This topic is probably too obscure and secretive for most people here.

Although folks like to complain about government and it's limitations, folks often understand very little about the complexity and nature of some aspects of government service. Including gov't efforts to keep it's population safe and secure.

However I know some, including more than one who are active on this message board, who had experience and unique knowledge of the subject.

I'm not as well informed on this matter in some ways as they are. However I've been writing a book about a related matter. My 92 year old uncle was in OSS Secret Intelligence during WW II. The OSS was disbanded at the end of that war. And my uncle was never involved in such activity after that. But many of The OSS concepts and key people formed the early CIA, when that was started about a year later. So I encounter information like the article which I'll enter in my next post below. It's a good background on the state of secret intelligence, as seen through the eyes of a top author, a couple of books, and now an upcoming movie on the topic.

January 6, 2012
True Spy Story behind Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
By Bernie Reeves

Most movie-goers do not know the story behind the acclaimed new film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, opening nationally this weekend. Adapted from the 1974 John Le Carré book, and the 1982 sequel Smiley's People, both were dramatized on BBC TV and PBS and can be found on Netflix and other sites.

Le Carré, the pen name for David Cornwell -- who served in MI6, Britain's secret intelligence service -- penned the two books (and the Honorable School Boy, the third installment in this trilogy), drawing on the real-life drama that tore apart the British spy demi-monde in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s: the discovery that the Soviet KGB had recruited upper-class British subjects to penetrate U.K. intelligence agencies.

Their infamous careers as spies are legends in Europe, but not as well-known in the U.S., which says volumes about the American culture. Yet three of the five penetrated U.S. secret services and diplomatic departments, setting off one of the most dramatic spy-hunts in U.S. history by James Angleton, the chief of counterintelligence for the CIA. The manic hunt for a mysterious additional hidden Soviet spy in the CIA was considered the most damaging episode in the spy agency's history by former director William Colby.

The KGB called them the Magnificent Five for their great successes, after the film The Magnificent Seven. But history remembers them as the Cambridge Spies since they were recruited by the KGB while students at the university in the late 1930s and early 1940s. In 1951, two of the moles -- Donald McLean and Guy* Burgess -- fled to Moscow after a tip stating that the secret service was hot on their heels.

In 1963, the suave and debonair Kim Philby, considered the ringleader -- and responsible for transferring U.S. atomic secrets to his handlers while posted as a liaison to Washington -- showed up in Moscow and held a press conference in a KGB colonel's uniform. His defection was an international sensation, but MI5 and MI6 knew that there were two more moles. In 1978, Anthony Blunt -- Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures and director of the Courtauld Gallery -- was exposed as the Fourth Man.

Through the 1980s, conspiracy theorists and alleged intelligence experts speculated on the identity of the Fifth Man. The book Spycatcher, written by retired MI5 senior officer Peter Wright in 1985, accused the former director of MI5 Roger Hollis of being the Fifth Man. The book was banned in the U.K. but published in Australia, and it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 8 months.

In 1990, Cambridge intelligence expert Chris Andrew published KGB: The Inside Story in collaboration with KGB colonel and double-agent Oleg Gordeivsky, who had access secret files in Moscow. The Fifth Man turned out to be John Cairncross from Glasgow, who was living the good life in the South of France when exposed. Neither he nor Blunt was formally charged, but the mystery of the Fifth Man was settled, even though conspiracy theorists continue to maintain that Hollis, even if he was not the Fifth Man, was indeed a Soviet spy who had penetrated the top post in MI5.

Le Carré believed that the Cambridge Moles chief Kim Philby worked behind the scenes to have him terminated from MI6. Yet the author maintains a moral ambivalence concerning who was right and who was wrong during the long Cold War between the USSR and its captive satellites and the U.S. and the West. He is openly anti-American and continues to publish with a decided leftist slant. But no matter. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is an intellectually fascinating glimpse into the U.K. spy culture that continues to interest readers worldwide. Think James Bond in a drawing room.

Formed in 1909, the U.K. secret intelligence services were the first in the West to elevate intelligence operations to a high level in both war and peace. The U.S. shunned spy activity ("gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail," said Henry Stimson) until World War 2, when the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was created under the direction of attorney William Donavan, who garnered the nickname "Wild Bill" for his exploits around the world. Donavan was dismissed and his OSS disbanded by President Harry Truman in 1945. (Douglas Waller's book Wild Bill Donavan is the latest and best work on Donavan.)

Yet Truman knew that America's naïve attitude about espionage was outdated in the postwar world. In 1947 the Central Intelligence Agency was established to counter threats to national security, with the president in charge to counter the Soviets who occupied Eastern Europe and later erected the infamous Berlin Wall in 1961.

The OSS laid the groundwork for CIA, using the British model that eventually separated internal security from global operations. Several sections operated under the umbrella term Military Intelligence. MI5 evolved into the "security service" mandated to work within the U.K. MI6 was created to maintain British security interests worldwide. (There were as many as 9 MI departments at one time).

But there was one glaring exception to the U.S. version of the British template: FBI director J. Edgar Hoover would not tolerate a separate espionage internal security service along the lines of MI5. The CIA operates outside the U.S. (with some exceptions) like MI6, but the FBI took charge of domestic security operations -- with mixed results

The difference from MI5 centers on the FBI's original law and order mandate. The core goal is to identify, arrest, and go to court. For MI5, the idea is to watch and wait and rarely frighten the horses with a public trial. Not until the early 2000s did the FBI shed its drug enforcement duties to free up resources to focus firmly on national security threats caused by terrorist activities.

And the FBI has made a serious mistakes in altering its mission due to its old habits as cops catching robbers, including missing surveillance of the 9-11 suspects before they struck. In another bad moment for the Agency, they mistook CIA officer Brian Kelley for one of their own -- the notorious high-ranking FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who worked as an agent for the Soviets, and afterward for the Russia Federation. The film Breach picks up the story after Kelley was cleared and the Agency realized that they had a serious problem.

Le Carré's guided tour into the murky world of British espionage depicts a clubby yet lethal subculture that does not need chase scenes, pyrotechnics, and beautiful girls to keep audiences engaged. Simply digesting the nomenclature requires attention, such as "cousins" for the CIA, honey-traps to lure agents with sex, Romeos and Swallows for operatives who use seduction to gain secret information, scalp-hunters for assassins, babysitters for bodyguards, ferrets for special agents who gain entry to plant eavesdropping equipment, and pavement artists for surveillance teams.

It's great stuff -- and it's true.

*corrected

Bernie Reeves is editor & publisher, Raleigh Metro Magazine, and founder, Raleigh Spy Conference.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles ... r_spy.html at January 07, 2012 - 10:18:00 AM CST

Speaking of spies, one of my acquaintances is a lawyer in NYC. His father LCdr Richard Kelly, USNR was in the OSS during WW II. Head of the Maritime Unit 1943-45 in the Adriatic between Italy and the coasts of Greece, Albania, Yugoslovia etc.

He wrote a series of stories about his adventures for Bluebook during 1946-47. American exploits behind enemy lines, based on insider information and personal interviews with the participants. Mr. Walter Pforzheimer, former Chief Counsel of the CIA, claims that the Kelly series contains the most accurate writing on OSS operations published prior to the War Report. Pforzheimer should know. He possesses what is probably the best personal collection of intelligence literature in the world.

I like the illustrations. The stories are very descriptive, dramatic and suspenseful. These were real swashbucklers. My uncle heard about these people, but he was not one of them. His job during WWII was mostly in an office in Cairo. But he did receive a lot of reports from the agents in the area serviced by the Bluebook series.

If you or someone you know, likes military history and suspenseful action behind the enemy lines; you can now access a number of these WW II Bluebook stories by downloading the pdf file at the link below. It's a rather large file. Took about 3-4 minutes for my computer to download, on cable broadband. An unusually colorful capsule in time.

http://www.ossreborn.com/files/Behind%2 ... lation.pdf

No history of clandestine activities in the early years is complete without mention of a Canadian, William Stephenson, also known perhaps erroneously since then as Intrepid, who headed up British intelligence in the western world. He worked with the Americans and it is thanks to him that Wild Bill Donavan was appointed as head of OSS by Roosevelt. It was also Stephenson who set up Camp X during the war near Whitby, Ont., as the first training school for spies in North America. Sadly, the government saw fit to wipe out all trace of Camp X after the war. It would have made a great tourist attraction today.

It is the mark of a great intelligence operative to attract no attention outside of his secretive world. So it is that few people and few Canadians are aware of Stephenson's massive contribution to the development of the western world's intelligence operations. Churchill recognized it and had him knighted at the end of the war.

_________________
Roger

Interesting point.

I wonder why the article covers the Brits, the Russians and the Americans, but leaves out the Canadians (and others).

Maybe it's because the article relates to a movie. And Hollywood tends toward what has sold best. The best, at least in terms of spy novels and movies, has been things like Ian Fleming's Goldfinger, and For Your Eyes Only; Le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley's People and the Russia House; and the somewhat similar Tom Clancy stories The Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising and Cardinal in the Kremlin.

Stephenson is described by one source as the senior representative of British intelligence for the entire western hemisphere during WW II. Ian Fleming himself once wrote "James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy. The real thing is ... William Stephenson."

I have the book about Stephenson titled "A Man Called Intrepid". Good material. But I had only thumbed thru it, because it does not relate directly to my uncle's story, which I've been writing about. And I have about 3 dozen books about the OSS. When I started my book project 4 yrs ago, I doubt there were that many OSS books in total. But now, with the release by CIA of nearly all OSS files, books are coming out so fast I can't keep track of them all.

Stephenson was born in Winnipeg Manitoba. Incidentally, one of my favorite illustrated childhood stories was "The Winnipeg Wolf". Stephenson's mother was from Iceland and his father was from the Orkney Islands, near Scotland. Tom Waller on this message board, has visited, photographed and described the Orkney Islands in his thread about his assignment several years ago, aboard the Ernest Shackleton during an Antarctic sailing season. However that was the South Orkney's, I guess and not the home of Stephenson's father.

Stephenson was adopted early by an Icelandic family after his parents could no longer care for him. He left school at a young age, and volunteered for military service. His trail from England to Canada is too long and complex to relate here.

We are agreed that he was one of the key individuals in the intelligence field during WW II.

As to which parts of the WW II record about intelligence must be included, for it to be complete, I'm sure there are a number of voices on that score. I've exchanged considerable communication with dozens of authors, researchers, archivists and even a few WW II intelligence veterans. One of those veterans wrote not just one, but several books about his experience. One of them he titled "The Ship That Won World War II". Hah! I asked him what made him so bold as to make his claim. He replied with some very good rationale.

Basically, there were times during WW II, especially in the earliest days of "his Americans" getting air material and support around and across Africa, to the Suez and Mediterranean, that the Allies were close to losing the war. And had the long chain of precarious events had a single weaker link, any one of those links if broken, could've spelled doom. However it was clear to me, that many people saw many events, as the turning point in the war. Although their participation or closeness to their event included a subjective aspect, nevertheless, to some extent, most of them were right.

Yes, Stephenson did an exceptionally good job of keeping his work and himself under cover. I didn't know much about him, even though my uncle had given me the book about Stephenson. You can lead a horse to water, but you can only make him chew and swallow a limited number of books at a time.

That said, some spying and clandestine activities required deeper and more enduring cover than others. There are a number of categories in the spy world, under the umbrella of intelligence and it's related clandestine operations. In the OSS during WW II, there was Secret Intelligence (SI), Special Operations (SO), Research and Analysis (R & A), Morale (MO), Maritime Unit (MU), Counter Intelligence (X2), Communications (Commo), Training, Labor, Medical, etc.

Secret Intelligence - information gathering activities - were usually but not always the most covert.

Special Operations behind enemy lines, with or without collaboration of local resistance groups, were often covert, only until their bombs exploded. Then many knew, sometimes the whole world.

Successful operations, and even some of the successful intelligence operations were ingredients for the propaganda war. A sizable portion of these were not kept covert. Rather they were highly touted and publicized, even embellished. One of my contacts is author and former British fellow Hugh Wilford. Now a history professor at Univ of Calif, Long Beach I think. He wrote "The Mighty Wurlitzer". That's about how Frank Wisner and the CIA had relationships with so many leaders of organizations, cover groups and public opinion, that in the early days of the CIA, after it took over from the OSS, they claimed to play the views of the American public, like a Wurlitzer piano.

Frank Wisner was in Cairo during part of the time my uncle worked there in SI-Reports ofc. They worked together on at least one project. At Wisner's request, my uncle wrote a guideline for agents in the field, on what to look for and and include in their reports sent to Cairo SI. Wisner moved on to Istanbul, Bucharest, Wiesbaden and other key places. He accomplished a lot in some of those, got into a bit of trouble in others. He was basically in charge of the clandestine operations in CIA during the early years. That had the largest part of CIA's budget and people at that time.

The Cold War was different than WW II. These clandestine operations were complicated, rarely fully successful, and some were major failures. The stress took it's toll on Wisner. He came to an untimely end.

Cover of one of the issues:

Table of contents, for one of the issues, with OSS article highlighted.

Example of the illustrations.

2nd example of illustrations.

There are usually several illustrations for each story. The balance of narrative text and illustrations is good.

The author of WW II Bluebook series


I exchanged several emails with Kelly's son in recent days. He agrees that his dad worked on at least one occasion with Sterling Hayden on the OSS crossings of the Adriatic during WW II. Hayden was a captain of different boats in various operations there. I guess the boats were loosely organized under Kelly's OSS Maritime unit.

Hayden was one of the top 2 or 3 movie stars before and after the War. He was also a gifted handler of sailing vessels. Although he dropped out of school in his sophomore year in high school, Hayden was an avid reader, voraciously consuming many of the classics, from his well stocked private collections. He was married to some of the most beautiful women of his time. But divorced and raised their kids aboard his large sloop, as it sailed the seas. He wrote his own autobiography, called "The Wanderer". That was a powerhouse of introspection and philosophy from one of the most rugged and stoic men of his time. The setting jumped around quite a bit, and there were many flashback references woven into it. Including some of his times in OSS and secret intelligence during WW II.

Hayden came several times through the OSS-SI-Reports office in Cairo, where my uncle worked during the war. Another OSS vet I know, Spiro Capponey, who went to school near where I now live, went through training in OSS with Hayden, and went overseas to Cairo together. Spiro has some amazing stories about Hayden and those times.

Another OSS veteran with whom I swapped several dozen communications before he passed away about a year ago, was Capt Jim Hudson. Capt. Jim rode with Hayden on one of Hudson's forays into Albania. Hudson had some phenomenal experience there, and in Cairo. He wrote several books, all of which I have.

I have never read the book "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (TTSS). So I decided to look at it's rating and reviews on Amazon.com.

I also wonder how the movie reviews will go. I've not seen many movies that were purely spy movies. A bit too intense and studious for me probably.

Before that, I remembered that I have been a tinker, tailor and soldier myself. But never a spy. I have known a few spies. I wonder if Eilleen Twain has known some spies. Probably. For sure, many spies have seen her concerts, etc.

Okay, the amazon reader reviews for TTSS, on a scale of 5, give
5 stars from 69 reviews.
4 stars from 31 reviews.
3 stars from 12 readers,
2 stars from 4 readers, and
1 star from 14 readers.

The original description starts with:

"The man he knew as "Control" is dead, and the young Turks who forced him out now run the Circus."

Hmn, this sounds precisely like a current popular TV show called "Burn Notice." I liked that show for a half dozen episodes. But then it got a bit predictable, sort of like the western "Gunsmoke" series. No matter how bleak, violent or hopeless, Marshall Dillon always gets out of the jam and gets his man. I still like to watch Gunsmoke reruns, when I'm procrastinating. There are many I've not seen. Tho it seemed good, "Burn Notice" is not up to the same standards for it's day, as "Gunsmoke" was.

Well, the movie reviews currently have Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy at 7.6 on scale of 10. Some folks loved it, others had varying reactions.

One fellow said he liked the TV series, based on the book, better than this movie.

I wonder what TV series that was. I might have seen some of it. Was that "Smiley's People"? I think I saw some of those episodes on PBS. Checking, I see it was a BBC production in 1982. Yep, and based on the TTSS book. I liked some of those TV episodes. Haven't decided yet whether I'll see the movie. I've only been to the movie theater about once in the last 3 yrs that I can remember. And I never buy movies on my cable TV, though they're available.

I didn't know Salma Hayek was in any way, connected to the movie "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy".

I'd seen her in a rerun of movies with Antonio Banderas, such as Desperado, and The Mask of Zorro. Although Desperado was preposterously bloody and violent, I couldn't help but be mesmerized by these two actors, in those two movies.

In real life, I tend to pay less attention. Tho Banderas was thoroughly delightful and engaging as the animated fox in a series of movies - was it Shrek?

There's also a movie trailer video of the recent spy movie, at the link below. Not sure I follow it's full meaning, but it's the first I've seen of the movie itself.

= = = = = = =

Salma Hayek Shines at Paris Events
By Mike Krumboltz | Movie Talk – 9 hours ago

Va-va-va-voom! Salma Hayek, 45, showed off her famous figure at two recent
events, proving once again that she can't not look good.

The stunning star attended the Paris premiere of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" in a
black leather ensemble. Hayek paired the dress with a glamorous updo and suede
boots. The belted outfit, with its three-quarter-length sleeves, struck that
so-difficult-to-hit balance between provocative and demure.
A few days later, Hayek rocked a daring black lace dress at an event at Paris
Couture Week. The wraparound gown, which Hayak paired with a sexy black
choker from Yves Saint Laurent, showed off the actress's gorgeous gams and,
ahem, imposing cleavage.

Hayek attended the event with her billionaire husband François-Henri Pinault.
The Frenchman is chief executive officer of PPR, a multinational company that
specializes in luxury retail brands like Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Hayek and
Pinault have one child together, a daughter. Pinault has three other children,
including a son with model Linda Evangelista.

http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-tal ... 55096.html

Meanwhile, I called a fellow this evening, who received hundreds, if not thousands of reports from agents (spies) during WW II. However he was busy watching the US presidential primary debates. So I left him alone to watch that, and also turned it on to see it myself.

During that time, I received a call myself, from someone trying to decipher names, as she typed transcripts of phone calls, with people who knew, researched or wrote books about WW II spies. I was able to answer all but one of her 10-15 names of people, places or organizations. This is not to say I know a lot about spies. It just means I was the one who did those phone interviews, which she was now typing up.