The Plot Against the Big Three

It is often difficult to decide which histories are apocryphal and which are true. This is one of those instances.

In 1943, Soviet “illegal” Nikolai Kuznetsov was serving behind enemy lines, in occupied Rovno, Ukraine. His cover identity was German First Lieutenant Paul Wilhelm Siebert, which he maintained against considerable odds. But that is another story.

One of “Siebert’s” contacts, Sturmbannführer Ulrich von Oertel, owed him money. Asking for a bit more time to pay Siebert back, von Oertel let slip that he would soon be able to pay him back in kind, in Persian rugs. And then, perhaps because he had had a bit too much brandy, von Oertel proceeded to tell Siebert about an impending German operation (“Operation Long Jump”) to take out the three heads of state – Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt – at their November summit in Tehran.

Kuznetsov informed Moscow Center about the plot and Moscow swung into action. It was soon learned that the German operation would be headed by Otto Skorzeny, who that same year led the group that liberated the deposed Benito Mussolini from captivity.

Meanwhile, a 19-year-old Soviet resident in Tehran, Gevork Vartanian, was tracking an advance team of six German soldiers that had parachuted into Qum, then made their way overland 100 kilometers to Tehran. Vartanian and his crew kept the group under close observation, so much so in fact that the advance group radioed back to Berlin that their cover had been blown and they were under surveillance (and later arrested).

An October airdrop into Iran of the second group – presumably the assassins and Skorzeny – was called off. But the Soviets did not know that at the time and could not be sure there was not another plot in the works.

Indeed, it was reputedly concern for the American president’s security, and the unfavorable location of the American embassy in Tehran, that led Josef Stalin to insist that Franklin Roosevelt stay at the Soviet Embassy during the summit. As this was very close to the British Embassy, the Soviets constructed a safe, six-meter corridor between the two buildings for the duration of the conference.

Of course, the Big Three had an utterly uneventful summit, assassination-wise, and this story has entered history’s annals of “What ifs.”

Problem is, there are those who think it is just that, only a story.

American and British intelligence have doubted its veracity, primarily because they had no confirmation from sources other than Soviet intelligence.

After the war, Skorzeny was adamant that Long Jump never existed and said there never existed an Ulrich von Oertel to tip off Kuznetsov. (Kuznetsov died in February 1944, so his account is only available through the filter of Soviet war historians.) But of course Skorzeny would have little reason to brag about an aborted operation to kill one’s adversaries, now one’s overlords.

Other critics have noted that any such plot would have been sheer folly, as there were 3000 NKVD troops in Tehran during the conference and all of German intelligence assets in the city had been rolled up nearly six months previous.

In 1981, a French-Soviet film, Tehran 43, romanticized Operation Long Jump, with a Cold War twist, though the assassination plot in the film little resembled the 1943 operation, real or imagined.

In 2010, Vartanian collaborated on the production of a two-part TV movie, True History: Tehran 43, which purported to stick closer to the “facts,” and the trailer has Churchill’s granddaughter thanking Vartanian for saving her grandfather’s life. [bit.ly/teheran43film]

Yet, barring further corroborating evidence, it will remain a mystery whether Operation Long Jump was a self-serving Soviet fabrication or a real threat to the lives of the Big Three.

But it is a compelling story either way.