M.R.D. Foot

Foot, M.R.D. "The Death of General Sikorski." Intelligence and National Security 21, no. 3 (Jun. 2006): 457-458.

A brief article to argue that the crash of Sikorski's plane off Gibralter in July 1943 was an accident, not an effort by MI6 to get rid of an annoyance.

[OtherCountries/Poland/WWII; UK/WWII/Overviews]

Foot, M.R.D. "Research Note: The Dutch Affair." Intelligence and National Security 20, no. 2 (Jun. 2005): 341-343.

The author does his best to put an end to speculation that London, for its own purposes, betrayed the more than 40 agents that SOE dropped into the lap of the German security forces in the Netherlands in 1942-1943. Foot prepared the official history that encompasses this episode [SOE in the Low Countries (2001)], and he is adamant that incompetence, not perfidy, brought on this debacle.

Jo Wolters, "Remarks Concerning a Research Note on The Dutch Affair," Intelligence and National Security 21, no. 3 (Jun. 2006): 459-466, takes issue with Foot's (and the official) position. Wolters argues for "a 'purposeful policy' by some British authority, other than Dutch Section SOE, bearing on the deployment of Dutch agents like 'shock troops'.... Such a policy ... was [aimed at] keeping as many German troops as possible in the West in 1942 to relieve the Russian front."

[UK/WWII/Services/SOE; WWII/Eur/Res/Dutch]

Foot, M.R.D. Resistance: European Resistance to Nazism, 1940-1945. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977. London: Methuen, 1978.

Pforzheimer says that, because of the scope undertaken, this book is afflicted with "some degree of superficiality and absence of detail"; but it "serves as a primer ... to the subject..., including the roles of SOE and OSS." There are some factual errors in the country-by-country surveys.

Constantinides notes the inclusion of "important facts, incidents, and anecdotes," even given the superficiality of the work. "A very useful bibliography can be found in the footnotes."

[WWII/Eur/Resistance]

Foot, M.R.D. Six Faces of Courage. London: Methuen, 1978.

Foot tells the stories of six heroes (four men and two women) in the World War II intelligence war. Constantinides calls this "a moving book," but one that "is also instructive" by identifying "what helps make agents great."

[UK/WWII; Women]

Foot, M.R.D. SOE: An Outline History of the Special Operations Executive 1940-46. London: BBC, 1984. London: Mandarin, 1990. [pb] The Special Operations Executive, 1940-1945. Frederick. MD: University Press of America, 1986.

With regard to the 1990 edition, Surveillant 1.2 says the work "describes ... how SOE was created and run, considers the kind of people who were involved and the tools they used, and assesses the impact." Pforzheimer calls the original edition a "lean, well written book."

[UK/WWII/Services/SOE]

Foot, M.R.D. SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944. London: HMSO, 1968. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984.

Pforzheimer notes that the focus of this book is on the "work of the F Section -- SOE's independent French Section.... The author had access to some official SOE files..., as well as some contact with participants."

For Constantinides, although this "official history" was written with a "formidable list of missing sources," including any reference to Ultra, it remains "an indispensable work on the subject."

Bross, Studies 11.2 (Spring 1967), sees this work as "an interesting and authentic ... description of the origins of SOE,... and its relations with the Prime Minister [footnote omitted] and the military chiefs of staff." References to "American participation in SOE operations ... are reasonably accurate if not complete." The problem is that Foot conveys "an inadequate impression of the scale of the American contribution to the support of resistance in Europe." Nonetheless, "SOE in France makes interesting, if occasionally confusing and provocative, reading, and it will be a very useful reference for those concerned with World War II in Europe."

[UK/WWII/Services/SOE]

Foot, M.R.D. SOE in the Low Countries. London: HMSO, 2001.

One of the World War II events that continues to draw speculation is SOE's disaster in the Netherlands in 1942-1943. Over 40 agents were dropped into the lap of the German security forces. Speculation that London betrayed those individuals for its own purposes refuses to go away. In a "Research Note: The Dutch Affair," Intelligence and National Security 20, no. 2 (Jun. 2005): 341-343, M.R.D. Foot does his best to put an end to such speculation. Foot prepared the official history that encompasses this episode [SOE in the Low Countries (2001)], and he is adamant that incompetence, not perfidy, brought on this debacle.

[UK/WWII/Services/SOE; WWII/Eur/Netherlands & OtherCountries/Belgium]

Foot, M.R.D. "Special Operations/2." In The Fourth Dimension of Warfare, vol. 1: Intelligence, Subversion, Resistance, ed. Michael Elliott-Bateman, 35-47. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970.

[UK/WWII/Services/SOE]

Foot, M.R.D. "Was SOE Any Good?" Journal of Contemporary History 16, no. 1 (1981): 167-181.

[UK/WWII/Services/SOE]

Foot, M.R.D. "What Use Are Secret Services?" In In the Name of Intelligence: Essays in Honor of Walter Pforzheimer, eds. Hayden B. Peake and Samuel Halpern, 277-282. Washington, DC: NIBC Press, 1994.

[WhatIsIntel?][c]

Foot, M. R. D. "What Use Was SOE?" RUSI Journal 148 (Feb. 2003): 76-83.

[UK/WWII/Services/SOE]

Foot, M.R.D., ed. Holland at War against Hitler: Anglo-Dutch Relations 1940-1945. London: Frank Cass, 1990.

[UK/WWII/Overviews; WWII/Eur/Res/Dutch]

Foot, M.R.D., and James M. Langley. MI9: The British Secret Service that Fostered Escape and Evasion, 1939-1945, and Its American Counterpart. London: Bodley Head, 1979. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980.

Pforzheimer notes that the U.S. edition is slightly expanded from the 1979 original "to give some material on the American MIS-X, the counterpart of the British escape and evasion organization, MI 9."

Constantinides calls MI9 "the best and most detailed picture of the organization and staff aspects of Allied E&E."

[UK/WWII/Services/MI9]

Foot, M.R.D., selector. Secret Lives: Lifting the Lid on Worlds of Secret Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Peake, Studies 47.1 (2003), finds that this work is comprised of some 90 entries selected from the Dictionary of National Biography of individuals who lived between 1400 and 2000 and who were involved in secret service in some way. "The collection is a useful adjunct to the intelligence literature."

For Bath, NIPQ 19.4, Foot's "entries are short and fact-filled, but highly readable.... A great book for reference and for leisure time browsing."

Alvarez, H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews, Aug.2003 [http://www.h-net.org], comments that "the alleged merits and attractions of the DNB [Dictionary of National Biography] are lost on this reviewer. If the present selections are a fair indication, the entries seem no more or less pedestrian than those found in most reference volumes.... [T]he entries (some originally published more than a hundred years ago) can hardly be expected to provide much in the way of fresh insight or new information concerning their subjects."

[UK/RefMats]

Return to Fo-Forc