William Boyd: The Secret Persuaders

What an amazing story! I've never heard about this before.

Towards the end of the story I began to think that maybe we didn't notice the arrival of 1984 because it came much sooner, in 1940.

Thanks Aine.

I lived through this conspiracy both in wartime U.S. and later in Canada. Although there were whispers and nudges, I understood nothing.

The Intrepid caper didn't come to my attention until 1976 when the Stephenson bio was published in Canada. At that time I scanted it as just another James-Bondish wartime escapade. After all, a close relative of mine had worked during the war at a secret agency in Baker Street, London, running agents in and out of occupied France. Espionage, no matter how morally questionable, was the done thing -- at least in wartime.

My father, a devoted subject of the British Crown, believed that Reasons of State could justify almost everything and anything. That remains the view of many if not most serious people today. Witness the current brouhaha over NSA wiretaps. It signifies that social sentiments are changing, at least in the democracies of the West.

During most of my lifetime, everyone who gave any thought to the matter was convinced that a sovereign State owed its duty only to its own interests. That was the way of the world. Morality in international affairs was, and largely still is, totally nonexistent.

But times are changing. The intensification of globalization, and the dense new communication networks are indeed turning the world into a global village, as Marshall McLuhan foresaw over forty years ago. Unfortunately the global village now turns out to be at war with itself (temporarily, one hopes).

Nowadays episodes like the BSC conspiracy, which was at one time shrouded in cynical chuckles, can no longer be kept quiet. The mood of Western democracies is on the turn. Large numbers of people will no longer put up with this kind of thing, even as they queasily applaud the exploits of Mossad.

George Bush and Tony Blair, with their lawyers, are trying to straddle these dangerous cross-currents, and they aren't making a very good job of it. I doubt that anyone will ever be able to.

What an amazing story.

excellent seed, Aine :-)

What this overlooks is that despite the BSC the USA did not enter WWII until after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Also, despite the BSC the America First party was very strong and anti-war sentiment was such that Roosevelt had to run on an anti-war platform in 1940. Despite the BSC the USA did not declare war on Germany until after Hitler declared war on the USA. While the BSC may have helped make the USA sympathetic to Great Britain's plight, the nation as a whole was still very much anti-war until Pearl Harbor.

In reference to the bombing of Germany Dr Noble Frankland in 1961 told the RUSI that "The great immorality open to us in 1940 and 1941 was to lose the war against Hitler's Germany." Covert ops by Britain in the US was perfectly acceptable and justifiable. If the BSC helped to defeat Hitler so be it.