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Some British Intelligence OfficersWilliam Somerset Maugham John Cairncross Lionel Crabb Graham Greene Hugh Trevor-Roper John Buchan Ian Fleming William Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham was born in the British Embassy in Paris on 25th January, 1874. William's father, Robert Ormond Maugham, a wealthy solicitor, worked for the Embassy in France. By the time he was ten, both William's parents were dead and he was sent to live with his uncle, the Rev. Henry Maugham, in Whitstable, Kent. After an education at King's School, Canterbury, and Heildelberg University in Germany, Maugham became a medical student at St. Thomas Hospital, London. While training to be a doctor Maugham worked as an obstetric clerk in the slums of Lambeth. He used these experiences to help him write his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897). The book sold well and he decided to abandon medicine and become a full-time writer. Maugham achieved fame with his play Lady Frederick (1907), a comedy about money and marriage. By 1908 Maugham had four plays running simultaneously in London. On the outbreak of the First World War, Maugham, now aged forty, joined a Red Cross ambulance unit in France. While serving on the Western Front he met the 22 year old American, Gerald Haxton. The two men became lovers and lived together for the next thirty years. During the war Maugham was invited by Sir John Wallinger, head of Britain's Military Intelligence (MI6) in France, to act as a secret service agent. Maugham agreed and over the next few years acted as a link between MI6 in London and its agents working in Europe. Maugham had sexual relationships with both men and women and in 1915, Syrie Wellcome, the daughter of Dr. Thomas Barnardo, gave birth to his child. Her husband, Henry Wellcome, cited Maugham as co-respondent in divorce proceedings. After the divorce in 1916, Maugham married Syrie but continued to live with Gerald Haxton. During the war, Maugham's best-known novel, Of Human Bondage (1915) was published. This was followed by another successful book, The Moon and Sixpence (1919). Maugham also developed a reputation as a fine short-story writer, one story, Rain, which appeared in The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), was also turned into a successful feature film. Popular plays written by Maugham include The Circle (1921), East of Suez (1922), The Constant Wife (1926) and the anti-war play, For Services Rendered (1932). In his later years Maugham wrote his autobiography, Summing Up (1938) and works of fiction such as The Razor's Edge (1945), Catalina (1948) and Quartet (1949). William Somerset Maugham died in 1965. John Cairncross John Cairncross was born in Scotland in 1913. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge where he met Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. All of them became secret supporters of the Communist Party. Soon afterwards James Klugman put Cairncross into contact with Samuel Cahan, an agent of the KGB. In 1936 Cairncross joined the Foreign Office. During the Second World War he worked at the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park. These codes and ciphers were passed to the Soviet Union. In the later stages of the war Cairncross was based at the main headquarters of MI6. In 1951 Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean defected to the Soviet Union. When MI5 search Burgess's flat in London they discovered papers written by Cairncross. When interviewed by Jim Skardon and Arthur Martin he admitted he had passed information to Burgess. However, he insisted that he did not know that Burgess was a spy. Arthur Martin, a MI5 investigator, interviewed Michael Straight, an American who had studied at Trinity College, Cambridge in January 1964. While at university Straight became friends with Anthony Blunt, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess. Straight claimed that Blunt had tried to recruit him to become a Soviet spy. Arthur Martin and Jim Skardon had interviewed Blunt eleven times since 1951. Martin, now armed with Straight's story, went to see Anthony Blunt again. This time he made a confession. He admitted being a Soviet agent and named John Cairncross, Peter Ashby, Brian Symon and Leo Long as spies he had recruited. Cairncross was now interviewed by MI5 and made a full confession in return for not being prosecuted. Cairncross worked for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization in Rome until his retirement. John Cairncross died in 1995. (1)
BBC News (13th September, 1919)
In the 1930s a number of young men at Cambridge University were recruited as Soviet spies. They became known by the KGB as the 'magnificent five' but were better known in Britain as the Cambridge spy ring. They were not motivated by financial gain but by the belief that capitalism was corrupt and that the Soviet Union offered a better model for society. The Cambridge spy ring was informally led by Harold 'Kim' Philby. He and his friends later moved into jobs in British Intelligence and the Foreign Office where they had access to top secret information. They spent their working lives passing valuable information to the Soviet Union. (2)
Peter Wright, Spycatcher (1987)
Cairncross was a different character entirely. He was a clever, rather frail-looking Scotsman with a shock of red hair and a broad accent. He came from a humble working-class background but, possessed of a brilliant intellect, he made his way to Cambridge in the 1930s, becoming an open Communist before dropping out on the instructions of the Russians and applying to join the Foreign Office. Cairncross was one of Arthur's original suspects in 1951, after papers containing Treasury information were found in Burgess' flat after the defection. Evelyn McBarnet recognized the handwriting as that of John Cairncross. He was placed under continuous surveillance, but although he went to a rendezvous with his controller, the Russian never turned up. When Arthur confronted Cairncross in 1952 he denied being a spy, claiming that he had supplied information to Burgess as a friend, without realizing that he was a spy. Shortly afterward, Cairncross left Britain and did not return until 1967. Lionel Crabb Lionel Crabb was born in 1909. He worked in a variety of jobs until the outbreak of the Second World War when he became a gunner in the army. In 1941 he joined the Royal Navy. The following year he was sent to Gibraltar where he became a member of the navy's mine and bomb disposal unit. Crabb had the dangerous task of located and removing Italian limpet mines from the hulls of Allied ships. He was such a success he was awarded the George Medal. In 1943 Crabb was sent to clear the mines left in the ports of Leghorn and Venice. For this courageous work he was awarded the OBE. After the war Crabb explored the wreck of a Spanish galleon and investigated a suitable discharge site for a pipe from the atomic weapons station at Aldermaston. He later returned to the Royal Navy and after helping rescue men trapped in a submarine, he was promoted to the rank of commander. However, in March 1955 he was forced to leave the navy on age grounds. In 1956 Crabb was employed by MI6 to investigate the Russian cruiser Ordkhonikidze. A ship that had brought over Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin on a goodwill mission to Britain. On 19th April 1956 Crabb dived into Portsmouth Harbour. He did not return to Teddy Davies, his MI6 minder, and it was assumed that he had been captured by the Russians. With the help of MI5 and the Admiralty, MI6 attempted to cover up the attempt to spy on the Russian ship. On 29th April the Admiralty announced that Crabb went missing after taking part in trials of underwater apparatus in Stokes Bay (a place five kilometres from Portsmouth). The Soviet government now issued a statement announcing that a frogman was seen near the cruiser Ordkhonikidze on 19th April. This resulted in British newspapers publishing stories claiming that Crabb had been captured and taken to the Soviet Union. Sir Anthony Eden, the British prime minister was furious when he discovered about the MI6 operation that had taken place without his permission. Eden forced the Director-General of MI6, Major-General John Sinclair, to resign. He was replaced by Sir Dick White, the head of MI5. As MI5 was considered by MI6 to be an inferior intelligence service, this was the severest punishment that could be inflicted on the organization. On 9th June 1957, a headless body in a frogman suit was discovered floating off Pilsey Island. As the hands were also missing it was impossible to identify it as being that of Lionel Crabb His former wife inspected the body and was unsure if it was Crabb His girlfriend, Pat Rose, claimed it was not him but another friend, Sidney Knowles, said that Crabb, like the dead body, had a scar on the left knee. The coroner recorded an open verdict but announced that he was satisfied the remains were those of Crabb. Graham Greene Graham Greene was born in 1904. He was educated at Berkhamsted School and after graduating from Balliol College, Oxford, he joined the staff of The Times in 1926. His first novel, The Man Within, was published in 1929. This was followed by Stamboul Train (1932), It's a Battlefield (1934), England Made Me (1935) and A Gun for Sale (1936). In 1936 Greene became the film critic of Spectator. Later he was appointed as the magazine's literary editor. During this period he published Brighton Rock (1938), The Confidential Agent (1939) and The Power and the Glory (1940). In the Second World War Greene worked for the Foreign Office as a spy in Sierra Leone. On his return to England he wrote the screenplay for The Third Man and published a series of best-selling novels including The Heart of the Matter (1948), The End of the Affair (1951), The Quiet American (1955) and our Man in Havana (1958). Other novels published by Greene included A Burnt-Out Case (1961), The Comedians (1966), Travels With My Aunt (1969), The Honorary Council (1973) and The Human Factor (1978). Greene's left-wing opinions brought him to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Secret service agents were particularly concerned about Greene's support of governments that resisted US domination in Latin America. Greene was also a strong opponent of the government in Soviet Union. For many years he forbade his work to be published in the Soviet Union because of its appalling human rights record. His views on the country changed when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and in 1987 he took part in an international peace forum in Moscow. Graham Greene died in France in 1991 Hugh Trevor-Roper Hugh Trevor-Roper, the son of a doctor, was born in Northumberland on 15th January, 1914. Educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford, he became a research fellow of Merton College in 1937. His first book, Archbishop Laud, was published three years later. During the Second World War Trevor-Roper served in the Radio Security Service. Later he worked for the Secret Intelligence Service where he was involved on the project to penetrate the German Secret Service. Trevor-Roper later claimed that his boss, Kim Philby, undermined attempts by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris to negotiate with the British government. In 1945 he was sent to Germany to find out if the claims being made by Joseph Stalin that Adolf Hitler was still alive. This involved him interviewing all the survivors of Hitler's staff. This material became the main source for his book, The Last Days of Hitler (1947). He also produced Hitler's Table Talk (1953). In 1957 Trevor-Roper became professor of Modern History at Oxford University. A post he was to hold for twenty-three years. A supporter of the Conservative Party, in 1959 Trevor-Roper led the campaign to get Harold Macmillan elected as Chancellor of Oxford University. Other books by Trevor-Roper include Historical Essays (1957), Hitler's War Directives (1964), Religion, The Rise of Christian Europe (1965), The Reformation and Social Change (1967), The Philby Affair (1968) and edited The Goebbels Diaries (1978). In 1980 Trevor-Roper became Master of Peterhouse College. He was also director of Times Newspapers (1974-1988) and in 1985 claimed that the Hitler Diaries serialized in the Sunday Times were authentic. Unfortunately for his reputation, the book was later discovered to be a forgery. In retirement he published Renaissance Essays (1985), Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans (1987), From Counter-Reformation to Glorious Revolution (1992). Hugh Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton, died of cancer in an Oxford hospice on 26th January, 2003. (1)
Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Philby Affair (1968)
As an undergraduate at Oxford I had heard admiring accounts of him from a friend who often travelled with him in vacations. And, sure enough, while we were still waiting for Philby, my old Oxford friend himself appeared in Section Five as a herald of the coming Messiah. I admit that Philby's appointment astonished me at the time, for my old Oxford friend had told me, years before, that his travelling companion was a Communist. By now, of course, I assumed that he was an ex-Communist, but even so I was surprised, for no one was more fanatically anti-Communist, at that time, than the regular members of the two security services, MI6 and MI5. And of all the anti-Communists, none seemed more resolute than the ex-Indian policemen, like Colonel Vivian and Major Cowgill, whose earlier years had been spent in waging war on 'subversion' in the irritant climate of the Far East. That these men should have suspended their deepest convictions in favour of the ex-Communist, Philby, was indeed remarkable. Since it never occurred to me that they could be ignorant of the facts (which were widely known), I assumed that Philby had particular virtues which made him, in their eyes, indispensable. I hasten to add that, although I myself knew of Philby's Communist past, it would never have occurred to me, at that time, to hold it against him. My own view, like that of most of my contemporaries, was that our superiors were lunatic in their anti-Communism. We were therefore pleased that at least one ex-Communist should have broken through the net and that the social prejudices of our superiors had, on this one occasion, triumphed over their political prejudices. (2)
Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Philby Affair (1968)
Late in 1942 my office had come to certain conclusions - which time proved to be correct - about the struggle between the Nazi Party and the German General Staff, as it was being fought out in the field of secret intelligence. The German Secret Service (the Abivehr) and its leader. Admiral Canaris, were suspected by the Party not only of inefficiency but of disloyalty, and attempts were being made by Himmler to oust the Admiral and to take over his whole organization. Admiral Canaris himself, at that time, was making repeated journeys to Spain and indicated a willingness to treat with us: he would even welcome a meeting with his opposite number, 'C'. These conclusions were duly formulated and the final document was submitted for security clearance to Philby. Philby absolutely forbade its circulation, insisting that it was 'mere speculation'. He afterwards similarly suppressed, as 'unreliable', a report from an important German defector. Otto John, who informed us, in Lisbon, that a conspiracy was being hatched against Hitler. This also was perfectly true. The conspiracy was the Plot of 20 July 1944, and Canaris, for his contribution to it, afterwards suffered a traitor's death in Germany. At the time we were baffled by Philby's intransigence, which would yield to no argument and which no argument was used to defend. From some members of Section Five, mere mindless blocking of intelligence was to be expected. But Philby, we said to ourselves, was an intelligent man: how could he behave thus in a matter so important? Had he too yielded to the genius of the place? (3)
Blair Wordern, The Guardian (27th January, 2003)
While Trevor-Roper occupied the public eye, his critics, sometimes even his friends, were urging him to write a long and weighty book. In reality his learning, though never paraded, indeed at times almost secretive, was formidable and exact. He has left behind an extraordinary range of scholarly writing, not all of it completed or published. But the world, he felt, was not short of fat books on single subjects. His favoured form was the essay, sometimes the long essay - where insight must be concentrated, proportion maintained and the evidence of learning kept mostly beneath the surface. The genre allowed him to move across time and space and to draw on the breadth of his reading and reflection. He liked to notice resemblances here, or contrasts there, between societies or events or circumstances. Comparison was his essential intellectual instrument, as it was of the "philosophic historians" of the 18th century, Gibbon at their head, whom he admired. Everything that interested him seemed to remind him of something else. In 1967 he brought together perhaps the most remarkable of his collections of essays, Religion, The Reformation And Social Change. Employing an almost dizzying range of material, the book centred on the revolutions that shook Europe in the middle of the 17th century and related them to the mental ferment that preceded and accompanied them. The essays reflected the influence of French historians, particularly Fernand Braudel and Marc Bataillon, who had deepened his interest in early-modern Europe. They also marked the movement of his thinking away from economics to ideas. They were the boldest exposition of lifelong persuasions: of his equation of historical progress with pluralism; of his impatience with closed intellectual systems (both past and present); and of his rejection of historical determinism. (4)
BBC Online (January, 2003)
Along with AJP Taylor, Lord Dacre was one of the most-respected historians of the modern era. But his reputation was seriously undermined when he backed the Hitler Diaries in April 1983. Both the German magazine Stern and Britain's Sunday Times were humiliated when it became apparent that they had paid millions for a hoax. The 60 volumes, supposedly the personal thoughts of the dead dictator, were in fact the work of a German fraudster. There had been a great deal of initial scepticism, with many won over by Lord Dacre's backing. In reality, the diaries were made of paper, ink and glue of post-war origin. The text was also peppered with historical inaccuracies and anachronisms. Forger Konrad Kujau was jailed in Germany for four-and-a-half-years for the scam. Kujau had based his work on a book called Hitler's Speeches and Proclamations compiled by a Nazi federal archivist. He had added banal comments such as "Must get tickets for the Olympic Games for Eva" to give the work a personal touch. (5)
Daily Telegraph (27th January, 2003)
Though never restricting himself to any speciality, Trevor-Roper was particularly well versed in the intellectual, as well as in the political and social, history of the 16th and 17th centuries. He might - perhaps he should - have written a great work on the English Civil War. A J P Taylor once mischievously remarked that Trevor-Roper had written only one full-length book "of real excellence", and that was a work of immediate reportage, The Last Days of Hitler (1947). But Trevor-Roper's preferred form was the historical essay, into which he would concentrate more pith than many writers bring to a book. Like Taylor, he believed that history should be widely accessible. Taking Gibbon as his ideal, he breathed life into a discipline overpopulated in his youth by Soviet-inspired ideologues and by pedants of the German school. Trevor-Roper was a stormy petrel who enjoyed routing his enemies, even if his love of excitement occasionally brought him low. In his article The Gentry, 1540 to 1640, he claimed - in opposition to the prevailing Marxist orthodoxy - that the gentry had been declining, rather than rising, economically in the century before the Civil War. This conclusion led to a ferocious dispute with Lawrence Stone. Trevor-Roper further sharpened his polemical gifts with a bitter attack upon Arnold Toynbee, and in intermittent sparring with Evelyn Waugh, who regarded him as an open and obnoxious anti-Catholic, and considered that his appointment in 1957 as Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford "showed malice to the Church". John Buchan John Buchan, the son of a Free Church minister, was born in Perth on 26th August, 1875. Educated at Glasgow University and Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1898 Buchan won the Newdigate Prize for poetry. Although trained as a lawyer, Buchan became private secretary to Lord Alfred Milner, high commissioner for South Africa. In 1903 he returned to England where he became a director of the publishing company, Thomas Nelson & Sons. In 1910 Buchan had his first novel, Prester John, published. In July 1914, Blackwood's Magazine, began serializing Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps. The hero, Richard Hannay, was based on the real-life military spy, William Ironside. With Britain on the verge of war, the nation was obsessed with German spy fever and its subject matter made it an immediate success. When it was published in book form, it sold over 25,000 copies in three months. After the outbreak of the First World War the Liberal MP and successful journalist, Charles Masterman, was appointed head of the government's War Propaganda Bureau. Masterman recruited Buchan who was asked to organise the publication of a history of the war in the form of a monthly magazine. Buchan approached both Arthur Conan Doyle and Hilaire Belloc to help him with the project but both claimed they were too busy. Buchan eventually decided to write the book on his own. Published by his own company, Thomas Nelson, the first installment of the Nelson's History of the War, appeared in February, 1915. A further twenty-three appeared at regular intervals throughout the war. The profits, including Buchan's own royalties, were donated to war charities. In the spring of 1915, Buchan agreed to become one of the five journalists attached to the British Army. He was given responsibility for providing articles for The Times and the Daily News. Over the next few months Buchan covered both the second Battle of Ypres and the Battle of Loos. In June 1916, Buchan was recruited by the British Army to draft communiqués for Sir Douglas Haig and other members of the General Headquarters Staff (GHQ). Given the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps, Buchan was also provided with the documents needed to write the Nelson's History of the War. GHQ saw this as good for propaganda as Buchan's close relationship with Britain's military leaders made it extremely difficult for him to include any critical comments about the way the war was being fought. Buchan's History of the War provided the public with a completely false impression of what was going on the Western Front. In 1915 told his readers that the Germans were on the verge of defeat. He estimated that over 1,300,000 German soldiers had been killed, whereas the British losses was only 100,000. Buchan continued to work closely with Charles Masterman and the War Propaganda Bureau. A series of propaganda pamphlets were written by Buchan. Published by the Oxford University Press, the titles included Britain's Land War (1915), The Achievements of France (1915) and The Battle of Jutland (1916). In his pamphlet, The Battle of the Somme (1916) Buchan described the offensive as so successful that it marked "the end of trench fighting and the beginning of the campaign in the open." He added that the "Germans may write on their badges that God is with them, but our lads - they know." Buchan did not tell his readers that on the first day of the fighting of the 110,000 British soldiers who made the assault, 57,540 were casualties, 20,000 of them killed. It was what one historian has described as "the blackest day in the history of the British Army." Buchan claimed that the Battle of the Somme was an Allied victory and that it would enable Britain to now use its superior cavalry. However, Buchan did not provide details of what had been gained, nor did he tell his readers that in the 140 days that the battle lasted, the British Army had lost 400,000 men and had advanced six miles. In February, 1917, the government established a Department of Information. Given the rank Lieutenant Colonel, Buchan was put in charge on the department on an annual salary of £1,000 a year. Charles Masterman retained responsibility for books, pamphlets, photographs and war paintings and T. L. Gilmour dealt with cables, wireless, newspapers, magazines and the cinema. After the war Buchan continued to write successful adventures stories such as Huntingtower (1922), The Three Hostages (1924) and Witch Wood (1927). He also became involved in politics and in 1927 was elected Conservative MP for the Scottish Universities. Buchan held the seat until granted the title, Baron Tweedsmuir in 1935. President of the Scottish History Society (1929-32), Buchan wrote biographies of Montrose (1928) and Sir Walter Scott (1932). Buchan also served as governor-general of Canada (1935-37) and chancellor of Edinburgh University (1937-40). John Buchan died on 12th February, 1940. (1) John Buchan, letter to George Brown
(16th October, 1914)
I do think we shall get absolutely accurate details of most of the fighting till after the war, and therefore a history on the scale of The Times or the Daily Mail is impossible; but I am satisfied that three months after the fighting we shall know enough to write an accurate history on the scale which I propose - viz monthly parts. (2)
Leo Amery, letter to his wife (7 June, 1915)
I read John Buchan's articles in The Times and thought them excellent. He is a born journalist in the very best sense of the word - he can sense a situation quickly and can with the maximum of effort make a vivid story of it. (3)
Howard Spring was a journalist on the Western Front
when he met John Buchan in 1916. I remember John Buchan, a cavalier if ever there was one, always commanding our respect but never forgetting how to unbend. It is a mystery to me how he got through the days as he did. He was doing his work as an Intelligence Officer; he was writing his history of the war; and he was somehow fitting in novels as well. (4)
John Buchan, Nelson's History of the War: Volume V (1915)
Trench warfare cannot last indefinitely. The enemy cannot fall back forever on new trench lines. The reason is that human powers are limited and the steady pressure of those winter weeks, barren as it might seem in brilliant results, was more vital to our ultimate success than any spectacular victory. There can be little doubt that the Germans, especially in the West, lost out of all proportion to their opponents. We can therefore regard the long-drawn Battle of West Flanders as an Allied gain. (5)
John Buchan described the first day of the offensive at the Somme
in his pamphlet, The Battle of the Somme (1916) The British moved forward in line after line, dressed as if on parade; not a man wavered or broke ranks; but minute by minute the ordered lines melted away under the deluge of high explosives, shrapnel, rifle, and machine-gun fire. The splendid troops shed their blood like water for the liberty of the world. (6)
In his pamphlet, The Battle of the Somme, John Buchan describes the
Allied attack on German lines on 14th July. The attack failed nowhere. In some parts if was slower than others, where the enemy's defence had been less comprehensively destroyed, but by the afternoon all our tasks had been accomplished. The audacious enterprise had been crowned with unparalleled success. Germans may write on their badges that God is with them, but our lads - they know. (7)
In his pamphlet, The Battle of the Somme: The Second Phase,
published in 1917, John Buchan claimed that the battle marked the end
of
"trench fighting and the beginning of a campaign in the open." Thenceforth, the campaign entered upon a new stage, and the first stage, which in strict terms we call the Battle of the Somme, had ended in Allied victory. We did what we set out to do; step by step we drove our way through the German defences. Our major purpose was attained. It was not the recapture of territory that we sought, but the weakening of the numbers, materiel and moral of the enemy. (8)
In his book on First World War propaganda, The Great Wars of Wars,
Peter Buitenhuis is highly critical of Buchan's book on The Battle of
the Somme.
The account contains all the ringing clichés and exaggerations of the genre, and by representing that almost unmitigated hell in such glowing colours, Buchan falsifies the whole military situation on the Western Front. By his omissions and exaggerated claims he makes not only the common soldier but also the commanding generals look superb. (9)
John Buchan, Memory Hold the Door (1940)
But in a soldier character is at least as vital as intellect, and there can be no question about the quality of his (Douglas Haig) character. He had none of the lesser graces which make a general popular with troops, and it took four years for his armies to feel his personality. He had to feel his way in his task and was often conscious of blunders more acutely conscious, I think, than most of his critics. He had difficulties with his allies, with his colleagues, with the home Government, though, let it be said, he had far less to complain of on the latter score than most soldiers of a democracy. He had repeated bitter disappointments. He had the wolf by the ears, and at first he clung to traditional methods, when a smaller man might have tried fantastic experiments which would have assuredly spelt disaster. He did not revise his plans until the old ones had been fully tested, and a new one had emerged of which his reason could approve. Under him we incurred heavy losses, but I believe that these losses would have been greater had he been the brilliant empiric like Nivelle or Henry Wilson. When the last great enemy attack came he took the main shock with a quiet resolution; when the moment arrived for the advance he never fumbled. He broke through the Hindenburg line in spite of the doubts of the British Cabinet, because he believed that only thus could the War be ended in time to save civilisation. He made the decision alone - one of the finest proofs of moral courage in the history of war. Haig cannot enter the small circle of the greater captains, but it may be argued that in the special circumstances of the campaign his special qualities were the ones most needed - patience, sobriety, balance of temper, unshakable fortitude. Ian Fleming Ian Fleming was born in 1908. After being educated at Eton and Sandhurst Military Academy, he studied languages in Munich and Geneva he became a foreign correspondent for The Times in Moscow (1929-1933). Later he worked as a banker and stockbroker (1933-39). During the Second World War he became a senior naval intelligence officer and later worked for MI5. After the war he worked for the Sunday Times (1945-59). Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale was published in 1953. The main character, James Bond, Secret Service Agent 007, was to appear in 12 novels by Fleming. This included From Russia With Love (1957), Dr No (1958), Goldfinger (1959), Thunderball (1961) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1965). These books were influenced by Fleming's experiences in MI5. The 'M' character in the James Bond books is based on Maxwell Knight, the head of B5b, a unit that conducted the monitoring of political subversion. Ian Fleming died in 1964.
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