Tickell, Jerrard. Moon Squadron. London: Mann, 1956. New York: Doubleday, 1958.
Tickell, Jerrard. Moon Squadron. London: Mann, 1956. New York: Doubleday, 1958.
Clark comment: This book is about the use of aircraft to infiltrate and exfiltrate agents into and out of German-occupied Europe.
Constantinides calls Moon Squadron an "early, tentative work on the subject."
See also: Alexander Hamilton, Wings of Night (London: Kimber, 1977); and Gibb McCall, Flight Most Secret (London: Kimber, 1981).
[UK/WWII/Overviews]
Tickell, Jerrard. Odette: The Story of a British Agent. London: Chapman, 1949.
Clark comment: This is the story of Mrs. Odette Samson awarded a George Cross for her service with SOE in France.
To Seaman, I&NS 20.1 (Mar. 2005), 30-31, this work "was a virtual hagiography." The author's opportunity to consult some SOE documents did not prevent him from "drifting into a cloying narrative."
[WWII/Eur/Fr]
Tidwell, William A. April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1995.
Clark comment: Tidwell is a retired brigidier general, who served with John Bakeless in the Military Intelligence Division (G-2) of the War Department General Staff during World War II. (p. viii) He also served with the CIA for 23 years. (Dustjacket) The author argues that this work presents "additional information and show[s] how it supports and enlarges on the explanation of the assassination of Lincoln" presented in Come Retribution. (p. 13). Gen. Tidwell died on 16 June 1999 at the age of 81. His obituary appears in the Washington Post, 17 Jun. 1999, B5.
Hanchett, WIR 14.1, says that Tidwell is the first to write about the Confederacy's secret service "in a scholarly and comprehensive fashion.... [He] demonstrates that ... Confederate officials in Canada recruited [John Wilkes] Booth to take over a plan that had been under consideration in the army and in Richmond for several months.... This original and scholarly book ... breaks away from the romanticism that has characterized writing about the Confederacy and hints at how much work is yet to done in the area of Civil War history."
According to AIJ 16.1, this book is "outstanding ... and highly recommended." Kruh, Cryptologia 20.1, says that "Tidwell presents probably the most thorough description of the Confederate Secret Service to date. He also traces the development of Confederate doctrine for the conduct of irregular warfare and the role of Jefferson Davis in approving clandestine operations." For Darron, NIPQ 20.3, "[t]his book is not an easy read. It can be described as drinking from a firehose!" Nevertheless, it "is worth the effort it takes to read it."
[CivWar/Conf/Lincoln][c]
Tidwell, William A."Charles County: Confederatre Cauldron." Maryland Historical Magazine 91, no. 1 (1996): 16-27.
Calder: "A brief history of the role of Charles County ... citizens in supporting the Confederacy..., in particular the underground actions in secret communications and transportation of equipment."
[CivWar/Conf/Related]
Tidwell, William. "Horrible Thought." Studies in Intelligence 2, no. 1 (Winter 1958): 65-70.
The analytic "community seems to have learned how to produce very good answers to intelligence problems without generating an undue amount of internal friction." However, "[t]he bold analysis, the sharp intuition, the long step forward, and the provocative ideas ... are almost never found in the formal papers put forward ... for the sober guidance of our planners and policymakers." There is a need to "extend our analysis in time and depth beyond present dimensions."
[Analysis/Critiques]
Tidwell, William A. "A New Kind of Air Targeting." Studies in Intelligence 11, no. 1 (Winter 1967): 55-60.
"Reconnaissance techniques developed for use against the Viet Cong's hidden bases may be of historic significance."
[Vietnam/Gen]
Tidwell, William A. "Notes on the CRITIC System." Studies in Intelligence 4, no. 2 (Spring 1960): 19-23.
NSCID No. 7 designated the Defense Department "as executive agent for creating and managing a world-wide communications system for the transmission of critical intelligence." The special CRITIC reporting system was set up in 1958. "The progress achieved by the CRITIC system has ... been excellent, but a number of problems remain to be overcome before it can reach full efficiency."
[MI/Commo]
Tidwell, William, with James O. Hall and David W. Gaddy. Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1988.
Writing in his later work, April '65 (p. 7), Tidwell argues that Come Retribution "presented evidence, much of it circumstantial, that permitted a reconstruction of the probable course of a Confederate operation to take Abraham Lincoln hostage." Gaddy, IJI&C 3.4, says that the book "presents Jefferson Davis as the first American president to have the capability to control covert action, to be able to coordinate it with conventional military strategy and to be placed in a position that made its employment not only attractive but essential."
The respected debunker of Civil War intelligence myths, Edwin C. Fishel, IJI&C 3.3, suggests that the book offers an "explanation of the assassination [that is] more logical and more believable than any other." The assassination is presented as the "culminating act of a history of unconventional warfare waged by the Confederate secret service." The authors' case is entirely circumstantial, but the book is based on an "impressive depth and range of ... research." However, some "weakly supported inflationary tactics are obvious to the casual reader."
Severin, writing in the conspiracy-oriented Back Channels, Winter 1993, finds that Come Retribution shows a "complex and close relationship between Booth and the Confederate Secret Service." The book is the product of "painstaking and voluminous research.... [This] will be the book on the covert role of the Confederate States of America in the Lincoln assassination for years to come."
On the other side, Neely, AHR 95.3, suggests that the book "returns to the long-discarded theory that Booth's plot to capture President Lincoln ... may have been part of an elaborate clandestine apparatus that reported to ... President Davis." In their efforts to link the Confederate high command to Booth's plot, the authors "stack[] doubtful inference on perilous surmise.... But speculation does not lead to certainty nor, in this case, come near the truth." Neely does accept, however, that Come Retribution "is competently written, has nice maps, and contains some little-known information on marginal Confederate characters."
[CivWar/Conf/Lincoln][c]
Tierney, John J., Jr. Chasing Ghosts: Unconventional Warfare in American History. Dulles, VA: Potomac, 2006. 2007. [pb]
[MI/SpecOps/00s]
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