From Newsgroup: soc.history.what-if

a425couple <a425couple@hotmail.com> wrote:

from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/how-oss-tried-defeat-hitler-world-war-ii/593455/

(Regards,,, been mentioned around here,,,)

The review (or possibly the book) has some serious errors, noted below.

The Bizarre Ways America|s First Spy Agency Tried to Overthrow Hitler

From undercover heiresses to hormone-injected vegetables, the early
days of the Office of Strategic Services were marked by colorful hires
and wild schemes.

SAM KEAN
JUL 9, 2019

...

The OSS was primarily shaped by two men: its director, William |Wild Bill# Donovan, and its chief scientist, Stanley Lovell. Donovan first won fame during World War I for leading a spectacularly idiotic assault. He
commanded the 69th Infantry of New York, the famous |Fighting Irish,#
who were trying to conquer a German fortress in the Argonne Forest in October 1918. During an intense shoot-out one day, Donovan received
orders to fall back. After considering his options, he ordered his men
to charge instead. When the Fighting Irish hesitated, he screamed,
|What|s the matter with you? You want to live forever?# and charged off alone, confident his men would follow. They did.

That sentiment is usually attributed to Sergeant Dan Daly (USMC), at
the battle of Belleau Wood, 6/6/1918:

"Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"

When World War II rolled around, Donovan was working in a New York law
firm. He happened to have attended law school at Columbia with Franklin
D. Roosevelt, and Roosevelt sent his old chum to England in July 1940 to provide a more accurate picture of events there than Joseph Kennedy Sr.,
the defeatist ambassador to the U.K., could. Although Donovan agreed
that things were grim, he emphasized the grit of the British people and singled out Winston Churchilliwho wasn|t even prime minster yetias a stupendous leader.

Churchill had become PM on 10 May 1940.

Like overgrown toddlers, Lovell|s team also developed several
feces-based weapons. One, called caccolube, destroyed car engines far
more thoroughly than sugar or sand when dumped into gas tanks.

Cacolube, as one might deduce from its name, attacked the lubricant
oil in an engine. The name alluded to its intense anti-lubricant
effect; there was no feces involved.

And those weren|t even the cockamamie ideas. After hearing that Hitler
and Mussolini would be holding a summit at the Brenner Pass between
Austria and Italy, Lovell devised a scheme to dump a vial of caustic
liquid into a vase of flowers in the conference room. Within 20 minutes, this volatile liquid would evaporate, turning into mustard gas and
frying the corneas of everyone present. To really add some punch, Lovell suggested contacting the pope ahead of time and having him prophesy that
God would strike the fascists blind for violating the Ten Commandments.

His suggestion was that the Pope speak out afterwards.

This post is adapted from Kean|s new book, The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb.

Kean appears to have relied extensively on Lovell's memoir _Of Spies and Strategems_. Unfortunately, Lovell is not an entirely reliable source.
--
Nous sommes dans une pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdos.
--- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan, 1870.
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From Newsgroup: soc.history.what-if

"Byker" <byker@do~rag.net> wrote:

Stalin's secret police also wanted to off der Fuhrer, but Uncle Joe stopped them, fearing that Adolf's successors would make a separate peace with the U.S., Britain, and France, thus leaving the Soviet Union wide open to the full force of the Wehrmacht...

Dunno about the second part... but there was at least one
assassination plot. There was a Russian actress named Olga
Chekhova. (She was married to a nephew of the great playwright
Anton Chekhov, who was also married to Olga's aunt.) She fled
Russia after the Revolution, and became a film star in Germany.

As head of all German "media" activities, Josef Goebbels had
many "glamorous film stars" as cronies, among them Chekhova.
These social contacts often included Hitler.

Meanwhile, her brother, who had remained in the USSR, had
become an important orchestra conductor. At one time it was
proposed in the NKVD that the brother contact her, and if
possible use her entroe into elite Nazi circles to get close
enough to Hitler to kill him. However, nothing came of it -
neither of the Chekhovs could or would really fulfill the
requirements.

(After the war, Olga lived in West Germany. In the 1950s,
her granddaughter, also an actress, dated an American
soldier stationed in Germany - a nice young fellow from
Tupelo, Mississippi.)
--
Nous sommes dans une pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdos.
--- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan, 1870.
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From Newsgroup: soc.history.what-if

"Rich Rostrom" wrote in message news:rrostrom-F2721B.10290417072019@reader01.eternal-september.org...

Churchill had become PM on 10 May 1940.

Just think if Lord Halifax would have been PM instead of Churchill, which
very nearly happened. When the BEF was pushed all the way back to the
Channel, he'd probably have sued for peace, and Franco-Prussian War II would have lasted a grand total of eight months. It's not as ludicrous as it
sounds. In April, 1940, over 90% of Americans polled wanted nothing to do
with getting involved in another European war. 110,000 U.S. troops died in
WWI, and the popular notion that we were "duped" into getting involved
produced a resentment that lasted a generation.

Interesting scenario to ponder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnQ_3anpWQk

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