''Bodyguard of Lies'' is a 1975 non-fiction book written by
Anthony Cave Brown
Anthony Cave Brown (21 March 1929 – 14 July 2006) was a British journalist, espionage non-fiction writer, and historian.
Early years
Brown. was born in Bath, and moved to London as a boy, stuffing propaganda leaflets into bombs meant for Na ...
, his first major historical work. Named for a wartime quote of
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
, it is a narrative account of Allied
military deception operations during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. The British and American governments resisted Brown's attempts to research the book. Many of the topics were still
classified and he was denied access to British war records. The material in the book is predominantly based on oral testimony as well as some American records, declassified toward the end of Brown's research.
Critical reception has been mixed, but generally negative. Contemporary historians, such as
Charles B. MacDonald
Charles Blair Macdonald (November 14, 1855 – April 21, 1939) was a major figure in early American golf. He built the first 18-hole course in the United States, was a driving force in the founding of the United States Golf Association, won the f ...
, praised the work – although some did comment on its length. Modern reviewers have identified inconsistencies or errors in the material, based on later declassified records. Also, some of Brown's personal conclusions have been questioned.
Background
![Operation Bodyguard Memorandum](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Operation_Bodyguard_Memorandum.jpg)
''Bodyguard of Lies'' was Brown's first published book, following his career as a journalist in the United Kingdom and Australia.
The work narrates Allied deception strategy on the
Western Front for the years of 1943 and 1944. It particularly focuses on
Operation Bodyguard
Operation Bodyguard was the code name for a World War II deception strategy employed by the Allied states before the 1944 invasion of northwest Europe. Bodyguard set out an overall stratagem for misleading the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht as to ...
; both the operation and the book's title were inspired by one of
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
's wartime
epigrams; "In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
[Discussion of Operation Overlord with ]Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
at the Teheran Conference
The Tehran Conference ( codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embassy ...
30 November 1943; in Winston Churchill: ''The Second World War, Volume V : Closing the Ring'' (1952), Chapter 21 (Teheran: The Crux), p. 338.
Brown began researching and writing ''Bodyguard of Lies'' in 1961.
Most of the material is based on oral testimony from Second World War intelligence personnel, as well as records from the
National Archives and
declassified
Declassification is the process of ceasing a protective classification, often under the principle of freedom of information. Procedures for declassification vary by country. Papers may be withheld without being classified as secret, and event ...
American records (although Brown says that most of the book was written before he was able to access the latter, in 1974).
Brown wrote ''Bodyguard of Lies'' at a time when details of both cryptography and deception during the war were still classified. His attempts at research was resisted by the British and American governments; he was denied access to British war records and had to undertake considerable work to obtain US records via
Freedom of Information
Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, Indigeno ...
requests.
[
]
Synopsis
''Bodyguard of Lies'' opens with an introduction to Ultra
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. ' ...
, the codename for decrypted signals intelligence. It goes on to document the origins of the London Controlling Section (LCS) and the work of Dudley Clarke in the Middle East. In late 1942, Allied high command in London became aware of Clarke's successes during the North African campaign. Based on his theories of deception, the LCS was created under Colonel John Bevan and granted broad powers to plan deception strategy. The introduction finishes with a discussion of how the Allies evolved deception strategy prior to 1943, including the Double-Cross System
The Double-Cross System or XX System was a World War II counter-espionage and deception operation of the British Security Service (a civilian organisation usually referred to by its cover title MI5). Nazi agents in Britain – real and false †...
(the Allied system of double agent
In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organ ...
s). The second section of the book introduces the German intelligence forces, in particular Admiral Canaris
Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the ''Abwehr'' (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi re ...
and his '' Abwehr'' intelligence agency. Brown discusses early deceptions, such as those surrounding Operation Torch, conducted against the Germans, and how the Abwehr struggled to decipher the information it was being fed.
The third section of the book covers Allied deceptions during 1943, in particular Operation Mincemeat
Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating ...
. Brown introduces Plan Jael, the early revision of Operation Bodyguard, and follows Bevan's work in creating the deception plan. The fourth section covers the events of early 1944, leading up to the Normandy landings on 6 June. In particular, Brown discusses Operation Fortitude
Operation Fortitude was the code name for a World War II military deception employed by the Allied nations as part of an overall deception strategy (code named ''Bodyguard'') during the build-up to the 1944 Normandy landings. Fortitude was di ...
and the fictional First US Army Group, a key part of Bodyguard, calling it "the greatest charade in history".[ The final section of the book covers events on and after D-Day, including physical deceptions carried out on the night of the invasion, and the continued impact of Bodyguard in the months after the landings.
]
Critical reception
The book received mixed reviews, particularly with regard to Brown's focus on minutiae, which received both positive and negative comment. Some later reviewers also criticised the factual basis of the work as well as Brown's analysis – opining it contained "a multitude of errors of detail". One such accusation was that Brown's suggestion in the book that Churchill had known of German intentions to bomb Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
in November 1940, but that the British leader had hidden the information to avoid giving up the secrets of Ultra (intercepted German communications). Declassified records in 1976 opposed this popularly held view and suggested that the intelligence on German intentions was more vague.[ Writing in 1996, reviewer Russell J. Bowen ascribes this discrepancy to Brown's reliance on secondary sourcing and oral interviews (describing the book as an "outstanding example of scholarly investigative journalism applied to the field of oral military history").]
Hugh Trevor-Roper
Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (15 January 1914 – 26 January 2003) was an English historian. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.
Trevor-Roper was a polemicist and essayist on a range of ...
, writing for ''The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', was highly critical of the "encyclopedic" detail in Brown's writing: "He piles on the illustrative (or irrelevant) detail. He cannot leave anything out. Every person mentioned must have a potted biography. Every place must be equipped with atmosphere, furniture, associations." Roper also criticised the material, writing that Brown had inserted "a novel thesis", that Allied deception during the war was controlled by MI6, "which, in my opinion, is quite wrong." Russell J. Bowen concludes that although the writing and coverage were better than similar books then available, "Cave Brown's work fails to escape the common stigma of intelligence narratives: considerable inaccuracy as to detail and occasional lack of validity of interpretation."
Positive reviews include a 1976 ''New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publish ...
'' review, which praised the level of detail, saying that it "would ensure a large sale". In a letter to the editor in reply, Deputy Chief Historian for the United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
, Charles B. MacDonald
Charles Blair Macdonald (November 14, 1855 – April 21, 1939) was a major figure in early American golf. He built the first 18-hole course in the United States, was a driving force in the founding of the United States Golf Association, won the f ...
, referred to the book as "the most important work on World War II in a quarter of a century." Writing in ''Military Review'', Alexander Cochran noted that the book was one of the first non-memoir accounts of intelligence operations during the war and was unusual (for its genre) in documenting sources. He went on to call the book "suggestive more than definitive".
References
Bibliography
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{{Allied Military Deception in World War II
1975 non-fiction books
History books about World War II
Military deception during World War II