A Man Called Intrepid [antikvár]

A Foreword by IntrepidPOINT OF DEPARTUREPresident Franklin Delano Roosevelt supported a secret war against tyranny for two years when the United States was formally at peace. Then, attacked without warning, the United States replaced the staid costume of diplomacy by the combat fatigues of war. The enemy - Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and their puppets - was at last out in the open. But the secret war continued in secrecy.For cogent reasons, the fundamental facts of that hidden activity have never been fully revealed. The complete facts have been known to few; some have not been committed to any documents; the written records have been totally inaccessible; and for thirty-five years they were under the rigid restraint of Britain's Official Secrets Act. Even now, a few matters must remain undisclosed for reasons that, of course, will not be obvious. But in terms of history-what really happened and why - nothing significant need now be concealed.In 1940, supplied all but daily with evidence that Hitler's scheme of world domination by terror, deceit, and conquest was undeniably underway, Roosevelt recognized that the defeat of embattled Britain would be prologue to an ultimate attack upon the United States. Intelligence was given to him by me or through me as Winston Churchill's secret envoy and as chief of British Security Coordination. BSC, the innocuous-sounding organization with headquarters in New York, was, in fact, the hub for all branches of British intelligence. Roosevelt was acutely aware that America, psychologically isolated since World War I and relying wistfully upon geographical insularity, was woefully unprepared to meet or counter the onslaught of newly developed military, propaganda, and espionage techniques. He desperately needed time to alert his nation and to arm it without plummeting into war. Churchill was in far more desperate need of arms and supplies to grant severely battered Britain even a modest hope of resistance and a slim chance of survival. Only a leader who could extend his vision of national self-interest to the beliefII