THE SECRET PERSUADER
Thought the dark arts of spin were a 21st Century invention? You’re wrong... A riveting new book tells how the brilliant spymaster who invented 007’s martini used FAKE NEWS to lure America into the war
THE raid on the Channel town of Berck-sur-Mer in occupied France was a welcome boost to morale in the dark days of 1941. ‘One party of parachutists, heavily armed with Tommy guns and hand grenades, overpowered the airfield guards, rushed the control room and seized its occupants,’ said a newspaper report on June 18. ‘A second party attacked the barracks and captured a number of German pilots. Meanwhile, the third group scattered over the airport, destroying about 30 planes.’
It was clear that the operation had been a blinding success – fast, efficient and with no casualties.
But there was one key detail missing from the coverage of the raid, which found its way to Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the United States: the Berck-sur-Mer operation was a complete fabrication.
Every convincing morsel of information had been invented in New York by MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service, as part of the largest state-sponsored campaign of propaganda ever run.
Its mastermind, Sir William Stephenson, employed the finest minds – including the dashing young fighter pilot Roald Dahl and the future creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming – with the express aim of changing American public opinion and bringing the United States into the Second World War.
‘Bill’ Stephenson was later hailed by Fleming as one of his inspirations for Bond. Indeed, it was Stephenson’s very particular recipe for a gin martini which inspired the ‘shaken not stirred’ catchphrase.
He was also my father’s godfather.
It is only now, with the release of declassified British records, that it is possible to tell the full extent of Stephenson’s American operation in the months leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
In a campaign that was decades ahead of its time, Stephenson recruited a secret army of 1,000 agents, analysts, journalists and campaigners to feed a steady drip of false news into the American media.
They manipulated polls to misrepresent public opinion, subsidised protest groups to take to the streets, produced convincing forgeries, harassed opponents from the America First campaign who vowed to keep the USA out of the conflict, and even persuaded President Franklin D. Roosevelt to tacitly back the operation.
TODAY it is often forgotten that the majority of Americans were deeply opposed to joining the war. Shortly after the Dunkirk evacuation in June 1940, a poll suggested that just eight per cent of US citizens wanted to stand up to Germany.
Yet within 18 months there had been a seismic shift. In late 1941, even before the Pearl Harbor attack, more than two-thirds of Americans had changed their minds and decided it was now time for the US to fight the Nazis. Stephenson, who arrived in New York on June 21, 1940, played a vital role in this shift.
He was 43, small in stature, but with a quiet intensity. He had grown up in poverty in Winnipeg, Canada, before serving heroically in the First World War with the Canadian Expeditionary Force and then with the Royal Flying Corps. He was awarded the Military Cross, the Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Later, he settled down in London, where he made a fortune developing and selling radio sets.
My grandparents, who were also Canadians in London, met him in the 1930s and were regular guests at Stephenson’s tiny weekend cottage in Buckinghamshire.
There, in September 1938, he saved my three-year-old father’s life by pulling him out of his pond. My grandparents would not have known it, but Stephenson was already being drawn into the world of secret intelligence. His business interests gave him a network of contacts throughout Europe, and in the run-up to war he agreed to share the information they provided with MI6. Then, in 1940, he was asked to go to America and meet the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. Stephenson’s task was to open up a channel of communication with the FBI. As it turned out, the two men warmed to each other so well that it was decided Stephenson – who would later acquire the nickname Intrepid – should run all MI6 operations in the US. It was becoming increasingly clear in Westminster and Whitehall that with much of Europe falling to the Nazis, we were becoming more dependent than ever on supplies from the United States. Furthermore, there was a growing concern that without the backing of the American people, the flow of US supplies might slow down or stop, and that this could leave Britain unable to fight. There needed to be a campaign of influence to boost the British cause in America. Why not give the job to the new MI6 man in New York? ON APRIL 23, 1941, a woman strode down the middle of New York’s Eighth Avenue towards a crowd of men. She was carrying a sign calling for the United States to enter the war. Just behind her came a like-minded crowd, several thousand strong.
In front of them, blocking their way, were 15,000 supporters of America First, the anti-war organisation backed by Charles Lindbergh, the aviation pioneer who had been the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic.
The charismatic Lindbergh was about to make one of his many tub-thumping speeches against US entry into the war at the Manhattan Center. His reasoning, widely shared in America, was based on isolationism – the principle that the US should stay out of all foreign wars unless they spread to the Americas.
At the time, very few Americans saw their country as a superpower. Fewer still in this nation of immigrants from across Europe saw Britain as a natural ally.
However, President Roosevelt understood the risk Hitler posed. He knew the American public was overwhelmingly opposed to war, but came up with increasingly creative ways of helping the British war effort, including LendLease, in which the Allies were supplied with food, warships and other weaponry in return for leases on army and naval bases in Allied territory.
Outside the Manhattan Center, a huge crowd gathered. Some were pro-Nazi far-Right activists. Others were America First isolationists shouting ‘We want Lindy!’ before singing The Star-Spangled Banner.
The female protester pressed on, undaunted by shouts of ‘Get out of here or we’ll kill you!’ One man ran at her and punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground.
Then it began. Both sides ripped into each other. The street became a violent blur.
In the background, Lindbergh’s speech was broadcast over the loudspeakers, but the protesters had done their job. Reports in the next day’s papers focused on the violence, with most articles also listing the different interventionist groups involved in the march and what they had to say about Lindbergh and America First.
Some of the activists used very similar language, almost as if they were reading from the same script. As it happened, some of them were.
Stephenson had instructed British agents to infiltrate the American pressure groups, pushing for intervention in the war.
These agents were to influence these groups from the inside, and to secretly co-ordinate them so they attacked the same targets at the same time – including asking awkward questions in the press about Lindbergh’s links to Berlin.
The agents would also ensure that the pro-war activists were never short of money.
With a new sense of purpose and vitality, the campaign to join the war had been galvanised. BY JUNE 1941, Stephenson had also set up an office dedicated to spreading false, distorted or inaccurate stories.
His fake news factory was so big and so busy, releasing an average of 20 different stories a day, that he registered it as a legitimate press agency with the cover name British And Overseas Features. Some stories came from London, while others were produced in-house.
The propaganda included reports that the Sicilian Mafia were taking on the Fascists; that the Germans were running out of men; that ersatz morphine was causing thousands of deaths in the German army; and that Nazi generals were spying on behalf of the Soviets.
They also took a more imaginative method of spreading the message using what today would be called ‘influencers’.
Eric Maschwitz, the British songwriter behind the hit A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square, was one
Allies haunted Hitler with horoscopes predicting his sudden death