Ladislas Farago

Ladislas Faragó or Faragó László (21 September 1906 – 15 October 1980) was a Hungarian military historian and journalist who published a number of best-selling books concerning history and espionage, especially the World War II era.

Faragó was the author of Patton: Ordeal And Triumph, the acclaimed 1963 biography of George Patton, that formed the basis for the 1970 movie Patton and wrote The Broken Seal (1967), one of the books that formed the basis for the 1970 movie Tora! Tora! Tora!.

Farago's colorful history began as a reporter in Budapest for the evening newspaper Az Est and for the theater/film magazine Szinhazi Elet. Fleeing a terror that at the time was, he said, 'more pressing than the Nazis -- my mother,' he left on a path that took him to Berlin (where he worked, among other things as a stringer for the New York Times), London, and eventually the USA. In Germany he wrote cabaret sketches as well as news features (he claimed to be the only Jew ever to have been invited to ride on Hitler's private train, which he was covering for a photo story). He also covered the Italian/Ethiopian War, on assignment for a London paper. His reporting was so popular that his book on the subject became an international bestseller, as did the book he wrote from his reporting on Palestine (Palestine at the Crossroads, mentioned in the last entries of Anne Frank's Diary).

Moving to the USA prior to the outbreak of war in Europe, Farago worked as a freelance journalist and propagandist, editing German Psychological Warfare for the Committee on National Morale, a private pre cursor to the OSS. When the US entered the War Farago came to work for US Naval Intelligence as a civilian (technically classified an enemy alien) assigned to the Pacific war. He wrote a monograph for the government, "The Japanese, Their Character and Morale." He was staff to the drafting of the Potsdam Declaration.

After world War II Farago worked for the UN-related diplomatic newsletter United Nations World, for Corps Diplomatique, and as a freelance journalist, eventually coming to join the staff of Radio Free Europe focused on supporting the brewing insurrection in Hungary in 1955-56 by developing a series of radio broadcasts featuring an apocryphal saboteur named Colonel Bell (Bell was subsequently identified by the Soviets as one of the contributors to the unrest that became the 1956 Revolution).

During the 1950s and 1960s Farago wrote popular histories of espionage (War of Wits, Burn After Reading) and ghost wrote two books for Admiral Ellis Zacharias (Secret Missions and Behind Closed Doors) and consulted to the TV series based on Zacharaias' book, The Man Called X. In 1963 he published Patton: Ordeal and Triumph, the bestseller that formed, in part, the basis for the film Patton, and in 1964 It's Your Money about waste and mismanagement in government spending. In 1967 he published The Broken Seal, one of the bases for the film Tora! Tora! Tora!.

His most controversial book, Aftermath, reported on his research tracking down a wide range of Nazi war criminals as they fled Germany subsequent to the collapse of the Third Reich. Originally an extended series in the London Daily Express and the Chicago Tribune, the book was released to widespread acclaim and significant skepticism.

The British historian Stephen Dorril, in his MI6 Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service asserts that Faragó was the 'most successful disinformer or dupe' concerning the presence of Nazis in South America. The original text is as follows:

Investigating 'The Nazi Menace in Argentina', author Ronald Newton found that the historic record had been left 'booby-trapped with an extraordinary number of hoaxes, forgeries, unanswered propaganda ploys and assorted dirty tricks'. The most successful disinformer or dupe was the American Ladislas Faragó, 'a somewhat Hemingway-esque figure with a strong Hungarian accent and a confidential manner', whose 'good connections with the CIA and secret services of several European countries enabled him to investigate and publish on a non-attributable basis' a series of half correct tales.^[3]

However, Faragó's book Aftermath: The Search for Martin Bormann which details the Nazi presence in South America was based on both Faragó's own personal investigation and interviews in South America, and Argentinian intelligence documents (some of which are provided in the book) the veracity of which was attested to by attorney Joel Weinberg.^[4]

Moreover, French intelligence operative (during World War II - on the 'Resistance' side - and later) and conservative polemist Pierre de Villemarest justified^[5] part of Faragó's statements. Villemarest disagreed on the details of Bormann's survival, but agreed he did survive the escape from Hitler's Bunker. Villemarest states that Bormann was not a mere Soviet agent (like Heinrich Müller) but was smart enough to get free (after a few months or years) from the Soviets' 'protection'.

The main agreement between Faragó and Villemarest was the resolute assertion of a several-year survival of Bormann after the end of Hitler's regime. Faragó's book 'Aftermath' contains several reproductions of genuine Argentinian secret police documents related to the life of Bormann after 1945.^[6]

Faragó's belief that Bormann survived the Second World War was definitively discredited when the latter's body was unearthed in Berlin in 1973, and confirmed to be his by DNA evidence in 1998. None of Farago's material and reporting about other expat Nazis, including the role of the Vatican in assisting some of them, has ever been significantly challenged.

Farago died of cancer in 1980. His papers are maintained in the 20th Century Archive at Boston University.

Faragó appeared as a contestant on the January 22, 1957, episode of To Tell the Truth. He was Jewish and lived in New York and Connecticut at the time of his death.^[7]

Faragó died in 1980. His son, John M. Farago, an administrative law judge and a co-author of the humor book Junk Food, was a founding faculty member at, and is an Emeritus Professor of Law at the City University of New York School of Law.^[8]

• Abyssinia on the Eve (1935)
• Abyssinian Stop Press (ed.) (1936)
• Palestine on the Eve (1936)
• The Riddle of Arabia (1939)
• Burn After Reading (1961)
• Strictly from Hungary (1962/2004)
• The Tenth Fleet (1962)
• War of Wits (1962)
• Patton: Ordeal and Triumph (1963)
• The Broken Seal: "Operation Magic" and the Secret Road to Pearl Harbor (1967)
• The Game of the Foxes (1971)
• Spymaster (1972)
• Aftermath: The Search for Martin Bormann (1974)
• The Last Days of Patton (1981)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ladislas Farago.

• Ladislas Farago at IMDb