TAKEAWAYS: WRITER, SAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY

Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy is about a man better known for being an Author, Journalist, Wino, and Wandering Eye: Ernest Miller Hemingway. The American novelist has been biographied to death and many times since, but this new book promises a scoop, offering reasonably substantiated speculation on Hemingway’s dalliances with espionage both stateside and abroad. Here are your takeaways: Not a bang, but a hurricane. Reynolds credits the landfall of Florida’s now- historic 1935 Labour Day hurricane with sparking deeper sympathies for the author’s Soviet pals. In the aftermath, Hemingway saw first- hand conditions First World War vets hired for construction work in Roosevelt’s New Deal had been living in nearby – bad before and perilous in the face of a storm, heroes dead and left half-naked to float in the Atlantic. Imbibe, imbue. Looking to bank some goodwill with the not- yetrecruited novelist, agency records from 1937 show the NKVD ( predecessor to Russia’s KGB) dispatched chief of staff Alexander Orlov to lube Hemingway with their best bottle of Baczewski, a rare Polish vodka, served up after several rounds of fine French wine shared at a meeting in Madrid. Ruble ruse- ing: Hemingway’s first formal visit to the U.S. S. R. came when a Soviet official invited him to reap royalties in Russia’s regional coinage since rubles couldn’t be traded in the West. Instead, the author was to spend his due earnings on Soviet soil; Reynolds notes the invite also offered an opportunity for some face- time with a few Bolshy higher-ups. A pseudonym( or something). The author assumed a code name while undertaking low- level clandestine activities in 1941 for Soviet forces in Cuba. Dubbed “Argo,” the novelist’s new signature was their clever nod to his seafaring roots, Greek hero Jason and his Argonauts sailing a ship of the same name. Compatriot co incidence: In August 1944, Hemingway made his way to front- line action as part of an Allied tank line heading to help Paris in the war effort. Stopped at the sound of enemy gunfire, Hemingway happened upon a man huddling behind one crumbling wall to wait things out, pen and paper clutched close to heart. Taking a closer look, it turns out the two Americans had more than good brow game in common: the man he’d found there was future CBS anchor Andy Rooney, covering Allied efforts as a foreign correspondent for military newspaper Stars and Stripes.