I decided to get this book after watching a BBC programme based on the book. There is the obvious drama of the central story - the trick to convince the Germans that the invasion was going to happen elsewhere - which has lead to a number of re-tellings of this most secret of wartime operations.
But there is as much interest in the wider stories.
First the fact that the popular myth of the Second World War, that it was won by the mixing of British courage and determination with the best of British bumbling amateurism in the face of the clinical and highly organised Nazi war machine, is in most cases wide of the mark. The Nazi war 'machine' was nothing of the sort - it was chaotic, build on personal ambition, jealousy, and deliberately overlapping jurisdictions - while the British were for the most part highly organised and ruthless in the use of technology - but somehow that story of the British war is just not Cricket. Operation Mincemeat is a prime example - it success was in equally measure due to the efficiency of the British and the incompetence of the Germans.
The second wider story is about "intelligence" in general - and the ease in which it fails us. During the Cold War the speed of the arms race was driven more by the over-estimates or exaggerations of the US and Soviet intelligence communities as it was by the actual stocks of arms either held. (If is of course understandable - it is better to over egg this kind of pudding - as the court of enquiry is likely to worry less if you said the enemy had 10 tanks when in fact he had 5, then if you said 10 and he had 20). In the last decade the failure of intelligence has come increasing into focus with the fact that the majority of the global intelligence community was certain that for example Saddam had WDM when it would appear he had none springs most readily to mind. His obstruction of the UN weapons inspectors was most likely driven not by the fear that they would uncover WMD but that they would uncover that there were none.
The third is Wikileaks - with the distance of years the telling of this story has little risk - yet at the time the secrets and the bending (even breaking) of the law allowed a great good to occur. We need to take care in demanding that every corner of life is open to constant glance - because sometimes the honest do tell lies. Who is the arbiter of what is told and what with held is always contested - but the idea that it is a general good that everything is made public - or that such publication actually reveals much in the way of "truth" is in my mind doubtful.
Lastly I liked the local Southampton connection of Ewen Montagu one of the masterminds of the operation, a son of Baron Swaythling.
No comments:
Post a Comment