I have yet to find out who first argued that the quality and integrity of democratic government is reflected by the extent of openness about its dealings particularly in relation to international relational relations, national security and commercial activity. They were wrong. There are numerous situations and issues where it is not just legitimate for government to be secretive but essential, including situations to protect identity and to avoid civil unrest. I have just experienced one film which highlights my point, a film based on a true and important event which saved many lives towards the end of World War Two.
There are some areas of activity which remain controversial beginning with the commission of acts of terrorism which is practiced by guerrillas during traditional military conflicts by both sides, the numbing of civilians. More recently the issue has been enhanced or aggressive interrogation methods which the Obama campaign was highly critical and has kept open the file previously closed by the Bush Administration on those who were involved in the authorization and carrying out of such methods and in particular the use of water boarding in three known instances of major detainees and which is being said by the Right via Fox and its interviewees to have led to the eventual discovery and execution of Osama bin Laden. From former Vice President Dick Chaney to Professor Woo who wrote the memorandum effectively declaring that aggressive interrogation methods were legal and for which he has been under threat in various ways since the information became public.
The interviews and discussions on Fox News revealed that in fact Special Forces undertake water boarding on themselves as part of their training although why this is so was not mentioned. I was interested that Professor Woo shared my reservation, albeit for pragmatic reasons, that Osama was not taken prisoner and interrogated. However additional insight into the situation was provided by the general who had been responsible for the famous Black Hawke down raid, who made the point that once the operation is on the ground control of how the unit teams respond is delegated to the unit leaders. They would have received detailed mission briefings and trained for every and any eventuality, but from the moment they grounded they were effectively on their own. Reading between the lines I will speculate that there was no order beforehand to execute Osama but that it happened in the of the situation hence the decisions not to publish photos or any visual and audio recordings taken of the mission and the immediate granting of the highest unit medal and citation to cover all those involved.
Whatever the justification for the execution of bin laden and my any standards justification there was, and whatever the justification for in effect the particular invasion of another country and another country a supposed ally the question remains about the extent to which any country and the USA in particular has been justified over the years in intervening secretly in the affairs of other sovereign nations in supports of its own general interests and ideology while at the same time condemning similar interventions by other nations whether the Soviet Union post World War II and by China. What also -concerns is the subsequent denial. In yesterdays piece I mentioned the denial that the CIA was directly involved in the financing and supporting of bin Laden’s recruitment, training and delivery of fighters with the Mujahideen. This morning I heard former Vice President Dick Chaney make the point that before condemning Pakistan or breaking with Pakistan, it should be remembered that Pakistan supported the USA in CIA operation in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion. Yet rather like the holocaust deniers there are those who continue to pretend otherwise.
Recently I experience two films which cover aspects of the wider issues. What interested me about the Falcon and the Snowman was not the two traitors involved, their imprisonment and subsequent early release but teh disclosure that the CIA had played a major part in the abrupt ending of the Gough Whitlam democratic government in Australia and the subsequent response of the Australian government to the disclosures. In The Falcon and the Snowman, a young man working for a Defence Corporation passed classified information over a period of time to the Soviet Union for money with eh held of a childhood friend who dealt in drugs and was a drug addict. He was initially sentenced to 40 years and his friend to Life. I have no quarrel with the sentences and both men behaved with criminal irresponsibility endangering their country. Christopher Boyce was to become a bank robber after escaping from prison at one point adding a further 25 years teh original sentence. The problem is that the precipitating cause of the treason was the accidental discovery that the USA was interfering in the affairs of an ally, funding opposition parties and engaging in dirty tricks to end the democratically elected Government of Australia because of its socialist policies and elsewhere.
Christopher Boyce was born in 1953 shortly after his father had resigned from the FBI to take up a position in private security. The family were politically conservative and friends were in the law enforcement work. Christopher was raised a Catholic through his mother and was an altar boy along with Andrew Dalton Lee, born a year before and the son of a wealthy Californian physician. Christopher attended a Catholic school called St John Fisher (as I did in the UK).
Boyce became a Falconer hence his nickname and then entered a seminary to become a Catholic priest but left after deciding the life was not for him. His father arranged a position for him in a private defence and security organisation TRW whose interests included the manufacture of weapons, space exploration and satellites, computers and digital processing and which handled the bulk of confidential communications for the government with the exception of CIA messages to its headquarters in Virginia.
Boyce was selected to work with two others, handling the most secret and coded communications. He discovered that from time to time messages intended for the CIA HQ came their way and from this he learnt that his government was secretly interfering in the democratic process in Australia. He was aware that his Government through the CIA had been found to have been instrumental in the 1973 Chilean coup d’etat and the killing of the legitimate President Salvador Allende. He is reported to have been shocked that nothing had changed.
He had distanced himself from his friend who had become involved in illegal drug distribution and who is captured and threatened with the force of the law unless he cooperates and reveals the more senior people in the network. The friend turned to Christopher for help who agrees to do so on the basis that he acts as courier with initial formation to be passed to the Russians via their embassy in Mexico. In the 1985 film, the contact in the embassy is played by David Suchet and Lee is played by a young Sean Penn. The Russian are impressed with the info and offer payment, and a new identity for Lee to enable him to travel over the border back and forth. They want to know the identity of the Falcon and information about the Satellite listening and watching devices. Lee also suggests that the Russian should use diplomatic immunity to enable him to get drugs into Mexico and the USA, offering to split the profits. It is not clear if they agreed to this but he becomes addicted, unstable and unreliable.
Boyce meanwhile moves out of the family home into a beachside apartment and establishes an ongoing loving relationship.
While the relationship prospers for a while, the Russian are unhappy with the courier who in the film appears governed by a desire to seek the approval of his parents who are aware there is a warrant for his arrest and his involvement with drugs. Boyce also becomes disillusioned with the Russians and wants to opt out and go to college. However he also senses time is running out after making direct contact with the Russians, dumps the girl friend so she will not be implicated and releases his falcon into the wild before he is taken into custody in January 1977 after Lee had been arrested in Mexico following an incident at the Russian Embassy and he is then accused of being involved in the death of policeman and tortured in an attempt to secure a confession.
Lee admits his involvement in the espionage and when told he will be deported he is given the choice of being handed to the Russians or the USA. He elected to return across the border where he is arrested. In the film the suggestion is made that the government is willing to hush up their infamy up but Christopher‘s father wants the law to take its course and both men are found guilty with Lee given the harsher sentence of Life and Boyce 40 years.
The book was published in 1979 when the two were regarded as the worst traitors in USA history. The John Schlesinger film was released in 1985 during the time of their imprisonment.
There were several twists to the real story in that Boyce escaped from a Federal prison and while fugitive committed 17 bank robberies and west arrested again 18 months later after a former colleague bank robbery tipped off the authorities He returned to prison with another 25 years added to the originals sentence
There was some publicity in Australia in 1982 about the conviction which revealed that the US senate Committee on Intelligence had carried out its investigation without interviewing Boyce and did not publish its findings. The article also mentioned that Australian officials had interviewed Boyce on the allegations made at the trial. The Australian Government stated in 1977 that they had received assurance from President Carter that the US Government or its agencies had been or were improperly involved in activities in Australia. The statement was rejected by the former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
In the same year although in Prison, authority was given for him to be interviewed in the television programme 60 minutes who then published a transcript of the interview. One repeated allegation is that the then Governor General of Australia, that is the representative of the Queen of Britain, was referred to within the CIA as out man Kerr. Boyce discloses being paid a total of $20000 by the Russians for supplied information.
In 1986 the “Matter of American Intervention in Australia” was raised in the Australian House of Representatives by Peter Staples of a Queensland constituency. He expressed concern at the lack of inquiry about what had happened and he stated that Boyce was serving then a 68 year sentence in solitary confinement following his recapture.
There was also a six part radio documentary in 1986 which covered the CIA activities in Australia leading to the elected Prime Minister being dismissed by the Governor General accused by the CIA for being their man. The transcript of the programme goes to 40 pages and covers events in extraordinary detail. With the help of a former CIA officer the programme begins with a review of CIA involvement in other countries
This all started after World War II mentioning the overthrow in Iran to establish the Shah; the government of Guatemala in 1954; two Uruguayan governments, the failed Bay of Pigs attempt in Cuba in 1961, the government of Brazil in 1964 and in Chile in 1973; Invasions into China were mentioned together with supporting guerrilla warfare operations in the Soviet Union, Nepal and Albania. The CIA was involved in General Elections in Italy between 1948 and 1970’s and elections in Germany. There were seven attempts to overthrow the Government in Syria. In Africa there was the Government of Angola and in Ethiopia. The former went on to say there was not a country in South America where the CIA had not interfered, as well as governments in the Middle East.
Questioned about Australia he expressed amazement at the denials of CIA involvement given admission by the CIA through Ray Cline former Deputy Director. He disclosed that the governor general had founded a CIA front organisation. He refers to Task Force 157 established by Henry Kissinger as a mini CIA to get rid of the Whitlam government and to continue to use the country as a base for clandestine US operations in the region including arms dealing and smuggling contraband goods.
He explained that the CIA used three kinds of organisation with the first one owned, operated and controlled directly by the CIA, and Air America and Air China were mentioned as examples. Then there are front organisations less controlled and set up often for a specific purpose such as a consulting firm similar the one set up for the Watergate break in. The third kind of unit is more independent but usually has former CIA directly involved. The programme then looked at a number of organisations in Australia and the links with the CIA, followed by a detailed account of the events leading to the dismissal of Gough Whitlam.
Lee was released in 1998 and the woman who campaigned for this turned her attention to Boyce who was released on parole in 2002 and from parole in 2008, having married the campaigner shortly after his parole. There is a reference that Lee was employed by Sean Penn as his personal assistant after his release. Boyce expressed regret for his actions, particularly the sorrow he cause his family and for any unintended harm to his country. He had served 25 years in prison.
And then there is Wikileakes.
The successful purpose of Operation Mincemeat, the story of “The Man who never Was” was to persuade Hitler and the German High Command that the intention of the allies was to invade Italy from North Africa by first attacking German forces in Greece and in Sardinia in 1943, instead of Sicily, where the invasion was planned. Churchill’s first reaction was that everyone but a bloody fool would know that the attack would be to capture Sicily and in doing so take control of the Mediterranean seaways.
The plan was for someone to be found dead off the Spanish coast with authentic secret documents advising of the false plan and hope that the information would find its way to Germany because of the relationship with Spain despite the alleged neutrality of the fascist government. The planning team were mindful that in the previous year a plane had crashed off the Spanish coast on its way to Gibraltar where the courier whose body was washed ashore and recovered by the Spanish Authorities carried information about Operation Torch, the successful invasion of North Africa. When the body was returned, the communication was included and even if it had been opened and the contents photographed the information had not be believed and no measures were taken.
A suitable body was identified where there were no relatives and which would convince authorities that it had been in the sea for sometime. There has been discussion if this was or if the body of someone else was used.
The identity was created of a Captain and Acting Major William (Bill) Martin of the Royal Marines born 1907 in Cardiff and assigned to the Headquarters of Combined Operations. The name was chosen because here were several Martins of the same or similar rank in Marine at that time. A fiancée was created called Pam, with a photograph of her, love letters and the bill for an engagement ring. The girl was a clerk from MI5 and the letters were created by her head of department. Appropriate uniform was purchased and the problem of good quality underwear was solved by using that of the Master of an Oxford College who had been killed in a lorry accident. He also had letters with him from his father, Lloyds Bank re an overdraft and a bill for a stay and the Naval and Military Club for a new shirt from an established tailor. The material including theatre tickets dated to indicate he had been in London until the 14th of April so that with the body planned to be washed up on April 30th it would indicate that his plane had crashed and it was several days before the body washed up ashore. There were two letters one from Louis Mountbatten to the Commanding Officer Mediterranean and the other to the Commander of British Forces in Algeria and Tunisia and because the document about Operation Torch had been in a pocket this time these were placed in a locked briefcase attached to the body.
The body was placed in a canister filled with ice to enable refrigeration and was taken to Holy Loch to a British Submarine with previous experience of special operations. The body was placed in the sea to wash ashore at a beach side town where it was known in advance the Spanish and German authorities were friendly. The body was handed to the British Vice Consul and was buried with fill military honours a few days later. A local pathologist confirmed that death had been by drowning without doing a detailed post mortem because there was clear information the man had been a Catholic. The death was reported in the Times on June 4th. It was coincidence that the names of other officers were included in the list whose planed had crashed into the sea.
Messages were sent seeking the return of the briefcase without alerting the Spanish authorities to their importance. When the German authorities Admiral Canaris personally tried to get the Spanish authorities to surrender the documents. What happened is that they were carefully opened and photographed and then resealed and handed to the British authorities. Back home scientists confirmed that the letters and been skilfully opened and resealed. Hitler was convinced the documents were authentic and although Mussolini remained convinced that Sicily was the real target, German reinforcements were sent to Greece, Sardinia and Corsica and none to Sicily.
The successful deception continued to have an impact in that when genuine documents were discovered by the Germans 2 days after the D Day landings providing information on further plans in the region they were not believed because of what happened in the Mincemeat Operation, and again in the Market Garden Operation into the Netherlands the full operations order came into German hands and they were convinced this was another plant and made no adjustments as a consequences.
The book was published in 1953 and written by former Lt Cmdr Ewen Montagu of Navel intelligence who was on a committee managing double agents and who practiced law after the war. The book was published because in 1950 Duff Cooper, Viscount Norwich, a Conservative politician, diplomat and writer published a work of fiction, Operation Heartbreak which unwittingly used elements of Operation Mincemeat and which aroused some controversy because the official project had not been made public at that time. The decision was taken to do so and the film followed in 1956 with Clifton Webb playing the part of Ewen Montagu.
The film added to the actual story various elements particularly that although Hitler and his immediate advisers believed the documents were authentic which at one level they were with the signatures of the senders, doubts were felt and a an agent was sent from Dublin to London to check out the tailors, the club and the bank and then the fiancée. Although he has doubts he signals his superiors that Major Martin appears authentic but he has set one last test giving the fiancée his present whereabouts. This is a courageous act because if it is a set up then the likelihood is that the authorities will capture him. The authorities nearly do this but the security service is persuaded to hold off and let the man leave the country thus underlining that the happened was true and that the British did not know that the plan had been intercepted.
Another change is that in the film the body is that of serving officer who is killed and his father is promised that the man will be given a proper burial. Also in the film Montagu having been awarded the OBE leaves the medal at the grave of the fictitious Martin after the war. Another difference is the submarine is detected at one point and survives depth charges.
There was another element of Spy fiction having been reality in that Ian Fleming, the author of James Bond passed the idea to an RAF officer on the double agents committee who with Montagu developed the idea into the Operation Mincemeat plan. Ian Fleming had got the idea from a 1930 detective novel by Basil Thomson!
So it is legitimate to lie and mislead in some circumstances but are there situations where what governments do or do not do should not remain secret, and if they are and the information becomes available should it be published?
And then there is Wikileaks!
There are some areas of activity which remain controversial beginning with the commission of acts of terrorism which is practiced by guerrillas during traditional military conflicts by both sides, the numbing of civilians. More recently the issue has been enhanced or aggressive interrogation methods which the Obama campaign was highly critical and has kept open the file previously closed by the Bush Administration on those who were involved in the authorization and carrying out of such methods and in particular the use of water boarding in three known instances of major detainees and which is being said by the Right via Fox and its interviewees to have led to the eventual discovery and execution of Osama bin Laden. From former Vice President Dick Chaney to Professor Woo who wrote the memorandum effectively declaring that aggressive interrogation methods were legal and for which he has been under threat in various ways since the information became public.
The interviews and discussions on Fox News revealed that in fact Special Forces undertake water boarding on themselves as part of their training although why this is so was not mentioned. I was interested that Professor Woo shared my reservation, albeit for pragmatic reasons, that Osama was not taken prisoner and interrogated. However additional insight into the situation was provided by the general who had been responsible for the famous Black Hawke down raid, who made the point that once the operation is on the ground control of how the unit teams respond is delegated to the unit leaders. They would have received detailed mission briefings and trained for every and any eventuality, but from the moment they grounded they were effectively on their own. Reading between the lines I will speculate that there was no order beforehand to execute Osama but that it happened in the of the situation hence the decisions not to publish photos or any visual and audio recordings taken of the mission and the immediate granting of the highest unit medal and citation to cover all those involved.
Whatever the justification for the execution of bin laden and my any standards justification there was, and whatever the justification for in effect the particular invasion of another country and another country a supposed ally the question remains about the extent to which any country and the USA in particular has been justified over the years in intervening secretly in the affairs of other sovereign nations in supports of its own general interests and ideology while at the same time condemning similar interventions by other nations whether the Soviet Union post World War II and by China. What also -concerns is the subsequent denial. In yesterdays piece I mentioned the denial that the CIA was directly involved in the financing and supporting of bin Laden’s recruitment, training and delivery of fighters with the Mujahideen. This morning I heard former Vice President Dick Chaney make the point that before condemning Pakistan or breaking with Pakistan, it should be remembered that Pakistan supported the USA in CIA operation in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion. Yet rather like the holocaust deniers there are those who continue to pretend otherwise.
Recently I experience two films which cover aspects of the wider issues. What interested me about the Falcon and the Snowman was not the two traitors involved, their imprisonment and subsequent early release but teh disclosure that the CIA had played a major part in the abrupt ending of the Gough Whitlam democratic government in Australia and the subsequent response of the Australian government to the disclosures. In The Falcon and the Snowman, a young man working for a Defence Corporation passed classified information over a period of time to the Soviet Union for money with eh held of a childhood friend who dealt in drugs and was a drug addict. He was initially sentenced to 40 years and his friend to Life. I have no quarrel with the sentences and both men behaved with criminal irresponsibility endangering their country. Christopher Boyce was to become a bank robber after escaping from prison at one point adding a further 25 years teh original sentence. The problem is that the precipitating cause of the treason was the accidental discovery that the USA was interfering in the affairs of an ally, funding opposition parties and engaging in dirty tricks to end the democratically elected Government of Australia because of its socialist policies and elsewhere.
Christopher Boyce was born in 1953 shortly after his father had resigned from the FBI to take up a position in private security. The family were politically conservative and friends were in the law enforcement work. Christopher was raised a Catholic through his mother and was an altar boy along with Andrew Dalton Lee, born a year before and the son of a wealthy Californian physician. Christopher attended a Catholic school called St John Fisher (as I did in the UK).
Boyce became a Falconer hence his nickname and then entered a seminary to become a Catholic priest but left after deciding the life was not for him. His father arranged a position for him in a private defence and security organisation TRW whose interests included the manufacture of weapons, space exploration and satellites, computers and digital processing and which handled the bulk of confidential communications for the government with the exception of CIA messages to its headquarters in Virginia.
Boyce was selected to work with two others, handling the most secret and coded communications. He discovered that from time to time messages intended for the CIA HQ came their way and from this he learnt that his government was secretly interfering in the democratic process in Australia. He was aware that his Government through the CIA had been found to have been instrumental in the 1973 Chilean coup d’etat and the killing of the legitimate President Salvador Allende. He is reported to have been shocked that nothing had changed.
He had distanced himself from his friend who had become involved in illegal drug distribution and who is captured and threatened with the force of the law unless he cooperates and reveals the more senior people in the network. The friend turned to Christopher for help who agrees to do so on the basis that he acts as courier with initial formation to be passed to the Russians via their embassy in Mexico. In the 1985 film, the contact in the embassy is played by David Suchet and Lee is played by a young Sean Penn. The Russian are impressed with the info and offer payment, and a new identity for Lee to enable him to travel over the border back and forth. They want to know the identity of the Falcon and information about the Satellite listening and watching devices. Lee also suggests that the Russian should use diplomatic immunity to enable him to get drugs into Mexico and the USA, offering to split the profits. It is not clear if they agreed to this but he becomes addicted, unstable and unreliable.
Boyce meanwhile moves out of the family home into a beachside apartment and establishes an ongoing loving relationship.
While the relationship prospers for a while, the Russian are unhappy with the courier who in the film appears governed by a desire to seek the approval of his parents who are aware there is a warrant for his arrest and his involvement with drugs. Boyce also becomes disillusioned with the Russians and wants to opt out and go to college. However he also senses time is running out after making direct contact with the Russians, dumps the girl friend so she will not be implicated and releases his falcon into the wild before he is taken into custody in January 1977 after Lee had been arrested in Mexico following an incident at the Russian Embassy and he is then accused of being involved in the death of policeman and tortured in an attempt to secure a confession.
Lee admits his involvement in the espionage and when told he will be deported he is given the choice of being handed to the Russians or the USA. He elected to return across the border where he is arrested. In the film the suggestion is made that the government is willing to hush up their infamy up but Christopher‘s father wants the law to take its course and both men are found guilty with Lee given the harsher sentence of Life and Boyce 40 years.
The book was published in 1979 when the two were regarded as the worst traitors in USA history. The John Schlesinger film was released in 1985 during the time of their imprisonment.
There were several twists to the real story in that Boyce escaped from a Federal prison and while fugitive committed 17 bank robberies and west arrested again 18 months later after a former colleague bank robbery tipped off the authorities He returned to prison with another 25 years added to the originals sentence
There was some publicity in Australia in 1982 about the conviction which revealed that the US senate Committee on Intelligence had carried out its investigation without interviewing Boyce and did not publish its findings. The article also mentioned that Australian officials had interviewed Boyce on the allegations made at the trial. The Australian Government stated in 1977 that they had received assurance from President Carter that the US Government or its agencies had been or were improperly involved in activities in Australia. The statement was rejected by the former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
In the same year although in Prison, authority was given for him to be interviewed in the television programme 60 minutes who then published a transcript of the interview. One repeated allegation is that the then Governor General of Australia, that is the representative of the Queen of Britain, was referred to within the CIA as out man Kerr. Boyce discloses being paid a total of $20000 by the Russians for supplied information.
In 1986 the “Matter of American Intervention in Australia” was raised in the Australian House of Representatives by Peter Staples of a Queensland constituency. He expressed concern at the lack of inquiry about what had happened and he stated that Boyce was serving then a 68 year sentence in solitary confinement following his recapture.
There was also a six part radio documentary in 1986 which covered the CIA activities in Australia leading to the elected Prime Minister being dismissed by the Governor General accused by the CIA for being their man. The transcript of the programme goes to 40 pages and covers events in extraordinary detail. With the help of a former CIA officer the programme begins with a review of CIA involvement in other countries
This all started after World War II mentioning the overthrow in Iran to establish the Shah; the government of Guatemala in 1954; two Uruguayan governments, the failed Bay of Pigs attempt in Cuba in 1961, the government of Brazil in 1964 and in Chile in 1973; Invasions into China were mentioned together with supporting guerrilla warfare operations in the Soviet Union, Nepal and Albania. The CIA was involved in General Elections in Italy between 1948 and 1970’s and elections in Germany. There were seven attempts to overthrow the Government in Syria. In Africa there was the Government of Angola and in Ethiopia. The former went on to say there was not a country in South America where the CIA had not interfered, as well as governments in the Middle East.
Questioned about Australia he expressed amazement at the denials of CIA involvement given admission by the CIA through Ray Cline former Deputy Director. He disclosed that the governor general had founded a CIA front organisation. He refers to Task Force 157 established by Henry Kissinger as a mini CIA to get rid of the Whitlam government and to continue to use the country as a base for clandestine US operations in the region including arms dealing and smuggling contraband goods.
He explained that the CIA used three kinds of organisation with the first one owned, operated and controlled directly by the CIA, and Air America and Air China were mentioned as examples. Then there are front organisations less controlled and set up often for a specific purpose such as a consulting firm similar the one set up for the Watergate break in. The third kind of unit is more independent but usually has former CIA directly involved. The programme then looked at a number of organisations in Australia and the links with the CIA, followed by a detailed account of the events leading to the dismissal of Gough Whitlam.
Lee was released in 1998 and the woman who campaigned for this turned her attention to Boyce who was released on parole in 2002 and from parole in 2008, having married the campaigner shortly after his parole. There is a reference that Lee was employed by Sean Penn as his personal assistant after his release. Boyce expressed regret for his actions, particularly the sorrow he cause his family and for any unintended harm to his country. He had served 25 years in prison.
And then there is Wikileakes.
The successful purpose of Operation Mincemeat, the story of “The Man who never Was” was to persuade Hitler and the German High Command that the intention of the allies was to invade Italy from North Africa by first attacking German forces in Greece and in Sardinia in 1943, instead of Sicily, where the invasion was planned. Churchill’s first reaction was that everyone but a bloody fool would know that the attack would be to capture Sicily and in doing so take control of the Mediterranean seaways.
The plan was for someone to be found dead off the Spanish coast with authentic secret documents advising of the false plan and hope that the information would find its way to Germany because of the relationship with Spain despite the alleged neutrality of the fascist government. The planning team were mindful that in the previous year a plane had crashed off the Spanish coast on its way to Gibraltar where the courier whose body was washed ashore and recovered by the Spanish Authorities carried information about Operation Torch, the successful invasion of North Africa. When the body was returned, the communication was included and even if it had been opened and the contents photographed the information had not be believed and no measures were taken.
A suitable body was identified where there were no relatives and which would convince authorities that it had been in the sea for sometime. There has been discussion if this was or if the body of someone else was used.
The identity was created of a Captain and Acting Major William (Bill) Martin of the Royal Marines born 1907 in Cardiff and assigned to the Headquarters of Combined Operations. The name was chosen because here were several Martins of the same or similar rank in Marine at that time. A fiancée was created called Pam, with a photograph of her, love letters and the bill for an engagement ring. The girl was a clerk from MI5 and the letters were created by her head of department. Appropriate uniform was purchased and the problem of good quality underwear was solved by using that of the Master of an Oxford College who had been killed in a lorry accident. He also had letters with him from his father, Lloyds Bank re an overdraft and a bill for a stay and the Naval and Military Club for a new shirt from an established tailor. The material including theatre tickets dated to indicate he had been in London until the 14th of April so that with the body planned to be washed up on April 30th it would indicate that his plane had crashed and it was several days before the body washed up ashore. There were two letters one from Louis Mountbatten to the Commanding Officer Mediterranean and the other to the Commander of British Forces in Algeria and Tunisia and because the document about Operation Torch had been in a pocket this time these were placed in a locked briefcase attached to the body.
The body was placed in a canister filled with ice to enable refrigeration and was taken to Holy Loch to a British Submarine with previous experience of special operations. The body was placed in the sea to wash ashore at a beach side town where it was known in advance the Spanish and German authorities were friendly. The body was handed to the British Vice Consul and was buried with fill military honours a few days later. A local pathologist confirmed that death had been by drowning without doing a detailed post mortem because there was clear information the man had been a Catholic. The death was reported in the Times on June 4th. It was coincidence that the names of other officers were included in the list whose planed had crashed into the sea.
Messages were sent seeking the return of the briefcase without alerting the Spanish authorities to their importance. When the German authorities Admiral Canaris personally tried to get the Spanish authorities to surrender the documents. What happened is that they were carefully opened and photographed and then resealed and handed to the British authorities. Back home scientists confirmed that the letters and been skilfully opened and resealed. Hitler was convinced the documents were authentic and although Mussolini remained convinced that Sicily was the real target, German reinforcements were sent to Greece, Sardinia and Corsica and none to Sicily.
The successful deception continued to have an impact in that when genuine documents were discovered by the Germans 2 days after the D Day landings providing information on further plans in the region they were not believed because of what happened in the Mincemeat Operation, and again in the Market Garden Operation into the Netherlands the full operations order came into German hands and they were convinced this was another plant and made no adjustments as a consequences.
The book was published in 1953 and written by former Lt Cmdr Ewen Montagu of Navel intelligence who was on a committee managing double agents and who practiced law after the war. The book was published because in 1950 Duff Cooper, Viscount Norwich, a Conservative politician, diplomat and writer published a work of fiction, Operation Heartbreak which unwittingly used elements of Operation Mincemeat and which aroused some controversy because the official project had not been made public at that time. The decision was taken to do so and the film followed in 1956 with Clifton Webb playing the part of Ewen Montagu.
The film added to the actual story various elements particularly that although Hitler and his immediate advisers believed the documents were authentic which at one level they were with the signatures of the senders, doubts were felt and a an agent was sent from Dublin to London to check out the tailors, the club and the bank and then the fiancée. Although he has doubts he signals his superiors that Major Martin appears authentic but he has set one last test giving the fiancée his present whereabouts. This is a courageous act because if it is a set up then the likelihood is that the authorities will capture him. The authorities nearly do this but the security service is persuaded to hold off and let the man leave the country thus underlining that the happened was true and that the British did not know that the plan had been intercepted.
Another change is that in the film the body is that of serving officer who is killed and his father is promised that the man will be given a proper burial. Also in the film Montagu having been awarded the OBE leaves the medal at the grave of the fictitious Martin after the war. Another difference is the submarine is detected at one point and survives depth charges.
There was another element of Spy fiction having been reality in that Ian Fleming, the author of James Bond passed the idea to an RAF officer on the double agents committee who with Montagu developed the idea into the Operation Mincemeat plan. Ian Fleming had got the idea from a 1930 detective novel by Basil Thomson!
So it is legitimate to lie and mislead in some circumstances but are there situations where what governments do or do not do should not remain secret, and if they are and the information becomes available should it be published?
And then there is Wikileaks!
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