Reese Kaplan -- Baseball Catcher, Spy and Assassin???

If you ask the average American who''s Heisenberg you'll be regaled with a detailed story about how Bryan Cranston as Walter White in "Breaking Bad" created a drug kingpin alter ego named Heisenberg represented by a wearing a hat that became iconic in its appearance. 

For students of world history, however, Heisenberg was not a fictitious creation of Vince Gilligan on his way to pursuing well deserved Emmy Awards, but instead the real Werner Heisenberg.  He was identified unanimously as the leader of German physics and despite many reassuring reports that there was no immediate pending threat from the Nazi regime on completing a nuclear weapon, the very intellectual capacity and working skills of Heisenberg made the prospect a slim possibility that could happen.  

To combat this theory from becoming reality, the US government decided that Heisenberg needed to be removed from Germany to eliminate the risk of the worst possible scenario every happening.  

The initial plan was to have one of Los Angeles' finest patrol officers to be deployed to Europe where they would kidnap Heisenberg and have him flown out across the Mediterranean in a small plane from which they would then parachute into the sea and be transferred to an awaiting submarine that would transport the pair out of the European theater and hopefully Heisenberg would instead become a part of the American team of physicists in charge of finalizing the atomic bomb.

When that Hollywood style improbable capture of Heisenberg never happened, they came up with a fanciful plan B.  Catcher Moe Berg was going to be sent with lethal drugs to assassinate Heisenberg to eliminate the key player to the German nuclear team of weapons specialists.  Berg set out for Zurich under command that he was to put Heisenberg out of action if he could confirm even remote chatter about the nuclear bomb development taking place.  

Armed with a more conventional .45 handgun and his pharmaceutical weapons, Berg took on this mission with his usual unorthodox flair and energy.  Upon hearing Heisenberg lecture on unrelated topics in physics he was convinced that the physicist was either non political or even harboring the belief that there was nothing his country could do to prevent losing the war.  

Berg made the decision following the orders given that there was no need to end Heisenberg's life forcefully.  Though he wasn't as skilled in German as he was in other languages, Berg made careful observation of the others in the room to gauge their reactions and it reassured him that he was making the right call to bypass the assassination plan.

Upon returning to the USA President Truman ended the OSS and endorsed the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  In transitioning from the old agency to the new one they eliminated 90% of the jobs including the one held by Moe Berg.  Still, Truman recognized the value the man offered his country during the war and the President nominated him to receive the Medal of Freedom which Berg refused to accept.  

He felt he hadn't accomplished all that he could have done and none of his exploits were allowed to be revealed as everything was done in secrecy.  He felt the medal would be an unpleasant way of forcing him to relive every failure he'd had while with the OSS.  

For the rest of his life Berg was in a perpetual state of transition, living with friends and relatives for weeks at a time but never really settling into another full time profession save for a failed spy mission in the 1950s to ascertain the state of Russian nuclear technology.  In 1972 he died at age 70 while in medical care and his final words, believe it or not, from this Newark-raised baseball professional were (according to his nurse), "How did the Mets do today?"  If that doesn't bring us full circle, nothing will.