By Tom Morrow

There once was a most talented man, who was a Major League Baseball player, but his primary job was being a spy for the U.S. Government. Catcher Moe Berg.
In 1934, Berg was on the roster along with baseball legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig when they went on a tour of Japan. Why would a bench-warming catcher be included among a team of all-stars?
He had two loves: baseball and spying. Because of this, Berg had been enlisted by the government because he spoke 15 different languages, including Japanese. The War Department (now known as the Department of Defense), was aware the Japanese will building a powerful Navy and information was needed.
While in Tokyo, Berg dressed in a kimono and took flowers to the daughter of an American diplomat, who was in the hospital –the tallest building in the Japanese capital, but he never delivered the flowers.
Berg climbed to the hospital’s roof and with his movie camera filmed Tokyo Bay’s, several military installations, factories, and rail yards. Eight years later, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle used Berg’s movies in planning the Tokyo raid.
While in high school Berg learned Latin, Greek and French. He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton where he learned Spanish, Italian, German and Sanskrit. He did further studies at Paris’ Sorbonne and Columbia Law School picking up Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Arabic, Portuguese and Hungarian.
When the War Department found out about the amazing linguist, he quickly was recruited as a spy.
During World War II, Berg was in the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner of the CIA). He parachuted into Yugoslavia to assess the value of the two partisan groups. He reported back that Marshall Tito’s forces were widely supported by the people.
The question of the Nazis’ progress building an Atomic bomb was Berg’s next assignment. Under the code name “Remus,” Berg was sent to Switzerland for a lecture by noted German physicist Werner Heisenberg. Berg managed to slip past SS guards at the auditorium posing as a Swiss graduate student. Berg carried a pistol and a cyanide pill. If the scientist was to indicate the Nazis were close to building an atomic weapon, Berg was ordered to shoot him and then swallow the cyanide pill. Sitting in the front row, Berg determined the Germans were nowhere near their goal, so he complimented Heisenberg on his speech and walked with the scientist back to his hotel.
In spite of being 41, Berg was to make more parachute jumps. He landed in German-held Norway where he met with underground fighters and located a secret heavy water plant—part of the Nazis’ effort to build an atomic weapon. His intel guided the Royal Air Force in a bombing raid to destroy the plant.
Berg’s report from Norway had been distributed to Britain’s Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and key figures in the team in Las Alamos, who was developing the atomic bomb. President Roosevelt remarked: “Give my regards to the catcher.”
After the war, Berg was awarded the Medal of Merit by President Harry Truman. The honor was America’s highest civilian war time recognition. Berg declined the honor because he couldn’t reveal his spying activities.
Berg played for six ML teams, the last being the Boston Red Sox (1935-39)
After his death in 1972, Berg’s sister accepted his Medal of Merit and today it’s displayed in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.
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