The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington
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When Roald Dahl, a dashing young wounded RAF pilot, took up his post at the British Embassy in Washington in 1942, his assignment was to use his good looks, wit, and considerable charm to gain access to the most powerful figures in American political life. A patriot eager to do his part to save his country from a Nazi invasion, he invaded the upper reaches of the U.S. government and Georgetown society, winning over First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband, Franklin; befriending wartime leaders from Henry Wallace to Henry Morgenthau; and seducing the glamorous freshman congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce. Dahl would soon be caught up in a complex web of deception masterminded by William Stephenson, aka Intrepid, Churchill's legendary spy chief, who, with President Roosevelt's tacit permission, mounted a secret campaign of propaganda and political subversion to weaken American isolationist forces, bring the country into the war against Germany, and influence U.S. policy in favor of England. Known as the British Security Coordination (BSC) — though the initiated preferred to think of themselves as the Baker Street Irregulars in honor of the amateurs who aided Sherlock Holmes — these audacious agents planted British propaganda in American newspapers and radio programs, covertly influenced leading journalists — including Drew Pearson, Walter Winchell, and Walter Lippmann — harassed prominent isolationists and anti-New Dealers, and plotted against American corporations that did business with the Third Reich. In an account better than spy fiction, Jennet Conant shows Dahl progressing from reluctant diplomat to sly man-about-town, parlaying his morale-boosting wartime propaganda work into a successful career as an author, which leads to his entrée into the Roosevelt White House and Hyde Park and initiation into British intelligence's elite dirty tricks squad, all in less than three years. He and his colorful coconspirators — David Ogilvy, Ian Fleming, and Ivar Bryce, recruited more for their imagination and dramatic flair than any experience in the spy business — gossiped, bugged, and often hilariously bungled their way across Washington, doing their best to carry out their cloak-and-dagger assignments, support the fledgling American intelligence agency (the OSS), and see that Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented fourth term. It is an extraordinary tale of deceit, double-dealing, and moral ambiguity — all in the name of victory. Richly detailed and meticulously researched, Conant's compelling narrative draws on never-before-seen wartime letters, diaries, and interviews and provides a rare, and remarkably candid, insider's view of the counterintelligence game during the tumultuous days of World War II. The Barnes & Noble Review This breezy, gossipy, beautifully written book traces the early life of the writer Roald Dahl as he made the rounds and unmade the beds in 1940s Washington as one of His Majesty's dashing spies. Intent on bringing the United States into World War Two, England established a clandestine agency called British Security Coordination, which undercut American isolationist sentiment and monitored domestic politics. For talent, BSC looked to men like Dahl and Ian Fleming, who had good ears and clever conversation. With his polished brass buttons and natural swagger, Dahl encouraged glamorous confidences over morning tennis with the vice president, at poker with Senator Truman, and in bed with actresses, heiresses, and congresswomen (a friend crowned Dahl "the biggest cocksman in Washington"). While Franklin, Eleanor, and the Hyde Park weekend set contemplated another dip in the pool before cocktails, Dahl was "scribbling notes on the backs of matchbooks and dinner napkins" and also writing his first short stories. He reported to William Stephenson (code name Intrepid), the BSC chief whom author Jennet Conant apparently admires but whose secrecy and ferocious territoriality call to mind Dick Cheney's one-lipped snarl. Conant's narrative is so effortless and entertaining that the reader largely forgets the war that raged while Dahl drank champagne and penned silly letters impersonating the ambassador. Nevertheless, it's hard to suppress a mild discomfort with a story about back-slapping, there's-a-good-chap intelligence antics when our own spies these days are doing things we'd rather not know about. The book also chronicles one too many a divorce, showing that dish about the private lives of yesterday's or today's celebrities is pretty much the same thing, and always a little distasteful. But the latter objection also applies to the latest steamy romance novel, and so does this rejoinder: deep down, we love the stuff. --Michael O'Donnell
1 The Usual Drill 12 Piece of Cake 353 Enthusiastic Amateurs 654 Special Relationships 995 Buffers 1276 One Long Loaf 1457 The War in Washington 1798 Dirty Work 2099 Good Value 23710 Enemy Maneuvers 25911 The Glamour Set 29312 Full Lives 321Notes 349Bibliography 370Index 381
