Operation Pastorius Sabotage Failure

Operation Pastorius was a German WWII sabotage mission inside the United States that smuggled eight agents into the U.S. via a U-boat in 1942 with the intent of conducting acts of terrorism. The coast guard spotted them, and two of the agents later defected, so the plan failed miserably. It was compromised right from the start when one of the agents, in a drunken moment, announced in a Paris bar that he was a secret agent. Finally, the mission was betrayed when George John Dasch, one of the conspirators, walked into the D.C. FBI headquarters, dumped $84,000 in cash on the Assistant Director's desk, and demanded to be taken seriously.