Jasper Journal

I have not  read  Atlas Shrugged, the Ayn Rand  classic on capitalism yet, but am ordering it on Amazon today.  I was intrigued by a comment on the blog last week about Galt’s Gulch so I did some research. It is from the book.  Ironically, a movie that covers part one of the book just opened this weekend and is getting decent reviews. The book is over 1200 pages and apparently not easy to read. But people who read it appear to have a major epiphany. I guess it is one of those books that makes a major diference in your life.

Why am I so interested in this now? Well the book apparently begins with a United States in economic peril. How very interesting. Today the Standard and Poors downgraded the US credit rating to poor; the stock market tumbled; gas is regularly over $4 a gallon; our president is encouraging class warfare as he continues to socialize major parts of our economy; unions are king;  the administration is not serious about reigning in spending; and so it goes.

I can’t believe the media is not all over the gas crisis; we suffer while the president plays golf!  When we needed a leader to make cuts in our spending, we get a shrill partisan community agitator who shows no interest in real change.

I can’t wait to read Atlas Shrugged. I need an epiphany.

It is May 1943. After hard fighting, the Allies forces have defeated the Germans and Italians in North Africa, capturing 275,000 prisoners. British and American forces now stand poised to invade southern Europe. The first intended target is Sicily, and from there, Italy itself. The problem faced by Allied planners is that if Germany correctly surmises the objective, it will make Sicily a fortress, reinforcing its two divisions there with units from throughout Europe.

Two officers in Britain, a Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander (Ewen Montagu) and a Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant (Charles Cholmondeley), propose an audacious scheme. They will drop a corpse carrying sensitive papers — alluding to a pending invasion of Sicily — off the coast of Spain, and hope that Spanish authorities allow the Germans to view the documents. Thus begins a story of one of the most successful deception schemes of World War II, chronicled by Ben MacIntyre.

The story of Operation Mincemeat is not new. Ewen Montagu wrote a book in the 1950s entitled “The Man Who Never Was,” and it was later made into a movie. Montagu’s book, however, was short on details (because of censorship by British Intelligence) and misleading in certain aspects. MacIntyre admirably fills the gaps and corrects the record. In the process, he narrates not only the story of the deception, but paints a rich portrait of the characters. Montagu and Cholmondeley create a fictitious persona — Major William Martin — out of thin air for the corpse. In the process, they almost appear to believe he actually exists, going so far as to have a farewell party for him, in which Montagu assumes the character of Major Martin.

MacIntyre highlights the numerous obstacles that Montagu and Cholmondely had to overcome: finding a corpse who looked like he drowned, getting the authorities to falsify the death certificate, crafting the letters for inclusion with the corpse, ensuring the Germans get access to the documents. The chronicle of British and German efforts in Spain vis-a-vis Major Martin’s papers sound like a bad movie plot — bribed Spanish officials, venal German intelligence officers, surreptitious examination of the papers — but are all the more fascinating because they are true, backed by MacIntyre’s research and sources.

In the process, the author provides a fascinating glimpse into the machinations not only of British Intelligence, but that of the Germans as well. If want to read history made real, and learn more about World War espionage, this is the book for you.

I have been travelling a lot recently and take advantage of long plane flights to read good books, or at least interesting ones.  I just finished two  books by Anita Shreve: Testimony and  Rescue. Both were very well written and realistic. I am currently reading a delightful book about college football entitled Bowls, Polls, and Tattered Souls. This is a MUST for all die hard college football fans. It not only  explains the rabid enthusiasm we have for the college game, but gives little known background on how we got the system we have today.  Finally, my friend Paul sent me a review he wrote on a book entitled Agent Zig Zag.  I am posting it below for your reading pleasure. Again, if you read or watch anything of interest, send me a revliew and we will share it on the blog.

Agent ZigZag by Ben MacIntyre

This is a superb book relating the true story of a British double agent in World War II. The agent was Eddie Chapman, a small-time criminal (safecracker, burglar, etc) who served several years in prison before the war. Fleeing the police, he ends up on the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel as the war starts. He interned by the Germans after they occupy the island and ends up in Paris, where he offers to spy for the Germans. The book recounts his training by the Abwehr (the German military intelligence service), and then begins a series of plot twists and turns that would make fiction look tame. Chapman’s espionage takes him from occupied France to Britain, then to Portugal, Germany, Norway, and eventually back to Britain.

The book provides a unique insight into the British Double-Cross system, under which British counter-espionage elements in MI5 ran captured German agents as double agents. The British gave captured agents a choice: either be executed (and some were) or work for them relaying false information back to the Germans. The system was so successful that not a single bona fide German agent operated in the British Isles throughout the war. Using Chapman as a microcosm of the Double-Cross System, the MacIntyre provides examples of the challenges and achievements of British intelligence in concealing the operation.

The cast of characters could come from a John Le Carré novel: a magician, a patrician who works for MI5, a working-class radio engineer, a Lord, two street detectives, and many more. The amazing aspect is that the story is true (complete with photographs and one archival document). The author does an excellent job being objective, perhaps because he is clearly conflicted about the central character. He describes Agent Zigzag’s venalities and philandering in detail, making no excuses for them. At one point, for example, Chapman has MI5 and the Abwehr each subsidizing one of his two mistresses. At the same time, MacIntyre expresses grudging admiration for the fact that despite his flaws, Chapman indeed risked his life for his nation.

Whatever one thinks of Chapman after reading the book, the true heroes of the story are Chapman’s British handlers. Their actions are hardly those of choir boys; they are as ruthless and uncompromising as the Abwehr. With one exception, however, they are men of honor and integrity involved in the dirty business of espionage to save their nation. It is to MacIntyre’s credit that he does not ascribe 21st Century morals and ethics to a life-or-death situation that occurred 70 years ago. The result is a book that captures the tenor of the times, and provides a jolly good read in the process.