That Devious Spy: A Book Review on Roald Dahl’s Time as a British Spy In September of 1940, a debonairly young RAF pilot named Roald Dahl crashed in the Western Desert of North Africa. From the crash, Dahl is rewarded with severe injuries to the head, nose and back. In 1942, Dahl, was commanded to take a job working at the British Embassy in Washington where he worked as an assistant air attaché. He was a 26 year old and he desperately wanted to be in the middle of the battle, where he could shoot other planes and enemy soldiers from his Gladiator plane. He didn’t want to be shoved into an office where he had to sit at a desk for 11 hours. Soon after his arrival in the United States Capitol, Dahl was “"caught up in the complex web of intrigue masterminded by [William] Stephenson, the legendary Canadian spymaster, who outmaneuvered the FBI and State Department and managed to create an elaborate clandestine organization whose purpose was to weaken the isolationist forces in America and influence U.S. policy in favor of Britain. Tall, handsome, and intelligent, Dahl had all the makings of an ideal operative. A courageous officer wounded in battle, smashing looking in his dress uniform, he was everything England could have asked for as a romantic representative of their imperiled island. He was also arrogant, idiosyncratic, and incorrigible, and probably the last person anyone would have considered reliable enough to be trusted with anything secret. Above all, however, Dahl was a survivor. When he got into trouble, he was shrewd enough to make himself useful to British intelligence, providing them with gossipy items that proved he had a nose for scandal and the writer's ear for damning detail. Already attached to the British air mi... ... middle of paper ... ...ct allowed the American government to lend allied powers necessary materials needed for the war (Hinsley). Soon after his arrival in the United States capitol, Dahl met Charles Marsh, a newspaper industrialist who made friends with significant and powerful people in Washington D.C. Marsh was an “exemplary host and an amusing and informative guide to Washington's stratified society, where new and old money, the congressional set and the diplomatic corps, all jostled for recognition” (78). Bibliography Hinsley, F.H., et al. British Intelligence in the Second World War. Vol. 1-5. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1997-1990 Lovell, Mary S. Cast No Shadow: The Life of the American Spy Who Changed the Course of World War II. New York: Pantheon, 1992 Persico, Joseph E. Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage. New York: Random House 2001
Rauchway,Eric. Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America. 1st ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003.
To keep with the “true neutrality” the United States initially refused to aid either side with supplies or economic assistance. Once the battles became entrenched and a “war of attrition” began, the European nations continued to look toward the United States for aid. As American financial institutions and exporters sought guidance from Wilson’s administration they received a different answer: “short term loans and credits by American financial institutions to belligerents in connection with trade were acceptable” (Zieger, 11). Americans could not over look the potential economic boost that could be achieved by supplying the European nations with food, supplies and weapons orders being requested.
Guilford, CT: Dushkin/ McGraw-Hill, 1997. Chiatkin, Anton. A. Treason in America. Washington DC: Executive Intelligence. Review, a review of the book, Divine, Breen, Frederickson, and Williams. America Past and Present.
"Queen's University Archives - World War I." Queen's University Archives - Home. Web. 23 July 2010.
Takaki, Ronald. Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II. N.p.: Little Brown and, n.d. Print.
Danzer, Gerald A., Klor De Alva, Krieger, Wilson, and Woloch. "Chapter 25 - The United States in World War II." The Americans. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2007. 874-903. Print.
“The effect of World War II” 1950s vol. 4. Danbury: Grolier, Scholastic Library Publishing, 2005.
Rysavy, Tracy. "Secrets of a Poet Spy." Yes. A Journal of Positive Futures. Oct. 1999. 16. Sept. 2003.
RAF, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. Flanders, Dalma. " "Intelligence" WAAF's in 'Y' Service." Letter. 14 Mar. 2004.
Weiler, Lawrence D. The Arms Race, Secret Negotiations and the Congress, Iowa: The Stanley Foundation, 1976.
Herman, Arthur. Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II. New York: Random House, 2012. Print
In Madeleine Masson’s book Christine SOE Agent & Churchill’s Favorite Spy, Masson sheds light and further helps to show who Christine Granville was and how she impacted World War II for Britain. Christine Granville was a beauty queen who turned into the spy who loved otherwise known as the Britain's Special Operations Executive and Churchill’s favorite spy. Born in Warsaw in 1915 to an aristocratic family, whom later was known to fall to the hard times, Christine Granville was born as Krystyna Scarbek. Christine Granville was a G.M., O.B.E. and Croix de Guerre, who was undeniably one of the most successful agents of World War II until she was murdered at thirty-seven years old in the London Hotel in 1952. She worked as a British secret agent
Kross, Peter. The. The “George Washington: America’s First Spy Master”. Military Intelligence, Jan-Mar 1991, Vol. 17, Issue 1, p. 6.
Among the spies of the 20th century, Kim Philby was a master of his craft. “To betray, you must first belong,” Kim Philby once said. Philby betrayed his colleagues, his friends, his wives, and most of all his country. He did all this in the secret service of the Soviet Union. The effects of this master spy’s operations set the stage for post-World War II in Europe.
When one has mastered the art of deception, one can almost do anything one wants. If one is also ruthless, one will become a dangerous person. In Roald Dahl’s “Man From the South”, Carlos, a man with a gambling addiction persuades an American sailor to bet on a game that Carlos will offer his Cadillac against the sailor’s little finger. Carlos bets that the sailor cannot ignite his cigarette lighter ten times in succession. Carlos almost wins the bet, and in a nick of time, Carlos’ companion reveals his trickery and his ruthlessness to collect fingers. Through his deception and ruthlessness, Carlos is able to make a game that will physically hurt the sailor. One must not be fooled but others appearance because people might have hidden intentions.