said there is no way i could take a picture of anything there is no indication but it went out of business two or three decades ago. fed chief bartender was emilio, his best friend. have any of you read our man in havana? the story from graham greene? it takes place in the wonder bar where is were the chief protagonists and our man in

havana when they're all the time so did luning and the protagonist live 50 or 100 yards down the street exactly where luning lived away from their so he could see the wonder bar from his place. it is interesting. i do have them. there they are. there is the boy who was named after him. of this is mario, the chief of the counterintelligence of the national police. many well the d10's was in charge of the whole fleet he was just a major and in charge of a unit that was especially involved only in counterintelligence.

that is general benitas. that is luning before the tribunal for the person behind him is his lawyer and there are some justices, there were five judges on the court. these pictures come from spanish newspapers 60 or 70 years ago. that is him and his jail cell. that is in his radio. which two spanish experts decided never worked, to cuban experts who had it for a number of days and wrote a long report that no way could that they ever send any message to anybody. that is the top and this is the back of it. there are two images at the

same time. it is kind of confusing for govett is the hearse, he was no dead and in this first carried down to his burial sites have at christopher columbus cemetery. i think that is it. there are two ways to evaluate luning. how did he do essays by? what information did he gather and transmit? as but what has denied service did he do? he never got it to werke had to rely on upon drop boxes in portugal and spain for secret think messages or the indirect route over chile or argentina were he would send a telegram and then they would send a radio message to germany or france actually. he sent 49 secret ink messages

partly because the british held them up but they would not have been very useful because they only have partially affirmation. he never could tell them that this ship of 1,000 tons carrying this cargo will leave on thursday in the afternoon headed to new orleans or boston. he could never get four pieces of information about any vessel most of the time it was to provide to you the vessel will leave on friday and that is all i know you don't know the cargo or which direction you will have trouble actually finding it and doing any damage for tickets if i tell you three or four weeks or six weeks after the ship was actually being loaded. then you can get a report from another agent that the ship was already there and this is what it carried. he was also having trouble with his radio he apparently

mixed the secret to eat poorly with a misunderstanding the only dispatch that they came in two him mentioned the the first 14 dispatches from the reporters, i know that they were guessing it was 14 because he missed numbered and he forgot numbers. there are to number 23 some there is no and no. so he had trouble keeping the number straight. you was a secret agent and was not to write it down and was supposed to remember. how they claimed of the 14 dispatches they were supposed to receive only seven have arrived and only two were readable. it is not all luning fault the fact that some had did not arrive at the british held them up.

sometimes five or six weeks so it might happen that the others would arrive in a couple of weeks or a month but the ones that were not readable was probably due to him. i also have been no from j. edgar hoover which she was summarizing the reports from his agents that they had these copies of his dispatches and they could not, the british have them. they have all of the interceptions. they could not comment they could not expose him a second time. of the first time so weak and that ain't it would not come out again for you were allowed one shot at reading them. it came up and you had to copy it down then which is what the british did because once you pull it out of the box, there's a good chance you could never read the dispatch again. of it ain't was too weak for the day actually guest the

failed angry dm but they don't know. all dispatches were intercepted by the british bermuda station. 44 of the 49 that they intercepted. he also did not build a spy network in the caribbean because he was not supposed to. he was told not to do that. so at some he did not the life very useful information he did transmit poorly that sounds like a failed a gem but from the second perspective on his activities, from the perspective of others whet british-american saw he was doing because of these three to them and how they reacted was not based only on what he did what they thought he might be doing or could do. there with the and vibration and interpretation of him. that was the principal impact

that they assigned him the wide-ranging and potentially dangerous activities therefore thought, at the they became convinced he was doing some of that. 1942 was the most dangerous year for the allies, exceedingly dangerous we probably don't reflect back upon that but after pearl harbor for one year not only in asia and in the pacific but in the north atlantic, europe, north africa, and normally with a few exceptions everything went bad. after the japanese attacked pearl harbor they moved on to the foot -- philippines almost simultaneously, singapore, mal aysia, the french indochina, in new

guinea, indonesia, thailand, s iam, burma, and captured all of that. they went to capture the mariannas and all the other island chains. they move down so far south into the tv and french islands that they were actually after they captured most of new guinea only wonder two ports held out they began to apply scouting planes over northern australia to do surveillance to see where they might land. it looked very bleak by the end of 42 in the pacific. in europe it was no better. inmates 42 by september or october, they were very close to cairo and the suez canal to control all of north africa so the allies landed in november but up until then his army kept marching.

in europe and 41 they had attacked russia and moved all the way to leningrad, moscow, ukraine but then pushed up by the winter and and 42 it got worse. their german army surrounded leningrad and move to the outskirts of moscow they captured the ukraine and moved on to the caucus. in europe everything was going bad. and the north atlantic and the north sea they were seeking large number of allied vessels -- vessels. but actually the most serious submarine warfare was in the caribbean and in the gulf. between the first of february 42 until the end of november 42, the germans were just using a few submarines

about 610 allies, a large allied vessels with 3.1 million tons of carrying power. with almost no loss at two themselves. it was that enormous success, almost 18 percent of all of the ships lost by the allies in the atlantic, pacific, nrc mediterranean and caribbean for the whole six years of the war, to all forms of attack not just by you boots but artillery and airplanes so it was devastating. it was that the enormous devastation that led hoover and others to think there had to be a reason behind it. it is not just by accident that two or more herbert vessels per day or 10 months so that is why they began looking head and once we went to war they

wanted to find hot a guy our guys responsible for the destruction in the caribbean. the caribbean was of great value to the allies for the war effort for a number of reasons some of which we probably don't reflect upon but besides the panama canal and trying to fight the war on two runs and two oceans, a very large percentage of the allies aviation gasoline came from the dutch islands off of venezuela, about one quarter and a half of what we use throw in a year throughout the cold war had to come through north, south, through the caribbean and the germans had the good fortune that premier turk it was a tanker they really liked the tankers. but if two vessels came over

the line the submarine went after the tanker. that was their instruction they were to sink the tanker as much as they could. the second thing the area of supplied was zero or from the dionne up. all of the zero were from world war ii came from the oxide or. all of it. they had very little recycling abilities of disrupting that area would disrupt east-west come and north-south summit every year fleet we built bomber or fighter in world war ii had ore. the third item is something we don't think of but sugar and coffee and large quantities. i don't know how many billions of rations during world war ii not only for our military but

to the british and the russians and chinese, that was energy, sugar and coffee. and that all came across the caribbean to make two or 3 billion rations during the war. there was great value in the caribbean. when they captured him, when i point* out how important he was, not only did they say he was a master spy, but the newspapers treated him that way. naturally in cuba, the principal newspapers with santiago and havana and other planes carried two articles every day for the whole 72 days he was in prison with

pictures, descriptions, someti mes the whole front page had to do with him initially with the interrogation and had pretty much to do with luning. but he was not just a cuban, friends and stories from costa rica, mexico, other parts of latin america and across the country, the dow york times did 25 or 30 pieces on him during the 72 days every second or third day there was a article on luning, the trial, the consequences, "the washington post" did about 20. miami, new orleans, kansas city, all of the major newspapers have one or two or three or four, a christian science monitor, they were concerned about this guy because nelson rockefeller in january 1945 i am 43, after luning was dead did a piece in

the weekend magazine the sunday magazine of a three or four page item with pictures in which she talked about luning sixth of reckons as a master spy. it was a self congratulatory we just destroyed the master spy of the new world. so they were very much attuned to him and what he was doing. i think i will leave it there. i have stuff about the literary aspects of people who made novels but i want to make sure we have time for questions. if you're interested in some of the literary aspects you'll have to ask. >> i just have a couple of quick one's. how did he gets from germany to cuba because the war was going on at that point*? maggie took a spanish vessel

out of barcelona. he organized it himself actually. his handlers wanted to put him on a vessel going out of portugal and go down to argentina that was operated that was supposed to be planned by thomas cook, the british he was smart enough on his own to realize going out of a british friendly port down to a british friendly area in argentina was not a good thing because he came from a shipping family. they imported and exported mostly tobacco but other stuff. relived in the principal harbors of germany. talking to friends he realized there were direct ships from barcelona to have an and got on one of those. >> was dss during the training

as poor material or did they decide to make camp for material? >> he had trouble learning things he was supposed to learn. they tried to teach him a code, morse code, some other kinds and after a while, it was very intense training he was in their everyday, only six weeks but very intense. they realized he was not picking it up very well. so he was not learning the stuff. i don't know but my guess is they figured he would never learn it. [laughter] it was not a question of putting him through the course a second time the results would not have been any different. >> if he was not the master spy was there one in the caribbean? >> no. there are actually, naturally, there was a lot of concern by military

people anybody concerned above the national well-being how will -- however the germans sinking so many vessels in a very small spot? there had to me various ways they were getting a formation. there were only two provable sources the staten island as an fbi could track down. one was a guy who operated out of the bay islands. and the other was a group that just broke up out of venezuela. which broke up actually further 30 early. another guy ran a little shipping company. up and down the port cities and then back to the belize area. they handled him they are

partly in a british records. he was arrested with his son and 16 other people and they were put in a jail in jamaica they arrested him very early 43. plate. mid 42 then about me of 43 after the germans had been driven away from the area by more improved surface vessels and airplanes surveillance from the united states and british, the german submarines were gone by february or march of 42 because the allies by this time had built up enough fair coverage. after they drove the it submarines away, these guys are released. they never tried them. a trial would have been counterproductive they would have to know what documents

they had, they did not want to do that but they kept them out until there is no more danger than go up and down the shores of central america because there's almost no german submarines but after march 43 there were only two or three german submarines the next couple years they did not even venture into the caribbean or golf and left shortly saying there is too much enemy air traffic and enemy vessels we cannot surface of the left and went up the atlantic. >> you mentioned u.s. anti-nazi then you talk about the failed attempts to give him information. did you find any evidence he was intentionally fumbling and choosing to give them that information? >> they question and about him but so did the cubans. he tried to do it. he admitted that.

the reason it is his wife and child and mother and father through adoption or all in germany and he did not want any retaliation against them. he figured if he was found out to be subverting the german cause there would be retribution. he said he did not like it but that was one of the prices he had to pay to keep himself and his family alive. but he said i tried to do but i was just an confident. fortunately for us. [laughter] any other questions? >> what was the status of cuba? was that united states are neutral? >> he took the opportunity of the assault upon pearl harbor and has been had, he had been

trying to arrange for a meeting with rose about, he was elected the fall of 1945 with free and open elections it was considered one of the fairest elections the first time he was in power he actually gave up hour after four years. he was elected 1940 but tainted by the fact he was a military that was encouraged by the americans broke so when he tried to organize the meeting with fdr to give him the invitation, rose about would not have anything to do with him. the depression, the war, but once they got luning, batista board and -- bargain for recognition. they declared war on japan and germany about five minutes after we did. he was eager to do that.

did not require any encouragement. he wanted to go to war with him. but when you talk by using luning coming he used him to finally get the meeting with fdr. the cuban intelligence new that luning was not too important and radio people thought he was not important at all but any way by playing him up and finally executing him, ed luning was taken out on the tenth of november at 8:00 a.m. and shot at exactly at 8:00 a.m.. there is a time in the present and the captain of the execution squad would time eight times between the fourth and the fifth time he gave the order to fire broke he was killed as closely exactly 8:00 as they could get it. there was an autopsy and the

state department officials embassy officials went there and looked at the body and got a copy of the certificate of death and took that back to the embassy to call washington on a secure line to say luning was dead a few hours later batista was invited to washington d.c. to stay in the white house. he used luning to get the invitation he desperately wanted and legitimacy from the u.s. >> what happened to his wife and son? >> that was his brother. she went back to germany. that is why, this was an 36. she went back, he went back and things got worse each year so now and 37 for the second

trip he now made up his mind he did not want to go back he tried to get his wife and child out but that was no longer possible. he then debated in you stay over there and maybe we'll be in the future but that did not sound very good either. the local kept encouraging him to come back he said he would try to get money but that was not possible the currency control that even tighter so she went and lived in hamburg through the bombing and survive the war then the uncle net survive the war by a couple of weeks. then the child died in late 97. i do not know exactly when she died. my guess is sometime in the '60s but i do not really know that. i did not spend a lot of time trying to track down their

death certificate. it is not easy if you do not know the year or the date and i have a lot of the family, the birth or death but some of them i did not. >> thank you so much for helping us sort out the tangled tail. "hitler's man in havana" doc 39 a terrific read and we hope to enter world that i think is not so dissimilar from our own. thank you so much again and thank you for joining us [applause] >> thomas schoonover history professor emeritus at the university of louisiana at lafayette. he is author of numerous books including "uncle sam's war of 1888" this event was hosted by the international spy museum in washington d.c.. . .