Photo of Ellis Zacharias speaking on his radio show (1948-49). Wikipedia.

If you haven't read Secret Missions: The Story of an intelligence officer (1946) by former Captain Ellis Zacharias (and later Rear Admiral), consider putting it on your summer reading list. It's a great, informative window into 1920s-40s US Naval Intelligence.

Captain Zach, in southern California, was an early monitor of German and US Nazi activity, with earlier work in Japan that continued throughout his career.

After WWII, Ellis became a kind of post-WWII intelligence celebrity. In addition to his book, he had a radio program and then a TV program, both also called "Secret Missions". (See at end two radio show samples.)

I first learned about Captain Zacharias in the 2017 book Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews foiled Nazi plots against Hollywood and America. This book largely drew upon a Jewish-led group's spy group files, held in the special collections area of California State University-Northridge in the Los Angeles area.

In Beverly Hills Spy (2024), (see the AFP book preview) declassified US Naval Intelligence involving Captain Zacharias was essential to understand the complicated situation of a British / Japanese / American spy.

In Secret Missions, we learn that, understaffed with the growing Nazi threat spreading across society, Zacharias recruited civilians and informal lady spies.

See Zacharias's description of he and Claire (Clara) attending an event at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC with Japanese and Nazi German officials in attendance on pp. 160-62.

One hilarious example in Secret Missions concerns German Consul to San Francisco and spy chief Fritz Wiedemann (1939-41), former adjutant to Hitler. Zacharias planted a double agent informing Wiedemann that in US circles, he wasn't expected to stay long in the US. Wiedemann ended up sending one of his women workers to Berlin to find out if Hitler was angry with him (pp. 192-93).

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Above, (left) in the Daily News (New York) on September 7, 1940 and in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on December 10, 1940.

In my own research about the allegedly pro-Nazi socialite / art collector Emily Hall Tremaine (formerly Spreckels) (1908-87), her public contact with Captain Zacharias, and that her brother-in-law worked for him second in command, was a huge lead in the ongoing historical investigation, raising the question: was Tremaine pro-Nazi, a US patriot spy, or both (or neither)?

My deep dive found sets of historical newspaper clippings out of California. Public social contact in social news and announcements showed Tremaine with her brother-in-law, sister, Zacharias and his wife Claire in historical California newspapers in Santa Barbara and Coronado, from about 1941-43. At one point, Claire and potentially a group of informal society lady spies gathered with Claire, in Santa Barbara, a social environment with some monied businessmen suspected of trading with Nazi Germany or championing that cause.

This was after the shocking "He's a Nazi, no SHE IS" divorce case in 1940-41 in Santa Barbara featuring Emily Hall Tremaine (previously Spreckels), and before the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. (See sample press clippings above, and tens of articles in the link above.)

History sometimes matters even today. My ongoing research in the Tremaine case became of note in 2024, as Tremaine's developing history became a lightning rod in a contentious zoning case in Madison, CT. [Former Nazi agent-turned-architect Philip Johnson (1906-2005), with a design on the contentious property, was recently featured on AFP.] The smallish town controversy was reported in about 100 articles, and it ended up noted as a top architecture world controversy, after an Epstein link and Saudi worker deaths.

I fired off this letter, when a neighbor on a video starting talking about Tremaine's 1930s in California based on incomplete research: "With the US Naval Intelligence angle, [Tremaine] might be an unlikely American hero— or not. It is not known yet exactly and confirmed with specific declassified military intelligence."

Now on appeals at the Connecticut Superior Court, this letter, one of four, is in the ROR for history. Two years later, the appeals go into the final oral arguments stage on July 23, before the judge makes his decision.

One thing stalling clarity on Tremaine's California history, and several other cases, is the bizarre situation of the Nazi files from the US Naval Intelligence, San Francisco District, being STILL classified. Who has denied declassification and why? We'll learn a lot more about Captain Zacharias's work after this "oversight" has been sorted.

Zacharias knew the situation of Tremaine, but did he record that at ONI?

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Listen to two samples of Zacharias's radio program:

Episode One: Double agent sinks Japanese ship

See tribute pages regarding Captain Zach of the U. S. S. Salt Lake City (1940-41). Commander Julian B. Noble was Emily Hall Tremaine's brother-in-law and she became godmother to his child in 1939.

Also see a 1967 biography The Man Who Watched the Rising Sun: The Story of Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias, which focused on his work involving Japan.

Captain Zach and his wife Claire (Clara) are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.