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. 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. 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. Stephenson’s task was to open up a channel of communication with the FBI. 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 The charismatic Lindbergh was about to make one of his many tub-thumping speeches against US entry into the war at the Manhattan Center. Then, in 1940, he was asked to go to America and meet the head of the FBI, J. 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. My grandparents would not have known it, but Stephenson was already being drawn into the world of secret intelligence. There, in September 1938, he saved my three-year-old father’s life by pulling him out of his pond. 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. Later, he settled down in London, where he made a fortune developing and selling radio sets. He was awarded the Military Cross, the Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Flying Cross. 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 43, small in stature, but with a quiet intensity. Stephenson, who arrived in New York on June 21, 1940, played a vital role in this 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. Yet within 18 months there had been a seismic shift.
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. Today it is often forgotten that the majority of Americans were deeply opposed to joining the war. 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. 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.
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. Indeed, it was Stephenson’s very particular recipe for a gin martini which inspired the ‘shaken not stirred’ catchphrase.
‘Bill’ Stephenson was later hailed by Fleming as one of his inspirations for Bond. 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.
It was clear that the operation had been a blinding success – fast, efficient and with no casualties.īut 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.Įvery 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. Meanwhile, the third group scattered over the airport, destroying about 30 planes.’ ‘A second party attacked the barracks and captured a number of German pilots. ‘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. 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. Indeed, it was Stephenson’s very particular recipe for a gin martini which inspired the ‘shaken not stirred’ catchphrase
Sir William Stephenson was later hailed by Fleming as one of his inspirations for Bond.