The Irregulars

Got back from Florida on Dec. 23rd and considerably slowed down my reading. Had some kind of flu which I believe I caught on the airplane; maybe circling over Chicago; maybe circling over Moline Illinois; maybe sitting on the ground in Moline Illinois for 1.5 hours...you get the idea. Got out of bed in Florida at 4 AM and did not see my bed at home until 12:30 AM the next morning. Note I said "see", I did not say get in my bed. The guy we count on to plow our driveway when we are gone apparently did not need the business this year. So I first had to shovel a path to at least get the car to the garage. Whine-whine-whine. I'm getting good at this!! Well, onto my latest book. I just picked it off the shelf of the library pretty much at random; it was not on my list of "must-read" books.

Jennet Conat, “The Irregulars (Roald Dahl & the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington), Simon & Schuster (2008), 348 Pgs.

Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, a small group of British spies was formed and assigned to Washington D.C. They called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins who were the eyes and ears of Sherlock Holmes in some Arthur Conan Doyle stories. This group constituted the very beginning of what would become M16, the British version of the CIA, and they helped bring about the American intelligence service, known at the time as the OSS. Among them were writers Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and the Canadian industrialist turned professional saboteur William Stephenson, known by the code name "Intrepid" (another good book “The Man Called Intrepid”), upon whom Fleming would later base his fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Prior to Pearl Harbor, this band concentrated on discrediting the isolationist in the U.S. and to get all the help from the U.S. that was possible, such as Lend-lease. This book describes these escapades through the perspective of Rolad Dahls’ involvement.

Pg. xvii: For those interested in all there is to be known about the British Security Coordination (BSC) group, the 1998 publication of the 536 page book entitled British Security Coordination: The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45, clearly shows the BSC spy networks operations and the willingness of the American press to peddle foreign propaganda aimed at leading the country into war.

Pg. 76: Six months before the U.S. entered the war there was, by Roosevelt’s order and despite State Department qualms, effectively close cooperation between J. Edgar Hoover and the F.B.I and British security services under the direction of William Stephenson (“Intrepid").

Pg. 80: According to the BSC history, the British found the Americans surprisingly easy to manipulate: “”It is unlikely that any propagandist would seriously attempt to influence politically the people of England, say or France through the medium of astrological predictions. Yet in the United States this was done with effective if limited results.” I believe Americans are still considered extremely naïve.

Pg. 163: Documents Lyndon Johnson’s affair in the late 1930’s with his friend & benefactors’ girl friend.

This book gives a good description of Vice President Wallace. He and Roald became good friends so we gain a good description of the manipulations that led to Harry Truman’s selection for the 1944 election. Wallace comes off as very competent and liberal, not a communist as so often accused.
Roald was married to American actress Patricia Neal for 30 years, divorcing in 1983. Roald is the author of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” among his many works. Roald died in 1990 at the age of 74.