Operation Long Jump

Operation Long Jump
Date October–November 1943 Location Tehran, Iran Result Plot discovered and aborted
Belligerents
Nazi Germany	Soviet Union United States United Kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Ernst Kaltenbrunner Otto Skorzeny	Joseph Stalin Winston Churchill Franklin D. Roosevelt

Operation Long Jump (German: Unternehmen Weitsprung) was an alleged German plan to simultaneously assassinate Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt at the 1943 Tehran Conference during World War II. The operation to kill the "Big Three" Allied leaders in Iran was to be led by SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny from the Waffen SS. However agents from the Soviet Union uncovered the plot before its inception and the mission was never launched.

The assassination plan has been popularized today by the Russian media with appearances in films and novels. However many historians believe that the plan never existed and in fact was part of a Soviet disinformation campaign launched first by the NKVD and later the KGB.

Soviet version

Beginnings

According to Soviet intelligence, the German military intelligence discovered that a major conference would be held at Tehran in mid-October 1943 after breaking a U.S. Navy code. Based on this information, Adolf Hitler approved a scheme to kill all three Allied leaders. Operational control was passed to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the Reich Main Security Office, who chose Skorzeny to head the mission. The German agent Elyesa Bazna (codenamed "Cicero"), in Ankara, Turkey was also brought into the operation.

Counter-intelligence

Skorzeny in 1943

The NKVD alleged it quickly uncovered the plot despite German secrecy. It stated the first tip-off came from Soviet agent Nikolai Kuznetsov who was posing as Paul Siebert, an Oberleutnant in the Wehrmacht from Nazi-occupied Ukraine. Using a SS-Sturmbannführer named von Ortel who was known to become "talkative" when drinking, the Soviet agent learned about the operation by getting him drunk.

The Soviets got more information from 19-year-old Soviet spy Gevork Vartanian who had recruited a small number of agents in Iran, where his father, also a spy, was posing as a wealthy merchant. In 1943, Vartanian's group located an advance party of six German radio operators who had dropped by parachute near Qum, 60 km (37 mi) from Tehran. The Soviet spies followed the Germans to the Iranian capital, where an existing Abwehr network set them up in a villa.

From this villa, the Germans sent intelligence reports via radio to Berlin. However, unknown to them, all their transmissions were being recorded and decoded by NKVD operatives. The decrypts revealed a second group of operatives led by Skorzeny would be dropped into Iran for the actual assassination attempt in mid October. Vartanian's group already knew about Skorzeny because they had already tailed him during his own reconnaissance mission to Tehran.

Cancellation

But with October approaching, the mission was aborted. Berlin is believed to have received a secret code from Tehran indicating its agents had discovered they were under surveillance.

In 1984, Vartanian was recognised for his role in uncovering Operation Long Jump. He was awarded the Gold Star medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union for his service in World War II and the Cold War.

Western incredulity

When Stalin informed Churchill and Roosevelt about the plot, some members within the American and British delegations doubted the existence of a plot because all evidence of its existence was provided by Soviet intelligence. In Britain, the Joint Intelligence Committee of the War Cabinet considering the matter afterwards in London, concluded that the so-called Nazi plot against the Big Three was "complete baloney".

Historical veracity

Western studies have continued to doubt the Soviet story. Firstly, the German espionage network in Iran had been destroyed in mid-1943, well before Tehran was chosen as a meeting place. Secondly, more than 3,000 NKVD security troops guarded the city for the duration of the conference without incident. Thirdly, both Roosevelt and Churchill travelled on foot or open jeep throughout their four-day stay in Tehran.

Furthermore Otto Skorzeny said after the war that there had never been a commando operation. In his memoirs, he recalled a meeting with Hitler and Walter Schellenberg from the foreign intelligence branch of the Sicherheitsdienst. The assassination of Churchill was discussed, but Skorzeny said he told the Fuhrer the idea was unworkable. Hitler agreed with his assessment. Skorzeny wrote "Long Jump has really only existed in the imagination of a little bunch of truth-loving hacks [...]". He also castigated Russian sources for continually referring to Sturmbannführer Paul von Oertel, who Skorzeny said simply never existed.

Nevertheless, to Russians the story remains a subject of great interest. In 2003, the Russian writer Yuri Kusnez held a press conference in the Foreign Intelligence ministry in Moscow to promote his Tehran-43 In 2007, a Russian television company promoted a documentary with the working title The Lion and the Bear. It documented Long Jump and was to be presented by Churchill's granddaughter Celia Sandys.