the mid '80s or return to germany. he chose to return to germany. and lastly is kurt debus who with the dueling scars alone make him line sinister. many people view him as an american hero. i found out a different story researching his documents. one of the myths of the german scientist was they were just trying do science and stay out of the nazi party who was a big bad wolf but you find out about kurt debus that he turned his superior, another scientist, over for making anti-hitler

remarks. you could see one part of army intelligence telling the pentagon we cannot bring this guy to the united states. he was a nazi and turned a colleague over and this was a u bad act but then the pentagon says we need him. and he came. there he is as the first director of the jfk space center and still every year they give out the kurt debus award. and i interviewed the head and said what about kurt debus who wore the ss uniform to work and turned over a colleague and he was a nazi? what do you say to that? and the answer was no one has

ever asked me that question before. so, i would like to end with the idea that einstein had it right in my opinion. he left german prior to hitler's armament buildup and maintains the reason he left as a scientist was because he wasn't going to work for a raw and r rabid nazi militia. he is one of the people with power that petitioned truman not to let operation paperclip happen but to no avail. and my last picture is this. this is an old german proverb that says everyone gets what they deserve.

when i was writing and reporting this book i would ask myself does everyone get what they deserve. i hope if you chose to read "operation paperclip" you will come to your own conclusion. thong thank you very much. >> so i have time for questions. yes? >> in your research, beyond the lsd stuff, did you come across anything about the techniques used to split people's personality? did you find anything about that coming out of research that was started in the death camps? >> well, i don't know about splitti splitti splitti splitti splitti splitti splitting personality but i know where the code name began. operation blue bird was one and

one was artichoke. and they began that scenario that i spoke of during the presentation and i write about it in the book as well. yes? >> what were the theories why the nerve gas was never used? i know you said you had questions. what were the theories? and to bring these people out were any vatican passports used? >> the first question i would say the prevailing theory is when hitler was a soldier in world war i he missed the end of the war because he was mustered gas he he had a deep eversion to chemical weapons. but the nazi's produced tens of thousands of tons of nerve

agent. there were so many individuals under the command that wanted to use those nerve agents it is nothing short of a miracle wasn't used. your second question was? >> were vatican passports used? >> unfortunately for "operation paperclip" there was no need to do that because the nazi scientist who came to america were given american visas and later became u.s. citizens. yes in the back? >> i have a real mixture of feelings. i am feeling sick but can't wait to get my hands on your book. i was living in germany and i was there during the bombing of the v2 operation.

my father worked for bron. after the war in 1950, my mother was a cic agent before becoming the cia to identify nazi. we left munich in 1950. and my father, well it was my stepfather went back and forth to geneva because he was a scientist that americans or russians were vying for. and there are questions that i have. we left germany in 1950-1951. he decided to go to syria instead with ten other rocket scientists. i have never understood. i was ten years at the time.

we left with arabic passports. when they came to check them, i had tlook to look out the window. my question is there is so much i don't know because as a child you live with it. an american ambassador helped us leave damascus. we came to the united states and he started working for lockede. and another scientist worked for aero jet for 40 years and was instrumental in developing the biking cycle >> this is facscinatinfascinati.

maybe you can stay and speak with me. did you have a question? >> how did the other german scientist -- why did they use the arabic passports? >> come talk to me after wards. the middle east part is we can chat after this. >> did you find information about plum island and what happened there about genetically modified organisms and lyme disease. >> a chemist was in charge of setting up plum island. and a doctor was in charge of of weaponizing the reminder pass

and another disease for the third reich. and doctors are associated with plum island there. there is a lot of suggestion that he also set-up plum island and worked there. but i could find no official documents that made that connection sound. but it certainly is reasonable speculation. good question. >> '66-'67 there were people in this country who were trying to confront the justice department to say we had a lot of nazi war criminals and find them and put them on trial or deport them to a jurisdiction where they should be put on trial and dealt with. and the justice department always said we don't have any nazi war criminals in this

country and you people who are asking the questions are leftist and communist. but they had an office to address this but couldn't find any. did you come across any research? >> that is a great question you bring up. a number of individuals in the state department because they were an important part of operation paperclip because they had to give the visas. and samual klaus was outraged by this but he was moved out of the state department. the reason that arthur rudolph was investigated by there justice department is that low and behold during the '60s and

'70s, organizes would muck rack and try to get the justice department to look into this. they did and a special unit was created only in 1980 that looked at these war criminals. >> did the nazi skins scientist brought here, how did they justify that they were working for mankind and not killing it as a scientist and did they show remorse for what had been done? >> that is a great question. the first part is no. remember, there was mostly -- even a sliver of accountability on the part of the scientist. they also denide -- denied they

were part of it. very quickly it became what they did not me. and that was always the position. always. always. and as far as remorse is concerned there was only one nazi physician out of all of the scientist i looked at who showed any remorse and that was a doctor named dr. fritz fischer and after the trials and he heard a gruesome bit of testimony by survivors he turned to one of the intelligence officers dr. alexander who is one of the heroes of the book and said just hang me now. but that was it. >> two quick questions. or you can say as long as you

want. first is another notorious person from world war ii who was involved in experiments but not part of these people was mangala and now there is moral issues about using his experiment. does your book touch on that? >> only in "area 51". i didn't come across any information on him. the question you raise about the information used is extremely important. there is a two-part u.s. airforce manual that is very difficult to get your hands on that actually used data from the camps and you see the credits and the footnotes go to the

doctors that i showed you the photograph of. dr. becker was sending notes to dr. strughold for that u.s. manual from his prison cell. >> the other question was leaving the responsibility of the nazi who we brought over and coming to the americans who made it happen let's go to the top. anything you found about truman's awareness approval? >> truman approved the president. i am sorry if i left that out. this is president's day. this was a classified military program but it had a benign public faith. they knew if you had 1600 german scientist returning around

someone would figure it out. so they propagated the myth. >> was truman in on the myth? >> i don't believe trumann had actually access to the documentsidocument documents. they would not have asked to know and they approved the program as it was sold to them from my understanding. way in the back. >> this is fascinating. and important. and had i not stumbled upon the blurb in the book passage calendar i would never had known about this any of this. so my question to you is in the broader context of the short attention span circus that we

call the media, mainstream media, what has been your experience in trying to get the word out about this? >> the book just published six days ago and it is doing remarkably well considering the story is 69 years old. i give credit to my fellow readers who i think we are an interesting educated bunch of people in america and really want to read and find out about things. it is why i write books that are secret but find readers which i think it is remarkable. >> is there any significance to the name that the operation was given? >> great question. we have the classified program. we have the benign public faith and the same thing in germany where these intelligence officers are tasked with interviewing the scientist and

trying to find out about them. it needed to be kept secret and it being the dark hearted parts of some of the scientist past chat chat. so a system was devised where paperclip would be placed to indicate this is an important file that someone needs to look at and that individual was someone who was pro the program. i will take one more in the way back. >> maybe you said it and i missed it. but was this a program have a particular purpose or was it just collecting random, important german scientist and doctors? what were the major objectives? and was there one person that put to together. you mentioned general lukes.

purpose and who organized it. >> well, you know, the nazi's almost won the war. there was a point where their weaponry was so much further along than ours was. they called it wonder weapons. and there was this idea that you know, suddenly dawned on the u.s. military we are behind the curve here. as the war was ending, that is why the push came about and we have to grab this science and we need it for or own weaponry. i think one of the most interesting conclusions was that the cold war really began in the last months of world war ii. >> did you find anything that comes forward to today? like scientist that are now at

monsanto creating genetically modified organisms or flouride. i have hundreds of asking about this. it came in the water but it came from the nazi scientist. >> fascinating question. the nazi scientist program was eventually rolled up into another element of the department of defense which is the office of research and engineering. and that became the defense advanced research project agency which is the subject of my next book. shameless plug. >> you said early on that the russian's returned their scientist back to germany again. was there a reason for nat that? >> they could not stand the

german scientist. that is a very interesting questions. they sent them back to germany and we had a program, the cia's program was called operational dragon return. and we scooped up anyone who had been in the soviet union working on their weapon programs and used them as intelligence assets. >> it is true that alan daws was the front man and ryan heart gayland was setting up the cia? >> great question. i write about gayland at length. he was at camp king and was the head of hitler's soviet intelligence program on you know the soviet union's intelligence program. and he became a major player in

this sadly. he wasn't part of paperclip but was at camp king with his team of ss officers and foreign intelligence agents. they were run by the army intelligence and the cia took them over later. so mk ultra, the soviet blocked spies who were tossed into the slammer at camp king and subjects to those enhanced interrogation programs were caught in gayland's web. >> would you care to talk about what impact this new information might have based on questions and where you think it may lead? >> that is interesting. i believe more is getting revealed and i think when people are interesteded it creates a bigger web of information. and so hopefully my reporting,

because it is just the tip of the iceberg -- one of the things i mentioned, i think earlier today on a radio show was how m ambros, hitler's favorite criminal came to the united states on a n energy contract ad three times in the united states. i could not get nfrinformation his program and as i wrote in the book neither could ronald reagan. i thought he is a convicted nazi criminal and i requested a freedom of action request about this travellars and who he was being sponsored by and that information was lost or

classified. it probably isn't. yk i could not figure it out but i bet a curious future journalist will. >> thank you. if you have a book come up and if you would like to purchase one they are behind the register.

the pope is found in his office. he is ailing and elderly. he is in firm. he begs god to give him a few more days to live. he has something he needs to say and has realized he has very little time left on the earth. for years the pope had been in good health, known as the robust mountaineer pope who climbed many high alpine peaks. he was known as demanding while scholarly and devout.

he insisted on knowing every detail of everything going on in the vatican and making all the decisions. but now every day was a challenge and every step caused him pain. he was unable to sleep at night. he had terrible varicose veins and as he lay awake at night he was troubled most of all not so much by his pains, his aches and pains by the thought that something had gone terribly wrong. in the daytime in his office light would stream in through the three large windows that looked out on st. peter's square button out was evening so he sat at his desk with a yellow lamp, alike from his lamp on his desk and would carefully write in his hand, trembling hand on the sheets of paper.

the pope had summoned all the bishops of italy. there were over 300 bishops in italy to st. peter's for an occasion that was to take place in 10 days time on february 11. several of and 1939 would be the tenth anniversary. this was the historic agreement between the italian government in this case between mussolini and the fascist regime and the vatican which established the city as a sovereign city and did away with the separation of church and state in italy and made the roman catholic church gave it the privileged position as there are -- religion of the land. this was a big occasion the tenth anniversary. all of the bishops were summoned and mussolini's own representatives with a bear. the king's son would either. the world would be watching. it was a speech that the pope saw as his last opportunity to get out a dramatic message.

the killy rots a. i don't know how to work this. one button which doesn't seem to do anything. i'm just going to show you a couple of images to illustrate. that is what we are trying to do but i don't want to keep you there. this shows -- you get an idea of the last 10 days of his his life when he looked like it if you go to the next image here you see both as a younger man. at the time they both came to power in 1922 which is the beginning of my story. benito mussolinmussolin i is a 39-year-old, a rabble-rouser.

through an extortion he had come to power just a few months after the pub came to power. the dictator came to depend on the pope and vice versa and this is the story i tell in my book. even though they seem so radically different. the dictator would depend on the pope to bring him catholic support. italy was 99% catholic although there were anti-clerics there but for the most part the population very much identified with the catholic church. mussolini needed the support of the pope or a couple of reasons not just was the publishing catholic but one of the largest opposition parties that he had to face was the catholic party which had been endorsed by the previous pope, the popular party. in fact ahead of the popular party at the time was a priest.

so for mussolini to come to power and solidify his power he basically had to end the influence of the catholic popular party and the best we could do this would be to get the pope to withdraw the church support for that party and to embrace him. the other thing that mussolini was concerned about was winning international legitimacy for his dictatorship and for this too the pope would play a very important role. now though, although the pope had made this deal beginning in 1922 with mussolini, he had long begun to have second thoughts and to have real doubts. mussolini in recent years and now back to the scene on his last days on earth, as he thought back on the last few years mussolini seem to be thinking he was becoming a god himself and the other thing that

really bothered the pope about mussolini was his increasing embrace of hitler, a man pope pius the xi despised. as mussolini beginning in the mid-30s grew closer and closer to hitler, the pope grew more and more uncomfortable. in may of 1938, mussolini hosted hitler in italy for a triumphal visit. the pope discussed it, fled the vatican and went to his summer retreat and close the vatican museums and showing his displeasure yet he was distraught that the kind of reception that italy was giving to this man that he saw as the enemy of christianity, adolf hitler. two months and i think we have a shot here if we can get to the

next slide of the visit of hitler, there we are. two months after hitler as you see portrayed here in rome along with mussolini and hitler. you see the king victor emanuel the third, two months after was the dramatic and shocking announcement of the new racial policy by mussolini in july 1938 and the in particular in italy were shocked to hear that the official position of the government was that there was a pure italian race to which the jewish of italy who had been there before the time of jesus were not part. the pope was very upset and particularly upset because this seemed to show the increasing

closest -- of the fascist dictator with the nazi leader. people around the pope as he was becoming distraught and this is the important part of my book, becomes worried because they actually are very pleased by the deal that has been made between the vatican and the fascist regime please by all the benefits that the church had gotten from mussolini and worried that the pope in his old age lashing out might damage those relations. as his headquarters on the other side of the tiber river only a couple of collmenter's from the pope, mussolini raged against the pope. he had earlier, mussolini himself was a rabid anti-cleric, his background and yet he had papacy with the pope because he

thought his interest was the interest of the fascist dictatorship that he had no personal commitment for churches or for cleric. he would tell people at this time how dare the pope expressed criticism. look at all i've done for the pope. he says to one of his people of his staff who i will come back to, if italian so good amassed in large numbers unless i tell them to. if priests aren't being forced to drink castor oil for churches are not being burned down it's because i prevent them from doing that. otherwise they would be doing that. if there was a crucifix in every classroom in every public school in the country it's because i ordered suits to be the. it was not there before me. if priests are teaching religion the catholic uruza and in all public schools from elementary

to secondary schools do because i made them. they never did before. if large state subsidies for going to all the catholic clergy from the local parish priests to the bishops it's because i ordered it. how dare the pope think of breaking the alliance that has been so profitable for both our sides. so this while going on getting back to the vatican for pope returned on january 9 in 1939, the pope is in very bad shape. the once hardy pope is now emaciated and his face has been shrunken. he is desirous of one thing that appears to everyone around him. he wants to live long enough to give the speech that he is preparing for the bishops of rome. in that speech i found out from examining mussolini's

correspondence with celini the dictator was convinced that his dramatic speech was going to be used by the pope to denounce him and denounced his embrace of hitler and the racial laws into denounced fascism. in a week remaining before the speech though the pope began to lose his strength further, unable to stand he took to bed. on february 8, he worried that he might not have enough strength and his voice would be so feeble that he wouldn't be heard. he ordered the vatican office to make 300 copies of his speech to hand out to each of the bishops as they came to the event on february 11. on the early morning of february 10, the day before the dramatic speech his breathing became further labored. attendance fastened an oxygen mask around his face being

careful not to dislodge the skull cap on his head. the high officials of the vatican were called to his bedside realizing his last moments may be near and in fact early that morning february 10, he died one day before he would give that speech so his last wish to god to keep him alive was not answered. of course the timing also led to various conspiracy theories in italy which we can talk about later if anyone is interested. across the tiber at news of the pope's death mussolini discredited in relief. a sword had been lifted. it seemed to be that the ritual activities that teammate need to show up for might interfere with

his plans for his latest coupling with its young mistress but there was one thing very much bothered him and this too we know from the fascist side of the archives that are available now. he had a big network of spies in the vatican that provided valuable insight into behind-the-scenes activities in the vatican in the 20s and especially in the 30s. he supports -- news reports had warned him that the pope was about to give his speech announcing that he was facile as. he was very worried and heard that copies of the speeches had been made and the thought on the one hand the pope is no more so there is a really fair but on the other hand what if the voice of the now deceased pope were to be heard from beyond the grave by the distribution of his last

tax that meant so much to him. so mussolini sent his ambassador to see the one-man he thought would help him as he had many times in the past when the pope seemed to be about to turn against the fascist regime. the man he turned to was pacelli the cardinal secretary of state and the number two man in the vatican in the 1930s. he told him what he wanted done. he wanted all copies of the pope's speech shredded. pacelli immediately ordered the destruction of every copy of the vatican printing that have been made of his speech. a few weeks later a conclave was held with masses of people gathering as usual in

st. peter's square looking at the chimney for white smoke which they saw not long into the celebrations. when the telltale white smoke came out of the chimney the cardinal deacon doubt in front of st. peter's square from st. peter's and announced we have a pope and the new pope came out, a tall thin spectacled figure clothed in the white papal robe and the tiara. pacelli would take the name pius the xii honoring the man who had long put his trust in him and i am going to show a couple of slides. this is the ritual that takes place when a pope dies and pacelli who had been the secretary of state in the office

of chamberlain who is in charge of the pope's -- of the vatican on the death of the pope and he has a silver hammer mallet where he hits the head of the dead pope saying his name, his christian name. and when he does not respond for nazism officially dead. when he was a cardinal in 1938, cardinal pacelli and the next slide show's pacelli's coronation as pope pius xii. this is the scene that begins my book that sets the stage a bit for our discussion. this is 1939. let's go back to 1922 when the two younger robust men come to power the same year. the pope was not only vigorous

as i mentioned that he was also known as something of a tyrant. cardinals would literally prepare themselves for a meeting with the pope in their private chapel and pray to god to somehow see them through without the pope yelling at them are finding them wanting. the pope in reading some of these accounts of these meetings with the pope where the pope would turn purple with rage, pound on his desk and he's yelling at for example a foreign ambassador where he has been unhappy with something his country has done. but the pope also has a high sense of the dignity of the papal office. interesting today with pope francis making news in taking symbolic actions that seem to be peeling away some of that symbolic activity.

for example pius the xi from the day he beat cam pope his brother and sister whom he had been close to refer to him as napoleon nest. also for the 17 years he was pope he never allowed anyone to sit down at the table when he ate, not even a cardinal. and this by the way was different than some of his predecessors and a continuing tradition that all of his predecessors had obeyed. the pope's vision of the church and of the world was basically a medieval one in which there was only one true roman catholic church and all to his teachings and lines of authority. mussolini as i alluded to before was in many ways his opposite. the anti-cleric, the rabble-rouser, the person who

valued violence but also had a notion of a new society. this is certainly not a medieval vision but a new vision. mussolini before he came to power had been a radical socialist. he had been reading social meeting and it was the outbreak of world war i that he had the division with the socialist party or for the war and he wanted italy to enter the war. he founded the fascist movement and bloody it done in the fascist movement formally founded in 1919 he too was anticlerical so the first calling for confiscation of church property in separation of church and state.

if we can go to the previous image please. here he has got some sense of mussolini with the fierce character. the pope did not like to travel and did not appear at public rallies or anything like that. usually a pope is globetrotting and giving mass rallies. this is not anything that this pope did. in fact from 1871 italy conquered from remember italy only came about in 1878 and completed in 1871 italian troops stormed the walls of the city and the pope is defeated in the people's states are no more. the pope would preach to the vatican. from 1870 and so mussolini made peace with the church in 1929, 59 years no pope ever left the

vatican, the tiny little groups of buildings in the vatican. the okay, so to understand the impact that this relationship had, the steel that was made between the pope and mussolini you have to understand that long period of time where the position of the church was the italian state is a legitimate. the king is excommunicated. the prime minister is excommunicated. no good catholic is allowed to run for parliament and no good catholic should vote for parliament because that would be recognizing the state of the page -- that took the -- of the pope. when mussolini becomes to power the in spite that they pope had no dissolutions about mussolini, as the pope said to some of his associates god works in strange

ways. god can choose as his instruments a person who doesn't seem to be godly and in fact the pope would famously referred to the pope as anti-providence to restore the rightful central position of the church in italian society and in separation of church and state and freedom of religion and so forth. mussolini also shared with the pope a preference for authoritarian regimes. the pope had no love of democracy and in fact multi-parties were a problem. he didn't want to negotiate a deal with the prime minister and then find out the next year there was a new parliament. there were a whole set of reasons why it might be made. let me just talk a little bit about one important aspect of

this period that is not well-known that now comes out. i should say the archives of the vatican were only recently opened through the papacy of pius the xi in the 1920s and 30s. in 26 they were opened and we have the fascist archive but what we can now do is triangulate documents from the fascist secret police from mussolini's archives and the foreign minister's archives and from various vatican jesuits and church archives that are now easily available tdap we put these together we get a picture of the richness of understanding we never previously had. just to give you some idea before we get back to those last years how this relationship worked and if we can go back to the picture a head of a jesuit. this one, yes. this is an absolutely crucial

figure in history who has never before been understood or even known about. hardly anything has been written about him yet he was absolute essential. shortly after mussolini becomes to power the pope would mussolini agreed they needed private intermediary a private envoy -- envoy and in they choose a roman jesuit. venturi would meet one-on-one with mussolini over 100 times in these years. basically once a month. no one outside of the inner circle of the fascist party met that often with mussolini. before going to meet with mussolini he would go to the vatican and meet with the pope. what was he doing? he was asking new demands from the pope asking mussolini to use the oppressive apparatus of the state to benefit the church and an example to give you some idea go to the trivial example that the pope was concerned about things like modesty ed clothing,

bathing suits, nightgowns that showed too much of the female body and insisted that mussolini do something about this. this was not the kind of issue that mussolini had problems with actually as you may know. [laughter] buts to begin with the trivial example but there were other examples. for example ex-priest, there were a large number of priests who left the priesthood had been some would get married and some for the reasons. the only way they could support themselves would be tube get jobs in local schools. they often were the only literate people around and somewhere in rural villages. the pope, this was never allowed however when the popes were in power because it was regarded as a scandal to have an ex-priest seen in public. and so one of the constant demands the popes made were in cases where ex-priest were teaching and mussolini assured that they were fired.

in fact the latter records includes as one of its articles testifying that no such ex-priest could be allowed to teach in public schools in italy. another thing the pope was very concerned about for proselytizing. in fact he said in his one meeting with mussolini the first thing he wanted to talk to him about was what he regarded as the greatest problem in italy mainly proselytiproselyti zing italy so he was constantly calling on mussolini through venturi to stop those efforts to confiscate literature and so forth. one of the interesting things to me as i read through these archives is this irony that the pope is calling on the fascist dictatorship to take repressive action that actually mussolini doesn't want to take. but there there did come a time as i mentioned in my beginning scene where the pope began to have second thoughts about this

collaboration. it probably begins with mussolini's decision to invade ethiopia which some of you may remember happened in the fall of 1935. in late august, 1935 s. as mussolini as may be noise about intentions to invade the league of nations the pope in remarks to an audience who was an unrelated audience of a convention of nurses asked that for italy to invade ethiopia would be -- need to launch an unjust war and that would be terrible. the people around the pope, around pacelli as secretary of state were horrified. the pope's remarks were supposed to be public the next day in the vatican daily newspaper and they were convinced that this would antagonize mussolini who is

trying to drum up public support for the idea of a war in ethiopia. and the newly available vatican archives we have essentially the diary of the under secretary of state under pacelli who tells us what he did. he said that evening i took the transcript of the pope's remarks before they went to publication and he said he performed a quote surgical operation. now i'm quoting from his diary and accounts of what he did. the under secretary of state and the vatican quote here i cut a word in there i added another. here i modify a sentence, their sentence, dare i erase another unquote. as the text remarks that appear in the next day in the vatican newspaper have no reference to his opposition to the invasion of ethiopia. now it was in the years following the ethiopian campaign

that mussolini began to embrace hitler. they had a very peculiar relationship and we can talk about it more later. of course hitler sought mussolini as his role model in the 1920s. he kept it big bust of mussolini in his office in munich. it was modeled on the march on rome and so forth but after he comes up our mussolini views him him -- he is pleased. he is flattered by the fact that he is look up to buy the new chancellor of germany but he also thinks hitler is to be praised and has his doubts about hitler and even greater doubts about people around him as he referred to as the blogging in an insane asylum. now, the height of this drama comes as i mentioned before with the racial laws that come into

effect in the late summer and early fall of 1938. i think i have an image of what some of them are here. this is actually from a publication that again and was put out by the italian government as part of its racial anti-semitic campaign. it has a lot of illustrations because it is supposed to be a way to list popular italian support for the anti-semitic campaign and you probably can't read this here but you get some idea of the images. what the racial laws mean. some of you may have seen the film or read the book which portrays some of this. all the jewish children market out of school and all jewish teachers and professors were fired. jewish professionals could no longer practice their professions and jewish from the national honor society were thrown out and so on and so forth. this came as a shock to the

community because fascism and mussolini had not and previously known to the anti-semantics and in fact none were fascists. according to the most widely believed account today certainly in italy, the church fought heroically against the racial law as did the pope. yet as i show in my book this is in fact an accurate and the campaign if you read it, a large part it borrows from the church and the unofficial publication of the vatican the jesuit publication which the pages have to be approved by the vatican of and the secretary of state through this time are calling for withdrawing the equal rights in the 19th century. in the middle of august the daily newspaper of the vatican

publishes an article saying there needs to be restrictions on the pernicious influence of the jewish. this article is taken up by fascist publications throughout italy to justify the anti-semitic campaign. but this said the pope himself was uncomfortable with the racial laws for a variety of reasons. the pope was not concerned about any threat from the in italy. the italian jewish population was one tenth of 1%, about 35,000 people but also the public was concerned because it seemed like another sign that mussolini had decided to cast in a state with the nazis and with hitler. what i discovered is that however despite the public's reservations he was convinced to make a deal and this was not

known until the recent openings of the archives and known by very few to make a secret deal. that is the pope made a secret deal with mussolini having to do with the position before the racial laws anti-semitic laws were introduced. i think i have the text. just to give you an idea of what the sake of -- documents look like. this is actually the text of the deal in the jesuit envoy of the pope works out with mussolini and the deal has two parts. mussolini just to take a step back, knew how to put pressure on the pope. in fact people brag to hitler about this. i really know how to handle the pope and take lessons from me. one of the lessons he knew was that if there is one thing that is especially dear to the pope and important to the pope that was the catholic organization known as catholic action.

this is the organization that is organized on a capillary based on the local parish whereby the laity under control is involved in what the pope saw as the christianization of in italian society so that when someone wanted to put pressure on the pope he knew all he had to do was take action against catholic action. recently knowing that the pope was upset about these racial laws decided to announce that you could not be a member of the fascist party and a member of catholic action for example add began to use fascist publications to instill that catholic action was anti-fascist and this was rousing the anger of the loyal fascists sometimes to violent actions against the catholic action group. and sending them to make a deal about anti-semitism one thing i discovered soon in the recently

available documents is that venturi had for years been trying at his monthly meetings with mussolini than trying to convince him of the jewish threat. the pope had not but his envoy and the pope was not sending its envoy to make this argument with mussolini but using the opportunity. he would give him various anti-semitic materials. he would argue time and again that the jews are not only the enemy of christianity according to venturi of the church but they were enemies of fascism and mussolini needed to take steps against the jews. he began to make these arguments by the mid-1920s we now know. this was a man that the pope sent to make a deal with mussolini and i'm showing the first here. two and three were the quid pro quo. two and three said that if you go along with one we will take

the pressure off catholic action. we will withdraw the idea that you can't be a good fascists in the good member of catholic action and so forth. what is one? one as you see here has to do it says with the problems of racism and judaism. that is what the title is a basically sets up this agreement. the pope agrees that as long as the new anti-semitic rules are no worse than the restrictions on the jews when the pope was in charge in the ghetto in rome and so on that the pope will ensure that not only he will not speak out against the anti-semitic campaign but no priests will either. this document is a fairly explosive document as you can imagine and since it has been discovered and i have a copy of it, then some of the first --

there has been a strong reaction by defenders of of this narrative that the church was an opponent of the racial laws and against anti-semitism and they basically tried to deny this is what it is. we not only have this document is all the documents of the meetings between the pope and tacchi-venturi and later interestingly we see the pope has doubts about this agreement and the people around him worked feverishly to prevent those doubts from interfering with the backing of the fascist regime by the church. i think i have a picture back to pacelli. we will come back to him. he is now secretary of state and

before he becomes pope and he is certainly central to these efforts as well. let me just before concluding give him one other clue as to is going on here. in the same time in august of mussolini drafting the anti-semitic racial laws and worrying about what the public position is going to be he asked his ambassador the ambassador to the holy seat and in addition to pacelli there is one man they thought would be particularly helpful and he is the world had of the jesuit order. he has been head of the jesuit order since 1915 and we know from the correspondence of the italian ambassador mussolini's ambassador, he went to visit this man. he said i went to see him because i knew of his quote

implacable loathing for the jews and goes on to say that jesuit blames the jews for all of your problems. they had a meeting in early august 1938 where with the superior general of the jesuit order tells mussolini's ambassador, you know we are working and doing all they can to prevent the pope from their breaking away from party lines speaking out against the racial laws and speaking out against anti-semitism. he said hle and i the secretary of state and i are at wits end. we don't know what to do because the pope keeps excluding his bond and he doesn't know what he is saying anymore. he is putting the church at risk everything we have built up in his alliance with the fascist regime has all been put into jeopardy.

so this is briefly a little bit of flavor of the stories we cannot tell with the newly available archival evidence. i would just conclude by saying i think ties the 11th is a tragic figure myself. he was not prepared for the job he ended up having to do which no one of course could foresee the advent of fascism in europe and the medieval conception of authority and that medieval conception of the way the world should operate did not prepare him for where the various accommodations with these authoritarian regimes might lead and he is also a tragic figure for the reason that i mentioned that the people around him were working day and night to thwart him from what he felt was his prophetic mission, to seek out against this. for the most part mussolini was

never comfortable around priests or churches. he would not allow pictures of himself with nuns or monks to be published for instance. their relationship which was strong in a certain way for years even though they were so different and even though they only had one meeting in all that time face-to-face, would not end the pope who had hailed mussolini as the man sent by providence to save the church in italy ended up as we have seen having a very different view of the dictator. mussolini was no happier. in the last month kept complaining not only to his mistress but the fascist party that pope pius the xi was -- thank you. [applause]

i am happy to take your questions. i think you are supposed to come to the mic so everybody can hear. thank you. >> that was very interesting presentation. i would like to ask, you alluded to it earlier on but you made it explicit toward the end that a lot of the pressure to the pope was from jesuits and some of the anti-jewish propaganda was in jesuit newspapers and may be was acting of his own volition and not instructed by the pope. was there particularly strong strain of anti-semitism in jesuit to tell you in jesuit orders throughout the 30s? and to what extent was that influential? >> here there was for example

jesuits in the united states and in italy. in the u.s. there was an important component of the jesuits who were progressive for example fighting for racial justice in this period period in the 1930s and the pope one thing i didn't mention in some of you may have heard about the secret encyclical. after hitler visits in 1938 in june arranges a secret meeting with an american jesuit he heard quintessentially happens to be in a rome father john lafarge and father lafarge has been an important advocate for racial harmony and racial justice and in fact in united states he had a book called racial justice. the pope without telling cardinal pacelli arranges to meet father lafarge the american jesuit and asked him to drafted encyclical denouncing racism and anti-semitism. that to complicates the story

but that too was on the desk, the draft of it was on the desk of the pope when he died and that was too buried by pacelli. to give you another illustration of this during the ethiopian war at the catholic clergy were big supporters of it but in the jesuit american magazine called america which still exists in many of you may know it, the publication, an article appeared being critical of mussolini and the ethiopian war. he sends ambassador to meet with the superior general of the jesuit order and says you've got to do something. immediately he fires the longtime editor of american replaces him with a pro-fascist editor. this is what is going on. the jesuit journal is highly influential and seen as -- put out by a group of italian jesuits the unofficial voice of

the pope and from the beginning of modern anti-semitism in the 1880s it had scores and scores of anti-semitic material some of which is basically picked up by the nazis as well. so i think it is not a very pleasant story of what was going on with the italian jesuits at the time. >> did it survive? >> yes, well the difference between a novel and nonfiction. now after 2006 we have gotten to see it. as i mentioned all copies of the printed version were destroyed on the orders of pacelli at the request of mussolini but the original handwritten pages, he did not destroy those. it was only after his death pope pius xii death that pope john

xxiii leaves part of the text and from the archives in 2006 we have the full text. what we would like is to be a ringing did not see asian of the types of mussolini feared, the real break with fascism. it is not bad. it's a speech however the mussolini certainly would not have liked to hear. it warns the vicious of italy against the fact that there are fascists everywhere and they have to watch what they say. he complains about racial nazi idealism. it was not quite as dramatic and certainly not as dramatic as it appeared. >> one question david -- what question david generates the most curiosity for you right now? what would you like to know? what would you like to explore

and what would you like answered? >> that's a good question. you know i think we have learned a lot. i feel i have a good understanding now of what was going on but there are that still are somewhat obscure. i think understanding, understanding for example his view of the sub five how could he have agreed even though somewhat reluctantly to the deal he made a mid-august 1938 to go along with the racial laws as long as we have got this favorable treatment of catholic action. there is some conflict there that we don't quite understand. we know how the various people around him every time he would try to turn against it would convince them not to but i don't

fully understand that. that would require conversation with him and i don't think there are documents that we have seen that existed. one thing however along the lines of the question is pacelli kept a diary of his daily meetings with the various for nonvoice to the holy city. when i found out about this when the archives were opened in 2006 the first thing i want to look for was his diary for this period were so much was happening with the imposition of these laws in various deals. although you have full record for an early birth period all of a sudden there are very few. nothing for three months and then another entry and nothing for a couple of months.

what to make of this. there are three possibilities. one is for whatever reason he didn't keep a diary then. the other is that pacelli who we know was one to be sensitive about these documents when he became pope had this removed knowing that it was not something he would ever want seen and when the pope john paul ii ordered that these archives be ready would take four years. they have been working on cataloging and so forth. at that point some of the documents were embarrassing because the cause of making pius pius xii a saint was the cause of the wing of the catholic church in anything that might diminish that possibility is seen with great trepidation. that would probably be the one thing i would most want to know.

see was the secret encyclical similar, do we have that and if we do was a similar to the so-so speech or was it different? >> there is actually a book you should read called the hidden encyclical. it came out a number of years ago. a very good book which tells the story and it too just to give you a little more background so you understand why, the pope had a problem. give pointed this american jesuit without letting pacelli now and without letting anyone the secretary of state office no but he had to inform the head of his order because of the jesuit discipline. the day after or couple of days after he met with father lafarge he called in the jesuit superior general and tells him what he has done.

we know from the correspondence the polish head of the jesuit order, his correspondence with his colleagues that he thought the pope was mad. in fact to use the wittingly english mad when he heard about this project and he insisted, he said among other things this american jesuit is quite developed art and insisted that more expert jesuits be added to the project. two were french and german. the german came from a more traditional show we say european jesuit perspective on the jews and he would have some influence so they go to work and they grab this thing. we only have seen in recent years and it is in some ways disappointing. it certainly is a direct criticism of nazi racial ideology area and racial supremacy but in terms of the

jews it's certainly a document that would be embarrassing to the church today or the vatican council and i should say and i didn't say this but it's important to say that with the second vatican council in the early 1960s this already great changes. the church rejects its previous demonization of the jews and takes the position of respect for other religions and religious dialogue and so forth, all things that were being rejected before. basically the answer of the question is encyclical as the good parts but others that we would regard as offensive to jews. >> is it conquered factual if pius had lived for 10 more years how much difference would it have made? with things up in a much different? is a basically institutional or

would it have mattered? >> will the nazi ambassador to the german ambassador wrote at the time shortly after his death that had he lived there would have never been a nazi germany. he didn't say anything about mussolini. it's a little hard to know. it was getting late. i think -- this is the important thing. the debate had been somewhat misphrased in the past. there has been a lot of attention as you'd know to what influence the pope could have had on hitler. hitler was catholic after all by birth but if you think about the relationship of the pope with mussolini is very different. the pope had a huge impact in italy. first of all 99% of the italians were catholic and only one third of the germans were catholic. the pope is italian so the

potential influence the pope had and announcing and especially in here's the real rub. mussolini ascended good spot. he wants to make an alliance with nazi germany but the italians hate the germans. they had just gone to war with them and they had hundreds of thousands of dead at the hands of the germans not long before but hitler is not a sympathetic figure to the italians. he is announcing aryan supremacy and the italians have a pretty good idea but that does not include them. so mussolini tried to convince the italians to get onboard with this alliance with nazi germany. he had to challenge and that is why if the pope had clearly spoken out against this said that no good catholic could embrace hitler.

i don't know what impact it would sure many but i think it would have been a big impact on his lead. if the pope were younger and more vigorous nod in the position to have his will thwarted i think the fate of italy would have been different. that might be going too far. >> to ask question. i understand that the italian government didn't send the jews halfway and the catholic government was very much pour jews. the government was for jews?

is that what you said versus narrative and there was church opposition to racial laws. if there is one aspect of the racial laws. one of the racial laws said a converted issue had become catholic would be treated as jewish and not catholic and could not marry legally a catholic. the pope was irate at this for a couple of reasons. one it went against church doctrine that if you were baptized as catholic one of the major provisions had given the church to write to decide at a church wedding what a legitimate wedding was which will be automatically registered with the state. went directly against the agreement in 1929. the complaint to the fascist

he's in the vatican archives were entirely about this one issue. there was never any vatican opposition to throwing the jewish children out of the schools and firing the jewish teachers and so forth and until the papal states were defeated in the 1970s. that i think was the picture. >> pius xii during world war ii with what go to verso figure and emblematic almost but it sounds as if your research has now shed some new light on what it might have brought to the papacy what baggage did you give us some sense of how you would view world war ii in light of what you know berm research please?

>> i would say many of you are aware there was a lot of pressure on of the same pius xii. it they became such a controversy about the failure to protest. he knew what was happening. this was a very controversial issue. one thing i would say i think the research i was able to do in the 1930s when pacelli becomes secretary of state give us more insight than we will get that looking at those archives. there's there is little evidence of your thinking and when you issue proclamations and so forth but before then for their same crucial dramatic years before the war pacelli is keeping a diary and he is a huge correspondence which we have access to so i think we really

have previous insight into them. pacelli is someone who thought of themselves as the victor of the institutional church. i think of is a little bit like some of the more recent difficulties the catholic churches have run into and where we see behavior that seems to be first and foremost in situations in the church and perhaps other moral issues but this is certainly the way of pacelli thought at the time. the notorious book hitler's pope about pacelli, he was not hitler's pope. nazism certainly oppose his idea of christianity and catholicism but as i show in my book the germans worked for his election the german and nazi ambassador to rome worked for his election

and was relieved that he was elected and certainly the fascist people were working furiously to get him elected pope because again not because they saw him as a fascist or much less as a nazi but saw him as accommodative. he was someone who would make a deal that as long as the rights and prerogatives of the church were protected you was not going to get involved and in fact he assured the german ambassador shortly after he became pope the first meeting he would have after becoming pope after being selected would be with the ambassador and wanted to ensure him that the regime -- amity would return to the relationship between the vatican and the third reich and what he said was and i'm paraphrasing i take a position that is not the

role of the pope to make a decision about the right form of government. it's a secular matter and i'm not going to take any position with respect to that. .. [inaudible conversations] >> thanks for joining us tonight. if you're interested in having your book signed, we will be set up over here. >> tonight on c-span2, booktv looks at the conservative political ideology.

>> now a discussion of robert edsel's book, "the monuments men," which recounts allied efforts to recover and preserve european cultural artifacts stolen by the nazis during war or to. this is about 90 minutes. >> michael you are down. [laughter] >> there we[a go.

okay. roberts second book is entitled the monument"the monument's mend heroes, nazi thieves, and the greatest treasure hunt in history." this panel tonight will discussb those allied heroes, monuments men, nazi thieves and the the ms greatest treasure hunt in en. history. wll ambassador eizenstat on the panel we will also touch on some of the more contemporary efforts by the united states governmentt to address the loss and return t on the panel, we will also touch on some of the more contemporary efforts by the united states government to address the loss and the return of what we began to call holocaust era assets.

in a way what has been done to 1990s is following in the steps of "the monuments men." using this as our guide to the past and to help turn history into justice, an expression that is all from the ambassador and have used freely without attribution. and we have access partner and monetary gold, real property, movable property. intellectual property. communal and religious property. they also took cultural property in numbers that stagger the imagination. they even took gold fillings from their victim.

and it was often in direct as we learned in the 1990s as witnessed by what happened to jewish accounts and swiss banks and insurance policies issued to the jews by italian and insurance companies. he was greatly involved in these issues beginning in the 1990s and perhaps you can tell us a little bit about this swiss bank and insurance issues and whether there has been any resolution of those issues. >> thank you, greg. thank you for hosting this, david. as greg said, the holocaust was not only the greatest genocide in history but the greatest theft in history. it was a war within a war in which not see germany diverted

enormous resources down to the very last days of the war to strip them of a recently had an allies. the theft of art and other properties going back to the conquest of jerusalem by the romans and the insignia that we see in rome and the mona lisa in the loop taken on one of napoleons ventures. what established it was a sufficiency and organization. with respect to artwork, it is estimated that 600,000 pieces of art were stolen and 8000 of which are personally selected by adolf hitler for a museum that he planned after the war in his

hometown. but artwork was only a part of it. so for example homes and businesses, jewelry, insurance policies and bank accounts. let me just mention these and we will come back to these a little bit later it will be found for an article in "the wall street journal" is a front page article and it said that there were doormen swifts bank accounts that had been set up during a war primarily by jews trying to show their money in the safest thing system in europe by the on lot of the third reich. and that after the war those who survived and if they didn't, their families who tried to recoup those bank accounts were

told that they couldn't be found. in fact what happened was the accounts were drawn down month after month by charges over 50 years and taken into the profits of the bank. so i got permission from the state department to go to switzerland. i gave them a copy of this wall street journal article and i said, is this true? and i said yes, it is to an extent we have had this and we have found that there are 732 dormant bank accounts what should've been returned and were not. so if we put that up to the days values, that'll be $32 million they got major account information there were 54,000

possible accounts and 21,000 certain accounts and a somewhat was reached $1.25 billion in respect to insurance, companies like this and many others do the following. there were insurance policies on the lives of individuals and what happened after the war is the families of those who were killed, their life insurance policies try to recruit and they were told that the policies have lost because the premiums were not paid while people were poor in auschwitz and so this is something that was part of the insurance claims under the former secretary of state in a consensual way after we got everyone together red so the

dimensions of this were like peeling back the layers of an onion bread and one thing led to another. slave labor ended up getting almost a billion dollars and this includes german private companies and for slavery. the majority of that were from non-jewish laborers and it ended up in a million and a half people are compensation as a result of that. so was an extensive effort this was a piece but only a piece. >> thank you. >> speaking about art and going back before entering world war ii, can you tell us what the poppies chuck and what do they

do with what they took me back. >> it's interesting that we use the term moxy looting. it gives you a wanton act that people break into this and what we are talking about was much more systemic and beer? and it was from the leadership down and it was targeting certain categories of individuals and countries and it was enacted by various bureaucratic arms of the not the regime and they vary from country to country and it was much more for the taxation offices when they were lost half they had to pay certain taxes it

is those working in poland and holland and they were working with the banks that were taking over jewish assets and i think the most well-known organization and that is one that is originally to be confiscated as something that do not these were trying to subdue. it was turned into confiscating this and you can use the term to try to keep in your mind that it is really a bureaucratic effort from the top down. as we all knew that hitler had planned to have the greatest examine the role because he was

going to on all of europe. another knotty party leaders were collecting because they thought that it showed to be part of this as well. but like many regimes, the nazis really used it to their advantage. >> debate so are to support the war effort. >> as it was to support the war effort, but it was an interesting thing where they would see the currency. so is used particularly in this fashion. to having an extensive knowledge of the nazi that's the

goal art and other properties, in january of 1943 the allies that issued the london declaration declared their intentions to stop nazis from looting and also warning that they deserve the right to not recognize sales property made under duress. at the same time they became increasingly concerned about the damage and the destruction of cultural property. this concern manifested all in a twofold manner. first was the protection of artistic and historic monuments in war times. for short it is called the roberts commission because it was part of this was in the

military establishment to deal with cultural property. so robert, can you tell us about the roberts commission and the creation of "the monuments men"? >> yes. >> it is actually a little bit morning because we have some very long name that you have heard. as well as some acronyms. but essentially it really began 34 years earlier. there's a man named george stout the pioneer and the conservation of works of art and we work at the museum at harvard and he had the vision in between the wars

and in the ad then that were causing fires and a conviction due to correspondence that he had with friends that worked in german museums and many of them are having to flee germany and go to england to try to get away from the bad times they foresaw. and he was convinced that there is going to be second world war. so matching that with the event he was observing in spain, he saw disaster on the horizon that the united states might become engaged in this war in the process, destroying so much of western civilization that it would be a permanent stain on the american military in the united states area so even before the japanese sneak attack in 1941, he was preparing these templates during and before we were engaged in a war.

and following december 7, very much like following september 11 of 2001, there would be an invasion or bombing of the east coast by the japanese and american museum director was asked to convene about the third week in december to discuss initially the protection of the works of art at our main museums including the national gallery of art which largely evacuated some of this in nashville, north carolina. as happened, it became clear quickly that what had happened is all that would happen in the short-term in focus shifted as to how to protect things in this

country and how do we help with mankind's greatest achievement. so they propose this concept of cultural preservation officers. one charged with saving rather than destroying. and they had envisioned a more elaborate setup of secretaries and vehicles by the time this unfolded and he was very suspicious of museum directors and he was convinced that by the time they got a hold of these ideas they would muck it up so much that it wouldn't end up going anywhere. so within the next year or so he kind of gave up on the idea which in the military was the camouflaging of aircraft.

but his great supporter was paul sacks introducing this in the united states known as the museums studies course and it was a farm club for museum directors, curators and the cultural country that we know today. there were some 20 babies that became monuments officers. for those of you who are old enough to see that mission impossible tv series, peter graves would sit down and flipped through his dossier of experts to decide which ones he wanted to have to deal with the challenges of the mission. he on this working for the roberts commission. starting with all the students who graduated since 1920. there were some 20 students there were architects, linguists, most had been educated in europe. and the key factor was who was

already in the military because they quickly realized it was going to be much easier to transfer someone in the military than it was to get someone in the wasn't already enough. so this is where this idea comes from. late 1942, the idea comes from a lot of different groups, people at the fray. a lot of those in the roberts commission. but it is the idea of george stout that is largely represented in the represents in late 1942 and in april of 1943. he says pretty simply makes a lot of sense to me, that idea in their often running getting the formalities that up with election of officers don't really began until the summer of 1943, and of course the invasion

of sicily at our to have it at this stage. >> that is the interesting exhalation rather than the complicated version. >> it's interesting that this was called monuments and archives. many felt like third class citizens. compared to the fine arts and in any event. besides establishing these monuments men and the roberts commission, part and parcel of this program was intelligence gathering and you have to know what is actually gathering in europe and much of this was accomplished by american

diplomats and service operatives in spain and portugal as well as government in exile in london. also gathering intelligence about what the non-jews were doing in terms of alluding cultural properties were individuals like this. played by kate blanchet in the movie and robert, can you tell us a little bit about her enact. >> by my way of thinking she was one of the great heroines of world war ii. for all of you that have put up with the guys are driving you to world war ii movies, this is your film and you have a heroine in this film achieves a remarkable woman. it's hard to believe that she could transform herself in this

way, but she doesn't quite sicily. jesus woman part of the dominated and if any of you have been to paris, you have operation in france and in paris in particular and iet was there building and so it became the central headquarters for the nazi looting operation in particular. with tens of thousands of work stolen from the great collectors and friends. someone also dealer families that were brought in and they were often times photographed and this was a particularly evil

or pernicious individuals. so rothschild is an example and they were the letter r and then they would have a number. and there could be a 6000 number. many at the officers usually found, which they have done a great job writing about this, a jewelry chest that might have hundreds of objects in them and this includes one who referred to eight-point collection and there were 10,000-point in it. so the numbers get to be pretty staggering very quickly rated roses there with the responsibility and the germans

know that they need her there to make sure that the lights are working great but she understands german and they don't notice. her boss is another hero, he is a director of the ranch museum including the louvre, has placed her there and so she is making secret notes and is they are each of the 20 times they make these exhibits and stewart referenced things. if there is any value to it, there would be champagne and they would have a regard in any one of his 20 michael jackson alfred, whether it is or not. it's amazing the number of photographs that we have, knowing that some of these

things were part of what they wanted to have themselves. sometimes she wrote that she was looking for photo negatives and over the course of four years she noticed largely the number of works that have come through and she recognizes me because they are so famous. she knows the location of many that have been taken. it's not really a diary, but an album with all of these different notes and scraps of paper that have been put together we're they are in one place. so at the end of the liberation, she survives this and she's considered a collaborator and she doesn't turn over all the information she had to her boss

on her advice because no one knows who to trust. and her loyalties are over and above and she is encouraged to work with an officer who at the time as the curator of the cloister museum goes on to be the next director of the mat after the war. and they did is over six months is to be a dance of courtship. trying to see if he can be trusted with this information. there are two people destiny each holding half of the same key. and she persists with this until 1981 when she dies and never gives up on and becomes a pain in the side to many people that

just want this to go away. and so on the other hand he realizes he can play a role in recovering the works of art stolen from france. he is transportation but he doesn't know where to go. so this is the dynamic between the two of them, back and forth and will he really return these things to france. it's a fascinating dynamic and i think it is one of the great parts of the film that the actors have really teased out of the story. >> you mention sicily. in 1943 the allies invaded sicily.

and there were very few monuments men and they had some successes and barriers and all of this is a lane and roberts third book, saving italy. but robert, could you briefly talk about this? do they have transportation and do they have mass? >> it was really a pathetic getting. it was president roosevelt that realized they needed to buy time for the army of bureaucracy to be overcome to get some of these guys over there. on his orders, a man -- let me show a number by you showing

your hands who has been to harvard -- okay. so from the 1920s to the 1990s when he died with it action of the end he knew that he was that fad so he arrives three weeks after the american invasion and he is flown to all algeria thinking that he is to be in north africa. and then he says i really don't know anything about that area. and he didn't. but he gets there. there's no vehicles or operation. they are just winging it. but the monuments officers at the beginning of combat are

about 40 years old and i have really accomplished careers. many have kids. so they were pretty clever and resourceful and trying to figure out how to do things. while they didn't help any, they didn't pay attention to him either. to the extent that they could come up with solutions, they were pretty effective area to the operation on its face over and over again the point that general marshall wrote his protége, general marshall and said you need to be very careful because people here are reading horrible newspaper accounts and damaging italy by by the allies. and they were at the civil

affairs division. they had the ability to pay attention. the monuments officers will post the buildings out of bounds american british troops couldn't live in them, damage them, taking. in the army officers of the troops just ignored it. so by the time of november and is number one the operation was clearly failing, the general, general eisenhower changes the face of the war and he issues the directive december 29, 1943. albeit six months after the war and italy have gone. and so if it and this was the seachange in how wars were fought. because the monuments officers, they never really got much more help than that. internet vehicles. they were hitchhiking their way around the country and making it

up as they go, but ernst the vols, the senior monuments officer in italy said it was the first solid ground under our feet. they could go around and sees the two commanders and show this directive, and it had currency. we should say that general eisenhower and his command staff went to school on the mistakes they made, and by the time of the normandy landing, that same order similarly worded is issued two weeks before the normandy landing. >> we are way behind schedule, so i ask my colleagues to try to keep their answers short. but once the allies landed in france in june 1944, and the allies increased their bombings of germany, the germans began hiding their own cultural property and the property they looted, primarily in southern

germany, and salt mines, in monasteries, castles, error rate bunkers, and some germans at this point, especially in late 1944, believed that they would lose the war. ..ers. some germans at this point, especially in 1944 late in the year, they believe that they would lose the war. the smartest thing to do was to get all this to a safe haven outside of germany. and the united states government initiated something called operation safe haven. to be the intelligence gathering capability of the treasury department, economic administration, to find out where these assets wereg