C"; The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill

New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987. First Printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [14], 830, [4] pages. Illustrations. Author's Note. Appendices. Sources, Notes, and Bibliography. Index. Inscribed on fep. DJ has minor wear and soiling. Anthony Cave Brown (March 21, 1929 in Bath - July 14, 2006 in Warrenton, Virginia) was an English-American journalist, espionage non-fiction writer, and historian. Cave Brown's first major work to attract widespread attention was Bodyguard of Lies (1975), which examined the strategical elements of World War II, including codebreaking and its effect on the war's outcome. He followed up on this theme with a book, The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan, about William J. Donovan, the director of the American Office of Strategic Services during World War II; the Office of Strategic Services later evolved into the Central Intelligence Agency. Another espionage-related effort was a 1987 biography of Sir Stewart Menzies, who served as head of British MI6 (Secret Intelligence Service) during World War II. The book was titled C: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill. His book Treason in the Blood: H. St. John Philby, Kim Philby, and the Spy Case of the Century, published in 1994, examined the interconnected lives of the famous British spies Kim Philby and Harry St. John Philby, son and father. His final 1999 book Oil, God and Gold: The Story of Aramco and the Saudi Kings, examined the Aramco company in Saudi Arabia. Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, KCB, KCMG, DSO, MC (/30 January 1890 - 29 May 1968) was Chief of MI6 (SIS), British Secret Intelligence Service from 1939 to 1952, during and after the Second World War. When the Second World War began, SIS expanded greatly. Menzies insisted on wartime control of codebreaking, and this gave him immense power and influence, which he used judiciously. By distributing the Ultra material collected by the Government Code & Cypher School, for the first time, MI6 became an important branch of the government. Extensive breaches of Nazi Enigma signals gave Menzies and his team enormous insight into Adolf Hitler's strategy, and this was kept a closely held secret, not only during the war, but until as late as 1974. Frederick Winterbotham's 1974 book The Ultra Secret lifted the cloak of secrecy at last. The Nazis had suspicions, but believed Enigma to be unbreakable, and never knew during the war that the Allies were reading a high proportion of their wireless traffic. Menzies kept Prime Minister Winston Churchill supplied daily with important Ultra decrypts, and the two worked together to ensure that financial resources were devoted towards research and upgrading technology at Bletchley Park, to keep pace with Nazi coding refinements, as well as directing talented workers to the massive effort, which employed nearly 10,000 workers by 1945. Bletchley's efforts were decisive in the battle against Nazi submarine warfare, which was severely threatening trans-Atlantic shipping, particularly in the first half of 1943. Britain, which was cut off from Europe after mid-1940, was almost completely dependent on North American supplies for survival. The access to Ultra was also vitally important in the battle for Normandy, leading up to D-Day in June 1944, and afterwards. Menzies has been suspected as being involved with the assassination of François Darlan, the Vichy military commander who defected to the allies in Algeria. British historian David Raynolds noted in his book, In Command of History, that Menzies—who rarely left London during the war—was in Algiers around the period he was killed, making SOE involvement seem likely. Furthermore, Darlan's assassin, La Chapelle, had been a member of the resistance group led by Henri d'Astier. However, as Darlan was an Allied intelligence source the potential motive for Menzies' involvement is unclear. Menzies, who was promoted to major-general in January 1944, also supported efforts to contact anti-Nazi resistance, including Wilhelm Canaris, the anti-Nazi head of Abwehr, in Germany. Prime Minister Winston Churchill was kept informed of these efforts throughout the war, and information from and about the Nazi resistance was exploited tactically. Menzies coordinated his operations with Special Operations Executive (SOE) (although he reputedly considered them "amateurs"), British Security Coordination (BSC), Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Free French Forces.