• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

FBI Studies

  • Home
  • Ray Batvinis
    • Speaking
    • Research
  • Blog
    • Videos
  • Hoover’s Secret War against Axis Spies
    • Praise
    • Chapter 1
    • Book Reviews
    • Book Lecture Video
  • Origins of FBI Counterintelligence
    • Praise
    • Book Review
    • Introduction
    • Chapter One
    • CSPAN Video
  • Resources
    • Videos
    • History News
    • Store
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Blog / World War II House of Secrets

June 6, 2022 By Raymond J. Batvinis, PhD

World War II House of Secrets

I was interviewed for an article in Newsday about the Long Island house where the FBI ran a spy operation:

The world was in a desperate battle with the Nazis when a German spy climbed to the third floor of a red-shingled home in Wading River to reveal the most closely guarded secret of World War II — the location of the coming invasion of Europe. The man, a dapper Argentine living in the United States, keyed out the information on a transmitter that told the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) where to repel the attempt and secure their victories on the continent.

There was one problem. The man was not a Nazi spy; he was a double agent. A German operative was not seated at the transmitter; the message was typed out by an FBI man posing as him. And the intelligence was not that the invasion would come at Pas de Calais or Normandy, as Adolf Hitler anticipated. It would come through Norway.

The Germans, masters of propaganda and deception, swallowed it all. “They were completely bamboozled,” said Raymond J. Batvinis, who relates the tale in his book “Hoover’s Secret War Against Axis Spies” (University Press of Kansas, 2014).

How a peaceful farmhouse perched on a bluff overlooking Long Island Sound became a top-secret operation is a story worthy of a movie (“The House on 92nd Street,” which came out in 1945, is partly based on it).

The entire episode was so furtive that even on this, the week of the 78th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944, it remains largely unknown . . . .

Read pdf of the article: LI’s World War II House of Secrets

–

Also see:

  • Long Island Home’s Secret Role in WWII Espionage Revealed
  • Wading River Radio Station
  • FBI’s top secret World War II Wading River Radio Station listed on National Register of Historic Places
  • Benson House: A Secret Revealed
  • FBI Recognizes WWII Counterintelligence Landmark in New York
  • Benson House’s wartime role as LI espionage post remembered
  • EVENT: Ceremony at historic FBI radio transmitter site – June 7
  • Secret WWII FBI radio transmission location featured in Batvinis book
  • Wading River retreat house was FBI disinformation operation in World War II

Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Blog

Primary Sidebar

Follow Ray

Facebooktwitterlinkedinrssyoutube

Books by Dr. Ray Batvinis

Origins of FBI Counterintelligence

Hoovers Secret War Against Axis Spies book cover

Recent Posts

  • World War II House of Secrets
  • Walking a Tightrope: FBI’s John Cimperman and the ULTRA Secret
  • Watergate: Competing Fond Memories
  • CODENAME: WALLFLOWER — The Guy Liddell Diaries
  • Message from FBI Director Wray re Bob Levinson
  • COVID 19 Message from the FBI
  • A Morning to Remember
  • The First Victory
  • The spies among us: More Chinese agents digging up secrets in Florida
  • IG Report and Message from Director Wray
  • Arne Treholt Espionage Case
  • Facts and the new “Wall of Spies” re Koval and Weisband
  • Senate Caucus Room
  • American Citizen Arrested for Acting as an Illegal Foreign Agent of the People’s Republic of China
  • North American Society for Intelligence History 2019 Conference

Watch Videos

videopixCheck out all the videos on FBI Studies related to FBI history and espionage. Video Page

FBI Studies Tweets

My Tweets

Footer

About

Historical FBI Studies by Raymond J. Batvinis, PhD, author of "The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence" and "Hoover's Secret War Against Axis Spies: FBI Counterintelligence During World War II." About Ray Batvinis

Contact Ray

Contact Form
Facebooktwitterlinkedinrssyoutube

Watch Videos

videopixCheck out all the videos on FBI Studies related to FBI history and espionage. Video Page

Recent Posts

  • World War II House of Secrets
  • Walking a Tightrope: FBI’s John Cimperman and the ULTRA Secret
  • Watergate: Competing Fond Memories
  • CODENAME: WALLFLOWER — The Guy Liddell Diaries
  • Message from FBI Director Wray re Bob Levinson
  • COVID 19 Message from the FBI
  • A Morning to Remember
  • The First Victory
  • The spies among us: More Chinese agents digging up secrets in Florida

Copyright 2022 Raymond J. Batvinis, PhD | Website by CJKCREATIVE.COM

 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.