A Man Called Intrepid; The Secret War

Stevenson, William

ISBN 10: 0151567956 / ISBN 13: 9780151567959

Published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1976

About this Item

xxv, [1], 486 pages. Illustrations. Maps. A Foreword by Intrepid. A Historical Note by Charles Howard Ellis. Valediction. Index. DJ has wear, tears, chips and soiling. Some discoloration of the boards but pages clear. An account of the intelligence activities of William Stephenson, code name Intrepid, and of the world's first integrated intelligence network, established in 1940 by Stephenson under the joint aegis of Churchill and Roosevelt. This work has been described as the Authentic Account of the Most Significant Secret Diplomacy and Decisive Intelligence Operations of World War II. William Henry Stevenson (1 June 1924 - 26 November 2013) was a British-born Canadian author and journalist. His 1976 book A Man Called Intrepid was about William Stephenson and was a bestseller. Stevenson followed it in 1983 with another book, Intrepid's Last Case. He published his autobiography in 2012. In 1976 Stevenson released the book, 90 Minutes at Entebbe. It was about Operation Entebbe, an operation where Israeli commandos landed at night at Entebbe Airport in Uganda and succeeded in rescuing the passengers of an airliner hijacked by Palestinian militants, while incurring very few casualties. Stevenson's "instant book" was written, edited, printed and available for sale within weeks of the event it described. Sir William Samuel Stephenson, CC, MC, DFC (23 January 1897 - 31 January 1989) was a Canadian soldier, airman, businessman, inventor, spymaster, and the senior representative of British Security Coordination (BSC) for the entire western hemisphere during World War II. He is best known by his wartime intelligence codename Intrepid. Many people consider him to be one of the real-life inspirations for James Bond. Ian Fleming himself once wrote, "James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy. The real thing is . William Stephenson." As head of the British Security Coordination, Stephenson handed over British scientific secrets to Franklin D. Roosevelt and relayed American secrets to Winston Churchill. In addition, Stephenson has been credited with changing American public opinion from an isolationist stance to a supportive tendency regarding America's entry into World War II. Derived from a Kirkus review: INTREPID is the code name Winston Churchill gave to William Stephenson when assigning him to organizing British Security Coordination in 1940. BSC was the top secret-operations center for the Allies and Stephenson the supremely trusted liaison between the newly empowered prime minister and Roosevelt. A Canadian industrialist-scientist, Stephenson had early become aware of Germany's rearmament and begun a personally financed private spy system which he later offered to Churchill. Long before Pearl Harbor, Stevenson suggests, Roosevelt entered into clandestine operations with Stephenson which could have resulted in impeachment (these included allowing Nelson Rockefeller a comparatively free hand as our top spy chief in South America). Stephenson's greatest coup was the theft of a German ENIGMA code-machine which became the basis for ULTRA, the Nazi device whose secret messages made Hitler's every move perfectly clear to the British. No simple summary can convey the excitement and achievements of BSC's crew of agents and counteragents--this is the most popular spy book among such comparable works as Brown's Bodyguard of Lies (1975) and Winterbotham's The Ultra Secret (1974).

Seller Inventory # 87412

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Man Called Intrepid; The Secret War
• Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York
• Publication Date: 1976
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151567956
• ISBN 13: 9780151567959
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition [Stated].
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fair
• Seller catalogs:
  • Atomic Bomb
  • Guerrilla Warfare
  • Espionage
  • Propaganda
  • Spies

About this title

Synopsis

An account of the intelligence activities of William Stephenson, code name Intrepid, and of the world's first integrated intelligence network, established in 1940 by Stephenson under the joint aegis of Churchill and Roosevelt

From the Back Cover

he incredible World War II narrative of the hero whose spy network and secret diplomacy changed the course of history. (6 X 9, 512 pages, b&w photos)