Customer Reviews

Garbo: The Spy who Saved D-Day

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Disappointing. I kept wanting to like this book, but it never engaged my interest. This is the Jack Webb version of the story, "Just the facts, M'am." This is strictly documentary reporting by his MI5 case officer, not storytelling. There's no drama, suspense or intrigue. Remember the Giants-Dodgers playoff game where Bobby Thompson hit his home run? This is like reading the boxscore in the newspaper, instead of hearing the sportscaster call the play on the radio. I hope somewhere there is a better Garbo book. He's an amazing, heroic man whose story deserves to be told with all the cleverness, imagination and dramatic flair that was no doubt his.

If you have any interest in D-Day and/or the Normandy invasion, or if you have ever visited Normandy, this book is a must read! It is truly outstanding! I highly recommed it.

Although a little tedious to read at times since the book is extracted from actual wartime reports from the "GARBO" file, this book proves beyond any doubt that TRUTH is stranger than FICTION. That British intelligence could have been so fortunate as to have a "walk-in" agent of the caliber of GARBO, and that the Germans could for so long accept him at face value is nothing less than astounding. Where the Brits went to great lengths to ensure GARBO was genuine, to the point of nearly dismissing him out of hand before he ever got started under their control, the Germans took him in, and were taken - hook, line, and sinker. From the string of American intelligence breaches during the Cold War, from the Walkers to Robert Hanssen, one would think that the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement services would take a page from the Brits and be extra cautious; of course, the Brits had some major breaches themselves over the years. Nevertheless, one can only wonder how history might have changed had the Germans NOT believed GARBO's reports about Calais and Norway. The power struggles and in-fighting within German intelligence which seduced case officers into wanting their agents to be the most productive must be avoided in any intelligence service. As evidenced by what GARBO was able to achieve, we in the West had better learn the lesson.