stations, and destroying the rings. A tall order. The first five SIS agents were dispatched to the continent in September 1940, one each to Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela. Pale and corn-fed, they stepped off their planes into the lacerating sun of another continent. They wore snap-brim hats and looked like detectives that South Americans had seen in newspapers and movies. The agents knew little about codes, ciphers, or radio, these crucial tools of their
