The Scarlet Thread Quotes

“My espionage travels took me once around the world, to all of the continents except Australia, over most of the great mountain ranges and across most of the great rivers. At various times I followed the routes of Captain Cook, Sinbad the Sailor, T.E. Lawrence, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, Marshal Lyautey, and Admiral Livy.

In telling some of the stories of those years, I plead the precedent of the Author of the Old Testament in being security minded, and I hope to be excused for leaving a number of things untold and a number unexplained.

Rome,
March 1953.”
― Donald Downes, The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage

“OSS, Donovan's own creation, with the stamp of him on it, with the spirit of him in it, became a vivid and compelling force in many critical moments and places of war.

He's a great guy, and he did an extraordinary job, and I think I know what gave him the patience, the courage, and the energy to carry on over all obstacles. He loves his country more than any man I know.

But, my God, sometimes he can make you want to knock his teeth out, too.”
― Donald Downes, The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage

“[General William Donovan] wanted to see the beachhead, already nearly two weeks old, to smell powder, to sleep in a fox-hole and eat K-rations. Instead he found our outfit luxuriously installed in the Hotel Luna within rifle-shot of the fighting. Don Antonio, the proprietor, was prowling into no-man's land for good fresh Mozarella cheese. We had, all ninety of us, fresh sheets on our beds. The chambermaids wore spotless uniforms; the waiters served us in dinner jackets.

The General was disappointed. He mumbled something about this being a hellova way to fight a war, and added a footnote about congressional investigations. Major John Roller suggested digging him a foxhole under the mimosa tree in the rose garden, but no one quite dared offer to do it.”
― Donald Downes, The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage

“...war cares no more for honour, or for decency and honesty, than it does for life.”
― Donald Downes, The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage

“...I remembered how Philby's enemy, [T.E.] Lawrence, refused his country's decorations, and later even a commission in the R.A.F., and enlisted as a simple airman.

In 1940 this seemed irresponsible and hysterical to me. But by 1945 I had seen a score or more British and Americans on the verge of treason through similar bitterness.
. . .
By 1945 I grew to understand the Philby-Lawrence reaction and to consider such men, and their honour, as casualties of war -- for war cares no more for honour, or for decency and honesty, than it does for life.”
― Donald Downes, The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage

“It seemed strange to me that my first commission for information should require spying on a friendly power. A few years later it would have seemed quite ordinary. Allies are willing to donate both lives and wealth to the common cause; but the exchange, honestly, of truthful information is nearly impossible. I have noticed that intelligence executives become hoarders, so miserly and overcautious that they frequently render useless vital information which has been collected at great cost in money and men.”
― Donald Downes, The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage