Brewer, Susan A. To Win the Peace: British Propaganda in the United States during World War II. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.In 1939, William S. Stephenson traveled to the United States as the envoy of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and established a liaison relationship between British intelligence and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He returned in 1940 to establish the British Security Coordination (BSC) office in New York, under cover of a British Passport Control officer. BSC was SIS' New York station from which the liaison with the FBI and intelligence and counterintelligence operations for North and South America were managed. Stephenson is credited with persuading William J. Donovan of the need for a U.S. intelligence and covert action agency along the lines of the British SIS and Special Operations Executive (SOE). Donovan convinced President Roosevelt to establish, first, the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) and, later, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). During the war years, Stephenson worked closely with Donovan and the newly established U.S. intelligence apparatus. BSC was disbanded in 1946. O'Toole, Encyclopedia, pp. 439-440.
Brewer, Susan A. To Win the Peace: British Propaganda in the United States during World War II. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Watt, I&NS 14.2, finds this a "clear, competent, workmanlike" book that is "based on thorough research used critically." He compares this work very favorably to Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deceptions (1998).
Conradi, Peter. "Camp X Spy School Gave Fleming Licence to Kill." Sunday Times (London), 13 Feb. 2000. [http://www.the-times.co.uk]
Canadian film-maker Jeremy McCormack has produced a television documentary on Camp X, where British, American, and Canadian unconventional warfare training took place from 1939.
See also, Lynn-Philip Hodgson, Inside-Camp X (1999); and David Stafford, Camp X (1986).
Deac, Wilfred P. "Amy Elizabeth Thorpe: WWII's Mata Hari." World War II. [http://www.historynet.com/wwii/blamyelizabeththorpe/]
This is a fast and breezy walk-through of some of the espionage sexploits attributed to Amy Elizabeth Thorpe Pack Brousse (BSC's code name "Cynthia") before and during World War II.
See H. Montgomery Hyde, Cynthia (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965) or Cynthia: The Spy Who Changed the Course of the War (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965).
Evans-Pritchard,
Ambrose. "Scourge of McCarthyism was Red Spy." Electronic Telegraph,
8 Apr. 1996. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk]
The recently released Venona documents identify "Cedric Belfrage, the British writer who worked for wartime British intelligence, as a Soviet agent in the early 1940s." While Belfrage worked for British Security Coordination (BSC) in New York from 1941 to 1943, he was also "agent UCN/9, a source for a KGB officer named Vasilij Zubilin.... Apparently he was not the only Soviet spy on the staff there. The identification of another agent known as 'Havre' is blacked out in the declassified documents."
Hildreth, Reed C. "Code Name: CYNTHIA." Intelligencer14, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2004): 23-25.
"Cynthia" was Amy Elizabeth Thorpe, an American who spied for the British Security Coordination (BSC) against the Axis powers in the United States. This article summarizes some of the exploits often attributed to Thorpe. Her biographer was H. Montgomery Hyde, Cynthia (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965) or Cynthia: The Spy Who Changed the Course of the War (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965).
Hodgson, Lynn-Philip. Inside-Camp X. Toronto: Blake Books, 1999.
This SOE training base on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario was used by the British in providing some initial training for OSS secret operatives.
Hodgson maintains a Website devoted to Camp X, at http://webhome.idirect.com/~lhodgson/campx.htm. Vintage photographs and excerpts from the book are included.
See also, David Stafford, Camp X (1986).
Hyde,
H. Montgomery. Cynthia. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965. Cynthia: The Spy Who Changed the Course of the War. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965.
Petersen identifies "Cynthia" as Amy Elizabeth Thorpe, "an American who spied for the British against the Axis in the United States."
To Constantinides, the "grandiloquent subtitle of the British edition obviously claims too much for her accomplishments.... The verdict on Thorpe and her work for British Security Coordination is still out, and further research is needed."
Hyde,
H. Montgomery. The Quiet Canadian: The Secret Service Story of Sir William
Stephenson. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962. Room 3603: The Story of the British Intelligence Center in New York During World War II. New York: Farrar, Straus & Co., 1963. New York: Dell, 1964. [pb] New York: Ballantine, 1977. [pb] London: Constable, 1989.
Pforzheimer sees The Quiet Canadian/Room 3603 as an "anecdotal account (excellent, as far as it goes) of British secret intelligence operations in the United States and the Western Hemisphere conducted by British Security Coordination (BSC)." It "is still the best book on Intrepid and BSC."
For Petersen, the book is "an incomplete but valid account" of BSC in the United States.
Constantinides notes that Hyde was on the BSC staff and had access to Sir William Stephenson and his files after the war. Thus, "he has "produced ... the best book so far on BSC and Stephenson." There is some feeling that more remains to be learned about BSC's activities, particularly regarding Stephenson's covert propaganda effort prior to U.S. entry into the war.
To Stafford, I&NS 5.3, Hyde presents Stephenson as "running BSC as a virtually independent agency," although BSC was acting on behalf of SIS, PWE, MI5, and the Security Executive in London. The book also "made claims for its subject that were untrue."
Charles, I&NS 15.2, calls the book "an early and uncritical exposition of wartime intelligence cooperation." Although Hyde "paints a rosy (and sometimes misleading) portrait of Stephenson and his activities, it nonetheless offers what is accepted as a largely accurate portrayal of BSC activity in the Western Hemisphere."
Troy, IJI&C 20.4 (Winter 2007), believes that Hyde's book remains "readable, informative, and generally persuasive." [Footnote omitted]
Hyde,
H. Montgomery. Secret Intelligence Agent: British Espionage in America and the Creation of the OSS. New York: St. Martin's, 1983. [Wilcox]
Kramer,
Paul. "Nelson Rockefeller and British Security Coordination."
Journal of Contemporary History 16 (Jan. 1981): 73-88. [Petersen]
Lowenthal,
Mark M. "Intrepid and the History of World War II." Military
Affairs 41, no. 2 (Apr. 1977): 88-90.
Macdonald, Bill. The True Intrepid: Sir William Stephenson and the Unknown Agents. Toronto: Timberholme, 1998. 2d ed. Vancouver, BC: Raincoast Books, 2001.
According to Peake, Studies 46.4, the author "examines many of the Stephenson myths and presents a good bibliographic summary of the stories written about him." The second edition "contains details that came to light after publication of the BSC and of the war report in 1999" and includes "a new Foreword by Tom Troy and a new Preface by the author."
Troy, IJI&C 20.4 (Winter 2007), notes that Macdonald "unearthed the hitherto untold story of Stephenson's birth in 1897 ... and of his adoption."
CASIS Intelligence Newsletter 34 (Winter 1999) points to related newspaper reportage: Steve Mertl, "Intrepid Book Sheds More Light on Spy's Life," Toronto Star, 29 Dec. 1998; and Olivier Courteaux, "Our International Man of Mystery," National Post (Toronto), 16 Jan. 1999.
MacDonnell,
Francis. "The Search for A Second Zimmermann Telegram: FDR, BSC, and
the Latin American Front." International Journal of Intelligence
and Counterintelligence 4, no. 4 (Winter 1990): 487-505.
Mahl, Thomas
E. Desperate Deceptions: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939-44. Washington, DC: Brassey's, 1998.
Cohen, FA 77.4, calls Desperate Deceptions a "fascinating account of some of the activities of the British [to get the United States into World War II], running the gamut from cleverly skewed spurious polls to the creation of front organizations funded by British intelligence."
For Seamon, Proceedings, Dec. 1998, "[t]his record of ... long years of clandestine service [by British covert operatives] is a fascinating addition to the literature on the war."
Troy, IJI&C 11.4, says that Mahl "writes clearly and forcefully, but often with much glibness and exaggeration." To the reviewer, it is noteworthy that the text includes only three references to British Prime Minister Churchill. And he finds "untrue ... the assertion made six times ... that Stephenson's deputy, Col. Charles H. ('Dick') Ellis, 'ran' Donovan's organization."
Even more negative about this work than Troy is Watt, I&NS 14.2, who derisively argues that Mahl "has used the results of his research to write a polemic that is so over the top as to raise serious doubts ... about the ... peer review which is supposed to precede the decision of a reputable publisher to accept his work for publication."
Charles, I&NS 15.2, concludes that "[t]oo few of the arguments presented in this book are convincing; too many are based on innuendo and speculation."
Naftali,
Timothy J. "Intrepid's Last Deception: Documenting the Career of Sir
William Stevenson." Intelligence and National Security 8, no. 3 (Jul. 1993): 72-99.
"There can be no doubt that Sir William Stevenson's exploits were great during the Second World War.... But [his] restless attitude toward his place in history tainted that legacy.... Stevenson was neither Intrepid, nor personal envoy. He did not contribute in any meaningful way to the Ultra achievement, nor did his beloved BSC execute Himmler's right-hand man."
Forward to UK WWII BSC O-Z
Return
to UK World War II Table of Contents