The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas

by William (ed.). Stephenson

In 1940 Winston Churchill dispatched a Canadian industrialist to New York with an extraordinary mission in a neutral country: to set up a secret spy network across both North and South America to cripple and confound Nazi propaganda and to fan the flames of pro-war sentiment. Sir William Stephenson (of A Man Called Intrepid fame) set up shop in Rockefeller Center to build a vast intelligence network-the British Security Coordination-the full story of which is now told for the first time. Operating on still-neutral soil, Stephenson's people soon launched an astonishing bagful of dirty tricks: they unmasked Axis spies, intercepted enemy communications, slipped beautiful female spies into the Vichy and Italian embassies in Washington, infiltrated labor unions, and spread British propaganda using U.S. radio stations and such prominent journalists as Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson. The complete report-commissioned at the end of the war and written by Roald Dahl and Gilbert Highet, among others-has been kept secret until now.

Genres: History, Espionage, World War II

536 pages, Hardcover

First published August 6, 1998

Reviews

[Glyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It gives a fascinating insight to the shadowy world of British Intelligence during World War II. A reviewer for the Washington Post describes it as a "textbook for political manipulation" and some of the things that are detailed here are certainly shady. The organisation went out of it's way to ruin careers and occasionally lives. What effect that has upon the reader is a question for each reader to ask individually. As far as they were concerned the gloves were off because Britain, and arguably western democracy, was under mortal danger from Nazism and U.S aid was needed to fight it. It was to be obtained by any means necessary Exitus probat acta?

I removed one star because some of the ideas put forward in the book jar horrendously with modern perceptions and morality. The section on operations in South America is full of throwaway dismissive comments about national stereotypes that we would now describe as casual racism It is only one because in 1945 when this was originally written the world was a very different place.

[Steven W Oatway · Rating 5 out of 5]

My mother, Evelyne Oatway, was one of the "Canadian Secretaries" who worked for the BSC in their Washington office. She also attended social events in New York, and I have surmised that was for the purpose of acquiring information through conversation, which Mom was very good at. She hated the "fictional" book called "A Man Called Intrepid" which I encourage people not to read. Read, "The True Intrepid" and other new ones for the truth. I am in contact with other people who had parents working in the BSC, and one thing we know is that they met a lot of famous or later famous people. As I read accounts now, I recognize important people from the names she would mention when chatting with her former BSC employees. As for the book, it is a tough read, not a smooth exciting fictional spy story, but to any WWII historian, it is essential reading! What the BSC did was contribute enormously to winning the War and saving humanity from a horrible fate.