It was significant that I was young when this transpired; for only that long ago would the intrigue of meeting what I believed was a Nazi, in New York not 25 years after the end of World War II, was still impassioned with living electricity.

I always ask myself," How many people my age have met Nazis?" Usually I come up with only one, my friend Larry who was with me that day. So, I thought to write this story.

In 1971 I worked for a Source Document Microfilm company, one of the industry pioneers in fact, on 5th Avenue and 21st, a New York neighborhood associated with the famous Madison square Park, former location of the original Madison Square Garden.

Buildings from the Gilded Age of the late 19th century towered over lower 5th Avenue, Grande Dame of New York City thoroughfares.

Along her sidewalks rise great stone buildings, monuments to the history of New York City, serving very different roles in the 70’s. Now they were but small separate offices filled with common entrepreneurial experimentation. You found odd unrelated businesses, nestled in little rooms, or combination of rooms, next to one another on floor after floor rising into the sky.

On 23rd street stands the first skyscraper ever erected, of steel and large granite stones; locals call it the Flatiron Building, it went up in 1902.

My Maternal Grandfather had once occupied offices in the Flatiron Building. He was a Cooper Union graduated architect and engineer, and he established himself in the Flatiron in 1910, one of the first buildings to have a telephone switchboard installed. He married one of the switchboard operators who became my Grandmother, so I have always felt a family connection to this New York neighborhood.

At that time I was married and living in a 4th floor walkup Greenwich Village studio apartment on Morton Street off Bleecker. In addition to our apartment in the Village we had a basement studio on the corner of West 4th Street, a feat for a wealthy man today, nothing for a poor artist to afford back then, in what by that standard alone was a very different New York.

Near the elevator on the 8th floor was a single old doorway to a one room office. The gold leaf lettering on the dimpled glass read American Shoulder Pad Company Inc.

On rare occasions the door was ajar and the old man inside was visible in the shadows. He seemed very bent over in his skullcap and winged collar. On his wood desk stood an old candlestick phone, the hearing cone dangled on a cloth covered cord.

I asked someone of the older gents who traded on that floor who that man was.

I learned he was the original owner of the whole 9 floor building.

In the late 19th century there was no radio or TV and outside of traveling vaudeville shows, many communities boasted local bands playing under a municipal Gazebo once a week, if not more.

When West Point’s famous Marching King bandleader John Phillip Sousa introduced his grandiose tuba redesign the Sousaphone, players required heavy pads to endure the instrument’s weight on their shoulder. This now retired Gent in the corner office once owned the entire building, his industry producing shoulder pads for players nationwide. People like him are all gone now.

Once I worked for a landlord who owned the building on Gay Street made famous by the old Theatre and Movie piece "My Sister Eileen". He was a millionaire eccentric who wore a beret and played chess daily in Washington Square Park next to Marcel Duchamp. He wore Salvation Army bought clothes and often looked up at me beneath massive thick white eyebrows saying, "I’d fight to the death for a nickel."

His name was Edmond. He shared his secret successes that followed his marriage to a wealthy young heiress at the heights of the ’29 crash. Together they bought 13 multiple dwellings in the Village that housed some of the Bohemian World’s most famous personalities, among them were Holly Woodlawn, Detective Frank Serpico, and the famed duo of "Dog Day Afternoon" who robbed a bank in Brooklyn.

To journey farther into New York’s intriguing history, Edmond was of French ancestry; his father had been a sail maker with a shop on the East River, when sailing vessels still went up and down, in the early 20^th century. His family owned an old parrot he told me that could sing the entire Marseilles, the National Anthem of France.

The best money he made was from a cream that emerged in 1920 when all skin conditions were called eczema called Noxzema, meaning no-eczema. Clever, huh?

My family had friends in Pennsylvania we used to visit yearly when I was a child. On the drive there we passed a large mountain like hill with a huge house atop it. This mansion was the home of the man, a simple machinist I was told, who had accidentally invented the mechanical voting machine we all used for 50 years in the USA. My mother had a way of always proving that even I if shrewd could be the inventor of the next, say, safety pin, if I applied myself.

Another money maker Edmond had invested in years ago was the invention of the mixing faucet, that thing on your bathroom sink that served up hot water on the left faucet handle and cold on the right. There was a time before indoor running water was commonplace and that invention was patented and proved highly successful as we all know. New York was a great learning experience then.

It was a sunny May afternoon, the kind of day that transports New York into a mesmerizing haze of scents and colors. The Microfilm Company was on the eight floor of an old building that had been there since before my Grandpa was born.

So many Hispanic workers labored in the Madison Square Park area that many takeout food joints favored Latino dishes. New Yorkers eat all kinds of international cuisine at the least classy of greasy spoons and love it all. The smells both rich and exotic combined with the spring air in New York the result as tantalizing as anywhere on Earth.

The walls of Documentary Repro Service were wainscoted half way up and flaking peeling paint above that to the height of the 12 foot walls. It still retained its original look from the late 19^th century and the wear of time as well. The light fixtures throughout the building were converted gas lamps. Many of the old wall units had been converted in many old buildings.

Along the walls were standalone automatic microfilm cameras, three of them. Operators sat facing a feeding trough. Cards or checks or like size documents were fed in by hand or automatic feeder in shuffled decks of 50 at a time and the rapid fire camera inside photographed front and back simultaneously and delivered a roll of 16mm black and white film, each frame representing one check.

The two end units were unoccupied. At the center machine sat a large Barbadian woman named Rhina, her laugh carried into the hallways through the open transoms over the doors. She always wore bright colors on her full framed figure, and was always happy and never seemed to tire of the endless boxes of checks she fed into the automatic microfilm camera, stationary floor unit it was called.

The owner was Murray Newman, a bald Jewish Korean War Veteran in his early 40’s, who upon receiving his discharge embarked on a Lunch Truck career financed by the GI bill upon his return from Asia. Murray had a profitable heavily trafficked spot outside a large factory in Jersey City.

According to him, "I used to get there about 10:30 so I had time to make the sandwiches and get the chips from the large bag into the overpriced tiny wax paper bags I brought from home. " Murray was an avid story teller.

"Then I started noticing a guy who came to the factory twice a week, and carried a small suitcase. What I noticed was he wore better shoes than me. So once he stopped for a coffee and we got to talking."

Murray loved Latino breaded shrimp and fries from the neighborhood place we got lunch. As he wiped the spicy sauce from his fingers he spoke.

"He told me he was microfilming the records of the factory with what turned out to be a Government Issue, surplus portable, microfilm camera, and he was making a lot more than me selling coffee and donuts." So Murray bought a Government surplus portable Microfilm camera with the money he made selling his lunch truck.

Murray was one of the New York Jews who had grown up in an East Harlem tenement.

He knew that Harlem furniture stores all financed their poor customers and charged high interest compounded every New York minute. He went to one furniture store and tried to sell them from the security angle and met with no interest. He was very depressed; he had no experience in sales and a young family to feed.

As fate would have it that very night in the early 60’s a fire struck the furniture store and destroyed their in store set of finely penciled financing index cards. Fortunately the owners had kept up to date copies of each card in a fireproof safe deposit box across the street in the bank. But the owners realized that they could use a microfilm copy of what survived and not have to copy all those cards over again, so Murray got his first account.

Things snowballed for Murray. Soon he had every self financing furniture store in New York City buying his services, and it did not take him long to get into the thriving business on 5^th Avenue that hired me when I was at NYU Film School, hired me at the recommendation of a dear friend Larry.

Larry’s wife was friends with my sister in law from Brooklyn. We were all friends.

Larry used to be Murray’s driver. Larry and I were sent around town to pick up checks at American Express, Exxon and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, corporations that Murray sold his services to. This was in the days when hi tech meant keypunch cards. We drove Murray’s International Scout all over Manhattan and out to Franklin Lakes NJ to pick up checks from IBM.

That Thursday May afternoon when all was at peace with the world and the din of the traffic eight floors below was only a monotonous hum, punctuated with the cooing of mating pigeons walking on the ledges two floors below.

Murray and the whole crew were enjoying the freedom of the open windows and their helpings of Latino shrimp we all ate on Thursdays, when a tall blond man, elegantly dressed and manicured crossed the threshold of our little shop escorted by his clearly South American Fashion model beauty of a wife. Both of them were just too elegant, in the Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren mode. They were far too rich to be in this place and when the man spoke, he spoke clear and refined English with a very striking and regal German Accent.

The German asked to speak to Murray the Jewish owner. Murray trusted no one but secretly everyone, he was too naïve to be a good judge of character.

Larry and I were friends with a commercial artist named Sidney whose wife worked for the American Israel Cultural Foundation uptown on 5^th. We were both German American sons of WWII Pilots who fought the Germans, who had a reasonable guilt for what Germans did to the Jews and it was very important for us that we did not like Nazis.

My wife was Jewish, so was Larry’s.

Though he and I were put on notice, the others in the office that day were oblivious to this couple’s details that struck us no less than had they been two Valkyrie in full costume.

The man was over six feet tall, and seemed to be in his mid fifties, and fit as a fiddle, virtually youthful save signs of gray at the temples. Barely did his face reveal crow’s feet and he was much tanned. His language revealed he was educated and intelligent. He asked Murray if he could rent him a microfilm reader-printer.

Chewing a shrimp and wiping his sauce covered fingers on his pants Murray swept into his best sales attitude, though he did not have to sell anything. This man knew exactly what he needed and asked if it could be delivered the next day and handed Murray a blank card with a hastily scribbled Park Avenue address on it. Murray asked for a deposit and the German paid with American Express Travelers checks while his Brown skinned wife stood silently and elegantly by her husband’s side.

They left and everyone went back to their lunch and laughter.

After work Larry and I talked about the German Guy. We thought it strange. Everyone always said all the Nazi Brass ducked into South America and in walks this guy who is Mr. South America himself.

The next day Murray gives us the German’s address and tells us to pack up a reader printer, one made by 3M Company and deliver it. He tells Larry to set it up and show the guy how to use it.

Sunshine permeated the smog and that day was one of the sunniest, most delightful spring days a older man can recall, when it seemed everything was still and forever young. The Vietnam War was nearly to an end, and disco had taken over the young working class. Rocker Rod Stewart’s Hot Legs was at the top of the charts.

Larry and I took the machine down the service elevator as he had backed the scout up to the loading dock in the back of the building. There amid the varied pushcarts and racks we took each a side of the heavy machine and lifted it into the back of Murray’s truck.

Crosstown traffic is always a horror so we went east right there at 23^rd and took 3^rd avenue uptown till we could get over to 72 Park Avenue, there on the corner, the Northwest corner of 93^rd and Park Avenue. It was the address of a fairly recent building and one of all glass and steel.

Back in 1971 there were fewer people on the planet and that meant more available street parking in Manhattan. 11:00 AM meant we definitely had a spot on this mainly residential street.

Our delivery manifest showed that the machine was to go to a "Mr. Smith" in apt 3A, on the first floor, but we used the hand truck anyway. We were young but those readers –printers weighed in at over 100 pounds. We had delivered a lot of them.

The Doorman was the usual, middle aged guy, whose whole life was dedicated to hoping he correctly sized up all comers to keep his wards, the wealthy tenants safe. He politely directed us to a door slightly ajar on the left side of the small lobby marked 3A. As we approached noisily Mr. Smith appeared in the doorway.

"Hello", he said in his crisp English, and pointed to a small folding metal card table and chair, the only furnishings in the large living room. He was wearing a blue blazer with an ascot at his neck, looking much the part of the Continental.

"Is that table sturdy?" Larry asked.

"Yes, ‘qvyite’ strong," came back his German accent.

I was leaning against the hand truck and turned in time to see his gorgeous brown skinned wife approach from the kitchen.

"Can I see you, Ally" she said.

Ally was now named and he turned to Larry and said, "Please set this up for me and , " Ally turned and looked at me and said, "You don’t speak German, do you?", then turned to Larry , "Do you speak any German, either of you boys?"

"No!" I upped. Larry nodded his agreement that he did not speak German.

"What a pity, as I could have used help. There, you see that cardboard box on the floor? In it are a few old reels of microfilm. Will you take one and set it up on the reader printer so I can start my work? I will be right back, "and off he went into the kitchen to join his wife.

I looked at Larry and he looked at me and we went about the business of lifting the reader onto the table. It turned out to be an old military style folding table. Sure looked like GI issue but it was old. It was also very strong and certainly could hold the weight of this machine. We carefully lifted it and placed it atop the table. Larry connected the wire to the back and then found a nearby outlet and plugged it in. The Machine from Minnesota mining and Engineering hummed into action and the light came on.

The only other light was what slipped through the slats of the Venetian blinds that covered all the windows. The microfilm reader on the table glowed in the dimness. Larry stooped down and lifted the cardboard box up from where it sat on the floor next to the right leg of the table.

He placed it on the table in front of the machine where he could benefit from the light of the machine to read the labels on these small canisters containing rolled up strips of 35mm film.

Larry knew how to put these strips on the spools on either end of the machine’ reels that allowed one to crank through an entire roll of microfilm for free.

He slid into the chair and was just turning the handle when a clear title cam up on the little screen, and there it said in German, which we both could read, "The Correspondence of Heinrich Himmler and Adolph Hitler 1938 - 1945"

Larry looked up at me in the glowing light and I looked back at him and as he scrolled across the reel of film photographic reproductions of the letters between the Arch Villain of the 20^th Century and his trusted fiendish assistant. There we were looking at the actual ravings of two of the world’s most atrocious criminals in their own despicable handwriting and knew the box contained more of the same demented ravings. Worse we knew that we had to stop the whole itself. If there were ever letters that did not merit translation it was these.

Ally returned breaking our reverie. Larry sprang to his feet.

"Mr. Smith, I took the liberty of getting you set up with one of your own filmstrips." Larry said.

Mr. Smith, as we officially knew him, seemed a bit surprised by our forwardness but was very happy to see his reels appear as documents on the screen. "OK Thank you very much both of you, thank you." And he reached into his pocket and pulled our money handing each of us a crisp new ten dollar bell. He was convinced he had fooled us, and we were actually frightened we would be found out, when we left with a double thanks.

Outside, Larry expressed his concern hat he really believed we had just met a 100% bonafide Nazi.

"What makes you so sure?" I probed him as we parked Murray’s truck. Nothing about the morning delivery left me comfortable, in act; I was worried about telling my wife. What would she think?

Larry’s wife was a Marxist law student and as her ancestors were all Russian Jews, she would have gone to Mr. Smith’s place with a shotgun had he told her.

"Let’s tell Sidney!" I agreed. Larry and I held Sidney and his wife as the representatives of Israel in America, she being the cultural director of the American Israel Cultural Foundation. Israel, the Vindicator of the Holocaust.

As a boy of 13,still in the 8^th grade in a school nestled in the bowels of Hudson County at the edge of the Lincoln Tunnel cut, I spent the Spring and early summer of 1961 listening on a crystal radio with an earphone to Allen Freed’s Rock "n Roll Shows, and Late at night the result of the magic of satellites the daily installments of the Trial of Adolph Eichmann. Jim McKay was the presenter for ABC Wide World Sports. Satellite TV from foreign places was new to New York and World TV.

I was only 13 but had read William Shirer’s "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" as a small boy, it having been serialized in the Newark Star Ledger I read at my Grandfather’s house in East Orange on Sunday visits, so I was aware of Eichmann and his capture and eventual trial in Jerusalem.

How sterile was the courtroom with Eichmann the bureaucratic monster of Auschwitz seated in a glass booth, a bulletproof glass cage. Yes this small man with the accountant’s appearance was in charge of the final solution, meaning the extermination of millions of innocent people.

"Denise" I said to my young wife that evening, "I think Larry and I met a real live Nazi officer today!

She was rinsing a head of lettuce in the sink in our tiny studio apartment. "How do you know he was a Nazi?"

As we prepared our dinner in the spring sunlight streaming through the kitchen window I told her the entire story. Denise took it personally, as she lost family in the Holocaust. While we had our talk I wondered how Larry’s Jewish wife Irene was taking this.

After dinner I assured Denise that we were going to report this to Sid, his wife and the American Israeli Cultural folks we knew. They had some tough looking Israeli guards who carried Uzi’s. If anyone could handle a Nazi they could.

Saturday morning came and I realized no one would be available at the Israeli Cultural Center on their Sabbath.

Larry must have been reading my mind as he called to confirm that the Center was closed and he could not raise Sidney, those being the days before electronic answering machines or cell phones.

As absurd as it seems Larry and I felt a real responsibility and leaving a Nazi running loose in New York seemed unconscionable.

"What should we do," I asked throwing the ball into his court.

"How do I know?" he answered.

"Maybe we should clue Murray in?" I said.

"He was stupid enough to rent this guy the reader printer, and what makes you think he would believe us?"

Murray thought of us as two nice guys but our politics were too radical for Murray, a Nixon man. Almost at once we both said, "Joe Brandt!"

In a flash we agreed to meet at the office building and talk to a guy who also had an office on the 8^th floor, who ran the "Friends of Korea" foundation. Joe, I had heard, was the founder of the Communist newspaper The Daily Worker. I knew he was a big wig in the Communist world because of something I had seen in the winter of that very year.

Roman Karman was a famous Soviet documentary filmmaker in Russia. The museum of Modern Art had scheduled a retrospective of his films for screening at the MOMA. At the last moment the State Department threw a monkey wrench into their plans and the cancelled with no real notice at all. Well all the New York communists were very agitated. Not to be short shifted by MOMA they arranged for a rental of the Bleecker Street Cinema, owned by New York University, and held their opening night there

Joe Brandt took a liking to me and gave me 4 tickets which brought me and my wife, Larry and his, to the Bleecker that night. I will never forget it, as it always stood to me as what it would have been like to actually attend an event in a Communist country. Everyone, men and women were raising their hands and saying "hail comrade" in an eerie fashion too reminiscent of the German Heil Hitler for my comfort.

Everyone finally sat down and the lights were dimmed. The host introduced the elegant silver haired filmmaker, who was dressed immaculately. My wife whispered in my ear that the Soviets were hypocrites. "See his suit? Every see the clothes the average Soviet citizen wears? Nothing like that get-up I assure you!"

Then comes the film and it is all about the International Brigade that went over to fight fascism in Generalissimo Francesco Franco’s Spain, the forerunner of European Fascism.

The Spanish invented the Concentration Camp during the colonial occupation of Panama to keep Panamanian dissenters in, just prior to the Spanish American War in 1898.

Warriors from every country came. American Jews volunteered for what was called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. As a small child there was a neighbor, a tall quiet man known to me only as Mr. Lederman. My dad told me with great respect in his voice that he had noticed the small lapel pin of the Lincoln Brigade on Mr. Lederman’s lapel. From that moment we always mentioned Mr. Lederman’s name with reverence.

The lights dim in the Bleecker Street Cinema and the black and white movie starts and sure as anything there is Mr. Karman’s name as director and the film is a history of the International Brigade.

It was exciting war footage from a little talked about conflict, one that set the stage for the Second World War.

Suddenly there is a shot of about four men in a foxhole, amid heavy gunfire and smoke. They are manning a machine gun rapidly firing at an unseen enemy.

"Look who that is?" Denise tugged my sleeve.
I looked hard and realized what she saw; the man feeding the belt of ammo into the gun magazine was none other than our friend Joe Brandt, though a mere youth at the time.

It was then Larry and I looked at one another and knew why Mr. Brandt was an important big wig.

Brandt’s office was down the hall from Murray’s and he worked her on weekends.

Larry and I met outside on 5^th avenue, me coming from the Village and him downtown from his Yorkville flat.

"What can Joe do for us?" I asked Larry as we entered the elevator.

"All we can do is run it past him. His Russian friends are no fonder of Nazis than Israeli’s." He said.

We stepped out on the eighth floor and trekked down the hall past Murray’s closed office to Joe’s. Sidney’s closed office was across the hall from Joe Brandt’s.

Larry tapped the frosted glass pane on the door and through it we saw the silhouette of Joe Brandt as he approached and opened it for us. Greeting us with his usual brad smile Joe swept his arm in elegant fashion and asked us to enter, so he could once again close the door against the disdained capitalist enclave in which he found himself immersed.

"Joe" I said, "we think we ran into a real live Nazi."

Joe was shorter than Larry and I and looked up at us incredulously.

"We are telling the truth Joe", Larry added.

"Where did you happen to run into this, err, Nazi boys?" Joe chided us.

"Was he wearing his uniform?"

We explained how Murray the Korean War Vet rented this Nazi a Microfilm Reader Printer and that we delivered it to him at an empty apartment on the upper east side the preceding Friday.

"This is something for the Israeli’s boys, not the Friends of North Korea."

We told him we tried to play that card but it being the Jewish Sabbath there were no Israelis available. With that we realized Joe thought we were crazy. By that time we were ready to agree with him, but we had Jewish wives to answer to and there would be no rest for us until this mystery Nazi was inside the same glass booth Eichmann occupied, newly scrubbed for his trial.

"Thanks for listening Joe," I said as we headed to the door.

"No I am glad you told me this and I wish I could help but my hands are virtually tied."

To what his hands were tied Larry and I had no idea but we accepted that he could be of absolutely no use to us.

Out side on the sunny street we decided we had to wait out the weekend. Larry went back uptown to Irene and I decided to walk down 5^th avenue through Washington Square Park and slowly wend my way home to Denise. "Oy Vey!," I said aloud.

"No one was there", Denise turned from the old stove to face me. She was cooking a new spaghetti dish her sister in law gave her. "A Nazi is strolling around New York and no one was home."

"It’s Sabbath Denise, so the Jewish people were unavailable. I don’t know their home address either, " I plead.

"It isn’t your fault Richie, there is red tape in everything no doubt Nazi hunting among them," she quipped.

My head would not leave that scene on Park Avenue; the screen on the 3M Reader Printer read Die Korrespondenz von Der Fuhrer und Heinrich Himmler and an icy chill ran up my spine. Seeing is believing. Nothing could stop me calling Larry.

Irene answered.

"Just what are you two up to now?" she said in her maternal way.

I tried to be amusing and I felt like Eddie Haskell on the old Leave It to Beaver TV Show dodging Mrs. Cleaver’s knowing appraisal of his reason for calling.

Eventually I said, "Is Larry there, Irene?" she said yes glad to be rid of the ineffectual me.

"Hello this is Larry," he said in that formal way he had, which always pissed me off because it told of a potential disloyalty I never had to deal with ever in a long and loving friendship. "What’s happening?

"You know what is happening. What are we gonna’ do about this?" I whisper shouted hoping Denise would not be distracted from the Ed Sullivan Show. Ed was cancelled and the fans all knew it and watched loyally to the end the following month in June.

Larry was putting off his anxiety until he got to work at 9am the next day, and that was that. He was older than me and able to do that and it was the first time I forced myself to accept what I could not change with calm dignity. You learn from your elders. I went back to share one of the last Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town Shows with my wife.

Monday morning took the thrilling edge off the spring rush and the rush hour was noisy and smelly. Taxicabs filthied the landscape and the air, their rude horns, the shouts and yells of riders made the morning and its gaggle of busses churning up and down town almost a mad hallucination, certainly a repulsive reality.

I got to work at 9:05 and Murray was already there. As I came in the door he stood at his desk, behind him a large arched window that revealed the east river warehouses and the whole east side to its shore.

"When Larry gets in Rich you and him take the truck over to that Park Avenue address you dropped the Reader Printer off at last week."

I was startled and annoyed that Larry was not there yet. "OK!" I said.

With that Larry sauntered in.

Murray continued, "There was a note on the door when I got here this morning, see," he showed it to both of us. It said to come pick up the machine anytime after 9:00 am Monday. We grabbed the keys to the truck and headed down to the service elevator.

"Christ," I say. "We have to be first in the Nazi’s lair. That is just great."

"He doesn’t know we’re hip to him. You are being paranoid. We simply go there and pick up the machine and take it from there. By that time the Israelis should be back to work."

Down we went and out to the parking lot for the International Scout. Traffic was light crosstown about 9:15 and we cruised up 3^rd Avenue in no time flat. We got out and went to the rear and unloaded the hand truck. The same doorman was on duty and as so little time had passed he remembered us. He aimed us at the door to Apt 3A and it was curiously open, opening all the way inward with a quiet squeal from my simple touch.

"Hello", I called in a soft voice meant to go unheeded," Is anyone home?"

When no reply came Larry crossed the threshold and walked right into the bedroom calling "Hello?" Satisfied that the place was empty we lifted the reader printer off the table and put it on the hand truck I held at the proper angle to transport it to the truck waiting outside for us. Larry could not help looking over his shoulder as we crossed the threshold.

I asked the doorman when Mr. Smith had left. He was gone when he got to work this morning he said. That was all he knew. "That Mrs. Smith was good looking hah?"

Larry and I ignored that, loaded the printer and took off.

We failed. The Nazi got away and we blamed ourselves. Why even tell Sidney and the Israelis about this? The whole thing was blown and no one would believe us. Our Jewish wives would eventually divorce us and no doubt this played a small but significant part in diminishing our manly valor in their eyes. At that age it was tough to understand, at mine it makes perfect sense.

For your information I have never seen Elvis before he died or after, never met an alien. But I do believe I met a Nazi. Take it or leave it.

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