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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating read -- especially because it is true,
This review is from: The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
When I ordered this book, I didn't really know what to expect. To be honest, I wasn't completely sure if it was a novel or non-fiction. I had always enjoyed WW2 historical fiction such as Herman Wouk's Winds of War and War and Rememberance so I thought this book would be similar.This book is actually a historical account of the propaganda and espionage tactics used by the British to influence American public and political policy during WWII. I'm no great WWII historian so I will be showing my ignorance here... but who knew that our own allies were engaged in covert activities directed at our own government. However, this book describes the activities of Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and several other British "covert agents" who were in the US during WWII. The book, though non-fiction, reads like part-novel and part high-society gossip. While it is common knowledge that the US was not pulled into WW2 until the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan, less known is how we became involved in the European theater. The US had tried to remain "neutral" and had adopted an isolationist stance when it came to the European wars. Because the US, at the time, generally treated Great Britain with a certain level of distrust (that whole "British Imperialism" thing), it took some work from the "inside" to sway the American Public Opinion and Leadership to actively engage in the European Theater. What was particularly interesting to me (particularly in light of the current presidential campaign and the current debate associated with America's role on the world stage) was the debate between Republicans and FDR's "New Dealers" on how isolationist a stance America should adopt. In what is a reverse from present day politics, the Republicans were against a broader involvement in WW2 while the New Dealers were much more sympathetic to the European conflicts. And while I had always heard of Ian Fleming as the creator of the James Bond series, it turns out that Ian Fleming's Bond character may have been based on more reality than we would think (minus the cool gadgets). In a sense, this book documents how the whole "James Bond 007" phenomenon got its start. The reading style is an easy-to-read narrative style that strikes a balance between being readable and not overwhelming the reader with being too scholarly. Yet the author doesn't "talk down" to her readers either by being "sensationalist" or overly dramatic. All in all, this book was a great read and the fact that it is true makes it even more interesting. I highly recommend!
25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Once you put it down you can't pick it up,
By
This review is from: The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
We learn in the first third of THE IRREGULARS that self-aggrandizing professional hobnobber/gigolo Roald Dahl dallied with many an over-40 society dame in a quest for info potentially useful to his own government.From this work we get the impression that much of D.C.'s elite were alcoholic braggarts, satyrs, over-aged nymphs and not-very-nice folks, in general who spent most of their time tearing each other down at endless, dreary cocktail parties. The average reader won't recognize any of these individuals or give a whit about them. Later, Dahl fries bigger tuna: he ingratiates himself with first Eleanor and then Franklin Roosevelt, spending weekends with them at Hyde Park and gathering tidbits to feed to Winnie Churchill via his own superiors. But it was a strange game: FDR knew what Dahl was about and anything this fellow could learn was surely OK with the President, who undoubtedly used an opportunistic back door channel to clandestinely communicate with his British counterpart. After slogging through a good 100 pages of obscure Washingtonians, a befuddling list almost as large as that of Tolstoy's characters in WAR AND PEACE, and not finding any of them worth remembering, then watching Dahl gleefully reporting his FDR-approved nuggets to the British equivalent of the OSS, your reviewer set this tome down, then found it impossible to pick up again. Your disappointed history buff shouldn't have been surprised that "The Irregulars" was such a stone drag, however. When all that a snoop (OK...'operative') risks in clandestinely monitoring an ally is a party hangover or the Clap, one's attention tends to falter. Far more riveting would be the true story of a spy within the Reich itself; someone, who if caught would not see the sun rise tomorrow.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tinker, Tailor, Pilot, Spy,
This review is from: The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
"Don't you think that you or some other regular officer should be doing this job?""We've all got our hands full," the Captain said. Roald Dahl had it all; a wounded RAF pilot who had the intellect, grace and charm to open doors that would typically be shut to even the biggest political insiders. And as author Jennet Conant writes in this biography of Dahl, the friends he had in high places ultimately shaped the policies of the United States in World War II and in the opening salvos of the Cold War, but with a gentle push or - oftentimes - a hard shove into a specific direction by British agents. Dahl was a key player in a British spy ring in Washington, D.C., which found him striding confidently into the White House halls of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration and counting on such key players as FDR, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Wallace and Henry Morgentheau, Jr., as vital colleagues. Starting in 1942, Dahl became entwined in a wide web of intrigue designed by Sir William "Intrepid" Stevenson to destroy brick-by-brick the isolationist movement in the U.S. and shape the political relations between the two nations in the war against Nazi Germany. Some of Dahl's work was done with the approval of FDR. Important areas of this campaign included the use of influential journalists - Walter Winchell, Drew Pearson - and other media members to tell the story of cooperation and a plot against U.S. corporations that retained cozy relations with the Nazis. The canvas of the post-war landscape included Dahl's 1946 proposal of an American-English Secret Service, writes Conant. But as a new type of war with the Soviet Union turned frigid, there was personal turmoil for spies like Dahl who came in from the cold. But old friendships ultimately did not fade away after the covert warriors slowly disappeared from the scene. "I have endeavored to pull the curtain back on one small part of this shadowy episode in order to tell the story of young Dahl's incredible experience as one of Stepenson's 'agents of influence' in America," writes Conant. Mission accomplished.
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