but in 1688, in one of these great, uh, strange reinventions in history english call it an invitation the dutch stockholder or aristocrat, because they don't like the duke of york, who's now the king. and the fact that he's catholic, they don't a catholic king. so they, quote, invite the dutch ruler to become the king, england. he came with 40,000 troops. it was an invasion people. and he becomes william and mary. so that the bookies taking manhattan by russell short. so it's a great read i recommend that you that you pick it up at fine bookstores everywhere thanksgiving.

we're very excited to have our guest today. thomas maier he is the this is his ninth book that we're looking at today, the invisible spy. two of his books have turned into series both for a showtime and paramount plus masters of sex and a docu series called mafia spies. this book, as well as a few others, were written up in the wall street journal. this is his 40th year at newsday, just retired. we are very excited. please give a warm welcome to thomas maier everybody. thank you very much. i always any book talk where you can begin with serving beer or drinks. i think that's always a nice touch. i just wanted to start by

essentially with two questions. if i. one is how many people here been to rockefeller center? just if you could just clap. so we can hear it on c-span up here. yeah, there are millions of people who come rockefeller center every and about ten years ago, i a book about the churchills and the kennedys. it's a big, fat book. it's called wine lion's roar. but whenever you do a big project that there is some type of like sidebar information that you say, okay, it's not part of this book. but that sounds really interesting. so what i learned in that, doing that book ten years ago was that when winston churchill became prime minister in may of 1940, what determined and bear in mind, england had already been at war. the nazis had take over taken over much of western europe. and so they were very much

fearing in london that they were about to be bombed. they were soon to be bombed, that they would be invaded by the nazis, that hitler was the run. and so when winston comes in as the new prime minister, one of the things he determines is that he will lose the war that his country, everything that they have known will end unless they are able to get the united states involved. so what he does is he decides to put a group of at rockefeller center, and it's led by a group of canadians and also british among those british spies work there is ian fleming who later goes to create james bond. and one of the people that ian fleming becomes friendly with is the subject. my book, the invisible spy and his name is ernest cuneo.

ernest is somebody i'm going to talk in a moment. but i also wanted to ask a second question. when we speak, just so that everybody understands what we are talking about here, when i say spying, when you think of spy ring and you think of how portrayed in popular culture, what is probably the best known spy in american culture, would anybody an idea about that? that's somebody. yes, sir. dame. oh, bingo. you got it right away. that's good. we didn't i didn't have to give the. thank you so much. it's james bond. and i guess i gave it away a little bit with ian fleming mentioning that he created james bond. but, you know, when we watched those james bond movies in particular that is what is known as covert that actually developed in terms of american

espionage fundamentally what is spy. that's what i'm asking here. and what spying about is about is the collection of information fundamentally. that's how it comes about. it's it's very secretive. it's invisible in a sense it should be if it's done well, it is invisible. but the covert stuff the james bond type of stuff later on developed. so i want you to keep that in mind because ernest cuneo was he he his life the life and times ernest cuneo he is the american and spy of world two and his what he did involves both the collection of information that type of spying. he's in covert operations as well. and i'll talk about that and a lot of these things described in

my book but he's also becomes the liaison for the first agent c it was known the office of strategic services. that's the first spy agency. and so i'm going to talk about how ernest kind of encompasses that. he's the first one. he is very first spy of world war two and his life and his times and his involvement with espionage goes before the world war two, the entry of america. world war two, of course, the bombing of pearl harbor by the japanese in december of 41. that begins like the stage two of this book. and then after the war, in the cold war, it's surprising how much ernest is involved with the cia and also involved with ian fleming and how he and fleming worked through through particularly james bond to try

to represent this extraordinary experience. they had but bear in mind, when you were a spy, all that whole generation of people you were told, keep your mouth shut. and basically ernest cuneo, even as a political operative for president roosevelt, he was invisible. he realized that i can be more effective by being envies than i am by issuing releases and going on social media and bragging about exploits. no that was quite the contrary. so that's part of the intrigue again aspect. when i did this book ten years ago, i learned about churchill putting the spies at rockefeller. i said, wow, i didn't know i you know, all these new yorkers walking past of the

international buildings where they have the the statue of atlas right in front of st patrick's cathedral on fifth avenue. and yet yet up on the 36th floor is this big foreign spy operation, the biggest one of all and all of us smart new yorkers are walking past completely clueless of what was going on. so when i found out that and also found out who was the middleman, who was the connection between the americans and churchill spies, and that his name was ernest cuneo. that's the beginning of this book. so who the heck am i to do this? as was mentioned, i for 40 years i worked for newsday as an investigative reporter. my just retired in may my last year i was on the editorial board at newsday that was my day

job. my job that really started, i guess, in the late eighties. nineties was writing books. and i tried to write about books about america in our times and i define that pretty broadly. but so i did a book about masters and johnson the sex researchers and i was very fortunate that that became a tv show. i did another book that came out as a tv show. this past summer called mafia spies, and that was a six part series that's on paramount and also on showtime. you can find it on demand there, but getting involved with the world of, spying, i thought that was really interesting. and so what i've tried to do is write about america in our times, but particularly those people who are good windows into history. in other words, when you a

biography i wrote a book about dr. sparked the baby doctor for instance, and his life touched upon a lot themes and a lot of major aspects of american life with ernest cuneo, i was really intrigued in a number of different ways. what is that he went to columbia, which is something that i did as well. the idea that he was on a football team at columbia that was good because most teams unfortunately at columbia not all that great but he became he went he joined the nfl and there are stories ernest in the new york times he was even on the wrestling team, but he becomes a member the the early days of the nfl and back in those days you would play during the season but you'd have to get a second job or some other type thing to,

keep you busy to make money because you weren't paid that much money. in fact, with the nfl football games, they would they would collect the receipts notes and then they would get paid at the end of the game. players would get paid at the end of the game. that's a lot different than than professional sports is today. but while he was doing that, he went to law school, he went to st john's, he got a law degree and he wound up doing two things. he worked at night for the new york daily news. unfortunately, newsday was not around back then. maybe you could have worked for newsday. but he worked for the daily news. he was a crime reporter at night, like all these type of tabloid of fronts. he learns how to write he's picking up some money to help pay for law school. but he's introduced to a congress woman. his name is fiorello laguardia and on he he really becomes good friends, laguardia, because

they're both italian-americans. they can still have that sense of what it's like, but particularly 100 years ago to be out to be outsiders in in united states, it's still fun. mentally run by white anglo-saxon in charge. and so but ernest is really smart and he's really good and laguardia likes but also ernest had become friends with a number different teachers who wind up working in the administration of franklin roosevelt who goes from being the new york governor in 1932. he's elected president. and there was a whole group of people from, harvard and columbia, who became what is known brain trust of president of fdr and you are doing so many

things fdr did in those two terms. you a cadre of attorneys, particularly who really well versed in the law who make your vision happen. and so he was all part of that and he also up getting a job because he was kind of he was working for the democratic party but he was also established as law practice. and he winds up becoming the lawyer walter winchell. walter winchell is the far and away the biggest media figure in america if you've ever seen that show the untouchables. he had that rat tat tat voice and walter winchell, though, was on nights and people would listen him and he also was in a

hundreds literally hundreds of newspaper around the country. this is all before television. so had a huge impact. and so when my ernest cuneo becomes his attorney, he's not only giving legal advice, but he's like a source for. winchell a lot of stuff from the roosevelt white house that winds up in winchell's columns and on broadcasts are coming through ernest. they would go out after the sunday night broadcast and they would go to the various different nights. the store club, which was like the biggest nightclub then we're talking in 1930s and he become ernest is introduced to the the leading crime fighter in america, j. edgar hoover of the fbi. and he's running after people like dillinger and all these other characters, you know,

essentially is a crime fighter. and that's also getting into column. winchell helps hoover, very famous. and so hoover also to party believer he would he would be one of the people at walter winchell table at the stork club on sunday nights or various different nights. and so ernest becomes friendly with hoover all so we cut to the beginning of my book. the beginning of my book starts with two nazi spy walking down the street in times all these people walking there, these two nazi spies have been there carrying a satchel of papers. those papers are all about their plans to blow up new york, kind of a 911 type of situation.

if the united states enter enters the war. and this is in of 1941. so something's going to happen, america looks like it's going to be in the war and these two spies are walking through times square when one of them is struck by, a car fatally run right over the other spy. instead attending to his buddy, picks up the satchel and runs away. so the cops are called to this fatal scene in times they look at the dead men, they pull out the papers out of his pockets and it's a spaniard. according to the papers. and the cops say, okay, let's with the la, who is this guy? this dead guy. and they go to the spanish officials in the united states, in new york the consuls office and they say there is no such guy these papers are forgeries, they're phonies. they're it's it's not our guy.

so the cops go to jack hoover at the fbi and he's clueless about it but the that do know who the dead guy is as it turns out is the british spies at rockefeller center and the way in which they find that is the savoy giving the other spy runs away with the papers he writes letters to the folks back nazi germany about what has happened now those when they go out and ships and going to europe would through bermuda and there was if you've ever been to the i believe it's hamilton princess the older very lovely hotel but in the lower floor there there was a whole censoring operation where they would literally through the mail coming from to to europe and they found this guy's letter and

it turned out there was a mention about this times square incident. and eventually they wind up finding this who where that surviving nazi spy is. there's a whole nazi spy ring. and eventually hoover gets the these big headlines about it. but the ernest cuneo was involved all of this. what was fascinating to me was how in many ways by today's standards he was part of the deep state not not the ritz oracle deep state that we hear and talked about, but are indeed people in government who have permanent positions. and there people in administrations may come and go but those people who work usually in civil service positions, but they're the ones who how to really make the the the trains run on to make to

make all these various different operations work and ernest cuneo was one of those what happened is when pearl harbor occurs roosevelt decides that we really do need a spy historic. lee the united states has been very slow to adopt any type of spy agencies. it's really hard for us to imagine these with the cia and all these different intelligence services that that was so but actually they're the isolation, this view of america american 19 4041, most folks did not want to go to war most people remember world war one. in fact, i on the plaque over here in oyster bay, you can see the number of people who in oyster bay in the first world war. so that only 20 years later that

this whole prospect of another war happening and so there was a real determination not to get involved and that was also reflected with espionage. in fact, there was a secretary of state, the name of stimson, who says that gentleman who would say, do not read the mail of other gentlemen and. that was the reasons why we didn't a spy agency. but after harbor, roosevelt realizes while really wrong and he creates office of strategic service says it's headed by a a decorated world war one veteran william bill donovan. but the person that becomes the for the s.s. is ernest cuneo my guy. he's the man deals with the fbi. he deals with the state

department. he deals with the justice department. he knows a lot of these folks, because they were all part of roosevelt's brain trust as as was he. and so i tell a lot of that story in my book after when when world war two begin was who now finds himself involved in a lot of different things. he works with a man named allen dulles. it occurs to cuneo when i talk about intelligence, the gathering of intelligence and with spyware. coutinho realizes that you know, a lot of insurance companies is they keep the record when they ensure a a big company. one of the things that they do is ask for the map of the building itself and since they had they had access to the buildings in europe. he tells allen dulles, who is

also working for the oic says this is in 1941. why don't we try to get those records so that we can know where to bomb and you know, what might the places that we should be targeting? it's just one of many examples of of spy operations i mentioned in my book. but he he becomes friendly with dulles and that later becomes factor in my book years but he cult of earnest cultivates a wide number of folks contacts his back and forth between new york and washington and. and in doing so he also becomes very friendly with people at rockefeller center. the british the british spy operation at rockefeller center was run by a name a guy named william intrepid was his nickname codename stephenson.

william stephenson intrepid is how earnest and even his children refer to him as as intrepid. and stephenson was a brilliant spy. he was doing three things at rockefeller center. he first goes to hoover and to get permission the very outset, when churchill wants do this and hoover says, okay, if want to set up this spy operation and at rockefeller center and you say that your main purpose is just to keep the spy excuse the supply lines open between the united states and europe britain's at war it's desperate that they have open supply lines and you have the waters of the atlantic are filled with nazi submarines and ships just waiting to disrupt this the lines and also there the problem

of nazi spies in the united states and whether or not they were influencing influencing things. so hoover says okay. fine with me if you put this operation up on center, if you get the okay of the president and they say, how do you do? he said, well, i think your best bet is to go through sky. we know that. i know hoover. his name is. and so go to cuneo, explain the situation and the white house says, yes, we should get involved. this is okay. but ernest, tell your it you're going be the one that deals with the churchill spies and and and so that story goes goes on and on that i explain in my book.

but ernest was somebody who i think had a hard time adapting initially from seeking fame as a football player, and then suddenly being told in and during this time period to keep a low profile, he's working for one of the best known people in the country. and he's going out to these nightspots. but what i found really intriguing in this book was how he was a spy hiding in plain, as they say, and much of my book, it contains a number of different spy examples. but that either directly involved ernest cuneo or involve him because he's with these agencies. and i tell this probably about 20 to 25 different spy stories. we threw out the overall of ernest cuneo. that's also, frankly, one of the

things that attracted me as a person who's developed tv as well, that there were so many individual stories that were part of his overall the overall arc of his life. i found that to be really interesting. well, in working with people at rockefeller center, i there were two major people, though, besides stevenson intrepid, who's running the there's ian fleming and a lot of the book, particularly the back end of the book, when developing when ian fleming is writing the james bond novels, it was a very improbable friendship between ernest cuneo and ian fleming and and yet fleming was one of the people like many others who wanted to explain. and after the war, just all the excitement of of his world espionage. in fact, there's a play there's a musical right now called

operation. and that fundamentally ian fleming's idea when he was there but he was also a number of other things that happened to fleming while he was working as a spy for the british army, particularly in casi no royal, which is the first james bond movie, a personal and then becomes a movie ernest cuneo. so later on in book because we have a short of time here but later on in the book after, the war, ian fleming and kunio go into business together. they're involved in a newspaper syndicate which is kind of a cia, because ernest keeps his relationships in the in the in that world. but he's also becomes he meets a woman by the name of margaret watts, and she's a canadian spy working at rockefeller center

and their loves. and what it's like with the women who are working at rockefeller are part of my book as well and my book goes through war two with a number of different cases. then it enters to the cold. and it's interesting to see what happens there. ernest is involved as is stevenson in that the russians who have been our ally during world war two by the end of the that they would become enemy. they were really frenemy as they say throughout particularly the the back end of war two. and so there's you see a number of cases in my book that help illustrate that i was also really interested in the the aspect of double agents throughout this book there's

it's basically told through the rockefeller center spies but stephenson who i've mentioned before he was the number one but there was a number a guy who ran things when stephenson was out in the field and. there's a variety of different things that were going, but his name was dickie ellis and dickie was involved in everything that when stephenson was out of the office, dickie was in charge. so dickie helped put together with americans because they needed help. we had our first spy agency was this ss dickie. with that there was camp. it was known as camp where spies taught how to kills, how to be saboteurs. it was like a whole scouting camp, if you will, for mayhem and murder up on the canadian border. and dickie was involved with that. and dickie involved with a guy

named kim philby, who was eventually exposed as a working for the soviets there was a an during the war called the papers. and these were the title for a group encrypted coded that the russians were sending out that we were able to get access to we were reading the russians mail now and and decoding it and the united states decided not to reveal that for a number of for a number of years literally not until around the 1980s did it become known who was a double agent. and it turns out that dickie the number two apparently he was double agent.

and so late in his life, ernest and stevens, they were shocked by this. i was able to get ernest cooney's memoir, his unpublished memoir from his family, his papers are up at the fdr library and together is able to put this whole thing together. so when i look at the story of ernest cuneo, it is a window into the world american espionage from the very beginning he's really he is the first spy of world war two and he is you can follow his life his life and times and tell the story of modern america and espionage and that's what very much attracted me to it even though i said ts i'm going to write a book about a guy who's deliberately anonymous. it's the first time i've ever written a book about who really was not well-known at all and.

so i had hesitation. but by the time i was finished this book i was i was so glad that i did it. i thought it really tells a very important story you could really make the claim that aside from alan, who who was known you could tell the story of american espionage and the growth of through that the story of ernest cuneo and that's why the book is named the invisible spy. i thank you so much for coming tonight, and i'd be happy to this evening and to entertain any questions that you may have. yes, i will bring the microphone around if you have a question, just raise your hands. yes, yes, yes we'll start. hold on. ellen, but then i'll come back. so is ernest cuneo attributed to thwarting something? you know he responsible for all

through his spying know, stopping something or, preventing something from happening. yeah, that's a lot, actually. one of the things that i thought was really this is not so much this was his access to the white house he got wind that about 600,000 italian americans native italian-americans, not native born, born in italy, italian-americans were going to be interned just like the japanese were out on the west coast. and he went to the attorney general and really fought against that. so he realized that his who were still alive and some of the folks that he knew in his life may very well be interned. 600,000 italian-americans. so that was one of the things that he stuck there. if you've ever seen them, the the movie patton general, george

patton, there was a real turf battle. and there's a scene in the movie the the movie patent, which was won the academy award with a scene where slaps a soldier and it became at first buried because the press covering patton agreed not to mention it in the press and but that was back in washington there was patton was giving a lot of hard times to the ss the spy agency an cuneo finds this out and he winds up giving that information about slapping the soldier to drew who's another guy like walter winchell a well-known media figure he was later to his column, later was taken over by jack anderson who you may remember but pearson writes the story about patton. it becomes a sensation about that.

i mean, we've all known it we've all seen that tv. we've seen that movie. but my describes behind the scenes how that all happened and. so there were a lot of things like that. there are also lot of fake things that were done there were some fake documents create a fake map that was created by ian fleming's best friend in another british spy. and that president roosevelt actually mentioned that photo map in a speech they brought ernest cuneo brought over a guy named de waal who was a quote unquote astrologer he was actually an old vaudevillian. and they brought him over as a astrologer who at the press conference set up here in new york by ernest, covered by all of the media. this is just before pearl harbor. this astrologer predicted, the death of adolf hitler. and they deliberately did,

because the british believe that was making military decisions based upon his has astrological signs and so that to play with hitler's and i do mean crazy you know they they printed phony guy ernest sets up here in new york with a press conference and there's all these headlines astrologer predicts hitler's death so there's a lot of like that that are told in this book. and so, like i said, he's behind the scenes but as he said by remaining anonymous that's the key to my my power by being behind the scenes. is there a person right behind oh right right right here. okay yes. good afternoon. when you say we really didn't have a spying operation before world war two, when it was decided we should pursue that how did they recruit people be spies. you couldn't put ads in the paper. i mean, how did they do that? well, the ss was referred

somewhat derisively as o, so social. so you had a lot academics and and writers like people like. but arthur schlesinger, julia child was part of the ss. there's a number of people who were recruited to that that and they did, you know, spy thing this book i like to think underlines how important spy is in general to warfare, the conflicts that take place, the battlefield are the most obvious things. but there's a lot of intelligence work that's done. winston understood that very well. i mean, as young man, he was involved in that type of stuff in. the boer war, for instance, he was doing intelligence. so he knew that the germans had a very active spy operation here

in the united states leading up to the war. and, of course, the russian are really great at as unfortunately we even find out today. and so most countries we a relative rarity and so recruiting people wasn't that hard but we were starting essentially from scratch with the bombing of pearl harbor. it should never that way we should have been engaged in some type of intelligence operations well before it's all part of a defense of a country, and it's the cheapest of defense to have a well operating intelligence service. so i one one more back here and we'll go out there. no, no, no, sir, sir. the with the microphone here. yes, sir. in your research, you find any information about, christopher lee, conducting any operations, sir? sir christopher lee no no,

unfortunately. and we'll come back up here. so give me the mike. oh, thank you. did you ever read about william donovan? oh, yes yes. you know william donovan was the most decorated officer in world war. one. he started spying prior to the uss and he was the one who directly spoke with roosevelt. they set up the spying with everyone and all went through him. in fact, prior to pearl harbor being bombed. he had set up spies throughout the world and basically had a whole spy system set when when it was attacked. yeah, well, they were aware of spies in the history of america. nathan hale from this obviously was a spy, but the ss really the

first operation, you know also with donovan it's interesting the relationship he had with roosevelt. donovan was an irish catholic republican from upstate new york. he actually had been a also a football at columbia. he had played just like ernest cuneo did. but it's interesting that roosevelt decided to put the uss. i have donovan in charge that i think later on at the end of the war it's i think some of the undersea of donovan's very illustrious career is somewhat diminished by the that i think he was showing very bad judgment towards the end of the war and. some of those episodes are in there. i know for a fact i think churchill felt that he essentially was a pain in the -- at the end. of the war. yeah. your father being. yeah. father's beginning.

yeah, yeah, yeah. sorry, sorry okay. oh, do we have question. well i'll go get another. okay. yeah, if you want. thank you know i was just saying that if googled william donovan, he was the father of spy system. yeah, he's given that out of the back of my book. you'll find plenty books related to william donovan, including douglas waller. spock are any other questions. someone? yes. right here. proceeds. hi. thank you. i wondering if in your research you came across any connections between the early uss and the codebreaking that was being done mostly by women in colleges who were recruited on the basis of their interest in math and language and puzzles. yeah. you know, it's interesting because with uss, there were a lot of things going on and the female codebreakers, there's been a couple of books about that, you know, called code

girls. i think was one of the books by lisa mundy, not that i want to get plugs now. the writers, but yeah, that's a very fine book. so there were different dynamics of the ss. there was a part, the ss where they actually were parachuted in before as as normandy happening. they were parachuted in kind of behind the german lines that upset things. ernest cuneo is a very high level job in the ss as the liaison, but he's also kind of like his own free agent, which is part of the intrigue charm. for me as a writer, he's he's you could almost claim that was a british spy, but he was active, involved with the russia, with the rockefellers, british spies and. so there were many different dimensions of the ss during the war. earnest is only a small part of that. but he's a, as i mentioned, he's

actively involved with a lot of different agencies. it's all in my book. one more. i think we have time for one more question. this more questions. there's anyone right over here. you just wondering if you were aware of the culper spy ring played a very important role in the american in which oyster bay played a prominent role, right? yes. oh, absolutely. you know, the thing that i thought in terms of local i just did a piece for newsday about allen dulles. he actually had a house in the huntington area. but what's interesting with i mention that allen dulles and ernest cuneo had worked at rockefeller center, but later on in my book, i mentioned how dulles stayed in contact with cuneo. they when john f kennedy is killed, one of the things that i found are fbi documents that

indicate that what on the warren commission was dulles. he had been fired by jeff k, but it was suggested that he should be part of the warren commission investigating jfk. his death so in the middle of that he dulles leaking to ernest cuneo and cuneo goes to his friend hoover to see if he can more information because who know is going to write at this stage of the game he's running this newspaper he's going to write a large story for the saturday evening post about inside the warren commission. bear in mind, even while that was going on dulles was very clearly aware he didn't. the information about the plot kill castro that had been going on during a kennedy administration. he did not. that was top secret. few people knew about it and

nobody on the warren commission ever learned about that. but they also wanted to make sure that the cia wasn't blamed for not picking up the fact that lee oswald was on their radar screen. and that's some of these most recent that's the thing that's most interesting is that lee harvey oswald was on radar screen and, so they didn't want to be blamed for that. and so i find these documents, fbi documents, one of which was written by hoover himself, that explains that say, ernest cuneo came in to see us we like ernest cuneo. but he's telling us that dulles is leaking him about what's going on in the warren commission. and so they you know, we told them we like but we're not going to cooperate with that. the president told us all to be hush hush with this. and so but it kind of was a real interesting illustration of the contact that somebody like ernest cuneo in the spy world made. and it was also an interesting

thing about how when you do, you find a lot of stuff that you already knew, just elaborates on things that you already knew. but every so often you find a little gem like that and say, wow, i didn't know and i've checked around. it hasn't been mentioned before. so i thought that was the first and only known leak of the warren commission outside to an outside source during its deliberations. so thought that was really interesting. all right. thank you so much. give a round of applause to thomas mann.

so hello again. my name is still johnny. i am still the editorial director of publishers. that might change on how the thing goes. i believe my boss is in the room. i don't know. i'm very lucky to be joined up here by. two very influential figures in