The Double-Cross System: The Incredible True Story of How Nazi Spies Were Turned into Double Agents (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Engrossing and authoritative. -- Atlantic Monthly

One of the most fascinating wartime tales of all. -- Newsweek

Superbly written . . . maintains an attractive balance between the heroism of the action and the cool tone of the telling. -- The New York Times Book Review

Product Description

THE DOUBLE-CROSS SYSTEM is the amazing true story of how British intelligence penetrated and practically operated Nazi Germany’s spy network within the British Isles. With great imagination, care and precise coordination, the British were able to identify Nazi agents, and induce many to defect, and supplied Germany completely false information about bombings, battles, and even the D-Day invasion.

Told by the man who himself masterminded the entire unbelievable four-and-a-half-year scheme, and filled with dazzling tidbits and extraordinary stories, THE DOUBLE-CROSS SYSTEM is a testimony to Britain’s skill in the fine art of counterespionage.

Also included is an appendix listing each of the 120 double-cross agents and their tasks, a comprehensive index, and a glossary of military abbreviations.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585741302
• ISBN-13: 978-1585741304
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #260,067 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Basic Required Reading for Intelligence Professionals, December 3, 2001

By	Samuel D. Carlson (Acworth, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

J.C. Masterman's "The Double-Cross System: The Incredible True Story of How Nazi Spies Were Turned into Double Agents" should be required reading for all counterintelligence and other human intelligence (HUMINT) personnel. Even after a 20+ year career as a human intelligence professional myself, this is one of the few "spy" books that I have. I consider this book a counterintelligence "how to" text book. To get the full impact of this book, I suggest first reading Ladaslas Farago's "Game of the Foxes", based on the files of Nazi Germany's intelligence service. After reading the German side of the story, the full impact of J.C. Masterman's book and this amazing intelligence operation will hit you right between they eyes.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Impressive but Dry Account of British Double Agents During World War II., May 22, 2009

By	mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

"The Double-Cross System" was written by John Cecil Masterman in 1945 at the request of the Director General of the Security Services as a history of MI5's section B1A, which dealt with double agents during World War II. It was published for confidential consumption in September 1945, in the same form you see here, but Masterman did not receive permission to make it public until 1971, when it was published under the title "The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945". J.C. Masterman was a novelist and a university don who was recruited by MI5 during the war. He worked with double agents for 4 1/2 years. This was his report on the theory and practice of running double agents and how they contributed to Britain's war effort.

From the fall of France in mid-1940 until its liberation in 1944, Britain "actively ran and controlled the German espionage system" in its country. Everyone the Germans thought were working for them were actually working for the Brits. This was, in part, because France's occupation cut Britain off from the Continent and forced Germany to work with limited agents in Britain. This unique situation proved a great advantage for Britain and ultimately allowed B1A to supply Germany with misinformation about D-Day, leading Germany to believe that a larger offensive would come in Pas de Calais, thereby diverting 7 German offensive divisions away from Normandy. That was the coup de grace for the double-cross system, but most of its work was done in the previous 4 years.

Masterman begins by laying out the principles of running double agents and explaining the organization. As the needs of double agents presented formidable administration challenges, they required a specialized department, B1A. But MI5 did not do it alone. The Twenty Committee, of which Masterman was chairman, was formed with representatives from various agencies to decide what information could safely be allowed to pass to German hands and to maintain consistency. B1A was aided by some flaws in the German intelligence organization, Abwehr, which kept the double-agents afloat longer than they might have been. It seems that the Germans did suspect some of the agents but preferred to have disloyal agents than none at all.

The bulk of the book follows the agents and operations of B1A year by year, from 1939 through 1945. It begins with their first big agent, "Snow" (all agents are referred to by their code names), a German electrical engineer living in England who began work for Britain before the war. There are details of the work of many agents, including the remarkable "Garbo", a Spaniard of great initiative who was awarded the M.B.E. from Britain and the Iron Cross from Germany. The roles of the double-cross system were security, counterespionage, and strategic deception, which it fulfilled admirably. Masterman's prose is informative but very dry. It was written as a report, and it is fluid and interesting by that standard, but spare by the standards of a book.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Grand Deception of WW II, April 3, 2005

By	Acute Observer (North Jersey Shore) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This 1972 book explains how the British Secret Service actively ran and controlled Germany's spies during WW II. All German agents who were sent to Great Britain were captured; they either worked for the British Secret Service or were executed. This activity involved the cooperation of many branches of government (p.viii). This cooperation was the one essential condition for success. The examples given by this book could be a manual of operations. Page xii gives the purposes of the Twenty Committee. Other books were written before, but this is the best document on the system. This book was published to offset the bad publicity suffered in the fifties and sixties (p.xvi).

Page 49 says the German spies dropped by parachute were "an easy prey", and could not make radio contact "because of defects in the instruments themselves". I think this implies the British had a mole in the Abwehr who cleverly sabotaged their radios.

One of the reasons for this system was "to get evidence of enemy plans and intentions from the questions asked by them" (p.58). Chapter 5 gives many examples, such as the American Questionnaire which asked detailed questions about Hawaii and Pearl Harbor in August 1941 (p.80). Page 85 tells of Plan Midas, a successful money laundering operation where Nazi money paid for British counter-espionage! Chapter 8 notes that sending information back to Germany via double agents meant that the enemy would not send in other agents (p.108).

Deception was best assured by preventing dangerous information from being passed on, not by passing misinformation (p.110). They passed on facts which lead the enemy to deduce false intentions. Page 116 tells of the German agent who stayed in Lisbon and created stories of his visits to England. "Since he always reported what the the Germans expected to hear, and since many of his guesses were startlingly near to the truth, he was more and more readily believed." In April 1942 agent TRICYCLE was to report on American research into the atomic bomb (p.176). 1942 marked a change: Germany now sought information on British offensives, not defenses. In 1943 the policy of the XX Committee was to reduce the forces on the Russian front. Page 138 tells of METEOR, the German triple agent. By 1944 the sole interest was the grand deception for the Normandy invasion. To make the date of attack appear later, to indicate the wrong location of the attack, and to suggest the attack was just a feint. The reports on the V-1 flying bomb were used to make them fall short of the target (p.179).

Why did the Germans fail and the British succeed? He says it was the personal integrity of the British. German blunders were due to Abwehr officials profiting from their agent, and could not honestly judge the agent's work. Another is the fact that espionage in wartime is difficult and usually unprofitable; counterespionage is comparatively easy and yields satisfactory results (pp.187-190). Since espionage and counterespionage deal with different sides of the same problems, they should be as united as possible. At least activities should be on records accessible to each other. (This book necessarily lacks all mention of British spying in Germany.)