CONSPIRATOR, THE UNTOLD STORY OF CHURCHILL, ROOSEVELT AND TYLER KENT, SPY. This item is unavailable.CONSPIRATOR, THE UNTOLD STORY OF CHURCHILL, ROOSEVELT AND TYLER KENT, SPY

On 20 May 1940, as Hitler's tanks reached the French coast, Churchill sent a secret message to Roosevelt, begging for US help. On the same day, MI5 forced its way into the London flat of Tyler Kent, a code clerk at the US embassy. They found 1929 stolen messages, including that morning's desperate plea. Kent's trial and arrest for espionage was unprecedented in the period. But was he really a spy? And if so, for whom? Using documents and reports never previously published, the authors piece together the story of Tyler Kent's treachery. Anthony Read is co-author of "Kristallnacht" which won the Wingate Literary Award.

Tyler Kent, a code clerk in the U.S. Embassy in London, stole and passed on secret messages between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill before the United States entered World War II and before Churchill became Prime Minister. Caught and stripped of his diplomatic immunity, Kent was tried in secret in London and spent the duration of the war in prison. The event was a footnote to history, but the book is not so much about Kent as about the loose environment in which embassies operated in the opening days of World War II. The story is extensively researched, so much so that background information on tangential characters slows down the narrative at times. Buy where there is interest in World War II books or in true spy stories.
- Gary Williams, Southeastern Ohio Regional Lib., Caldwell
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.