Decoy Recalls Risky Role as Roosevelt Stand-In

Robert C. Ebaugh fooled thousands of people as a decoy to Franklin Delano Roosevelt when rumors circulated that the president was the target of an overseas assassination plot.

“I looked a bit like him, and when I was waving everybody thought they were seeing Roosevelt,” said Ebaugh, who was involved in the U.S. Army’s Counterintelligence Corps in World War II.

Ebaugh was here last week for the 42nd annual convention of the National Counterintelligence Corps Assn.

He recalled how his presidential impersonation was prompted by a rumored assassination plot that purportedly was aimed at Roosevelt, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minster Winston Churchill.

According to the rumor, the three Allied leaders were to be killed when they met at the Tehran Conference in 1944 to review the status of World War II.

The conference in the Iranian capital was to be held in separate sessions in each country’s embassy, but Ebaugh said Stalin balked at that when he got wind of the death threats.

“There were reports that German paratroopers had landed with orders to kill all three leaders,” Ebaugh said. “We had enough informants in the countryside to know that wasn’t true, but Stalin said there would be no meetings unless they were held in the Russian Embassy.”

Since the United States had revealed the original plans for the Tehran Conference, American officials needed a story to explain the meeting change.

“We put out a story that the central heating in our embassy had gone out and that the open fireplaces did not provide enough heat for Roosevelt, who had a severe cold,” Ebaugh said. “None of it was true, but we needed a story to explain the President moving into the Russian Embassy.”

Ebaugh said the President and his security detail moved to the Soviet embassy as planned, but then the day before he was scheduled to return the United States, Roosevelt told his security team he wanted to tour a nearby troop hospital.

“They weren’t going to take any chances because of the rumor,” Ebaugh said. “The head of the Secret Service called me and said I’d been chosen as the clay pigeon to draw the fire.”

So Ebaugh donned the President’s cape and hat and settled into the back seat of Roosevelt’s car.

Meanwhile, Roosevelt rode two cars back in the motorcade. The shades on his car were drawn and the surrounding Secret Service agents wore soldiers’ uniforms to avoid drawing attention.

There were no incidents during the five-mile drive, but Ebaugh admitted to being apprehensive.

“I was a little concerned. We didn’t think there was anything to the rumors,” he said. “But you can never really know.”