Fell behind in posting historic spy posts:
Mar 2, 1902: On this date, Baseball player Moe Berg born. “The brainiest guy in baseball,” Berg was fluent in 7 languages & was a catcher in the major league before serving as an Office of Strategic Services agent during WW2. (1/4)
Moe Berg was recruited to the OSS in August 1943 as an undercover agent. Stationed in Europe, he was tasked with, among other responsibilities, trying to determine Germany’s development of an atomic bomb. (2/4)
https://baseballhall.org/discover/short-stops/moe-bergs-life-in-baseball
The OSS dropped Berg into Yugoslavia to report on resistance groups. He later interviewed Italian physicists & rocket scientists. In his most dangerous assignment, the Jewish Berg was sent to potentially assassinate German nuclear scientist Werner Heisenberg to halt the Nazis’ nuclear program. (3/4)
https://paw.princeton.edu/article/moe-bergs-papers-glimpses-puzzling-figure
After WW2, President Truman Berg awarded Berg the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given to civilians during wartime, but he refused it. After he died in 1972, his sister, Ethel, claimed the award, which she later donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame. (4/4)
