Ben Macintyre

**NOW A MAJOR SIX-PART SERIES ON ITVX, STARRING DAMIAN LEWIS AND GUY PEARCE**A SUNDAY TIMES No. 1 BESTSELLERWITH AN AFTERWORD BY JOHN LE CARRÉ'Riveting, astounding ... An unputdownable postwar thriller' Observer'Irresistibly readable' Sunday Times'Worthy of John le Carré at his best' Guardian'Hugely engrossing ... Both authoritative and enthralling' William Boyd________________Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, charmer and traitor, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Philby, Nicholas Elliott and James Jesus Angleton were rising stars in the intelligence world and shared every secret. Elliott and Angleton thought they knew Philby better than anyone - and then discovered they had not known him at all. This is a story of loyalty, trust and treachery, class and conscience, of male friendships forged, and then systematically betrayed. With access to newly released MI5 files and previously unseen papers, A Spy Among Friends unlocks what is perhaps the last great secret of the Cold War.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) behind the New York Times bestseller The Spy and the Traitor uncovers the true story behind one of the Cold War’s most intrepid spies. “[An] immensely exciting, fast-moving account.”—The Washington Post ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Foreign Affairs, Kirkus Reviews, Library JournalIn 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her. They didn’t know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn’t know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe. Behind the facade of her picturesque life, Burton was a dedicated Communist, a Soviet colonel, and a veteran agent, gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb. This true-life spy story is a masterpiece about the woman code-named “Sonya.” Over the course of her career, she was hunted by the Chinese, the Japanese, the Nazis, MI5, MI6, and the FBI—and she evaded them all. Her story reflects the great ideological clash of the twentieth century—between Communism, Fascism, and Western democracy—and casts new light on the spy battles and shifting allegiances of our own times. With unparalleled access to Sonya’s diaries and correspondence and never-before-seen information on her clandestine activities, Ben Macintyre has conjured a page-turning history of a legendary secret agent, a woman who influenced the course of the Cold War and helped plunge the world into a decades-long standoff between nuclear superpowers.

“Ben Macintyre’s rollicking, spellbinding Agent Zigzag blends the spy-versus-spy machinations of John le Carré with the high farce of Evelyn Waugh.”—William Grimes, The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) “Wildly improbable but entirely true . . . [a] compellingly cinematic spy thriller with verve.”—Entertainment WeeklyONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Entertainment WeeklyONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington PostEddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. In 1941, after training as German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted M15, the British Secret service, and for the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. Based on recently declassified files, Agent Zigzag tells Chapman’s full story for the first time. It’s a gripping tale of loyalty, love, treachery, espionage, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal.

<p><strong>In his celebrated bestsellers <em>Agent Zigzag </em>and <em>Operation Mincemeat</em>, Ben Macintyre told the dazzling true stories of a remarkable WWII double agent and of how the Allies employed a corpse to fool the Nazis and assure a decisive victory.  In <em>Double Cross</em>, Macintyre returns with the untold story of the grand final deception of the war and of the extraordinary spies who achieved it.<br /></strong><br />   On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties.  D-Day was a stunning military accomplishment, but it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, deceived the Nazis into believing that the Allies would attack at Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring that Hitler kept an entire army awaiting a fake invasion, saving thousands of lives, and securing an Allied victory at the most critical juncture in the war.<br /></p><p>The story of D-Day has been told from the point of view of the soldiers who fought in it, the tacticians who planned it, and the generals who led it. But this epic event in world history has never before been told from the perspectives of the key individuals in the Double Cross System. These include its director (a brilliant, urbane intelligence officer), a colorful assortment of MI5 handlers (as well as their counterparts in Nazi intelligence), and the five spies who formed Double Cross’s nucleus: a dashing  Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter-pilot, a bisexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming and a volatile Frenchwoman, whose obsessive love for her pet dog very nearly wrecked the entire plan. The D-Day spies were, without question, one of the oddest military units ever assembled, and their success depended on the delicate, dubious relationship between spy and spymaster, both German and British. Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose heroic sacrifice is revealed here for the first time.<br /></p><p>With the same depth of research, eye for the absurd and masterful storytelling that have made Ben Macintyre an international bestseller,  <em>Double Cross </em>is a captivating narrative of the spies who wove a web so intricate it ensnared Hitler’s army and carried thousands of D-Day troops across the Channel in safety.</p><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012</strong>: What do a Polish pilot, a Peruvian party girl, and a Spanish chicken maven have in common? They were all central to the success of Operation Fortitude, the audacious ruse that kept Hitler guessing over the location of the D-Day invasions, saving the lives of countless Allied soldiers and turning the war in their favor. In the same enthralling and entertaining fashion of his previous World War II spy stories (<em>Agent Zigzag</em>, <em>Operation Mincemeat</em>), Ben Macintyre's <em>Double Cross</em> goes behind the standard narratives of armies, generals, and tactics to chronicle the unlikely--and occasionally outlandish--stories of the spooks, spymasters, and double agents that changed the course of the war. <em>--Jon Foro</em><br /></p><h3>Review</h3><p>“Gripping stories from the perspective of a remarkable ragtag group of spies who tricked the Nazis in an astounding D-Day deception.  Puts other spy tales to shame.” – <strong><em>People</em></strong><br /></p><p>“It should be said loud and clear that Macintyre is a supremely gifted storyteller. He spins quite a yarn. His books are absurdly entertaining. I would kill for his keen wit. He takes us into a world of bounders, spivs, roués, and men (and women) on the make….<em>Double Cross</em> is a blast.” – <em />*Boston Globe<br /></p><p><strong><em>“Forget fiction when you are buying beach reading this summer. Ben Macintyre’s factual account is more gripping than what you will find anywhere else. It is a story unsurpassed in the long history of intelligence.” – </em></strong>Washington Times<br /></p><p><strong><em>“Macintyre at once exalts and subverts the myths of spycraft, and has a keen eye for absurdity” – </em></strong>New Yorker<br /></p><hr /><p>“[A] complex, absorbing final installment in his trilogy about World War II espionage….Macintyre is a master storyteller.  Employing a wry wit and a keen eye for detail, he delivers an ultimately winning tale fraught with European intrigue and subtle wartime heroics.” – <strong><em>San Francisco Chronicle<em> <br /></em>*<br />“Superb….the story comes alive again in all its stupendous, unimaginable duplicity.…intensely readable” – </em></strong>Washington Post<br /><em><br /></em>*“A wonderfully entertaining story of deception and trickery that is told with verve and wit….Macintyre’s early books about espionage in World War II have been bestsellers, and this will be no exception.” – <strong><em>Christian Science Monitor</em></strong><br /></p><p>“Macintyre revels in the surreal aspects of his story, writing with a breezy, almost tongue-in-cheek style. But the author is also adept at communicating the seriousness and the stakes of the underlying game….Nail-biting and chuckle-inducing reading.” – <strong><em>Columbus Dispatch<em><br /></em><em><br />“Another captivating, improbably fresh story of World War II….</em>Double Cross* is ennobling, invigorating and, above all, entertaining. Macintyre's research is impressive, as is his ability to shape disparate facts into a breathless page-turner….Throw in nail-biting suspense and the occasional decadent Nazi (fickle mistress optional) and, with Macintyre in charge, you're virtually guaranteed a history book that reads like a spy novel.” – </em></strong>Richmond Times-Dispatch<br /></p><hr /><p>“It is the riveting tales of these agents on which Ben Macintyre focuses, to full advantage, in <em>Double Cross</em>….Macintyre makes good use of the material. He knows how to let the high drama unfold on its own.” – <strong><em>Wall Street Journal<em><br /></em><em><br />“London Times writer Macintyre (</em>Agent Zigzag<em>, </em>Operation Mincemeat*) concludes his WWII espionage trilogy with the tantalizing tale of an oddball, ‘Dirty Dozen’-like group of double agents who fool the Nazis into believing the Allied D-Day attack would come at Calais, not Normandy.” – </em></strong>New York Post*, Required reading<br /></p><p><strong><em>“<em>A tale of smarts, personal courage and — even knowing what happened on June 6, 1944 — suspense.  Where would we be if these troubled, eccentric and hang-it-all characters hadn't known how to lie, and lie well?” <strong>– <em>Seattle Times</em><br /></strong><br />“As in his earlier best-sellers about WWII-era spycraft, </em>Agent Zigzag<em> and </em>Operation Mincemeat*, Macintyre writes with novelistic flair.” – </em></strong>Entertainment Weekly<em />*<br /></p><p>“The story of D-Day – when 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy – as it’s never been told before….this amazing story shows how double agents and spies tricked the German army and saved thousands of Allied lives.”<br />– <strong><em>New York Post</em></strong><br /></p><p>“Only with author Ben Macintyre’s scintillating account has this complex human drama, with all its tortuous twists and turns, finally received the cinematic treatment it deserves….This is edge-of-the seat stuff.” – <em />*WWII Magazine<br /></p><hr /><p>“Macintyre does a fine job depicting this extraordinary cast and exposing the ambiguous world of espionage....compelling.” – <em /><em>MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History</em><br /></p><p><strong>“With the same skill and suspense he displayed in <em>Operation Mincemeat</em> and <em>Agent Zigzag</em>….Macintyre effortlessly weaves the agents’ deliciously eccentric personalities with larger wartime events to shape a tale that reads like a top-notch spy thriller.” – <strong><em>Publishers Weekly<em> (starred)<br /></em>*<br />“Macintyre has written a tense, exciting real-life spy story that illuminates a largely obscure aspect of WWII.” – </em></strong>Booklist</strong>*<br /></p><p>“With his latest book, <em>Double Cross</em>, Ben Macintyre tells the astonishing true story of a bizarre group of misfit spies who played a critical role in the success of D-Day.  The stories in this book, many of which have never before been told, are nothing short of incredible.  Skillfully woven together, they form one of the most gripping narratives I have ever read.” – <em />Candice Millard, author of <em>The River of Doubt</em> and <em>Destiny of the Republic</em> <br /></p><p><strong>“Ben Macintyre and I work in the same period, and I should be reading him because he is such a scrupulous and insightful writer – a master historian. But, with <em>Double Cross</em> and his other excellent works, I always wind up reading him for pleasure.  <em>Double Cross</em> may be his best yet, falling somewhere between top-class entertainment and pure addiction.” – </strong>Alan Furst, author of <strong><em><em />A Mission to Paris</em></strong><br /></p><p>"Ben Macintyre’s spellbinding account features an improbable cast of characters who pulled off a counter-intelligence feat that was breathtaking in its audacity. Their deceptions within deceptions—known as the Double Cross—were critical to the success of the D-Day invasion, and continued to mislead the Germans long after Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. A truly bravura performance, as is Macintyre’s fast-paced tale." -- <em />Andrew Nagorski, author of <em>Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power</em><br /></p><hr /><p><strong><em>"How on earth, in 1944, did we dupe Berlin that we would attack the coast of France in completely the wrong place?  It was a deception that saved tens of thousands of Allied lives.  In </em>Double Cross*, Ben Macintyre ingeniously explains exactly how it was done." – </strong>Frederick Forsyth<br /><strong> <br />"Never before revealed facts about the workings of the Intelligence Service in the build up to D-Day in the Second World War.  Ben Macintyre's remarkable book is a gripping revelation." – </strong>Jack Higgins<br /><strong><br />“[Macintyre] has excelled himself with a cast of extraordinary characters and in his storytelling abilities....<em>Double Cross</em> is an utterly gripping story.” – </strong>Antony Beevor, <em>The Telegraph</em><br /></p><p><strong>“Enthralling....Macintyre is a master at leading the reader down some very tortuous paths while ensuring they never lose their bearings. He’s terrific, too, at animating his characters with the most succinct of touches....gripping.” -- </strong>*London Evening Standard<br /></p><hr />

The official history of Ian Fleming and James Bond by the bestselling author of Operation Mincemeat'Marvellously entertaining and informative' Spectator'Thrilling' Sunday Times'An entertaining mix of history, espionage, biography, and post-war sociology' Literary Review_____________________'I am going to write the spy story to end all spy stories.' One morning in February 1952, a journalist called Ian Fleming sat down at his desk and set about creating a fictional secret agent. James Bond was born and would go on to become one of the most successful, enduring and lucrative creations in literature. But Bond's world of glamour and romance, gadgets and cocktails, espionage and villainy wasn't entirely drawn from imagination: Fleming's background and his experiences as an intelligence officer during the Second World War were all formative parts in the creation of the world's most famous spy. Packed with astonishing detail and written in Macintyre's inimitable style, For Your Eyes Only is the most enlightening, enlivening book on the creator of the spy who not only lived twice, but proved to be immortal.

He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. . . . \--Sherlock Holmes on Professor Moriarty in "The Final Problem" The Victorian era's most infamous thief, Adam Worth was the original Napoleon of crime. Suave, cunning Worth learned early that the best way to succeed was to steal. And steal he did. Following a strict code of honor, Worth won the respect of Victorian society. He also aroused its fear by becoming a chilling phantom, mingling undetected with the upper classes, whose valuables he brazenly stole. His most celebrated heist: Gainsborough's grand portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire--ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales--a painting Worth adored and often slept with for twenty years. With a brilliant gang that included "Piano" Charley, a jewel thief, train robber, and playboy, and "the Scratch" Becker, master forger, Worth secretly ran operations from New York to London, Paris, and South Africa--until betrayal and a Pinkerton man finally brought him down. In a decadent age, Worth was an icon. His biography is a grand, dazzling tour into the gaslit underworld of the last century. . . and into the doomed genius of a criminal mastermind.

Agent Zigzag: One December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission: to sabotage the British war effort. His name was Eddie Chapman, but he would shortly become MI5's Agent Zigzag. Dashing and louche, courageous and unpredictable, inside the traitor was a hero, inside the villain, a man of conscience: the problem for Chapman, his many lovers and his spymasters, was knowing where one ended and the other began. Ben Macintyre weaves together diaries, letters, photographs, memories and top-secret MI5 files to create the exhilarating account of Britain's most sensational double agent. Operation Mincemeat:One overcast April morning in 1943, a fisherman notices a corpse floating in the sea off the coast of Spain. When the body is brought ashore, he is identified as a British soldier, Major William Martin of the Royal Marines. A leather attaché case, secured to his belt, reveals an intelligence goldmine: top-secret documents Allied invasion plans. But Major William Martin never existed. The body is that of a dead Welsh tramp and every single document is fake. Operation Mincemeat is the incredible true story of the most extraordinary deception ever planned by Churchill's spies - an outrageous lie that travelled from a Whitehall basement, all the way to Hitler's desk. Double Cross:D-Day, 6 June 1944, the turning point of the Second World War, was a victory of arms. But it was also a triumph for a different kind of operation: one of deceit... At the heart of the deception was the 'Double Cross System', a team of double agents whose bravery, treachery, greed and inspiration succeeded in convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway, not Normandy, were the targets of the 150,000-strong Allied invasion force. These were not conventional warriors, but their masterpiece of deceit saved thousands of lives. Their codenames were Bronx, Brutus, Treasure, Tricycle and Garbo. This is their story.

<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3> <p><strong>Amazon Exclusive Essay: When Spycraft Is Not Crafty Enough by Ben Macintyre</strong> </p> <p><strong>Click on Thumbnail to Enlarge</strong> </p> <p>Soon after Operation Mincemeat was launched, Britain’s spymasters realized they had made a glaring mistake. They tried to correct it and, in the process, made it much worse. </p> <p>In Chapter Seven of <em>Operation Mincemeat</em>, I identified various "hostages to fortune" left by the planners of the deception--most importantly, the fake, dated letter from Bill Martin’s "father," handwritten on the writing paper of a Welsh Hotel. </p> <p>"The plot would never have stood up to scrutiny if German spies in Britain had made even the most cursory checks on it," I wrote. "A glance at the hotel register for the Black Lion Hotel would have showed that no J. C. Martin had stayed there on the night of April 13." </p> <p>Two weeks after <em>Operation Mincemeat</em> was published, I received a telephone call at <em>The Times</em>, of the sort that non-fiction writers both welcome--and dread. </p> <p>"I happen to have the hotel register for the Black Lion," said the Welsh voice on the other end. "And if you look at the page for April, 1943, you will clearly see the name J. C. Martin." </p> <p>I was flabbergasted, and my respect for the planners of Operation Mincemeat rose another notch. They had thought of everything: they had even dispatched someone to Mold, in North Wales, to stay at the hotel and pose as the fictional father of a fictional officer, simply to ensure that the hotel register looked correct if anyone came snooping afterwards. That was true spycraft. </p> <p>When the caller sent me a photograph of the page from the register, I studied it carefully. The handwriting was that of Charles Cholmondeley, the originator and co-creator of Operation Mincemeat. The false address given for "J. C. Martin" was Scotts House, Eynsham, in Oxfordshire (now a daycare center). </p> <p>The faked letter in Major Martin’s pocket clearly indicated that "Father" had been staying at the hotel for some time ("the only alternative to imposing myself once more on your aunt"). The register indicated that he had arrived at the hotel on April 9th, and checked out on the 20th, in time for the fake meeting with his son in London. </p> <p>So far, so convincing. </p> <p>But closer examination revealed something very odd. The name and signature of J. C. Martin did not appear in the correct date sequence, but was added in the space at the bottom of the page. It was clearly an afterthought, written in sometime afterwards. To even the most casual investigator this would have set off loud alarm bells: so far from covering up the mistake, Cholmondeley had compounded it, by drawing attention to the fact that there was something distinctly out of the ordinary about John Martin and his sojourn at the Black Lion. </p> <p>One can speculate about what must have happened. As Mincemeat got underway, the planners began to realize that it was working far more effectively that they had dared to hope. They began to wonder and worry about possible loose ends. The coroner, Bentley Purchase, was contacted again and quizzed over whether, if the Germans exhumed the body and carried out another post mortem, they would be able tell that Martin had died of poisoning, rather than drowning. (He was confident they would not.) </p> <p>They also, I suspect, took another look at the letters, and sent Cholmondeley to Mold. The result was not a cover-up, but a giveaway. A register without the name J.C.Martin would merely have presented a mystery; a register with the name so obviously added in was patently a botched attempt to deceive. </p> <p>In the end, it did not matter. There is no evidence that the Germans ever carried out any checking of the Bill Martin backstory. Had they attempted to do so, this would almost certainly have been picked up by British intelligence since the entire German espionage system in the U.K. was effectively controlled by MI5. Once the lie was embedded in German strategic thinking, no effort was made to disprove it. </p> <p>Still, it is sobering thought, that if a single German agent had traveled to Mold and examined the register of the Black Lion, he would surely have spotted the obvious addition of “J.C.Martin”, recognized there was something fishy going on, and warned the Germans before the invasion of Sicily. The island might then have been reinforced, and countless lives might have been lost with incalculable consequences. That single register entry could have changed the course of World War II. </p> <p>One of the great pleasures of writing about this period, is the way that history never stands still. The register of the Black Lion is only one of many fragments that have appeared, since the book was published, to enlarge and complete the story of Operation Mincemeat. </p> <p>The moral for spy-craftsmen? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if it cannot be fixed without giving the game away, don’t touch it. </p> <p><strong>Questions for Ben Macintyre on <em>Operation Mincemeat</em></strong> </p> <p><strong>Q:</strong> What inspired you to write about this little-known story from World War II? </p> <p><strong>A:</strong> I first came across the story while researching my last book, </p> <p><strong>Q:</strong> Was it difficult to make contact with Ewen Montagu’s family, and were they helpful in your research? </p> <p><strong>A:</strong> The members of the Montagu family were easy to find and hugely helpful; indeed, this book could not have been written without them. After the war, Ewen Montagu retained most of the official papers relating to Operation Mincemeat. After he died, they were put in a wooden trunk, and almost forgotten. In 2007, the family gave me full access to the papers, including the official records, but also memos, letters, photographs, and a 200-page memoir written by Montagu himself. </p> <p><strong>Q:</strong> What was the most interesting/surprising detail that you uncovered as you were gathering information for <em>Operation Mincemeat</em>? </p> <p><strong>A:</strong> The most extraordinary aspect of Operation Mincemeat, to my mind, is the way that the organizers approached this elaborate, many-layered deception operation as if they were writing a novel, imagining a version of reality and then luring the truth towards it. Indeed, the talents required for espionage and fiction-writing are not so very different. At the center of the plot was the fictional figure of William Martin: he was equipped with not only false papers but an entirely false personality and past, including a fiancée, complete with love letters. </p> <p><strong>Q:</strong> There are a number of fascinating figures in <em>Operation Mincemeat</em>. Which person were you most intrigued by, and why? </p> <p><strong>A:</strong> I was particularly fascinated by Charles Cholmondeley, the RAF officer seconded to MI5 who first dreamed up the plan to use a dead body to plant false information on the Germans. Cholmondeley had a long, waxed, air-force mustache, a shy personality, and a very strange mind, but he was a genius at deception work, and the unsung hero of Operation Mincemeat. Unlike other participants, he was modest about the achievement, never told anyone what he had done during the war, and ended up selling lawn mowers in a small town in rural England. </p> <p><strong>Q:</strong> Where did you conduct most of your research, and did you encounter any difficulties or roadblocks along the way? </p> <p><strong>A:</strong> This book took me to Spain, France, and the U.S., but most of the research was conducted in British archives and interviewing survivors from that time. Despite Britain’s draconian Official Secrecy Act, rather than hindering or obstructing my research, MI5 and MI6 (the security service and secret intelligence service) were extraordinarily helpful. Perhaps the main impediment was time: the events described in the book are now on the furthest tip of living memory, most of the participants are now dead, and in some ways the research was a race to capture the memories of the living before they, too, are gone. </p> <p><strong>Q:</strong> In the book, you hint that Ewen Montagu (playing Bill) and Jean Leslie (playing Pam) may have taken their roles as "lovers" too seriously. What is your belief about their relationship? </p> <p><strong>A:</strong> Whether the imagined courtship between "Bill" and "Pam" was ever more than merely flirtatious banter is unknown, and likely to remain that way. Certainly Ewen was “smitten” with Jean (her word), and they both played along with their allotted roles. Wartime Britain was filled with fear and danger, but for those in the spying game, it was also a time of great excitement and romance. If the imagined love affair overlapped with reality, that would fit with the story, in which the framers invented a deception so real they began to believe it themselves. </p> <p><strong>Q:</strong> Did you have the opportunity to visit the gravestone of Glyndwr Michael/Major William Martin in Huelva? How do you think his family would have felt if they had known the unexpected and important role their son played in the outcome of World War II? </p> <p><strong>A:</strong> I did visit the grave in Huelva: it is a most atmospheric and tranquil place, looking down over the port and the shoreline where the body of "William Martin" was found in 1943. Glyndwr Michael’s family was a troubled one, crushed by poverty and with a history of mental illness. I think they would have been astonished and delighted in equal measure that Glyndwr played such a crucial role in history, albeit posthumously, and through no choice of his own. </p> <hr /> <h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3> <p>London <em>Times</em> writer-at-large Macintyre (_Agent Zigzag_) offers a solid and entertaining updating of WWII's best-known human intelligence operation. In 1943, British intelligence conceived a spectacular con trick to draw German attention away from the Allies' obvious next objective, Sicily. The bait was a briefcase full of carefully forged documents attached to the wrist of Major William Martin, Royal Marines—a fictitious identity given to a body floated ashore in neutral Spain. Making the deception plausible was the task given to two highly unconventional officers: Lt. Comdr. Ewen Montagu and Squadron Leader Charles Cholmondeley. Macintyre recounts their adventures and misadventures with panache. The body was that of a derelict. Its costuming included the underwear of a deceased Oxford don. An attractive secretary provided the photo of an imaginary fiancée. The carefully constructed documents setting up the bogus operation against Greece and Sardinia convinced even Hitler himself. The Sicily landings were achieved as almost a complete surprise. And the man who never was entered the history and folklore of WWII. Photos. <em>(May)</em> </p> <p>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p> SUMMARY: Ben Macintyre’s Agent Zigzag was hailed as “rollicking, spellbinding” (New York Times), “wildly improbable but entirely true” (Entertainment Weekly), and, quite simply, “the best book ever written” (Boston Globe). In his new book, Operation Mincemeat, he tells an extraordinary story that will delight his legions of fans.In 1943, from a windowless basement office in London, two brilliant intelligence officers conceived a plan that was both simple and complicated— Operation Mincemeat. The purpose? To deceive the Nazis into thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack southern Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed, and the Allies ultimately chose. Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu could not have been more different. Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was an aristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. But together they were the perfect team and created an ingenious plan: Get a corpse, equip it with secret (but false and misleading) papers concerning the invasion, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spies would, they hoped, take the bait. The idea was approved by British intelligence officials, including Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond). Winston Churchill believed it might ring true to the Axis and help bring victory to the Allies.Filled with spies, double agents, rogues, fearless heroes, and one very important corpse, the story of Operation Mincemeat reads like an international thriller.Unveiling never-before-released material, Ben Macintyre brings the reader right into the minds of intelligence officers, their moles and spies, and the German Abwehr agents who suffered the “twin frailties of wishfulness and yesmanship.” He weaves together the eccentric personalities of Cholmondeley and Montagu and their near-impossible feats into a riveting adventure that not only saved thousands of lives but paved the way for a pivotal battle in Sicily and, ultimately, Allied success in the war.

Un matin d’avril 1943, un pêcheur de sardines espagnol repère un cadavre flottant sur la mer, au large des côtes Andalouses. C’est la dépouille d’un soldat britannique. Hissé à bord de l’esquif, une mallette en cuir attachée à son poignet, revêtu d’un uniforme de sa Majesté, tout laisse à penser que la mission spéciale de ce militaire a tourné court...Pourtant, bien au contraire, elle ne fait que commencer ! Et sa découverte va entraîner une suite d’événements qui changeront le cours de la guerre. Ainsi commence l’Opération Mincemeat (Opération Chair à pâté en français), la plus grande mystification militaire réussie parmi toutes celles entreprises. Et certainement la plus étonnante. Celle qui permit de berner les espions nazis, de détourner les troupes de la Wermarcht vers les Balkans et la Sardaigne pour permettre aux Alliés de débarquer tranquillement en Sicile, et de sauver ainsi des milliers de vies. Tout ceci grâce au Major William Martin !Mais le Major Martin... n’a jamais existé ! Le corps repêché est en fait celui d’un clochard gallois déguisé et tous les documents qu’il transportait sont bidons. Ils font partie de l’extraordinaire plan conçu par les services de renseignements britanniques pour distiller de fausses informations aux Allemands. Voilà pourquoi l’homme étendu dans les dunes de Punta Umbria est un imposteur. Les mensonges qu’il colporte seront acheminés de Londres à Berlin en passant par Madrid, transitant par un loch glacé en Écosse jusqu’aux côtes de Sicile, de la salle 13 de l’Amirauté britannique jusqu’au bureau d’Hitler. Une enquête minutieuse de journaliste et d’historien servie par une mise en scène digne des meilleurs romans d’espionnageDes personnages irrésistibles, des situations hallucinantes (au point que les conspirateurs de l’opération croient presque à leurs propres mensonges), l’enthousiasme de l’auteur pour l’histoire et tous ses protagonistes, y compris le cadavre, font de ce document historique un formidable livre d’action. A l’aide de documents privés inédits, de photographies, de souvenirs, de lettres et de journaux, ainsi que d’archives du MI5 récemment ouvertes au public, Ben Macintyre retrace brillamment l’histoire vraie, et paradoxalement totalement fictive, de la plus grande supercherie de la Seconde Guerre mondiale.260 000 exemplaires vendus en Angleterre. Best-seller aux États-Unis. Traduit dans toute l’Europe et également en Chine, Brésil, Japon et Israël. A propos de l'auteurBen Macintyre est chroniqueur et rédacteur en chef adjoint du Times, journal pour lequel il a également été correspondant à Paris, New York et Washington. Il a étudié l’Histoire à Cambridge et est l’auteur de précédents livres d’histoire narrative à succès dont le célèbre Agent Zigzag. Un livre publié par Ixelles éditionsRetrouvez-nous sur www.ixelles-editions.comemail contact@ixelles-editions.com

The incredible untold story of WWII's greatest secret fighting force, as told by our great modern master of wartime intrigue Britain's Special Air Service--or SAS--was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat whose aimlessness in early life belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a battlefield map of World War II's African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommel's desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind enemy lines and sabotage their airplanes and war material. Paired with his constitutional opposite, the disciplined martinet Jock Lewes, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. He faced no little resistance from those who found his tactics ungentlemanly or beyond the pale, but in the SAS's remarkable exploits facing the Nazis in the Africa and then on the Continent can be found the seeds of nearly all special forces units that would follow. Bringing his keen eye for psychological detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to SAS archives to shine a light inside a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy. The result is not just a tremendous war story, but a fascinating group portrait of men of whom history and country asked the most.

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER THE BOOK BEHIND THE HIT BBC SERIES SAS: ROGUE HEROES, STARRING CONNOR SWINDELLS, JACK O'CONNELL, ALFIE ALLEN AND DOMINIC WEST From the secret SAS archives and bestselling author Ben Macintyre: The first ever authorized history of the SAS. 'A master at setting the pulse racing' Daily Mail________________ In the summer of 1941, at the height of the war in the Western Desert, a bored and eccentric young officer, David Stirling, has a vision for a new kind of war: attacking the enemy where they least expect it - from behind their own lines. Despite the intense opposition of many in British High Command, Winston Churchill personally gives Stirling permission to recruit the toughest, brightest and most ruthless soldiers he can find. And so begins the most celebrated and mysterious military organisation in the world: the SAS. With unprecedented access to the SAS secret files, unseen footage and exclusive interviews with its founder members, SAS: Rogue Heroes tells the remarkable story behind an extraordinary fighting force, and the immense cost of making it a reality.________________ 'Thorough and highly entertaining. It would be nigh on impossible to praise it too highly' Daily Express 'Impeccably researched, superbly told - by far the best book on the SAS in World War II' Antony Beevor 'Told with deceptive brilliance . . . one the finest books of its kind' Evening Standard BEN MACINTYRE'S NEXT BOOK COLDITZ: PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE IS AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW!

If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.