Product Description

The rollicking true story of British spies who shaped American policy during WWII, told by the bestselling author of 109 East Palace.

When dashing young RAF pilot Roald Dahl (that Roald Dahl) took up his post at the British Embassy in 1942, his assignment was to use his good looks, wit, and charm to gain access to the most powerful figures in American political life. He and his co-conspirators David Ogilvy, Ivar Bryce, and Ian Fleming (that Ian Fleming) called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins in some Sherlock Holmes stories. Their goals: to weaken the American isolationist forces, bring the country into the war against Germany, and influence U.S. policy in favor of England. Their mastermind: Churchill's legendary spy chief, William Stephenson, code name "Intrepid," who would later serve as the model for Fleming's James Bond.

Based on never-before-seen wartime letters, diaries, and interviews, this lively account of deceit, doubledealing, and moral ambiguity is richly detailed, carefully researched, and better than any spy fiction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #401350 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-09
• Formats: Audiobook, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 10
• Binding: Audio CD

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, September 2008: Long before Willy Wonka sent out those five Golden Tickets, Roald Dahl lived a life that was more James Bond than James and the Giant Peach. After blinding headaches cut short his distinguished career as a Royal Air Force fighter pilot, Dahl became part of an elite group of British spies working against the United States' neutrality at the onset of World War II. The Irregulars is a brilliant profile of Dahl's lesser-known profession, embracing a real-life storyline of suave debauchery, clandestine motives, and afternoon cocktails. If this sounds oddly familiar, it's no coincidence: both Ian Fleming (the creator of 007) and Bill Stephenson (the legendary spymaster rumored to be the inspiration for Bond) were members of the same outfit. Although "Dahl...Roald Dahl" doesn't quite carry the same debonair ring, there is no discrediting this fascinating look at the British author's covert service to the Allied cause during WWII. --Dave Callanan

From Publishers Weekly
This carefully researched chronicle of Dahl's WWII espionage ought to be more interesting than it is—the word spy ring suggests thrilling acts of derring-do, yet they never come. While occasionally intriguing, this is too frequently a dry collection of old gossip with too many tangents discussing minor characters, their real estate and their clothing. Simon Prebble reads creditably and distinctively, and his English accent is perfect for the subject. But even he cant hold ones attention in this excessively digressive, slowly paced academic work. Its a pity, because this is a comprehensive look at a topic that most people probably know little about: England's efforts to counter American isolationism. A Simon & Schuster hardcover (Reviews, June 9). (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Jonathan Yardley

In March 1942 Roald Dahl, a British airman who had been severely wounded in battle, was informed that he had been posted to the British Embassy in Washington as an assistant air attaché. "When he heard the news," Jennet Conant writes, "Dahl protested, 'Oh no, sir, please, sir -- anything but that, sir!" He was 26 years old and wanted to be in the thick of things, not shoved aside in a desk job an ocean away from the battlefront. Not long after reaching Washington, though, Dahl was "caught up in the complex web of intrigue masterminded by [William] Stephenson, the legendary Canadian spymaster, who outmaneuvered the FBI and State Department and managed to create an elaborate clandestine organization whose purpose was to weaken the isolationist forces in America and influence U.S. policy in favor of Britain." Conant continues:

"Tall, handsome, and intelligent, Dahl had all the makings of an ideal operative. A courageous officer wounded in battle, smashing looking in his dress uniform, he was everything England could have asked for as a romantic representative of their imperiled island. He was also arrogant, idiosyncratic, and incorrigible, and probably the last person anyone would have considered reliable enough to be trusted with anything secret. Above all, however, Dahl was a survivor. When he got into trouble, he was shrewd enough to make himself useful to British intelligence, providing them with gossipy items that proved he had a nose for scandal and the writer's ear for damning detail. Already attached to the British air mission in Washington, he came equipped with the perfect cover story, and his easy wit and conspicuous charm guaranteed him entrée to the drawing rooms -- and bedrooms -- of the rich and powerful."

This is a part of Dahl's life that is not generally known. His two lovely memoirs, Boy and Going Solo, describe his childhood and his flying experiences. His short stories, especially those collected in Someone Like You (1953), are internationally famous, and his children's books are even more so, most notably Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. The story of his marriage to the actress Patricia Neal is similarly well known, including his dedication to her rehabilitation after she suffered several cerebral hemorrhages, and the couple's eventual divorce.

Dahl was a wonderfully gifted writer but not a very nice man, and he "could be incredibly insensitive where women were concerned, to the point of being utterly heartless." But heartlessness can be a useful character trait in the intelligence business, and Dahl proved good at it. He worked in conjunction with, and eventually became a member of, the British Security Coordination (BSC), organized by Stephenson and staffed by "colorful co-conspirators -- including Noël Coward, Ian Fleming, David Ogilvy, and Ivar Bryce -- [who] were all rank amateurs, recruited for their clever minds and connections rather than any real experience in the trade of spying." They were known as the Baker Street Irregulars, after "the mischievous street urchins who aided the famous literary sleuth Sherlock Holmes." They were "the BSC's blue-eyed social butterflies, meant to use their charm and guile to feel out what the other side was thinking, convey messages between principals without creating any unnecessary awkwardness, and in general help smooth the way."

It is important to emphasize that in this context "the other side" was not the Axis -- Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan -- but the United States. Britain and the United States were allies, but not always easy ones. Before Pearl Harbor, American opinion was strongly opposed to entering the war, and even afterward isolationist sentiment remained high. In choosing to build her narrative around Dahl, Conant is forced to concentrate on BSC activities after 1942, but a case can be made that the agency's most important work was done before America entered the war in Europe at the beginning of 1942, a period when "Churchill -- with the tacit permission of President Roosevelt, who was privately in favor of intervention despite the overwhelming public opposition -- instructed the BSC to do everything possible 'to drag' their reluctant ally into the war against Germany." The BSC played useful roles in persuading Roosevelt to propose and Congress to authorize Lend-Lease, a program that enabled the United States to give the Allies vitally needed war materiel, and in other pre-Pearl Harbor efforts.

Still, if the part of the story Conant tells is comparatively minor, it is interesting all the same -- especially for its high Washington gossip quotient -- and Conant tells it well. As was true of her excellent first book, Tuxedo Park (2002), in The Irregulars she removes the dust of history from a forgotten but important figure to be reckoned with before and during the war. In Tuxedo Park that figure was Alfred Lee Loomis, a visionary Wall Street lawyer who had a passion for science and underwrote a vital secret program that led to the development of radar. In The Irregulars it is Charles Marsh, a Texas newspaper tycoon who befriended important and/or influential people in Washington and frequently played go-between, consigliore or sugar daddy depending on the situation.

Not long after reaching Washington, Dahl "met Marsh at a party and immediately hit it off with the colorful millionaire, who was an exemplary host and an amusing and informative guide to Washington's stratified society, where new and old money, the congressional set and the diplomatic corps, all jostled for recognition." Marsh "was an active voice in American politics and an influential behind-the-scenes figure in Washington, but unlike most of the players Dahl had encountered in the nation's capital, he eschewed publicity in print, preferring to manipulate people and events from the privacy of his R Street study." In particular, Marsh was close to the vice president, Henry Wallace, who frequently came by his house in the late afternoon for a drink, occasions at which Dahl was usually present.

In time, Marsh learned of Dahl's intelligence work, but that suited him just fine. He was an ardent internationalist and Anglophile, and he welcomed the opportunity to use Dahl as a conduit to London for useful information about American politics and policy. This was not so much "top-secret" information as it was information about such matters as who was in favor at the White House and who was not, what were American plans for the postwar assignment of international airline routes, and the private peccadilloes of powerful Washingtonians.

Willing to smile his way through endless parties, receptions and formal dinners, Dahl made high-placed friends and capitalized on these friendships. He was chummy with leading journalists, especially the columnists Walter Lippmann and Drew Pearson, with Henry Wallace and Eleanor Roosevelt (who invited him to the White House and Hyde Park on a number of occasions, thus permitting him a friendly acquaintanceship with FDR), and with the glamorous if bombastic congresswoman from Connecticut, Clare Booth Luce, who became his friend and lover. When he protested to the British ambassador that he wanted to end the relationship, in which she had become constantly ardent and demanding, he was dissuaded and told, in effect, to do it for England.

Dahl also had run-ins, though of a different sort, with another of the more dislikeable people of the day, Ernest Hemingway. In 1944 Dahl was assigned to be a Royal Air Force escort for Hemingway on a trip to London; Papa, ever the macho man, wanted a front-row seat for the invasion of Normandy, though he ended up getting not much more than a glimpse. Dahl managed to get through this without incident and assumed that he and the author were friends. In 1946 Dahl published his first book, Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying, and gave a copy to Hemingway, who "kept it two days, and then handed it back. When Dahl asked if he liked the stories, Hemingway replied, 'I didn't understand them,' and then strode down the corridor without looking back."

By then, Dahl's war was over. He had mustered out of the RAF and was trying to support himself with his writing, a difficult task because he wrote very slowly, and short stories paid poorly. Not until he began writing children's books did he begin to achieve the fame that he still enjoys, 18 years after his death. Over the span of a 74-year life, Dahl's World War II service was merely an extended episode, but Jennet Conant has made an entertaining and instructive story out of it.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

The Unknown Dahl
Conant. Jennet. "The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington', Simon and Schuster, 2008.

The Unknown Dahl

Amos Lassen

There is something about a spy story that keeps me riveted and a true story will definitely hold my attention. Jennet Conant's "The Irregulars" is a fantastic read which I had a hard time putting down. I have always loved the literary works of Roald Dahl since having first studied him in college but I would have never thought of him being a spy. He had been assigned by the British throne as a diplomat to Washington in 1942 and he had also been given a secret mission. He was to gather evidence about the isolationist policies of the United States and he managed his infiltration and laid the seeds for the American entry into World War II.
With the attention of the United States focused on what was going in the Pacific and even though we had been technically at war wit Germany (although non-officially) since December, 1941, not much attention was paid to Dahl set out to exert public opinion and change the opinions of the Washington governmental elite. We also learn that he was not alone in his covert activities and other spies working were David Oglivy and Ian Fleming who were his co-conspirators.
We learn now that the alliance between Britain and America was replete with covert activity. Conant gives the whole story with a lot of detail and in doing so she allows us to gain a new understanding on the nature of the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt. Roald Dahl seemed to be able to be everywhere. He wanted to save his country from an invasion by Nazi Germany and to protect his country he forced himself to invade almost all aspects of American government as well as the Washington society and winning over many including the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. He built friendships with the powerful and used what he learned.
It was not Dahl who was the mastermind of the deception. Walter Stephenson (code name, Intrepid) did this. He was a confidant of Churchill and his chief spy and he managed, with the permission of Franklin Roosevelt, to set up a campaign of subversion and propaganda that caused the weakening of America's isolationism. This ultimately brought America to declare war against Germany.
"The Irregulars" is non-fiction that reads like a first-class spy novel. Conant has done her research well and gives us a book that is readable, informative and thoroughly enjoyable.

Fascinating read -- especially because it is true
When I ordered this book, I didn't really know what to expect. To be honest, I wasn't completely sure if it was a novel or non-fiction. I had always enjoyed WW2 historical fiction such as Herman Wouk's Winds of War and War and Rememberance so I thought this book would be similar.

This book is actually a historical account of the propaganda and espionage tactics used by the British to influence American public and political policy during WWII.

I'm no great WWII historian so I will be showing my ignorance here... but who knew that our own allies were engaged in covert activities directed at our own government. However, this book describes the activities of Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and several other British "covert agents" who were in the US during WWII. The book, though non-fiction, reads like part-novel and part high-society gossip.

While it is common knowledge that the US was not pulled into WW2 until the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan, less known is how we became involved in the European theater. The US had tried to remain "neutral" and had adopted an isolationist stance when it came to the European wars. Because the US, at the time, generally treated Great Britain with a certain level of distrust (that whole "British Imperialism" thing), it took some work from the "inside" to sway the American Public Opinion and Leadership to actively engage in the European Theater.

What was particularly interesting to me (particularly in light of the current presidential campaign and the current debate associated with America's role on the world stage) was the debate between Republicans and FDR's "New Dealers" on how isolationist a stance America should adopt. In what is a reverse from present day politics, the Republicans were against a broader involvement in WW2 while the New Dealers were much more sympathetic to the European conflicts.

And while I had always heard of Ian Fleming as the creator of the James Bond series, it turns out that Ian Fleming's Bond character may have been based on more reality than we would think (minus the cool gadgets). In a sense, this book documents how the whole "James Bond 007" phenomenon got its start.

The reading style is an easy-to-read narrative style that strikes a balance between being readable and not overwhelming the reader with being too scholarly. Yet the author doesn't "talk down" to her readers either by being "sensationalist" or overly dramatic.

All in all, this book was a great read and the fact that it is true makes it even more interesting. I highly recommend!

Tinker, Tailor, Pilot, Spy
"Don't you think that you or some other regular officer should be doing this job?"

"We've all got our hands full," the Captain said.

Roald Dahl had it all; a wounded RAF pilot who had the intellect, grace and charm to open doors that would typically be shut to even the biggest political insiders.

And as author Jennet Conant writes in this biography of Dahl, the friends he had in high places ultimately shaped the policies of the United States in World War II and in the opening salvos of the Cold War, but with a gentle push or - oftentimes - a hard shove into a specific direction by British agents.

Dahl was a key player in a British spy ring in Washington, D.C., which found him striding confidently into the White House halls of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration and counting on such key players as FDR, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Wallace and Henry Morgentheau, Jr., as vital colleagues.

Starting in 1942, Dahl became entwined in a wide web of intrigue designed by Sir William "Intrepid" Stevenson to destroy brick-by-brick the isolationist movement in the U.S. and shape the political relations between the two nations in the war against Nazi Germany. Some of Dahl's work was done with the approval of FDR.

Important areas of this campaign included the use of influential journalists - Walter Winchell, Drew Pearson - and other media members to tell the story of cooperation and a plot against U.S. corporations that retained cozy relations with the Nazis.

The canvas of the post-war landscape included Dahl's 1946 proposal of an American-English Secret Service, writes Conant. But as a new type of war with the Soviet Union turned frigid, there was personal turmoil for spies like Dahl who came in from the cold. But old friendships ultimately did not fade away after the covert warriors slowly disappeared from the scene.

"I have endeavored to pull the curtain back on one small part of this shadowy episode in order to tell the story of young Dahl's incredible experience as one of Stepenson's 'agents of influence' in America," writes Conant.

Mission accomplished.