Moe Berg

: For the Canadian singer/songwriter Moe Berg, please see Moe Berg (musician).

Post-baseball career

Spying for the U.S. Government

With the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, the United States was thrust into World War II. To do his part for the war effort, Berg accepted a position with Nelson Rockefeller's Office of Inter-American Affairs on January 5, 1942. Nine days later, his father Bernard died. During the summer of 1942, Berg screened the footage he shot of Tokyo Bay for intelligence officers of the United States military. The film may or may not have helped Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle plan his famous Doolittle Raid.

Related Topics:
Attack on Pearl Harbor - Japanese - December 7 - 1941 - United States - World War II - Nelson Rockefeller - Office of Inter-American Affairs - January 5 - 1942 - United States military - Lieutenant Colonel - Jimmy Doolittle - Doolittle Raid

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From August 1942 until February 1943 Berg was on assignment in the Caribbean and South America. His job was to monitor the health and physical fitness of the American troops stationed there. Berg, along with several other OIAA agents, left in June 1943 because they thought South America posed little threat to the United States, and they wanted to be someplace where their talents would be put to better use.

Related Topics:
1943 - Caribbean - South America

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On August 2, 1943, Berg accepted a position with the Office of Strategic Services for a salary of $3,800 a year. In September, he was assigned to the Secret Intelligence branch of the OSS and given a place at the OSS Balkans desk. In this role, he parachuted into Yugoslavia to evaluate the various resistence groups operating against the Nazis to determine which was the strongest. He talked to both Draza Mihajlovic and Josip Broz and reviewed their forces, deciding that Josip Broz had the stronger and better supported group. His evaluations were used to help determine the amount of support and aid to give each group. In late 1943, Berg was assigned to Project Larson, an OSS operation set up by OSS Chief of Special Projects John Shaheen. The stated purpose of the project was to kidnap Italian rocket and missile specialists out of Italy and bring them to the U.S. However, there was another project hidden within Larson called Project AZUSA with the goal of interviewing Italian physicists to see what they knew about Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. It was similar in scope and mission to the ALSOS project. On May 4, 1944 Berg left for London and the start of his mission.

Related Topics:
August 2 - Office of Strategic Services - Secret Intelligence - Yugoslavia - Draza Mihajlovic - Josip Broz - John Shaheen - Italian - Rocket - Missile - Physicists - Werner Heisenberg - Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker - ALSOS - May 4 - 1944 - London

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From May to mid-December, Berg hopped around Europe interviewing physicists and trying to convince several to leave Europe and work in America. At the beginning of December news about Heisenberg giving a lecture in Zurich, Switzerland reached the OSS, and Berg was assigned the task of attending the lecture and determining "if anything Heisenberg said convinced him the Germans were close to a bomb." If Berg came to the conclusion that the Germans were close, he had orders to shoot Heisenberg; Berg determined that the Germans were not close. During his time in Switzerland, Berg became close friends with the physicist Paul Scherrer. Berg returned to the United States on April 25, 1945, and resigned from the Strategic Services Unit, the successor to the OSS, in August. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 10, but he rejected the award on December 2. His sister later accepted it on his behalf after he died.

Related Topics:
Zurich - Switzerland - Bomb - Paul Scherrer - April 25 - 1945 - Strategic Services Unit - Presidential Medal of Freedom - October 10 - December 2

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After World War II

In 1952, Berg was hired by the CIA to use his old contacts from World War II to find out about Soviet atomic science. For the $10,000 plus expenses that Berg received, the CIA got nothing in return. The CIA officer that spoke with Berg when he returned from Europe said that he was "flaky."

Related Topics:
1952 - CIA

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For the next 25 years, Berg had no real job, living off friends and relatives who put up with him because of his great charm. When they would ask what he did for a living, he would reply by putting his finger to his lips, giving them the impression that he was still a spy. He lived with his brother Samuel for seventeen years. According to Samuel, he became moody and snappish after the war and did not seem to care for much in life besides his books. His brother finally grew fed up with the arrangement and asked Moe to leave. When his brother refused, Samuel had eviction papers drawn up to get him out. After being evicted from his brother's home, Berg moved in with his sister Ethel in Belleville, New Jersey, where he remained for the rest of his life.

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Berg received many requests to write his memoirs, but turned them down; he did almost write them on one occasion in 1960, but he quit after the co-writer that was assigned to him confused him with Moe Howard of the Three Stooges.

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Moe Berg died in 1972 at age 70 from injuries sustained in a fall at home. His remains were cremated and spread over Mount Scopus in Israel.

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