The back rooms
Maurice Buckmaster A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War 1939-1945 William Stevenson (Macmillan £4.95)
Public demand for a definitive history of 'what went on behind the scenes in the years of World War II' has been surprisingly clamorous and prolonged. Professor M. R. D. Foot's Official History (of the SOE in France) raised only part of the curtain—and that in only one sphere of clandestine operations. Other books which have appeared on the same subject, and there are many, are even less helpful, based as they are largely on conjecture or on isolated incidents which failed to reveal the strategic importance and impact of secret operations.
Until the appearance of William Stevenson's book—'Intrepid' was the code-name of Sir William Stephenson, but the similarity of name is purely coincidental—no author had attempted to bring together all the clandestine activities which played a vital part in bringing America into the war and in achieving victory. This long delay in presenting a coherent account to the many students of this complex affair was not caused solely by the imposition of the Official Secrets Act and the so-called 'thirty-year rule'. Apart from Sir William himself, there was no one source of information whose knowledge covered all its aspects. That his near name-sake has persuaded him to release his account helps the future historian to fit together the pieces in the jig-saw puzzle which have hitherto seemed inconsistent.
In his foreword Sir William writes from his home in Bermuda, 'Iclosed the books on BSC' (British Security Co-ordination), 'never, I hoped, to open them again.' But he was encouraged to do so, thirty years after the surrender of the Axis Powers, by the realisation that much dangerous misinformation had been widely distributed during those three decades, some for purely commercial objectives, some in order to court popularity, some, more significantly, for political reasons. And he poses the question : 'How can we preserve secrecy without endangering constitutional law and individual guarantees of freedom?'
This high-sounding title, British Security Co-ordination, covered the activities of a small group of amateurs who were asked by Winston Churchill to examine the totally new problems of a war in which, after June 1940. the British Armed Forces were physically separated from the enemy by a narrow stretch of sea and our only potential asset was the problematical willingness of patriots in occupied countries to turn upon their invaders. In order to enable them to do so, it would be necessary to provide them with the means—the arms and ammunition —and, above all, methods of communication with the free world. These were the problems which Stephenson and his colleagues were invited to study, and the results of their work are more widely known than the difficulties with which they had to contend.
The first task was to persuade the Americans that neutrality would not avail them if Britain were conquered. In President Roosevelt Stephenson had a magnificent ally. Much of this book is devoted to the subtle diplomacy with which the President, who willingly listened to Stephenson's promptings, dealt with the Senate and the embattled neutralists, not to mention the large and powerful anti-British and pro-Nazi groups in USA. A very careful path through the maze of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI had to be mapped and cautiously trodden. Stephen.son was a superb strategist and, even if his chronicle sometimes appears to lapse into over-fulsome praise, his handling of potentially explosive situations was masterly. To us, the lesser fry of Baker Street, his was a magical, stratospheric, but unknown personality. We knew his distinguished colleague, General 'Big Bill' Donovan, whose efforts to co-ordinate the activities of OSS (Office of Strategic Services) with those of SOE (Special Operations Executive) were painstaking and occasionally climactic. But Stephenson, to me, at least, was a distant figure, the ultimate arbiter of our fate, the eminence grise in the highest War Councils who had our interests at heart, but was never, until now, a live, human being.
I was intrigued to find in this book the account of the mission undertaken by one of our French Section agents, Noor Inayat Khan. It is a fair example of the kind of problem with which we were continually confronted, but the account is marred by the introduction of inferences from other less well researched books which conclude that the failure of this particular mission, in spite of the incredible courage and perseverance of the agent, 'smashed' the French network. That was precisely the conclusion which we sought to plant in the minds of the enemy, whilst we built up the forty or more other 'reseaux' which continued to operate successfully. In this sense we were more persuasive than we realised.
A Man Called Intrepid reveals much background information which was unknown before its publication, even to those who were engaged in carrying out the Chief's policy down the chain of command. It gives a picture not only of the successes of the Intelligence and Sabotage organisations, but also of the anxieties of the policymakers, torn between the paramount need for secrecy and the preservation of their operators. No one more than Intrepid himself deplored the need for subterfuge, but if it had to be done at all, it had better be done convincingly. Stephenson was aware of the cardinal fact that the primary defence of democracy is information. This requirement has more point today than ever.
Previous page
