advantage some people at the expense of other people. though in various ways race has been used. a more positive spin would be thinking about there's this moment in the early 19th century, a pretty long moment, 15 years, 75 years, 100 years were mixed-race people were completely unremarkable. no big deal. there were lots of them around. racial mixing, inter-racial marriage, all those things that became anathema and the early 20th century were possible. so you can hold that out as their hopeful moment. there was violence and there was that things have happened but the racial politics filling that landscape, appreciating what complicated lives these people had. the fact that they were everywhere.

whenever we move into a landscape be interested in who lived there before. what is the really deep history. what can you find out about that because it's always deeper than you might think. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to colorado springs colorado and other cities visited by her local content vehicles go to c-span.org/local content. >> next peter duffy recounts the life of william sebold the first double agent in fbi history who infiltrated a nazi spy ring in new york city they resulted in 33 arrested in 1941. this program from the international spy museum in washington d.c. is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> thank you. it's a real pleasure to be here at the museum which is such a fantastic facility.

my experience and going through when i was researching this book and being a tourist here was fantastic. i was first introduced to it by a man i want to introduce who is a friend of the museum and a former fbi special agent and now a university professor and author who was a very helpful source for me in writing this book. he has previously investigated. he wrote a very important book on the origins of fbi intelligence which those who want to know more about how the fbi became the counterintelligence agency that it became as it went into world war ii and beyond should check out ray's work. i have two other special guests that i will introduce during the course of the top with their permission, you are intimately connected to the story but my story can begin in a lot of

places. the story of bill sebold and what was known as the ducaine spy ring. i'll begin in early 1939 when william gottlieb's sebold boarded the heartland passenger liner in the west side piers in manhattan and sailed for nazi germany that was preparing for war. he was carrying a single suitcase in the package. he left behind his wife and their 84th street apartment on every side of manhattan in this plan was to visit his mother and his birthplace in germany and recovered from an altar surgery he had recently undergone. when he arrived at passport control in hamburg, he was taken aside by nazi officials in plain clothes who questioned him about his life in the united states. after learning that he once worked at the consolidated aircraft corp. in san diego which produced u.s. navy seaplanes the men promised

ominously that sebold would hear from them again. up until this point in his life's sebold had lived a wayward existence. he was a mechanical draftsman, princess to the teenager insert from age 17 to 19 in the german army spent eight months in the trenches in the district during world war i. turned off by the unrest of the post-war years in germany he took to the sea in 1922 serving as a junior engineer on an oil company vessel before jumping ship at the first of which was galveston texas and an illegal immigrant. he worked for a year at rural texas including for a time as a mule tender on a ranch before returning to mule hind to help his parents through economic difficulties. a year later he returned to the sea this time jumping ship and south america where he spent two years working as a bartender and whether and for real and not

every 13, 1929 he entered america legally under the quota system for german immigrants. over the next two years he traversed the nation working for various industrial outfits in oakland, fairbanks alaska, san francisco, milwaukee, eerie finally arriving in new york where he married a german native who worked as a live-in maid for wealthy family on park avenue and they made a residence in new york neighborhood which was a very german neighborhood, the german neighborhood of new york, the real center of german life including after the rise of hitler nazi supporters most public of which were the members of the german american brent who famously had a rally in madison square garden and filled with

madison square garden with supporters in 1939. sebold took very seriously b.o.p. made up every 10, 1956 when he became an american citizen and pledged i absolutely and entirely renounce all fidelity to any foreign state or sovereignty. i had nothing to do with hitler anymore he later said. i was an american citizen. so when he was contacted by regime officials as promised several months after arriving to his mother's home's sebold initially refused the startling offer to go to the united states as an agent for the german military espionage service. go there yourself he told them that dr. gassner as the man called himself proceeded to threaten sebold describing the clothing he would be wearing when he was laid out in his casket. in fear for his life's sebold went through the month of august to think over the plan the month

of august of 1939 perhaps the most momentous month in world history, debatable. on august 23 to hit the solemn pact was announced which gave hitler the opportunity to invade poland without worry of interference from the great power in the east and on september 1 the same day that hitler launched -- commencing world war ii's sebold decided to leave germany. he went to the american consulate seeking help and he was told by a consulate clerk to make a run for the border preflight down to motorists with foreign license plates who refuse to help. fearful he was being followed by the gestapo and mindful that he lacked proper papers to pass a checkpoint in sebold even. he wrote a letter to dr. gassner saying he accepted his proposition 100%. in time dr. gassner introduced dr. -- sebold to one of the many

alias for nicholas fritz ritter and the english officer based in hamburg. today we have his daughter catherine wallace who is the second row here. just to fill in slightly who she is and how she came into the story, catherine was a young girl during the war and rader lived in the united states in the 1920s had married in alabama born woman he took with him to germany. they had two children one of whom was catholic and by the time ritter met sebold and brought him into the spy service they were already going through divorce and catherine was a young girl who had an extraordinary wartime story that she had written about in her own memoir which involves a divorce

and custody battle kind of like cramer versus cramer melded with an glorious come i don't know but it's quite a story. [laughter] she after the war came to the united states and currently lives in the washington d.c. area and speaks not with a german accent but with a thick syrup of the south. [laughter] baguettes quite melodious. to get back to the story she was a great help in this book and a real peach of a lady. ritter was looking at this point the story of ritter was looking for a man that a man who he gets sent to new york as a messenger and a contact man for a small ring of spicy at already established and sebold was nominated for the job. nicholas ritter's great mistake that would lead to the spectacular downfall of his american spy ring occurred on

the very day he met the agent. apparently under ritter supporters sebold's u.s. passport was stolen. likely so an agent who didn't have the travel advantage of legitimate u.s. citizenship could use it. ritter then instructed sebold to go to the u.s. consulate in cologne the same place where sebold had attempted to tell the story and applied for a new passport through legitimate channels. the passport free application process required sebold to visit the consulate several times order but -- over the coming weeks of period when the excitement of the early days of the award had subsided and he was able to tell a story provided letters from ritter as a backup. he informed his "he requested he be met upon his arrival by

representatives of the state department in order to convey a story to them by word of mouth trade later he told them to include the fbi g-man is what he told them. i want to see the g-man. sebold underwent a total of 10 days of training in hamburg. he was lodged at a place populated by other trainee spies. he was taught how to use a radio key to tap out messages via morse code, instructed in the use of specially fitted like a camera to reproduce blueprint or documents onto a postage stamp sized microphotograph which would be readable only with a magnifying glass. he was schooled in a cybersystem based upon the letter arrangements of a particular page which would change each day in the best-selling historical

romance, although some have been too mad. now the six or seven paragraphs that i write about this coding system is the hardest six or seven paragraphs i have written in my life by far to figure out how this thing works. i needed help and i am not sure i still did it but it's there for your perusal. sebold has provided with addresses for mail drops in shanghai são paolo and portugal and was christian -- christened with the named tramp and he was told to conduct harry sawyer bled american name that would attract notice. finally he was given $1000 in american cash. about 15 or $16,000 counting in for inflation and i think $2000 was about the average income of the american family in 1940.

he was also given several microfilm documents of instructions hidden within the years of his watch. unaccompanied but i'm sure if using followed he took the train from hamburg to munich, changed overnight to milan and continued the next morning for genoa. on january 29, 1940 the ss washington pushed off from the northern italian port bound for new york city. o. board was just as an aside was nemo flaherty the irish novelist who had written the informer. which it would be crazy not to mention the informer because they had an informer on board. the ship was mad at quarantine in the narrows by a coast guard cutter carrying a state department officer in a special fbi agent who asked sebold if he was willing to pick him to the

fbi's new york office for further discussion. after two days of telling his story he was asked if he was willing to become the fbi's first counterspy. the phrase double agent was not yet in common parlance. during the trial 15 months later it was covered quite extensively in the new york papers including the great tabloid the daily ne news. they actually cloke the prosecutor saying the prosecutor instructed us that mr. sebold was a counterintelligence agent or counterspy as if this phrase in this idea. assigned to the handler was james e. ellsworth a mormon who had gained -- as a missionary during his missionary in germany and it happened to be an

inveterate diarist and letter writer extremely generous in sharing his diary and newsletters. this is what he wrote in his diary when he first met sebold. but as i was getting out of the shower in the hotel room sunday came and. i found sebold to be a tall six-foot three-inch than 157-pound german. he was big boned brown eyed and had brown hair. he spoke english brokenly but as time went on he spoke english very well. the fbi of course wasn't entirely sure that they could trust this character with his incredible story. i spent three years trying to get a file from the national archives which the fbi had transferred into the national archives and i had made numerous requests and begged and pleaded and finally got it right the at the last moment to get in the book which included a version of what today would be a

psychological analysis of sebold and i will "quote the works of percy sam foxworth who was the head of the new york office of the fbi. sebold had been -- an honesty complex he wrote. taxi so honest i'm afraid someday he would give himself away due to his inability to act his part. he does just what he feels is right. for example he said of the german government really knew him they would never have been trusted the assignment with which they gave him and he took the assignment knowing he'd never go through with it but knowing he had to do something in order to get out of germany allies. further, sebold's feelings for america or what unequivocal quote. he states an oath to him as a sacred thing and when he swore his loyalty to the united states in the united states citizens at the time he was naturalist he said it -- consider that a sacred oath and would renew that oath at the time is given his passport. the opinion of the man rakes

faith in any respect whatever that man is not deserving of any further consideration. it is therefore apparent that it's sebold feels the bureau does not trust them or would fail to carry out any part of what he thinks is in contact with him he would blow up and probably lose the case. you can imagine they were not entirely counting on this thing working but nonetheless he checked out. sebold insisted and he wouldn't go forward until they showed some faith in him and they did so. in germany sebold was instructed to contact for individuals. and this is an extraordinary path of character. there was takana monocle clad south african native who now 62 had enjoyed an outlandish career as an adventure soldier of

fortune "playboy" and spy. he loves many dinner parties spellbound with stories of his purported heroics during world war i, during the boer war and world war i. his claim to have sunk the ship carrying the field marshal horatio herbert kitchener who was the architect of britain's war strategy during world war i was given wide airing and a biography called the man who killed kitchener which was published in 1932. although that story was untrue duchesne was an experience saboteur who committed violent acts against british interests. he lived without the benefit of clergy at the fbi put in a report with a much younger girlfriend of 24 west 76th st. a half a block from central park which i think is owned by a tech billionaire today. a beautiful and unbelievable location. there was lily stein at 26 rolled vietnamese jewish who was

living on east 54th street apartment assigned to seduce american and british officers into telling her their secrets. she had reached the united states by way of a visa provided by hammond jr., the young rice council, console of the u.s. envoy in indiana with whom she was having an affair. a german passport that was furnished by nazi spymasters eager to set up a mata hari organization in new york. they described her as -- even though both of her parents were jewish. during one of their early meetings dying made a pass at sebold who rebuffed her advanc advances. why these american women are always afraid of women she said. everything she said sounded like he came right out of the 1930s movie. there was a bronx born cornel dropout who had been working on

precision weapons system since 1916. he was an engineering genius and a gun enthusiast who is always showing off his weapons to sebold who is worried if broder discovered his true identity he would be shot. he was blind in the right eye which gives him a peculiar stare wrote the fbi which brings us to our third special guests which is everett rotger's granddaughter who is here today and to knew mr. roeder when he was a child, provided extraordinary help to my story. she came up to new york with a trunk full of the family secrets which we went through in the long island hotel room and enjoyed all afternoon. a great later he -- lady and thanks for coming. finally there was hermann lang and ideological nazi for my bavarian mountain village living in queens who had already succeeded in giving the germans

the plans for america's greatest prewar secret scientific marvel that allowed airplanes to drop airplanes with unprecedented accuracy. sebold earned the trust of the his spy contacts in the circle widened. he began with several naturalist germans working on kitchen -- working on kitchen and dining staff. men who served as couriers bringing money to and from germany. included in this group was the chief butcher of the ss manhattan who came from germany with the message for sebold, which i will read. this is the spring of 1940 after the operation had been off a few months of february. one of the letters in the butchers in baloch sebold outline the technical

specifications necessary to make more scud contact with waldorf station. using the funds given to sebold in germany bureau agents obtained to receivers eight helicopters by champion a refrigerator sized 100-watt ht nine transmitter later used to power a more powerful 500-watt transmitter and various antennas, cables, supports and feed lines which after failed in the new york office were installed in a rented to room cottage among the trees on long island sound. quote is the last sadr connection was made in the blowtorch silenced it was noticed it was a few seconds before 7:00 p.m.. the next regular colon some of the german control station according to the information given to sebold wrote richard l. nolan and special agent flown from washington to help up the system. the receivers were tuned into

the designated frequency and the hd nine formed up. very shortly more scud dots and dashes were heard. at first they were copied as ra r. a. o., r. a. o., r. 80 and in that they were too closely spaced and run together. realizing this fact engineer separated the dots and dashes into the desired aeo are. when the control station stopped sending the girls on the cover's station since the hearts and dashes in accordance with the instructions. the transmitter was stopped after a few minutes. after five minutes and the receivers turned on. the german control returned briskly with congratulations and instructions for the next contact. a working link had been established. the groundwork had been played for the case to evolve. over the next 11 months the center port station run by the fbi received 167 messages from

sebold's hombre spymaster seeking a wide variety of information about airplane production, weather forecasts, shipbuilding progress matériel exports and initiatives. we must all get busy getting new men and detailed news, news, news one message to sebold. an fbi special agent named maurice h. price pretending to be sebold capped out 301 messages to hamburg first approved by a government oversight that included jagger hoover. the dispatches were often vaguely worded or all right fictitious. in november of 1940 centerboard station received a message from hamburg wondering what sebold thought about setting up an account in a new york bank to which germany could wire funds to pay the spy ring, an extraordinary crew. after much debate in the new york office the fbi responded after five days.

having responded in the words of sebold, since i have good connections in diesel lines i recommend opening a small research office licensed business name and suitable space present no difficulties. his research contaminates money you can send me a large amount. the response came. we are in agreement. openoffice immediately advise when and where you want to remit want to remittance sent and the highest amount possible for you to handle without suspicion. vest the coup de grace of the case. the fbi room 627. the fbi chose the guarding heart of america the building with french renaissance orientation and copper roof at the southeast corner of broadway and 42nd street in times square. formerly the knickerbocker otelo

is now an office building known for its most prominent tenant "newsweek" magazine whose staffers would remain ignorant of the stories taking place on the sixth floor. dealing directly with the building's owner who offer to replace a manager if he was not cooperative enough that you're a rented room 627 and two adjacent offices 628 in 629. in the days after the deal was reached in late november agents created a stage set with the largest space occupied by the office of william g. sebold diesel engine are the words painted on the door at 627. he sat around the large desk that was expertly bugged but then within a few feet of his silver coated two-way wall near behind which of your agent richard l. johnson was operating a spring wound motion picture camera and a soundproof space. quote we just barely had enough light to make a picture and it was necessary to slow the camera down as low as it would go and open the lens wide open in order to get a good picture.

position within his line of sight for a prop in a wooden framed little by agent friedman and a calendar both of which had numbers large enough to be read and viewable to future jurors. while sebold had his back turned bus to the times said johnson sometimes he had decided his face turned to me. of course we are more just than the other person. the conversations were monitored by headphone wearing german-speaking agents typically friedman and bill maher who took standard eyewitnesses to bolster sebold's testimony and recorded on the lacquered discs by the state-of-the-art presto recording system. by early december 19408 telephone have been installed phone number 591609. business cards printed up at $5000 in nazi money wired to mexico to sebold's nuapada chase national bank, the first of

three transfers sent via this method totaling $16,500. from december 1940 until jun june 1941 the fbi recorded 81 meetings between sebold and various members aspiring including a japanese agent and an irish member of a branch of the ring. a particularly helpful individual was simmering spy who specialize in collecting information on british merchant ships leaving new york harbor which he hoped to relate to the u-boats before sinking them in great numbers during these months. and i will just give you, when this office really was up and running it was new spies walking in everyday. on january 25, 1941 they introduced sebold to the head chef of the ss ss america produced vicious blueprints and point out the camera when the

liner was transferred as sosin expected. february 10, daisy wondered if sebold had heard of a courier named wallace ascii a steward on the ss uruguay in the more mccormick shipping line printer march 5 daisy identified in nazi ideologue with a commander of the hudson county new jersey branch in nazi front organization. on march 12 base he arrived with the vegetable cook on the ss argentina who sent messages and spoke of the honor of the little casino on sebold's block on native history which turned out to be the rendezvous point for another ring of spies.

the last spy to visit the office was fritz duchesne who stayed for three hours on june 25, 19 1941, 3 days after nazi germany launched its surprise air invasion on the soviet union pushing the u.s. ever ever closer toward her. on saturday june 25 and sunday june 29, 1941, 250 fbi agents swooped in and arrested 33 nazi spies the largest apprehension of foreign agents in the history of united states. 250 fbi agents i think 1000 fbi agents at this point in fbi history so this is as large as they were going to go at this point. during the six-week trial in the fall of 1941 sebold was finally able to tell the truth truth. the defendants and their lawyers

portrayed him as a fearsome nazi to coerce them into joining the spy ring. one of the marine spies signify this sebold said he would never see his mother again if he didn't support the cause. another said i was afraid of him. this was a potent charge in german america. memories were fresh of the thousands of enemy aliens of german birth who imprisoned on the sketchy allegations of the loyalty during world war i. so they were seen by many of his own people as an embodiment of anti-german cause and indeed a 10,000 german nationals of suspect loyalty would be interned during the world war ii world war ii. in their eyes he was a traitor to his people. the highlight of the trial were the films. during the following week the nation was provided with an advanced techniques that were argued being deployed against

enemy. after agents friedman and johnson testified sound recordings were not admissible. judge myers made the following announcement, nor signature image ask you to coerce you to say say the cord. you will occupy the seats in the sacred it may not be possible for some of you to see from the chairs. some of you may have to stand. if he did not observe anything please interrupt and tell us. the courtroom is dark in johnson's films were projected onto a five-foot screen behind the jury box. the american relationship with the surveillance camera was born as the rapt audience watched 12,000 hours of fritz duchesne sitting down opposite of partially it's geared sebold reaching into his tour for spy secrets. reporters noted that duchesne had a broad grin on his face. all my life i wanted to be in the movies and when i made it

what did i do according to agent newkirk, sit there and scratched my aston picked my nose. wrote elsewhere if i think duchesne is convicted now. i think there was a direct line from the scene to marion barry in a hotel room. i'm going to write an essay about that. [laughter] in their early afternoon berlin time on december 11, 19414 days after perl harbor adolf hitler formally declared war against united states. at midnight on the following day december 12 at jury of nine men and three women after eight hours of deliberations delivered guilty verdicts on all counts against all the defendants. dismissing them from their duties the judge told the jurors it will readily appear that you have rendered a substantial contribution to the welfare of the country for which you and i hold very dear and so they had.

sebold adar disappeared into an early version of the witness protection program. after the trial he was relocated to a small home in walnut creek california outside of -- where he had reason to fear for his life. when the nazis and saboteurs to the united states in 1942 either assignments was to find bill sebold. there's no stone big enough for him to hide under said one of the organizers which however was foiled almost immediately upon landing in the united states. sebold worked as a night watchman on the docks in california. he ran a chicken farm for a wi wild. he worked briefly at the walnut creek post office but it was a part-time job and he lost his job because of his disagreement with the postmaster he wrote in one of his resumes. his family generously provided him with a --

of the barn and the club diablo so you can imagine what that was all about. he suffered from manic depression in his later years at a very sad ending to his life. he died which i go into in detail in the story, when he died on every 16, no of the jury appeared. but he had achieved briefly a measure of what he sought. jim ellsworth is the fbi cancer described the sightseeing visit to george washington's home in mt. vernon that he took with sebold during a break in the trial and a letter that ellsworth wrote to his parents. he said here was bills outstanding item of the trip to ellsworth wrote. he admired the simple mansion, the outhouse organization the building for the kitchen one for

the tools one for the smokehouse the greenhouse the laundry etc. each with its living quarters with the slaves doing the work there. he spent much time there and bill said that was the kind of like he wanted. a little kingdom not dependent on any one for its existence. i think a walnut creek he had that briefly until then. so thank you so much for your time and i'm happy to take any questions. [applause] >> thank you peter. would you be willing to sign books for people afterwards? great. good for them if anyone has any questions. wait for the microphone. >> thank you. what happened to sebold cosack mother in germany. >> siebold's mother, this was a great great. he went to the fbi and told them you have got to promise you are going to protect my family.

they said we will do what we can after the war but there's nothing we can do. so he was extremely concerned about his family. the mother, two brothers and a sister. it turns out his mother survived the war. his sister and one of his brother survived and the second brother was killed in an automobile accident in 1945 so they made it through the war okay. she was still alive and he hopes to visit her but wound up never doing now. >> and my father's book he mentioned counterfeit money and was used to great deal. did you come across any of that? >> once sebold came to new york i saw the reference to that. ray?

>> peter, how did you locate mrs. wallace and how did you locate mrs. shimmer? that the detective story all on its own. >> mrs. wallace wrote a memoir of her story and i believe she gave an interview if i remember correctly gave an interview to a local newspaper. so i learned where she was located and once i knew your name than and your location was easy to find the phone number. and d. was a little harder i recall. i know someone doing a project like this and wanted to find survivors from the story you go to the obituaries and see where the survivors are. i remember everett road or's dr. died within the last 10 or 15 years and your name was listed where you are living. that's how i found her. i think the sebold's was able to

interview a sister-in-law who was in her 90s when i interviewed her. i was lucky in that i ordered his death certificate for walnut creek california and he came back with an address. that address is still being lived in by his family so that was very lucky. >> you mentioned a lot of people in your narrative who are involved in the steamship business and i think one of the mysteries of that business is the destruction of the lighter normandy. are there -- involved in that do you know? >> no that i saw any evidence of although it's an amazing story that deserves investigation and maybe ray can -- [laughter]

you have got enough but i saw no evidence that they were involved in that but who knows. the great french liner which burned in new york harbor. >> let me ask, how much conversation with her about letting the rain continue on longer than they did? >> yeah you know it was when, as we got closer to the war and one thing that happened was one of the ships that the germans attempted to inform the u-boats about the ss robin moore was on a list of 11 ships that they gave to sebold. one of those ships sunk and was sunk by a u-boat which was the first u.s. merchant ship sunk during the war the ss robin moore. that slowly, there were a few

members that wouldn't come up to the office anymore. things started to get a little hot. i didn't mention it but there was this one irish member of the ring. there were 34 warren's and three were served so the one guy got away and he was the irishman. the irishman sean connolly was the guy who wasn't sure about this. they trusted sebold is a man who fought in world war i and had a mechanical background and who spoke german. the irishman said there's something wrong with this and he talked amongst some of the german members who quizzed sebold one evening and things of this sort were happening. there were two members preparing to ship out and they had to arrest them. they weren't yet charged with

espionage but they had to be held in circumstances that were not entirely above board. so yeah. >> what happened to the ones that were arrested? >> interesting their prison terms were much shorter than they would receive today. the espionage act violations that the main spies were convicted of 18 years was the maximum and two years additional on the foreign agents registration act charge. 20 years with them -- was the max if i'm remembering that correctly. the prison sentence ranges from 18 months up to 20 years. so many of them were out long before the war was over.

>> peter. what lessons can we draw today given the fact that we are encountering an entirely different world? the fbi still has to deal with people who are facing issues of dual loyalty in the complexity of that and the difficulty of that. can you comment on that and perhaps see if we can draw some lessons from your experience? >> you know i think one point is that this german experience, german americans were significant community in the city of new york and in the united states. there were something like 350,000 german born in austrian born residents in the united states. that's the equivalent of the chinese foreign today so first off the german community should

be examined and the ways that you mention could i think most people don't realize how significant the german-american community was. lessons to be learned or interesting. i mean i think that this spy ring began very early when its most devoted and dedicated members were active and sending secrets to germany long before the fbi was even thinking about tracking them. and that may be something very essential about counterintelligence is that you really have to be aware when the rest of the country is not at all thinking about fighting a war with germany. this is a case where the fbi was i argue, was the only entity of the u.s. government that was involved in a war from 1939 until 1941 when we really got in

and had to. this was a very destructive ring that could could've done a lot of damage. that is of course a tricky job when counterintelligence and the agencies that the fbi require public support and with communities that will protest their innocence and even though it's a minority of the german-american community there was really strong supporters. i am certainly not involved as someone who is an expert on counterintelligence. all i know is that these people were serious and they were serious way before the u.s. government was even thinking about it. ..