The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington - Jennet Conant
The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington - Jennet Conant
Non-Fiction
Pages: 416
This was a fascinating book, in that it managed somehow to be incredibly interesting and remarkably dull at the same time. I think it succeeds far more as a biography of Roald Dahl's wartime years in Washington than it does as an exploration of the activities of the British Security Commission.
For all the title of this book, this is hardly a James Bond story, although Ian Fleming himself does make a guest appearance as another of the BSC's recruits. There is very little skulduggery, breaking-and-entering, safe-cracking, or any other kind of activity one might associate with wartime spies. This is spying as political intrigue, as rumour, gossip, propaganda and the currency of information. The BSC's main role in Washington was to manoeuvre America into taking on a more active role in the war, by demonising and vilifying the Nazis and playing up the role of plucky little Britain, fighting against the odds and needing all the help it could get. After Pearl Harbor, when America entered the war on the side of the Allies, the BSC's role shifted more into one of jockeying for post-war position alongside America and Russia.
I knew nothing of Roald Dahl other than the somewhat grandfatherly figure who wrote many of the books I remember as a child, so it was interesting to read about him as a young, dashing RAF pilot gadding about Washington society interacting with the great and the good. His role in the BSC seemed to consist of little more than passing on gossip and information, hobnobbing with the wealthy and influential and using that position to influence events. The role seems much more akin to a modern political lobbyist than a spy, not quite the role one might expect from the title.
Non-Fiction
Pages: 416
This was a fascinating book, in that it managed somehow to be incredibly interesting and remarkably dull at the same time. I think it succeeds far more as a biography of Roald Dahl's wartime years in Washington than it does as an exploration of the activities of the British Security Commission.
For all the title of this book, this is hardly a James Bond story, although Ian Fleming himself does make a guest appearance as another of the BSC's recruits. There is very little skulduggery, breaking-and-entering, safe-cracking, or any other kind of activity one might associate with wartime spies. This is spying as political intrigue, as rumour, gossip, propaganda and the currency of information. The BSC's main role in Washington was to manoeuvre America into taking on a more active role in the war, by demonising and vilifying the Nazis and playing up the role of plucky little Britain, fighting against the odds and needing all the help it could get. After Pearl Harbor, when America entered the war on the side of the Allies, the BSC's role shifted more into one of jockeying for post-war position alongside America and Russia.
I knew nothing of Roald Dahl other than the somewhat grandfatherly figure who wrote many of the books I remember as a child, so it was interesting to read about him as a young, dashing RAF pilot gadding about Washington society interacting with the great and the good. His role in the BSC seemed to consist of little more than passing on gossip and information, hobnobbing with the wealthy and influential and using that position to influence events. The role seems much more akin to a modern political lobbyist than a spy, not quite the role one might expect from the title.