*Russia:* We need spies who will be discreet *Also Russia:* Chooses Ernest Hemingway, a well-known American novelist

"Writing? Easy. Short sentences. That's the key." - Hemingway

At least he knew the importance of being Ernest. 🤷

Plot twist: He was so good at spying that he convinced everyone he was bad at it and is going to assassinate weird history.

"The Old Man and the CCCP" is the first time you've actually got me to chuckle at one of the corny jokes, congratulations.

Do one about the worst DEA agent ever: Elvis Presley.

Make a vid on what shopping was like in the 1900s

I still remember his famous soliloquy, 'To KGB, or not to KGB'. 🙃

He was reporting back to Moscow on the activities of the bars on Key West.

Turtle approved.

Just because you're paranoid, that doesn't mean they're not out to get you!

He was as frank as he was earnest.

Hiw about a Weird Historyabout themysterious disappearance of Ambrose Bierce? That one always was a head scratcher for me

"When you hear the name Ernest Hemingway..." I thought about Harry's Bar in Venice where he used to write and drink. You've managed to surprise and educate me once again! Thank you :)

There should - REALLY - be some kind of a clothing store named “Earnest Hemmings”.

This needs to be a movie! Ernest hemingway was far too fascinating a man not to have a biopic

This is why I love this channel I learn things all the time

He was about as sharp as a bowling ball...

You should have talked about the 120 pages (15 pages totally redacted 1950's-60's) of FBI files released under the Freedom Of Information act in 1983.

Maybe he was a great spy and had messages to the USSR in his books?! He sure fooled you huh?!?!

Wow very interesting I would have never ever known about this without your clip, thank you very much for your hard work! 👍

Did you now when he was a war correspondent during WW2 he briefly led a resistance group until he was told of what cod happen to him if he did not stop.

I am so ready for a weird history video. Black Friday and today were enough, I need my soul food here!

Ty Weird History. Glad I caught it 8minutes fresh to KZfaq. I like news

That's a bit of a stretch from "not verified" to "worst spy ever".

I was in Key West over the summer and toured his home there. Great experience, highly recommended if you're in Key West.

last time i was this early, hemingway's liver was still healthy...

Thanks for another interesting and informative video.

Love your work and videos 💕! Can you (please) do "Weird Facts about Peter the Great" someday? Thanks! ✨

I didn’t know he’s a KGB spy 🕵️‍♂️

Ironically, here is San Diego there is a radio station with the call letters KGB. Suggestion: How a car accident inspired Stephen King to write the novel "Misery".

I literally finished reading "The Old Man And the Sea" last week for french class... no wonder the name seemed familiar!

Hemingway's fishing boat is still at his house in Havana. I had no idea he was using it to spot U-boats off the coast when I saw it a few years ago.

The irony us that his hate of fascists inspired his interest in politics, which in turn, inspired him to work for the Soviets, whose leaders were infamous fascists

The boat was named after a character in "For Whom the Bell Tolls," by Ernest Hemingway.

What a crazy, convoluted life that man lived. Sounds a lot better than watching you tube videos all day.... OH WELL

I always thought it was writers block that lead him to suicide. Thanks for clearing that up.

What's with the turtle guy

Could you do a video on the legendary John Henry aka Doc Holiday?! & Wyatt Earp

He lived a amazing life. He may of wrote other amazing books if he wasn't a drunkard.

Oh ypu have to do ian flemming now id like to see one also on Norman rockwell

Mr. History Buff , you know Hemingway was a volunteer Ambulance Driver for the Italian Army in WW1 aka The Great War aka War to end all Wars....but didn't. Im pretty sure he got Ideological and into journalism of geopolitics was after his WW1 service Hence the reason he went to report on the Spanish Civil War as a war correspondent for the Partisan/Rebel faction. He didn't go there as a unbiased outside onlooker reporting for both Sides, he was on the Rebel side particularly the Communist Rebel side who were funded almost exclusively by the Russians. The US and other Western countries were funding the 2nd Rebel faction that was fighting against Franco but when they weren't fighting Franci, the 2 rebel groups sometimes fought each other or undermined each other they were not united in the least. Hence why Franco was eventually able to beat them ( with the help of Fascist Italy and eventually Fascist Germany) one group first the other in 36' . By 37' Francisco Franco had full control and 1st order of business, round up the Communist Rebels Party and anyone who was sympathetic to the Communist cause as political prisoners. If he didn't just outright set them up with a firing squad if they found a former Communist Rebel in hiding. WW1 turned Hemingway into the man he would become. It didn't start at the Spanish Civil War he was already against Nationalism ( which is the backbone of all Fascist states and dictatorships) after the horrors he saw in WW1 my friend

I have a copy of a story printed in the New York Daily News about 30 years ago that they said was originally published in Pravda. It's about the Spanish civil war, called "When War Becomes Murder." I have also heard that he was involved in a coup in the Dominican Republic but haven't found out anything about that.

It's difficult to see what information he could have provided to the Soviets, considering his work, even that of a war reporter, didn't really give him any access to classified information.

Hi Weird History, Can you do a video about "What it was like to be a prisoner of Devil's Island"

Weird History Topic: Max Baer. Heavyweight boxing champion in the 30’s. Before winning the title, he killed Frankie Campbell in the ring with a barrage of punches in the second round. Later, he was charged with manslaughter for accidentally killing his opponent in the ring. He is in the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Israel and was also a Hollywood Actor. Baer is rated #22 on Ring Magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time.

can you do a life of someone in the medieval times.

Whenever I hear KGB, I think of Destroy all Humans

Wow. That's pretty incredible ! I knew nothing. All that could make one crazy and he was being watched after all wow. Thanks 👍

Very interesting! I did not know this..

Wow, I did not know this. Fascinating.

I have to wonder why the Soviets would even bother to recruit Hemingway. Hemingway's world travelling must have been the draw. I don't know what information of value Ernest Hemingway could have provided. Maybe the Soviets looked at Hemingway as a Low Cost asset. Being an alcoholic, Ernest Hemingway was unlikely to have been of any value to the Soviets.

You should do a video on the history of Easter Island

Get Smart. The Soviet Edition

Can You Do A Video On Ellis Island And The History Of It?

Kind of like joining Gestapo not that he as an American in that day would have this knowledge. At least had the courtesy of purging himself I guess it's better than most KGB agents.

@WeirdHistory I’d love to see a video on Edna St. Vincent Millay’s love life

Do a video on John Laurens

"Had a file opened on him by J. Edgar Hoover, left a bunch of shit in a safe in Cuba and moved to Idaho, paranoid that the Feds were following him... which they were, because he spent most of the 1940s working for the KGB! Again, NOTMAKINGTHISSHITUP."

More “Spy Who Shagged Me” than “Spy Who Loved Me”.

I'm not even gonna check the comments... Just posting this thumbs up for all the puns.. 👍

please do the iriquois conference

My favourite story about him was related to me by my CP bureau chief. Before going to Spain he was working in Toronto. Did a pub crawl, came back to work, stood on Gordon Sinclair's desk , called him everything but a white man, then pissed on him, as a way of saying "take this job and shove it". He also shot up his house in Cuba with a Thompson gun in a drunk rage over the trend in Spanish matadors becoming sissyified. RIP Ernest. Men like you are rare jems.

Woop! facts of Hemingway I never knew. Of subject of writers, Iam super curious about JACK LONDON. Though we live not far from where he lived and have been to the home/museum lots of times, and also hiked to his big unfinished burnt home - I still feel there is more to know of him and his travels. Little fact : his writing room is as big as a closet! It has a window to see the trees, but its super teeny. (sorry not Hemingway subject)

Got on this, Netflix!

He was a talented writer, but not a good person. There is a PBS documentary about him and his lodge in Idaho. Locals wouldn't go hunting with him, because he liked to kill so much it became an issue. And the people who talked about it on the documentary were just your normal guys, who hunted and fished all the time. There seemed to be something vicious about him. Also, the people who worked for him, made sure there were bottles of booze hidden in the trees along the path he would take. Not a good guy.

I had to read "Old Man and the Sea" as a high school English class assignment. And was then told by the teacher it was a parable(?) for how Hemingway viewed being a writer and how editors ate away at his novel's length.

"Gematria Effect News" was here

He was a particularly popular imposter among 150 million people and we are scared to play imp among 10 people... At least i am...

Sounds like he got “suicided” to me

John Dos Passos stories, please. He is a giant of an author, a contemporary of Hemingway.

Weird History please talk about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

Have you done one on Julia Child's spy days??!?

He served in US Navy Intelligence during ww2 with specialty was keep eye out for German activity on Cuba and regions around it.

Please do a video on Ancient Persia

do one about Guy Folks

@5:45 Is such a George Constanza Move, and why does he look like him in that photo? LMAO!

Can you do something about the Chicago Fire?

I’m 40 years old, have a college education and grew up in a large city with access to lots of different art and literature and I literally have never read anything by Hemingway 🤷‍♂️ Edit: I’m American lol

Somewhat obscure sci-fi author with numerous movies made based on his works and very influential such as Solaris and Simcity. Stanislaw Lem

Work until your signature becomes an autograph -Shazistic

Great stuff!!📷💻📡📳👂👀⌚💵👨

The worst KGB spy, but actually one of the best American spies that no one would ever know.

This is an unexpected thing. Subverted my expectations. 😆 Whats next? You gonna tell me Plato or Confucius were generals and actually led men on the battlefield. 😆😅

Hemingway was well known for hunting and bullfighting, the two greatest things a man could do according to him.

"... but he was a serious enough asset for the Soviets to give him his own code name, Argo. ... While the code name certainly provided cover to the writer during his clandestine operations, it's also believed to have a slightly more amusing purpose, it was meant to flatter Hemingway, and make him feel like a real secret agent. The tactic apparently worked ..." Russian intelligence officers gave a code name to just about everyone they had had contact with or made reference to, whether they worked for Soviet intelligence or not. This code name would be used in encrypted communications. It is an unwarranted leap from having a code name to "clandestine operations." Also, this code name would not be revealed to the person it referred to. Therefore, it would not have provided Hemingway any cover during the unnamed "clandestine operations." In the text of the book on the screen, where it says Hemingway was recruited on ideological grounds, it also say he was "unverified." That means a background investigation that would precede approval from Moscow to use him as an agent had not been completed. According to the video, Hemingway was recruited by Jacob Golos. In 1945, Golos' courier and lover, Elizabeth Bentley told the FBI all she knew about the networks Golos set up. She was a courier for them. Bentley told the FBI, and testified before Congress about numerous spies the Soviets were running, including Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Harry Dexter White. Apparently she never mentioned Hemingway in public or closed-door testimony. It is more likely that Hemingway was met by an NKVD officer or an NKVD agent, to whom he expressed his sympathetic support for the Soviet-backed Republicans and his hatred for Fascists. Other than disliking totalitarians intensely, Hemingway was not that politically inclined. Notice the alleged "missions" are not described even in a general sense. That is because Hemingway had no secrets to give them. The video gives zero specific missions the Soviets assigned to Hemingway. It seems more likely he occasionally encountered a Soviet spy who reported the meeting. In what has been flashed on the screen, it appears Hemingway's contact only saw him once or twice a year. This does not indicate he was actively gathering intelligence for the Soviets. Quite the opposite. It seems more likely that instead of secrets, what they got from Hemingway was not the blueprints for the latest fighter plane, but impressions of military, intelligence and political leaders he came across. "So Hemingway was right about being watched by the feds. Huh, maybe he wasn't so bad at the whole spycraft thing after all." Well, no. The purpose of good spycraft is to go unnoticed.

"Blacklisted or jailed" was the least of it- it's worth remembering that this would have all been happening on the heels of the Rosenberg executions.

You should do Mulan and Pocahontas

Wouldnt it be soooooo amazing if 2021 turned into...... 1990? :)

I diddnt know he was a total traitor

......I learned something new today

And the dogs continue to savage his bones.

Im guessing he did it for the lols! Probably for inspiration too, on the USSR dime. Sad that his life ended so tragically. Hey! Can you do Nelson Mandela? I am from South Africa and would like to see.

I wonder if he did it just to brag that he did. But ended up being over his head.

Fun fact: Hemingway is basically a real life deadpool because he survived contracting malaria, hepatitis, pneumonia, skin cancer and anthrax. He survived accidentally shooting himself in the foot with a harpoon gun trying to hunt sharks, probably because he was trying to set the the world record for manliest afternoon in history. He survived a plane crash in Africa and literally the next day the second plane he boarded exploded before takeoff and survived a brush fire on his fishing boat and when he drove an ambulance in WW1 it got hit by mortar fire. He survived every single one of those injuries and catastrophes making him a real life deadpool.

Anything on Hunter S. Thompson

not all great men are good men

Ernest Hemingway diagnosed with terminal cancer at the Mayo clinic returns home and shoots himself. Suicide because he was a spy? There is a hole in that story somewhere.

Wow, after the conclusion we should seek similar means to an end to the art the spy effort

He must've been half-way good at it since he never got caught! Isn't that what they're supposed to do?