Spy Fictions

choi

Dominic Green, Craftier Than Fiction; Before he created James Bond, Ian Fleming helped devise a plan to mislead the Germans about the Allied invasion of Sicily.. Wall Street Journal, Dec 11, 2024, at page A15
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture ... an-fiction-2939fd12
(book review on Oliver Buckton, Counterfeit Spies; How World War II intelligence operations shaped Cold War spy fiction. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Oct 1, 2024)

Note: Dominic Green (1970- ; British)
(a) "class system * * * Its strength * * * is also its weakness, a susceptibility to insider-dealing and imposture. * * * The pioneers of spy fiction were outsiders on their way up: the Indian-born Rudyard Kipling ('Kim'), the Irish nationalist Erskine Childers ('The Riddle of the Sands'), the Scottish workhorse John Buchan ('The Thirty-Nine Steps') and Somerset Maugham ('Ashenden'), who was bisexual and born in one of the first places where the English practiced espionage, the Paris embassy.
(i) imposture
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/imposture
(ii) Kim (novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_(novel)
(iii) Erskine Childers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erskine_Childers
("may refer to: Erskine Childers (author) (1870–1922), author and Irish nationalist, who served as secretary-general of the Irish delegation that negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921")
(iv) John Buchan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Buchan
(v)
(A) W Somerset Maugham
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Somerset_Maugham
(section 1 Life and career, section 1.1 Background and early years: "Maugham's father, Robert Ormond Maugham (1823–1884), was a prosperous solicitor, based in Paris")
(B) solicitor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solicitor
("In the jurisdictions of England and Wales and in Northern Ireland, in the Australian states of New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, Hong Kong, South Africa (where they are called attorneys) and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers (called advocates in some countries, for example Scotland), and a lawyer will usually only hold one of the two titles")

(b) "Compton Mackenzie was Britain’s man in Greece during World War I and was prosecuted in 1933 for writing about his experience. The same year, Mackenzie wrote the first spy spoof, 'Water on the Brain.' The overnight expansion of the intelligence services in 1939 was almost as much a gift to literature as it was to the Soviet Union. Apart from the Cambridge Five, the new recruits included Ian Fleming (codename '17F,' Naval Intelligence Division) and Graham Greene (who worked for the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, in Sierra Leone). * * * Spy novels are procedurals. * * * Mr Buckton, a professor of English at Florida Atlantic University and a skilled archival detective * * * Fleming suffered the double frustration of sailing a desk during the war and being unable to talk about it afterward. His compensation, James Bond, is restricted neither by his liver nor by the Official Secrets Act. Fleming's fantasy exaggerates the prosaic elements of Bond's style, but the Bond novels' ostensibly fantastical plots and gadgetry rework the prosaic scheming of Fleming's intelligence work. It was a Basil Thomson novel that gave Fleming the idea that became Operation Mincemeat. In 1943, to mislead the Germans about the imminent Allied invasion of Sicily, the British dropped a migrant's corpse, dressed in a Royal Marines uniform and carrying counterfeit plans, into the sea off Spain. The Germans took the bait"
(i) Compton Mackenzie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_Mackenzie
(1883-1972; Scottish; "After the publication of his [memoir] Greek Memories in 1932, he was prosecuted the following year at the Old Bailey under the Official Secrets Act for quoting from supposedly secret documents [as well as exposing undercover agents]"/ section 7 Select bibliography, section 7.3 Novels and romances: "Water on the Brain (1933), an absurdist spy novel parody")
(ii)
(A) "The overnight expansion of the -British] intelligence services in 1939 was almost as much a gift to literature as it was to the Soviet Union. Apart from the Cambridge Five, the new recruits included * * * "
"a gift * * * to Soviet Union"  This is because Soviet Union tool advantage of the expansion by infiltrating these services -- "including through the recruitment of agents within British intelligence." from the Web.
(B) officially World War II started when Germany invaded Poland on Sept 1, 1939.
(C) Cambridge Five
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Five
, of whom only Kim Philby  and John Cairncross were intelligence officers.
(iii) procedural (n): "(of a television show, film, or story) including a lot of detail about official legal or police methods and processes"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/procedural
(iv) Florida Atlantic University
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Atlantic_University
(1961- ; public; "main campus in Boca Raton, Florida")
(v) "Archival detectives, or archivists, are researchers who work with primary sources in archives, libraries, and other repositories": Google AI
(vi " 'Sailing a desk' is an expression that refers to working in an office instead of being out on the water.": Google AI
(vii) "His compensation, James Bond, is restricted neither by his liver nor by the Official Secrets Act."
(A) liver (n 2): "one who lives (in a particular way)," late 14c., agent noun from live (v.)"
https://www.etymonline.com/word/liver
(B) Examples given in www.merriam-webster.com is "a fast liver."
(viii) Operation Mincemeat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat
(section 1 Background, section 1.1 Inspiration for Mincemeat: Basil Thomson)


(c) Graham "Greene's plots expose incompetence behind a cut-glass accent, but they too rework real secrets as stories. In 'Ministry of Fear' (1943), the accidental spy Arthur Rowe [a fictional protagonist in Greene's novel] attends a charity fête and wins a cake containing microfilm of British military secrets. This seemingly unlikely setup setup had been one of the actual ruses used by the 'Garbo' network to feed Germans false information in wartime Portugal. * * * 'A Coffin for Dimitrios' (1939). * * * When [Dennis] Wheatley entered the secret world, one of his first tasks was planning for a defense against a German invasion
(i)
(A) cut glass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_glass
(section 3 cut-glass accent)
(B) Voicepanel, The Cut Glass Effect - Why is the British RP accent sometimes described as a 'cut-glass' accent?  The Voice Cafe Blog, June 6, 2023 (in this Web page: "The Voice Cafe offers one-on-one online training" in English)
https://www.thevoicecafe.net/what-is-a-cut-glass-accent/
("Why is it called a cut glass accent? [which is sectional heading] The essence of the term 'cut glass accent' talks very much about an acoustic resonance in an accent seemingly so sharp it could 'cut glass' ")
(ii) Juan Pujol García
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_García
("He was given the codename Garbo by the British" intelligence)
(iii)
(A) The Mask of Dimitrios (novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_of_Dimitrios_(novel)
(B) Demetrius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demetrius
("is the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek male given name Dēmḗtrios (Δημήτριος), meaning 'Demetris' - 'devoted to goddess Demeter.' Alternate forms include Demetrios, Dimitrios * * * ")
(iv) "When [Dennis] Wheatley entered the secret world, one of his first tasks was planning for a defense against a German invasion"

Dennis Wheatley never served in British intelligence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Wheatley
(section 2 Military service: "During the Second World War Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents led to his working with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for them, including suggestions for dealing with a possible Nazi invasion of Britain")

-----------------WSJ
Spy fiction is a British invention. So is its less well-traveled sibling, the detective novel. A third entertainment that the British elevated into an artform is the class system. This too is a game played by rules that only insiders understand. Its strength—its assumption of in-group loyalty—is also its weakness, a susceptibility to insider-dealing and imposture. The pioneers of spy fiction were outsiders on their way up: the Indian-born Rudyard Kipling (“Kim”), the Irish nationalist Erskine Childers (“The Riddle of the Sands”), the Scottish workhorse John Buchan (“The Thirty-Nine Steps”) and Somerset Maugham ('Ashenden'), who was bisexual and born in one of the first places where the English practiced espionage, the Paris embassy.

A secret is useless unless it is shared. Novelists study motive, character and plotting. No wonder so many spies become novelists. Agatha Christie [born Miller; first husband surnamed Christie] was never a detective, but Maugham spied in Russia in 1917. Compton Mackenzie was Britain’s man in Greece during World War I and was prosecuted in 1933 for writing about his experience. The same year, Mackenzie wrote the first spy spoof, “Water on the Brain.” The overnight expansion of the intelligence services in 1939 was almost as much a gift to literature as it was to the Soviet Union. Apart from the Cambridge Five, the new recruits included Ian Fleming (codename “17F,” Naval Intelligence Division) and Graham Greene (who worked for the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, in Sierra Leone).

In “Counterfeit Spies,” Oliver Buckton shows that confusing fact and fiction is the first task of spies and second nature for novelists. Spy novels are procedurals. They create plausibility as much from their control of bureaucratic detail as from their probing of the human factor. Mr. Buckton, a professor of English at Florida Atlantic University and a skilled archival detective, augments the contexts of the big three (Fleming, Greene, John le Carré) with well-researched reports on the literary spooks Helen MacInnes, Dennis Wheatley and John Bingham.

Fleming suffered the double frustration of sailing a desk during the war and being unable to talk about it afterward. His compensation, James Bond, is restricted neither by his liver nor by the Official Secrets Act. Fleming’s fantasy exaggerates the prosaic elements of Bond’s style, but the Bond novels’ ostensibly fantastical plots and gadgetry rework the prosaic scheming of Fleming’s intelligence work. It was a Basil Thomson novel that gave Fleming the idea that became Operation Mincemeat. In 1943, to mislead the Germans about the imminent Allied invasion of Sicily, the British dropped a vagrant’s corpse, dressed in a Royal Marines uniform and carrying counterfeit plans, into the sea off Spain. The Germans took the bait, and “thousands of lives” were saved. Mr. Buckton traces the Mincemeat motif further back to “The Thirty-Nine Steps,” then forward to Graf Hugo von der Drache, who returns from the (nearly) dead as the deceiver Hugo Drax in “Moonraker” (1955).

“My plots are fantastic, while being often based upon truth,” Fleming explained. Greene’s plots expose incompetence behind a cut-glass accent, but they too rework real secrets as stories. In “The Ministry of Fear” (1943), the accidental spy Arthur Rowe attends a charity fête and wins a cake containing microfilm of British military secrets. This seemingly unlikely setup had been one of the actual ruses used by the “Garbo” network to feed Germans false information in wartime Portugal. Greene probably heard about “Garbo” from his wartime supervisor, the traitor Kim Philby. Mr. Buckton suspects that Greene hinted at Philby’s treason in his screenplay for “The Third Man” in 1949—14 years before Philby’s exposure as “the most notorious double agent of the twentieth century.”

Then again, Eric Ambler had anticipated the setup for “The Third Man” (a writer investigates a shady figure who fakes his own death) a decade earlier in “A Coffin for Dimitrios” (1939). The traffic between fiction and deception runs in both directions. Mr. Buckton’s techniques for directing it include scene-setting fictional interludes, confusing to the reader but accurate in spirit. Dennis Wheatley’s novels of the spy Gregory Sallust and his controller Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust sold well in the 1930s. When Wheatley entered the secret world, one of his first tasks was planning for a defense against a German invasion—a motif, Mr. Buckton notes, straight from the pages of Buchan and Childers. Wheatley continued writing spy fiction during the war. Afterward, he said he felt “so stuffed full of secrets that I feared that to write another spy story would land me in the Tower.”

When Helen MacInnes’s first novel, “Above Suspicion,” appeared in 1941, her husband, the scholar Gilbert Highet, was serving in MI6. The account of a parachute-jump into Occupied France in MacInnes’s second novel, “Assignment in Brittany” (1942), was so accurate that agents were issued with the novel before being sent on missions. Mr. Buckton finds it “improbable” that Highet did not confide in his wife. MacInnes’s male-female partnerships introduced gender roles into spy fiction before Fleming dramatized the battle of the sexes as a hot war.

John Bingham, the 7th Baron Clanmorris, ran wartime agents in MI5 under Maxwell Knight (“M”). After rejoining the service in 1950, Bingham wrote crime novels and encouraged the writing of his protégé, David Cornwell (John le Carré). Le Carré admired Bingham as an interrogator (a “master of many fictions”) and used him as the model for the spymaster George Smiley. The first Smiley novel, “Call for the Dead,” appeared in 1961, the same year as Bingham’s wartime thriller “Night’s Black Agent.”

Bingham felt betrayed by implication in Smiley’s “seedy world of corrupt bureaucracy and cynical realpolitik” and le Carré’s moral equivalence between the West and the Soviets. In his foreword to “The Double Agent” (1966), Bingham insisted that British spies were more than “double-crossing cynics” or “bumbling broken-down layabouts.” Mr. Buckton’s research suggests that this may be true. Some of them were also skilled writers.

Mr. Green is a Journal contributor and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.