Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II

Lo compré para regalo y fue lo que esperaban.

Un libro che farà parlare di sé allorquando uscirà in tutto il mondo il film che ne ripercorre la trama e che, se ben prodotto e recitatopotrebbe ambire , perché no, anche a qualche statuetta. La storia, affascinante ed appassionante, è quella del depistaggio ordito dall'ammiragliato britannico ai danni delle forze dell'Asse per far loro credere che lo sbarco delle truppe alleate nei territori sotto il loro dominio sarebbe avvenuto non in Sicilia, ma altrove. Una guerra la si vince anche così, impedendo al nemico di predisporre contromisure adeguate e, col senno di poi, risparmiando ove possibile, risorse belliche e vite umane. Grazie all'inganno, di fattura romanzesca, i Tedeschi non rinforzarono gli argini meridionali dell'Italia facilitando il compito a Patton e ad Alexander, che sbarcarono in Sicilia il 10 luglio del 1943, sconquassando l'ormai precario equilibrio su cui poggiava lo stato fascista

This author is great. A historian that cares about getting the facts right. I read all his stuff and can't get enough. This story is truly remarkable and so worth while. It's important to have this history.

Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre (Harmony Books, New York: 2010) is an interesting story told brilliantly. Indeed, this is a great book and the way history should be written. it is well researched--Macintyre spent three years reviewing documents and conducting interviews but the writing is anything but dry, Macintyre tells the tale with relish. It works on several levels. While focused on but one intelligence operation during World War II--a misdirection of invasion plans served up to the Nazi war machine, the book really captures the essence of war time espionage and intelligence activity more generally because MaCintyre follows all the leads and provides insights beyond the mere operation that is the subject of his book. This is must reading for the intelligence practitoner --and the policymaker alike. One of the obvious lessons is the potential for intelligence collectors, analysts, and policymakers to be had. I am not giving anything away by providing the gist of the plot which was the subject of a much earlier book and film (both treated in the Mincemeat)--a dead body with bogus letters discussing a military invasion (away from the actual landing in Sicily) is positioned in the sea so as to fall into German hands. In intelligence parlance the acquisition of the letters by the German Defense Intelligence Service amounted to "documentary material," rather than quoting a living HUMINT source. And accordingly, the analytical mechanism focused on the documents rather than conducting a full analysis of the provenance of the materials. Now the letters were not crafted in a vacuum--the British knew well the potential for self-deception within the Nazi war machine because independent thought that might question the Nazi leaders perceptions was a risky business. Indeed, while reading this it was eerily familiar: in the run-up to the Iraq war there was a similar potential for self-deception within the analytical and policymaking apparatus--the President's advisors and the President himself were determined to remove Saddam Hussein through military action, intelligence that was not corroborated was seized upon as the rationale for the invasion. The inclination to be supportive of the policy goals, to be team players, was counter to the equal need to be skeptical of uncorroborated information upon which important decisions will be made. In the intelligence collection activity, there is a constant tension among all involved in the process in terms evaluating the bone fides of the intelligence acquired while still being supportive to all involved in the mission--and while being responsive to policy needs. The tension is necessary and helpful to the process and it can save lives and embarrassment--the opposite is true when the process is corrupted. Another key factor jumped out to me in the reading of this fine book. You could have the most ingenious intelligence plan in the world but it boils down to execution by people--and while there were certainly a cast of characters involved in Operation Mincemeat--the success of the mission was the result of the performance of just a handful of people, quality people. All of the key factors of the intelligence craft are on display in Operation Mincemeat: the personal antagonisms, petty arguments and disagreements within bureaucracies (even the wonderfully small ones that the British had then and still do) , the unpredictability of human behavior, the long hours of work, the requirement for secrecy as well as the need for the occasional "white lie" to protect sources and methods, the potential for self-delusion as I have indicated earlier, as well as the potential to achieve significant goals on the cheap.

Good